Alcoholics Anonymous â€Nursing Essay

Alcoholics Anonymous is a close-knit program which is a very successful method of recovery for alcoholism. The program was the first of many to adopt the twelve step approach to recovery. This program is three dimensional: spiritually, mentally and physically which is represented in the twelve steps. The steps stress anonymousness, kindness and rejuvenation within all members. It gives recovering alcoholics a place to feel comfortable and unashamed to know others are going through the same recovery. Members are encouraged to be sponsored by a companion recovering alcoholic with more experience in the program to help to better understand AA. The sponsor is the same gender as the member and usually the relationship between the two is a gift that both members can benefit from. The Twelve steps are as follows: 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. When I went to the AA meeting, I noticed that this disease of alcoholism affects all ages, socioeconomic groups and both genders. Not being an alcoholic, I did not think I would enjoy/benefit from the meeting–but I was indeed wrong. The feeling of support, unification and encouragement that the group portrayed is indestructible. Members of the group listened and strengthened one and other. I think Alcoholics anonymous is something that is very special and anyone suffering from an addiction to alcohol would profit from.

Penn Foster – Why I Am the Best Candidate for the Job

Best candidate for the Job The Computer Help Desk Support Technician position at University of the West Indies correlates well with my skills and experience. The skills related for this job includes, assisting students, faculty, staff and any other customers who come to the front desk, dealing with computer issues, answering the telephone to give support with enquiries, and data entry using Microsoft Word, and Excel.I have significant knowledge of this field through my previous employment at T. A. Marryshow Community College, where I served as a Secretary within the Information Technology department. I acknowledged this vocation through my ability to troubleshoot problems and deal with customer issues. More specifically, I had a scenario with a visiting professor from a foreign country who came to the office for help with his laptop.Being new to the campus he was furious with the ups and downs of trying to find his way around and baffled because he had no idea of how to connect his l aptop to the internet. I seated the professor and assured him that he was at the right place. After a few minutes I was able to connect his device to the internet and I also handed him a map of the campus to help him get to different places on the campus easily. He was overly pleased with the customer service he received and the efficiency in which I handled his laptop.This occurrence has boosted my self-confidence and also motivated me to seek an advanced degree along that path. I enrolled at Penn Foster Career School program, where I recently completed a diploma in Computer Support Technician. This thorough training helped me to comprehensively understand the skills that are readily applicable to the position. With the acquisition of this knowledge I can guarantee you that am most competent for this position and that all concerned will mutually benefit.

Carr and the Thesis

Edward Carr begins What is History? By saying what he thinks history is not†¦by being negative. In Carr’s words, what history is not, or should not be, is a way of constructing historical accounts that are obsessed with both the facts and the documents which are said to contain them. Carr believes that by doing this the profoundly important shaping power of the historian will surely be downplayed. Carr goes on to argue – in his first chapter- that this downgrading of historiography arose because mainstream historians combined three things: first, a simple but very strong assertion that the proper function of the historian was to show the past as ‘it really was’; second, a positivist stress on inductive method, where you first get the facts and then draw conclusions from them; and third – and this especially in Great Britain – a dominant empiricist rationale. Together, these constituted for Carr what still stood for the ‘commonsenseà ¢â‚¬â„¢ view of history: The empirical theory of knowledge presupposes a complete separation between subject and object. Facts, like sense-impressions, impinge on the observer from outside and are independent of his consciousness. The process of reception is passive: having received the data, he then acts on them†¦This consists of a corpus of ascertained facts†¦First get your facts straight, then plunge at your peril into the shifting sands of interpretation – that is the ultimate wisdom of the empirical, commonsense school of history. 2 Clearly, however, commonsense doesn’t work for Mr.Carr. For he sees this as precisely the view one has to reject. Unfortunately things begin to get a little complicated when Carr tries to show the light, since while it seems he has three philosophical ways of going about his studies one being epistemological and two ideological his prioritizing of the epistemological over the ideological makes history a science too complex for comprehension to anyone other than himself. Carr’s epistemological argument states that not all the ‘facts of the past’ are actually ‘historical facts. Furthermore, there are vital distinctions to be drawn between the ‘events’ of the past, the ‘facts’ of the past and the ‘historical’ facts. That ‘historical facts’ only become this way is by being branded so by recognized historians. Carr develops this argument as follows: What is a historical fact? †¦According to the commonsense view, there are certain basic facts which are the same for all historians and which form, so to speak, the backbone of history the fact, for example, that the battle of Hastings was fought in 1066. But this view calls for two observations. In the first place, it is not with facts like these that the historian is primarily concerned. It is no doubt important to know that the great battle was fought in 1066 and not 1065 or 1067†¦The historian must not get these things wrong. But when points of this kind are raised, I am reminded of Housman’s remark that ‘accuracy is a duty, not a virtue’. To praise a historian for his accuracy is like praising an architect for using well-seasoned timber. It is a necessary condition of his work, but not his essential function. It is precisely for matters of this kind that the historian is entitled to rely on what have been called the ‘auxiliary sciences’ of history archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics, chronology, and so-forth. 3 Carr thinks that the insertion of such facts into a historical account, and the significance which they will have relative to other selected facts, depends not on any quality intrinsic to the facts ‘in and for themselves,’ but on the reading of events the historian chooses to give: It used to be said that facts speak for themselves. This is, of course, untrue. The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context†¦The only reason why we are interested to know that the battle was fought at Hastings in 1066 is that historians regard it as a major historical event. It is the historian who has decided for his own reasons that Caesar’s crossing of that petty stream, the Rubicon, is a fact of history, whereas the crossings of the Rubicon by millions of other people†¦interests nobody at all†¦The historian is [therefore] necessarily selective. The belief in a hard core of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the historian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which it is very hard to eradicate. 4 Following on from this, Carr ends his argument with an illustration of the process by which a slight event from the past is transformed into a ‘historical fact’. At Stalybridge Wakes, in 1850, Carr tells us about a gingerbread seller being beaten to death by an angry mob; this is a well documented and authentic ‘fact from the past. But for it to become a ‘historical fact,’ Carr argues that it needed to be taken up by historians and inserted by them into their interpretations, thence becoming part of our historical memory. In other words concludes Carr: Its status as a historical fact will turn on a question of interpretation. This element of interpretation enters into every fact of history. 5 This is the substance of Carr’s first argument and the first ‘positionâ€⠄¢ that is easily taken away after a quick read his work. Thereby initially surmising that Carr thinks that all history is just interpretation and there are really no such things as facts. This could be an easily mislead conclusion if one ceases to read any further. If the interpretation of Carr stops at this point, then not only are we left with a strong impression that his whole argument about the nature of history, and the status of historical knowledge, is effectively epistemological and skeptical, but we are also not in a good position to see why. It’s not until a few pages past the Stalybridge example that Carr rejects that there was too skeptical a relativism of Collingwood, and begins a few pages after that to reinstate ‘the facts’ in a rather unproblematical way, which eventually leads him towards his own version of objectivity. Carr’s other two arguments are therefore crucial to follow, and not because they are explicitly ideological. The first of the two arguments is a perfectly reasonable one, in which Carr is opposed to the obsession of facts, because of the resulting common sense view of history that turns into an ideological expression of liberalism. Carr’s argument runs as follows. The classical, liberal idea of progress was that individuals would, in exercising their freedom in ways which took ‘account’ of the competing claims of others somehow and without too much intervention, move towards a harmony of interests resulting in a greater, freer harmony for all. Carr thinks that this idea was then extended into the argument for a sort of general intellectual laissez-faire, and then more particularly into history. For Carr, the fundamental idea supporting liberal historiography was that historians, all going about their work in different ways but mindful of the ways of others, would be able to collect the facts and allow the ‘free-play’ of such facts, thereby securing that they were in harmony with the events of the past which were now truthfully represented. As Carr puts this: The nineteenth century was, for the intellectuals of Western Europe, a comfortable period exuding confidence and optimism. The facts were on the whole satisfactory; and the inclination to ask and answer awkward questions about them correspondingly weak†¦The liberal†¦view of history had a close affinity with the economic doctrine of laissez-faire – also the product of a serene and self-confident outlook on the world. Let everyone get on with his particular job, and the hidden hand would take care of the universal harmony. The facts of history were themselves a demonstration of the supreme fact of a beneficent and apparently infinite progress towards higher things. 6 Carr’s second argument is therefore both straightforward and ideological. His point is that the idea of the freedom of the facts to speak for themselves arose from the happy coincidence that they just happened to speak liberal. But of course Carr did not. Thereby knowing that in the history he wrote the facts had to be made to speak in a way other than liberal (i. e. in a Marxist type of way) then his own experience of making ‘the facts’, his facts, is universalized to become everyone’s experience. Historians, including liberals, have to transform the ‘facts of the past’ into ‘historical facts’ by their positioned intervention. And so, Carr’s second argument against ‘commonsense’ history is ideological. For that matter, so is the third. But if the second of Carr’s arguments is easy to see, his third and final one is not. This argument needs a little ironing out. In the first two critiques of ‘commonsense’ history, Carr has effectively argued that the facts have no ‘intrinsic’ value, but that they’ve only gained their ‘relative’ value when historians put them into their accounts after all the other facts were under consideration. The conclusion Carr drew is that the facts only speak when the historian calls upon them to do so. However, it was part of Carr’s position that liberals had not recognized the shaping power of the historian because of the ‘cult of the fact’ and that, because of the dominance of liberal ideology, their view had become commonsense, not only for themselves, but for practically all historiography. It appeared to Carr that historians seemed to subscribe to the position that they ought to act as the channel through which ‘the facts of the past for their own sake’ were allowed self-expression. But Carr, not wanting to go the route of his fellow historians, nor wanting to succumb to the intellectual complaints about the demise of the experience of originality, says: In the following pages I shall try to distance myself from prevailing trends among Western intellectuals†¦to show how and why I think they have gone astray and to stake out a claim, if not for an optimistic, at any rate for a saner and more balanced outlook on the future. 7 It is therefore this very pointed position which stands behind and gives most, if not all, of the reason for Carr’s writing What is History? Carr himself seems to be quite clear that the real motive behind his text was the ideological necessity to re-think and re-articulate the idea of continued historical progress among the ‘conditions’ and the doubters of his own ‘skeptical days’. Carr’s ‘real’ concern was ‘the fact’ that he thought the future of the whole modern world was at stake. Carr’s own optimism cannot be supported by ‘the facts’, so that his own position is just his opinion, as equally without foundation as those held by optimistic liberals. Consequently, the only conclusion that can arguably be drawn is that ‘the past’ doesn’t actually enter into historiography, except rhetorically. In actuality there should be no nostalgia for the loss of a ‘real’ past, no sentimental memory of a more certain time, nor a panic that there are no foundations for knowledge other than rhetorical conversation.

IT in hotels travel lodge Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

IT in hotels travel lodge - Essay Example "IT in the hotels travel lodge" outlines the changes and possibilities that IT brought to the hospitality. Since a large number of customers make online payments, the official website of the company needs to be highly protected from phishing attacks. This can be achieved by installing high quality firewalls and bypassing the transaction information through a robust encryption system. Although installing a strong firewall can cost a significant amount for the company but it is essential to maintain the security. The company should hire a good IT company to design its database system so that it cannot be hacked and the personal data are kept safe. In order to further strengthen its security it should have its own physical server at, where all the sensitive information will be stored (Ioannidis et al, 2000). All the stored data particularly the transaction information and personal details should be kept in an encrypted manner, so as to deny unauthorized access to hackers. Moreover, the company should also install data mirroring system. The Data mirroring system will allow the company to keep a second copy of the primary server, so that in case of data loss due to natural calamity or otherwise, the lost data can be recovered from the second location. In order to ensure the physical security of the customers and the physical assets, the company should advanced monitor ing and alarm systems. It should also keep the physical security system separate and independent from the centralized system, so that even if any hacker gets access to the server system, he will not be able to access the physical security system

The Correctional System Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Correctional System - Essay Example So the problem of the overcrowding should be corrected at an early date. One of the best solutions to reduce the overcrowding in the correctional system is to give age limit to the offenders to have their punishment called "Aging out of crime". This age limit should be restricted to sixty (Territo, Halsted, & Bromley, 2004). The most imperative advantage of "Aging out of crime" is to save money in the expenditure of maintenance of the aged offenders in the correctional system. This overcrowding in the prison gives nothing beneficial to the system, as they are not able to do any constructive work, which are being done by prisoners. But their maintenance has to bear by the system up to their final ride. This saved money may efficiently be used by the system in nabbing another culprits who are active in doing various offences including the drug trafficking and human trafficking. Due to the overcrowding in the system a lot of offenders are released on the spot by taking bribe by the comp etent authority.

Case Briefing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words

Case Briefing - Essay Example Under the law, Congress delegates to the Comptroller General of the United States the power to restrict federal budget spending by making across-the-board cuts to it and upon the recommendation of the Directors of OMB and CBO whenever the maximum allowable deficit amounts are exceeded. The Comptroller General then presents this to the President who is required to release a â€Å"sequestration order† effecting the Comptroller’s reductions unless Congress enacts a law mandating a specific budget cut thus obviating the President’s â€Å"sequestration order†. Moreover, Congress is given the power to terminate the Comptroller General through a joint resolution for reasons of inefficiency, malfeasance or neglect of duty. The other method of removing the Comptroller is through impeachment. (2) Congressman Synar and 11 others immediately filed a declaratory relief complaint before the District Court which held that the delegation of power to the Comptroller Genera l violated the constitutionally imposed doctrine of separation of powers. III. THE LAW: The relevant law under scrutiny in this case is the Doctrine of Separation of Powers as entrenched in the US Constitution under Article I (legislative powers in a Congress), Article II (executive power in a President) and Article III (judicial power in one Supreme Court and in other inferior courts). IV. ISSUES: (1). Whether or not the assignment by Congress to the Comptroller General of the United

Toyota Strategic Analysis and Strategy Formulation Research Paper

Toyota Strategic Analysis and Strategy Formulation - Research Paper Example Strategic Management: Toyota Strategic Analysis and Strategy Formulation First, the company’s global vision is to â€Å"lead the way to the future of mobility, enriching lives around the world with the safest and most responsible way of moving people† (Toyota-global.com 2011). Further, this vision is based on the commitment to quality, high innovativeness and respect for the earth. From the company’s vision, it is clear that Toyota seeks to be the industry leader way into the future. The company’s mission statement is â€Å"To sustain profitable growth by providing the best possible customer experience and dealer support†. The mission and vision statements reveal that the company’s current and future are pegged on sustainability, quality and customer satisfaction. The company’s range of guiding principles involve honouring the every nations law to be a true global corporate citizen, respecting customs and cultures around the globe, production of cleans and safe products, outstanding products through technology, fostering individual creativity and teamwork through an appropriately enabling corporate culture, harmonious growth with the global community and healthy cooperation with stakeholders. From these objectives, it can be discerned that Toyota seeks to remain within the law at all times, provide quality and safe products, respecting the environment and the community while balancing this with stakeholder interests. These principles also indicate the time-tested ethical inclination of Toyota; sustainable development and respect for environment and harmony in the company’s work environment. Internally, the company not only seeks to comply with all labor and employment laws and regulations but goes a step further and establishes a culture for its employees based on mutual trust and mutual responsibility (Toyota Motor Corporation 2006, p. 8). The company’s values are integral in attainment of its objectives as it seeks to fulfill its mission and drive towards the established vision. Internal Analysis of Toyota The review of Toyota’s internal resources will follow the format of first establishing the strengths of the company and then the weaknesses. This will then be followed by an analysis of Toyota’s product development and a value chain analysis of Toyota’s operations. Strength: Organisational- The â€Å"Toyota Way† Toyota has successfully implemented their widely recognized â€Å"Toyota Way† strategy in all its global business operations. This strategy is based on operational excellence through a 4-P model; philosophy, process, people and problem solving. Philosophy is anchored on long-term thinking; process on waste elimination; people on respect, growth and chall enge; and problem solving through the concept of continuous improvement. The resultant effect of this strategy is organizational performance excellence due to sustenance of high quality that not only attracts customers but also makes them loyal (Liker 2004, pp. 1-2). The â€Å"Toyota way† is a clear strategic strength since it is tailor-made for the company as evidenced by the fact that most of the other operational excellence strategies pursued by organizations around the world were developed from it, including the popular â€Å"

Clothing business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Clothing business - Essay Example The project also considers the stakeholders who serve the purpose of decision making processes. The difference between the anticipated and achieved growth for the company will not be excluded. The point of view of the customers and some of the managerial limitations will cover the topic of discussions. There will also be some recommendations in order to improve the performance of the company in the years to come. Introduction The organization selected for the project is J.C. Penny Company Inc. It is a chain of the mid range department stores in America. It is based in Texas. The company also operates in many small markets of the nation as catalog sales merchant. The company operates in all the states of the United States. The stores of the company are mainly located in the suburban shopping malls. When the trend of shopping malls came up in the 20th century, the company took the initiative to reallocate the stores there so that it could catch the eye of more people than in the suburb an areas. Currently, the company has opened some new sole stores; some of them are close to the competitors’ stores. Some of the newly developed stores can be regarded as the big-box stores. The company has streamlined the catalog as well as the distribution operations and is undergoing renovations at the store levels. The company also entered the playing field of internet marketing in the year 1998. Apart from the sale of usual merchandise, the stores of the company also offer several other departments like restaurants, studios and jeweler shops. The company was founded in the year 1913. In 1914, the headquarters of the company was shifted to New York City with the belief that it would simplify the transportation and usual operations of the organization. The first subsidiary of the company was named The Crescent Company. By 1928, the company was able to open its 1000th store. This signifies the potential of the company and how efficiently the company was being operated. In 2 007, the company launched its largest private brand in the history of the company. New additions were made in 2009 in the young men’s department which included the expansion of the private brand named Decree. The year also marked an agreement with a private coffee store which allowed them to open up cafes inside the stores. Goals of the company The sustainability report of the year 2009, announced some of the internal goals of the company which were directed towards reduction of facility energy consumption by around 20 percent per gross square foot. The efforts will be met by 2015 through the improvements in energy efficiency. The culture of the company is to advocate conservation practices. In the last decade, the company invested more than 130 million dollars with the aim to install advanced technology in metering and technologies towards high efficient heating. This type of initiatives from the part of the company resulted in saving of more than 80 million pounds of greenh ouse gases. The company also plans to obtain around 25% of their energy need from renewable sources. Measures relating to energy management as well as efficient strategies have been undertaken. Among the other goals of the company includes providing services to the customers at possible lowest cost, enhance the consumer satisfaction and build a healthy

Explain Vince Rizzo's search for identity in the movie City Island Essay

Explain Vince Rizzo's search for identity in the movie City Island - Essay Example This paper will shed light upon Vince’s search for identity in the movie; light will also be thrown upon how he fathered a child in his teenage, who comes back in his life and how things progress from there. Vince is a native of the island, he is uncomfortable with people who come to stay there and bring about unwanted changes, and the opening scene of his voiceover presents the same very comprehensively. Vince is not comfortable with his job, he is a prison guard, and his ambition of becoming an actor is perhaps the most important thing in the movie. He lies to his wife and moves to Manhattan to pursue a career as an actor. There are a lot of misunderstandings in the movie, Vince’s wife thinks that her husband is after some mistress who he has been pursuing for quite some time, Vince’s ambition and several misunderstandings make this movie very intriguing. Vince has several problems which he is completely unaware of, his daughter strips at a club in order to pay her school fees; he meets his step son who he fathered out of wedlock. Vince’s son is addicted to porn on internet and wants to fulfill his fantasies with a girl residing in the neighborhood; these are some of the many problems which Vince was facing. The introduction of Tony, Vince’s step-son brings a huge twist in the movie.

Case study , subject HUMAN RESOURCE STRATEGIES FOR THE INTERNATIONAL Essay

Case study , subject HUMAN RESOURCE STRATEGIES FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MANAGER - Essay Example This work has looked into the problems in detail using a combination of academic as well as practical perspectives so that fitting solutions can be derived. The results from this study indicate that Manners Europe will have to restructure current human resource management practises without compromising the overall framework brought in from the parent company. Measures include changes in the work schedule styles, compensation patterns as well as hiring and screening procedures. Manners Europe is experiencing visible problems with its human resource management framework being implemented in the European domain. The bulk of these problems originate from Netherlands that has comparably different norms from the American principals. The markedly different cultural attributes resound from the fact that employees expect different behaviour from management while management expects different behaviour from employees. As a result of this friction, neither employees nor management are able to solve this dilemma. It must also be borne in mind that Manners Europe derives itself and its structure from its American origins. Competitiveness and efficiency are the rule of the day for Manner Europe’s higher management who have been bred accordingly in the American organisational cultural perspective. However, for the Dutch working for the organisation, this mode of operation is opposed to cultural values that they have acquired through their socialisation process. The situation demands that the existing Americanised human resources framework of the organisation be adapted to the peculiarities of the Norwegian situation. However, while such an adaptation is being initiated it must be kept in mind that the entire framework should not be remodelled. Such a remodelling attempt would lead to multiple problems such as increased costs for remodelling as well as deviation from the principal

Understanding Psychology Essay Example for Free

Understanding Psychology Essay I chose Karen Salmansohn and Don Zindell’s How to be Happy, Dammit (2001) primarily because of the title’s first impression upon me—it did not appear to be a conventional self help book that took itself seriously. A lot of people seem to resent the idea of reading self-help books and this book seem to be geared exactly towards those types, and I was intrigued as to what this book has to offer. The graphics also looked appealing as well as the book’s unusual dimensions. Of course, I also considered that I should get something for myself when reading a book to review, the title suggests that the author is somewhat more intelligent (or at least uses a more intelligent approach) than the run-of-the-mill self-help author. The book’s thesis is that a person (the cynic) can become happy by deciding to become happy. The book asserts that a person must maintain a rational mind and must make active decisions (and not just passively wait for life’s pseudo random events) to directly affect his state of mind. She supports this by bringing on forty-something life lessons that, viewed with the proper perspective, actually makes sense. The author tries to avoid the usual, drawn-out cliches by referencing various areas. It is peppered with witty remarks and draws inspiration from a number of different fields such as psychology, pharmaceuticals, biology, math, mountain climbing, even Bazooka Joe’s wisdom: â€Å"Never compromise your dreams†. It really isn’t that she’s saying something new, but she has a refreshing approach to some old ideas. The writer affects a whimsical, familiar tone that makes for very easy reading. It was an easy read, taking me just about an hour to finish, and would perhaps qualify as a coffee-table book, but is something really thought-provoking. She has a decent sense of humor and doesn’t seem to take herself seriously, but at the same time sounds sincere. She creates spoofs of famous and familiar lines to drive her points across, like stressing that one should have â€Å"Great Non-Expectations†, or that one should possess â€Å"the power in: I Think Therefore I Have†. The Psychological theory may be that emotions can be directly affected by the conscious decisions that a person makes. Akin to the idea that just as being happy makes a person smile, smiling can also make an unhappy person a bit happier. By being a rational being, as in Carl Jung’s conjecture one who controls his actions by thinking (Morris 340), one would, as the author puts it, attain the â€Å"secret to happiness. † Another life lesson in the book that illustrates this is the assertion that one could always choose how he projects his feelings toward life, that we always have a choice. Life is a series of random events, but we can control what direction we’re going (or at least we can control our feelings, no matter what the circumstances. ) The books intended audience is the unhappy disillusioned crowd, those who abhor and cringe at the thought of reading self-help books. The book has, on some level, given me ideas, or at least made a concrete illustration of ideas that have always been afloat in my mind in some vague form. Luck is, ironically, something you can create, and that life must be lived now. I would recommend this book to someone who is jaded or seems to have lost hope being happy. It won’t take long to read, and whoever’s reading it could sure appreciate the humor. It may or may not prove to be the key to ultimate happiness but it would at least make a fun and interesting read. Works Cited Morris, Charles G. and Albert A. Maisto. Understanding Psychology. Upper Sadle: Prentice Hall, 2001. Salmansohn, Karen and Don Zindell. How to Be Happy, Dammit: A Cynics Guide to Spiritual Happiness. Berkeley: Celestial Arts, 2001.

Altruism Is Ultimately Selfish Essay Example for Free

Altruism Is Ultimately Selfish Essay Discuss the proposal that pure selfless altruism does not exist. Bartel (1976) defines prosocial behaviour as ‘behaviour that intentionally helps or benefits another person’. Batson (1987) defines altruism as ‘helping another person for no reward, and even at some cost to oneself.’ This definition of altruism seemingly depicts the behaviour as selfless, however there is a wealth of research which suggests that this is not the case. Dawkins (1976) also provides evidence that altruism is ultimately selfish. He separated individuals into three categories in regards to prosocial behaviour displayed. These were grudgers, cheats and suckers. Grudgers were deemed to be the most evolutionary stable category, as they could control and ‘punish’ cheats (who seek out and accept the help of others without returning the help) and could coexist with suckers (who indiscriminately provide others with help). This therefore provides support for the sociobiological view of prosocial behaviour, that it is ultimately selfish as its aim is to promote gene survival. However, this theory can only work if we know one’s altruistic or egoistic behaviour, and so Many studies have shown that we will only help others if we believe they would also help us. Clutton-Brock and Palmer (1995) found altruism to be conditional, which suggests that it therefore cannot be selfless. However, this can only work if we know one’s altruistic or egoistic behaviour, and so cannot benefit evolution if we do not (Mifune et al. 2010) This view is supported by the Social Norm approach. The Social Norm approach argues that altruism is based on reciprocity and equity. Equity theory states that we consider interactions to be fair if the outcomes are equally proportionate to the inputs (Wagstaff, 2001). A limitation of this theory is that Buunk et al (2012) found it difficult to apply to intimate relationships. A further limitation is that positive inputs could yield negative results, which is not fair or just (Wagstaff, 2001). An amendment to this theory by Wagstaff and Perfect (1993, 2001) ensured that good inputs can only be returned with rewards, and negative inputs can only be returned with punishments. There is evidence to suggest that people do operate by this model (Wagstaff, 2001) which implies that decisions of whether to display prosocial behaviour are weighted in fairness, meaning that altruistic acts may only be displayed if the individual perceives it to be fair to others. Cialdini and Kendrick (1976) devised the Negative state relief model to offer a possible explanation of altruism. This suggests that we help others to relieve negative feelings. This has been supported by Piliavin (1981) who argued in his Arousal: Cost reward model that negative feelings, such as guilt, instigate negative arousal and therefore people may provide others with help to alleviate this negative emotion. Both of these models suggest that we are helping others to help ourselves, which supports the claim that true, s elfless altruism does not exist. However, other research has found that helping behaviour increases in correlation with positive mood states (Isen, 1999). Even so, Carlson (1988) argues that this could be due to an individuals drive to prolong their good mood state by helping others. One limitation of this view is that it assumes that helping is a rewarding behaviour. Another norm in respect to prosocial behaviour is social responsibility, which can be defined as helping those in need. Altruistic or prosocial acts tend to be more frequent towards ingroup (such as friends and family) than outgroup members (Cohen, 1978; Mifune et al, 2010.) Burnstein (2005) found that identical twins are more likely to help (94%) than fraternal twins (46%) which supports this hypothesis. There is also evidence to suggest that kidney donors are three times more likely to donate to relatives than nonrelatives (Borgida et al, 1992; Axelrod et al 2010). These findings suggest that altruistic acts are not purely selfless; seeing our friends and families in pain increases our own personal negative affect, and so we are more motivated to help them than we would be strangers. However evidence suggests that social responsibility can be diffused. This reduces helping behaviour within groups. Latane and Darley (1970) coined the terms pluralistic ignorance (not helping because it appears that no one else is concerned) and diffusion of responsibility (the tendency to believe that someone else must be dealing with the situation). This lack of helping behaviour in group situations shows that prosocial behaviour cannot be explained by social responsibility alone and so do individuals who help despite the above effects show more selflessly altruistic tendencies? Further evidence against selfless altruism comes from the evidence that individual attributes appear to effect prosocial and altruistic behaviour being displayed. Ruggiero et al (1981) found that taller, heavier and physically stronger people are more likely to put themselves in harm’s way to help others in an emergency. This would suggest that an individual has first considered the cost to themselves of helping, meaning their act would not be selflessly altruistic. One contrast to this theory is that this body type closely resembles Sheldon’s (1942) mesomorph body type; who was claimed to be more likely to have tendencies towards violent crime. Pantin and carver (1982) found that participants were more likely to help a choking confederate after three weeks first aid training than without it. Also, Eisenberg-Berg (1979) found that prosocial behaviour increases if a person believes their fate to be within their own control, and if the person has mature moral judgement. This again implies that an individual tends to consider their own competency and implications of helping others prior to doing so, again raising doubts over the existence of selfless altruism. However Batson et al (1987; 2003) claim that true, selfless altruism does exist; and that it is motivated by empathy. Batson claims that if helping is motivated by relieving personal distress, an individual could simply flee the scene., yet true empathic concern for another cannot be alleviated by escaping. In his study, Batson assigned participants to high and low empathy conditions, and easy or difficult to escape conditions; to leave after two trials or ten trials respectively. He also gave participants the option of changing places with the victim after two trials. When escape was easy, individuals with low empathic concern escaped the situation. However those with high empathic concern stayed and changed places with the victim. Batson claimed this to be true altruism. Traits such as aggression and dominance are associated with reduced empathy , and individuals with these traits have been shown to show less prosocial behaviour than those without them (Eisenberg et al, 2010). However empathy can be perceived as creating a negative affect such as guilt if help was not offered, and this negative state would be beneficial for an individual to relieve; therefore helping another individual with whom you have empathy for can relieve negative emotion in oneself, and can even instigate positive affect and/ or mood. This supports Pilliavin’s (1981) Arousal: Cost reward model and Cialdini and Kendrick’s (1976) Negative state relief model and therefore provides evidence that selfless altruism does not exist. In contrast, Batson (1989) found that people were not more likely to help others when informed that doing so would gi ve them access to a mood enhancing procedure. The finding that reciprocal altruism can be learned (Rachlin, 2003) raises an interesting question of whether it can be unlearned. Warnekin and Tomasello (2008) found 36 20 month old toddlers who consistently helped by picking up an object. Some were rewarded after showing this behaviour. They found that the children who were rewarded decreased this behaviour unless they were rewarded for it again; whereas the toddlers who were given no reward were more likely to continue helping. In support of this, Knafo, Schwartz and Levine (2009) found that in countries were individuals are raised to be helpful, there was a reduced tendency to help out group members. As helping in group members is more likely to relieve negative affect than helping outgroup members, this could be viewed as a reduced tendency to display altruistic behaviour. These studies raise the question as to whether it is possible that true altruism does exist, and whether theories such as social learning theory may play a role on its nurturance or demise within a culture or group. Sabini (1995) stated that if true altruism exists, it excludes any rational reasons for helping others, be it extrinsic or intrinsic rewards. In fact according to the sociobiological principle, it would be evolutionarily weak to be selflessly altruistic, as we may become like Dawkin’s ‘suckers’ helping cheats to prosper. This provides further evidence that selfless altruism does not exist; as we would not be able to grow and prosper as a society. In conclusion, the majority of evidence suggests that true altruism does not exist.

Mcdonalds And Its Strategic Management Commerce Essay

Mcdonalds And Its Strategic Management Commerce Essay The vision and mission of the organization defines the expected position and the fundamental purpose of the organization. The purpose of this assignment is to understand the vision and mission of the case company and to identify and understand the strategic aims and objectives of an organization and investigate its progress towards the fulfillment of those aims and objectives. For this different alternative strategies available to the organization are also considered. To fulfill the requirement of this assignment the organization selected for investigation is McDonalds. McDonalds is the leading fast food restaurant chain of the world and is serving more than 58 million customers on daily basis. McDonalds Vision and Mission Statement Every organization must have a vision and a mission. Vision and mission statements are the short phrases which sets the whole direction of the organization. Vision statement provides the whole picture of the organizations desired future position in a single phrase. This statement then sets a whole direction of all the strategic aims and objectives of the organization. Below is the vision statement of the case company i.e. McDonalds: To be the worlds best quick service restaurant experience, being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile Mission statement clarifies the fundamental purpose of the organization. Off course the purpose is to achieve the vision of the organization, but mission statement goes in further detail and answers the question of the existence of the organization. Mission statement of McDonalds is: To be the best employer To deliver operational excellence Achieving durable profits Expanding the brand name and extending the strength of McDonalds system through innovation and technology. Analyzing the vision and mission statement of the case company it is clear that organizations focus is mainly towards the external and internal customers i.e. consumers and employees. Furthermore, the company is committed to innovate and use the latest technology to earn huge profits. McDonalds Strategic Aims and Objectives An aim is a broader statement which tells what an organization wants to become and the objectives are the specific targets or tasks which leads towards the fulfillment of the aim of the organization. It is very important for an organization to set such aims which are practically possible and which can be measured. If this is not the case the organization will put its efforts and resources in that direction which is not possible at all. For effective working and success for an organization the aims and objectives must be realistic and it must also be associated with some time frame as if it is not the case then there will be confusion within the organization regarding the time to complete the tasks and projects (Fred David, 2006). Furthermore, the aims should be measureable, as the progress towards the fulfillment of objectives should be easily measured as if this is not the case then it would be very difficult for an organization to know that whether the desired results are achieved or not. McDonalds key to success all over the world is their priorities, which are also mentioned on their corporate website. The top priority of the leading fast food restaurant chain is the customers. As per the McDonalds corporate values the reason of the existence of the business are their customers and they work only to fulfill the needs and demands of the customers. As per the company it is not the matter of sales rather it is the matter of providing quality products along with the best services to the customers in affordable prices. The second priority is their employees or workforce. The company believes that the employees make the dream of the organization come true. The employees are their valuable assets and it is just because of the skills and competencies of their employees which enables the organization to achieve the set goals and targets. The company also believes the quality of their business model. According to the corporate values of the company the business model is set to meet the dynamic customer behavioral changes. The strategic aims and objectives of McDonalds and mentioned below and these shows that what are the top priorities of the company and it gives a hint why the company is so successful all across the globe: To maintain the leadership in fast food restaurant industry To serve the customer with good food in a friendly and fun environment Providing the quality food and value of money to the customer Providing the shareholder a positive return on their investments To meet the social and ethical responsibility Strategic Plan and its Component parts Strategic plan of any enterprise is a picture of the desired position of the organization. Strategic plan gives a root path that how the organization will achieve the desired place or position in the given industry (Maches, B. 2010). Three major components of strategic plan include formulation, implementation and evaluation of strategy carries that information and plan which provides a direction towards the organizational objectives (Kim Warren, 2008). Strategy Formulation Strategy formulation process starts with the situation analysis of the organization. Situation analysis is an important part of strategic plan as it gives an overview of the existing position of the organization. Situation analysis includes the analysis of internal and external environment of the organization. Different strategic tools can be used to evaluate this situation i.e. SWOT analysis, PEST Analysis etc. This also includes the evaluation of current mission and vision of the organization. Vision statement clarifies that what an organization want to become and on the other hand mission statements shows that what business the organization operates. Mission contains the products and services, its markets and its employee management policy. The assessment of external factors of the organization involves the listing down of finite list of factors which are a potential threat or opportunities for the organization in the external environment. By finite list is meant that not all the factors are focused. The priority is given to those factors which have high level of impact or form which high returns can be gained. The internal audit is also done in the situation analysis where the internal strengths and weaknesses of the organization are listed down (Fred David, 2006). After the clear understanding of the organizations current situation the real work begins where the strategies are formulated. The best practice is to involve the employees in this process as the employees from all levels will share their views and a better strategic decision will be expected. Here the strategies are developed to capitalize the opportunities available which were assessed in the external audit and minimize the threat of the factors. On the other side the strengths of the organizations require such strategies which further enhance them and the weaknesses are tried to be overcome. The next step in the strategy formulation stage is setting the long term objectives. Long term objectives are those which are associated with the sales and market share growth, it can be the growth of assets; it can be attaining any award from the government body etc. This is a very important phase as the long term goals and objectives show a direction to the whole organization. Long term objectives are set after a through consideration of external and internal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the organization. The available resources and the expected resources are listed and based on those resources the long term but achievable, measureable and realistic objectives are set with proper timelines (Fred David, 2006). The final stage of strategy formulation process is the evaluation and selection of appropriate strategies to meet the long term objectives. In this the alternative strategies are also identified an evaluated and a contingency planning is also done. For instance in case of any external change which is beyond the change of organization such as change in legislations or change in market conditions then that contingency plan can be used. The existing strategies of the organization are the initial point for strategy evaluation. Strategy Implementation The next step in a strategic plan includes the strategy implementation. Developing an effective strategy does not ensures that the strategic plan will be successful. It was in the old times when the strategic planning was done only at the level of stagy formulation stage. Experiences of different organizations and further studies revealed that strategy formulation does not ensure the success of strategic plan. Implementation is another important part of the strategic plan. In the implementation phase the process of shifting the responsibilities to the middle and lower level of management is developed. As in the strategy formulation stage it was mentioned that to involve the employees of all the levels is important, so if any organization has done this during the strategy formulation them the strategy implementation process will be lot more easier. This is because the middle and lower level staff will have a clearer view of the strategies developed and they would be in a better positi on to implement those strategies in real practice (Kim Warren, 2008). Strategy Evaluation and Control After the implementation of strategic plan it is important like all other plans and project to evaluate the progress of that plan. Implementation phase end with the start of evaluation process. This is a continuous process until the strategic aims and objectives are not met (Fred David, 2006). There are many organizations such as McDonalds, who have strategic aims and objectives that shows continuity and a continuous process is required for that for instance one of the strategic objectives of the company is to provide the value to the customer. This is an objective which shows continuity as the fast food chain is aimed to provide the customer value to their money so for that strategy evaluation is required. This process ensures that the implemented strategies are progressing towards the achievement of organizational aims and objectives or not. In this process the required results or outcomes are compared with the actual results and if there is any kind of difference then with the cha nge in strategies of taking appropriate steps that difference is tried to be eliminated or at least minimized. Factors affecting McDonalds Strategic Plan Several internal and external factors can affect the strategic plan of McDonalds. These may include factors such as managements vision, financial factors, technological changes, legislative factors or market competition. As mentioned in the strategic plan earlier that the strategies are developed by considering the existing resources of the organization. It also includes the existing technology possessed by the company. If the existing system of McDonalds becomes obsolete with the introduction of newer version of the same system then the organization need to adapt that system to sustain in the market. In this case the strategic plan requires a change (Kim Warren, 2008). Same is the case with the market condition. If at the time of strategic planning the market conditions are evaluated and after implementation the market condition changes and requires a change then the strategic plan will also require a change. That is the reason it is suggested that McDonalds strategic plan should be flexible enough that can meet the changing market conditions. Furthermore the strategic plans are also depend on the vision of the management of the organization. If the management decides to go with a differentiation strategy because of the market need then the existing strategic plan will be changed. Financial aspects cannot be neglected in the strategic planning. Every strategy requires financial resources and if the financial resources are not sufficient enough to meet the new strategy then it will require a change in the strategic plan. However, these constraints can be minimized during the strategy formulation process by intensive research and evaluation of the internal and external factors, but still the dynamic market conditions and growing consumer needs cannot be predicted. McDonalds and Strategic Options If there is some change in the external environment of the company then in response to that the company opts strategic option. Moreover, strategic option is also chosen by an organization to grow and it tells that how the company wants to grow and what are the ways through which the completive advantage is taken by an organization over its competitors. By manipulating and taking advantage of the opportunities available for an organization the company can have a positive outcome. There are two renowned methods or ways which can be chosen by any organization to gain a competitive advantage over the other organization (Fred David, 2006). These two strategic options include the cost leadership strategy and differentiation strategy. Under cost leadership strategy the organization cut down its cost of production or cost of goods sold and hence increases their profit margins. As the business word today is highly competitive and inn the fast food restaurant industry the customers have so many options such as KFC, Pizza Hut etc. which are also providing high quality products. So in such scenario it is not possible for McDonalds to increase the prices of their products. So, cutting the cost of production and other operational cost will be the best strategy to increase their profit margins. The internal capabilities of McDonalds will require a focus and needs to be enhanced in order to achieve the goals of this strategic option. Another strategic option available for McDonalds is to offer such products and services which are unique in nature and are not available in the market. In this way the customer will have no other option to get the desired product or service. This will keep the customer intact with McDonalds and hence the profit margins of the organization will keep on growing. A best example of this is the ice cream provided by McDonalds. No other fast food chain provides the best quality ice cream and people are fond of McDonalds Ice Cream and this has been a unique product of the fast food chain which attracts millions of customers. Another unique feature of McDonalds is their quality customer services. In this era the customer service has gained utmost importance and McDonalds customer services is helping them to increase their market share. Even if the restaurant is packed with the customers the customer services quality remains the same which makes the fast food chain number one in the world. Strategic Option a Helping Hand to achieve Strategic Objectives Strategic options help the organization to achieve the organization strategic aims and objectives. However, a combination of the available strategic options is a good option for any enterprise as this can have a dual positive effect in the organizational performance and profit margins can also be increased with a wide margin. Using integrated strategic options allows the firm a more leverage to take decision on marketing mix. McDonalds can use either of the strategic option discussed earlier, but the more appropriate is to use the mix of both the strategic options. This will help to achieve the strategic objectives of the organization which were mentioned earlier in the document. Using a differentiation strategy, McDonalds will be able to charge the premium prices against the product features. However, keeping the legislation under consideration is also important before charging the premium prices from the customers (Kim Warren, 2008). On the other side of the picture the cost leader ship strategy will provide the company a more leverage to reduce their prices of provide discount offers to the customers as the company have more margin due to the increase in profit margin. McDonalds can offer different discount deals on their core products as these are also provided by their major global competitor KFC. So, if the fast food chain is following an integrated strategic option then it can attain competitive advantage on either side of the court. This will fulfill the first and important strategic objective of McDonalds i.e. to maintain the market leader position. As the fast food chain will be able to counter each offer given by its competitor and also can attack the competitor by offering new products and deals and maintain the market dominance. Furthermore, using the differentiation strategy the fast food chain can make their customer services so supreme that no other competitor can copy that. Along with the food quality which is already very unique can be improved further and new products can be launched which are not available in the market and not ever provided by any other organization. By suing this differentiation strategy the company will be able to achieve its another strategic objective i.e. to provide the customer with quality food and service. Cost leadership and differentiation strategies will improve the profit margins and the strategic objective to provide a positive return on investment of the shareholders and investors will be fulfilled. Concluding this discussion it is suggested to the McDonalds management to continue delivering the quality product and services and further reduce their operational cost without compromising the quality of their products and standard of their services. McDonalds Stakeholders Analysis Stakeholders are those bodies or parties which have direct or indirect interaction with the organization. These bodies are affected with the operations of the business positively or negatively. The major stakeholder for McDonalds includes their customers, shareholders and their employees. Customers Customers of McDonalds are the major focus of fast food chain. Mentioned earlier in the document that the companys corporate values indicate that customer is the king. The strategic objectives are also aimed towards the customer satisfaction by delivering value to them. Customer services is the important part of the McDonalds strategic planning as through quality customer services they are able to retain he customers. McDonalds branches and franchises are all over the world and they are huge in number. This is to facilitate the customer to provide the quality food with easy access. Furthermore the free home delivery service of the fast food chain shows that the organization is committed to produce their products and services at the door step of the customers. Shareholders Shareholders are another major stakeholder of the company. Strategic objectives of the company show that the company is committed to deliver return on investments. The company has adapted cost leadership and differentiation strategy which have given them a position of market leader and helped to increase the profit margins which is the major concern of the investors. Employees The employees are the key to success for any organization. At McDonalds it is not a different story. The company considers their employees as an asset like all successful organizations and is committed to facilitate their employees who in actual are the prime resources that leads towards the fulfillment of organizations strategic objectives. Five Competitive Forces Analysis of McDonalds Michael porter provided a frame work which contains the analysis of five different forces effecting the organization (Kim Warren, 2002). Through this analytical tool five different forces affecting McDonalds are evaluated. Figure 1 Porter Five Forces Model Threat of new entrants Fast food industry has gained a tremendous growth in the 21st century. Many fast food chains are operating in different countries. The major are KFC, Pizza Hut and Subway. However there are many local fast food chains that provide the same kind of products which these international fast food chains do. However, the quality and standard is not up to the level of these chains still these chains are able to grasp a handsome amount of market share. The entry in this business is not a difficult task; however, to launch a chain at the level of McDonald is quite difficult. Threat of Substitutes There are several substitutes available against the products of McDonalds, which are also liked by the consumers. So McDonalds also have to consider those substitutes while designing their strategies. Degree of Rivalry The competition in the fast food restaurant industry is intense. Having the major brands like KFC, PIZZA HUT and Subway , McDonalds really have to be up to the mark in terms of products and customer services to maintain the market leader position. Bargaining Power of Buyers Bargaining power of buyers in case of McDonalds is high as the customer has so many options so the fast food chains have to maintain their prices very competitive and keep the level of customer services up to the mark. Bargaining Power of Suppliers Bargaining power of supplier is not high in case of McDonalds. Suppliers try to add their names in the list of the big brand names such as McDonalds because of the frequency of their orders. Pest Analsyis of Mcdonalds Pestle analysis is to analyze the external forces which can affect the organization. Below is the brief analysis of McDonalds Figure 2 PEST Analysis Framework Political Forces Due to the global operations of the company there are several policies in different states which can affect the McDonalds policies and procedures. Economic Factors The global economy can affect the organization in many ways. The change in the fast food industry business can also affect the McDonalds in a positive or negative way. Social Factors Being operating in many countries across the globe, McDonald have to recognize the social and cultural factors. For instance in Muslim countries the fast food chain has to assure the community regarding the use of Halal chicken. Technological Factors The rapid change in technology will force the company to adapt it in order to survive in the competitive market. Furthermore, the introduction of new advertisement Medias gives a more chance to aggressively market the products through different channels. Conclusion McDonalds enormous success all over the globe is the result of their effective vision and mission which is leading the organization in the right direction. The selection of right strategies at the right time allows the organization to achieve the organization set aims and objectives. The progress of the company towards strategic aims and objectives is satisfactory. The selection of integrated strategic options will allow the company to progress more efficiently towards the achievement of strategic aims and objectives.

The Maasai Tribe Essay -- Kenya tribe Maasai Essays

The Maasai are one of the many southern-most tribes located in Kenya. They are physically related, and also in many other forms related to the Samburu and Turkana. The Maasai have a relatively complex culture and traditions. In fact, for many years they were unheard of. By the late 1800’s we soon discovered more about the Maasai, mostly from their oral histories.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It is presumed that the Maasai came from the north, probably from the region of the Nile Valley in Sudan. Also presumed is that they left this area sometime between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, migrating southwards towards he Great Rift Valley. According to the Maasai oral history, they came from a crater or deep valley somewhere to the north, at a place called Endikir-e-Kerio . Although many scholars have called this place the southeastern region of Lake Turkana, many of the oral histories say that they may have come from further up north, near the Nile river. Whichever location this is, the migration was caused by a dry spell. According to the Maasai a bridge was built, and after half the livestock and people had left the dry area, the bridge collapsed, leaving back the other half of the population. These people later climbed out of the valley, and were helped by the present day Somali, Borana and Rendille peoples. The Maasai later entered Kenya, and moved south through the Rift Valley, where there was pasture for their cattle. Because there was very little surface water, the Maasai resorted to pastoralism instead of agriculture.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Maasai have adapted to their environment to ensure survival and the maintenance of their culture.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Maasai have adapted to the conditions of their environment through their religious rituals, which function in keeping their political structure, and maintaining cattle numbers. The idea of religion in the Maasai culture is attatched with the importance they place on the stages of life. Spear indicates that for the Maasai, God is close yet completely unknowable. Each ritual transition between age-groups is a step toward old age and metaphorically a step toward God. According to Emily McAlpin in â€Å"The Maasai culture and Ecological Conditions† the most important event in the ceremony is the sharing of meat which brings all participants clos... ... one is in this society, the more power attained.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The most common form of sharing goods and distributing them is through allied kin groups. There is no doubt sometimes disagreements amongst the Maasai people, therefore most kin groups have an ally kin group. These are useful when a luxury item is sought after and one group has it and is willing to lend or give it to the other, not a necessity. When something is needed for survival, the whole society will help.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Bibliography: 1.Cronk, Lee 2004 From Mukogodo To Maasai: Ethnicity and Cultural Change in Kenya (Westview Case Studies in Anthropology), Westview Press, pp. 27-35 2. Hetfield, Johnston 1997 The Maasai of East Africa (Celebrating the Peoples and Civilizations of Africa) PowerKids Press; 1st ed edition, pp. 9-13 3.Spear, Walker 1993 Being Maasai: Ethnicity & Identity in East Afri Ca (Eastern African Studies), Ohio University Press pp. 214-221 4.Kituvi, Mukhisa 1990 Becoming Kenyans: Socio-economic transformation of the pastoral Maasai (Drylands research series), Acts Press, pp. 193-201 5. Sankan, S.S. Ole 1985 The Maasai ,Kenya Literature Bureau, pp. 77-84

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World Essays -- History, Herodotus, List

While the ancient world left little written record, the evidence that we do have depicts it as far more advanced and culturally rich than many would expect. From the Phoenicians in Mesopotamia to the Mayans in Central America, technological advancements and complex theories drove the ancient civilizations ahead. Great thinkers from that period like Socrates (other great thinkers) left huge marks on the literary world. Great scientists like Copernicus (other great scientists) developed theories that provided the foundations for more modern thought. Juxtaposing their technology with our own, we find their accomplishments truly amazing. Their buildings, remarkably built without cranes, bulldozers, or assembly lines, rival our greatest and create great wonder among our culture. Chief among their architectural feats, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World remind us constantly of the ancient cultures’ splendors and advancements. These landmarks, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hangin g Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria or the Walls of Babylon according to the list, left evidence of the magnificence of the ancient world. Understanding the history of the whole group as well as the history of the individual places creates a gratitude and reverence for our ancient ancestors. Herodotus created the first list of wonders in the fifth century BC but gained little notoriety for the feat and inspired few subsequent lists. His written record, a list mirroring that above with the exception of substituting the Pharos of Alexandria for the Lighthouse, was destroyed with the exception of references in the burning o... ...s. To do this, they commissioned Phidias, chief sculptor behind the Parthenon, to build a statue paying homage to this god, Zeus. Using an innovative method designed by Phidias himself, he built a wooden skeleton in the intended shape of the statue and ordered workers to adorn it (Woods and Woods, Seven Wonders 56-57). Sheets of iron and gold were cut and fashioned to cover the wooden structure. Looming over the Temple of Zeus, the statue rose 40 feet into the air and was a massive 22 feet wide. Zeus’s Statue features him sitting on a magnificent throne, with his head brushing the ceiling. The ancient historian Strabo criticized the proportions of the statue, claiming that Phidias â€Å"depicted Zeus seated, but with the head almost touching the ceiling, so that we have the impression that if Zeus moved to stand up he would unroof the temple . . .† (Unnatural Museum).

Unacceptable Female Roles in Shakespeares Macbeth :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Macbeth's Unacceptable Female Roles      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   William Shakespeare's tragic play Macbeth scarcely deals women a fair hand; the drama contains only misfit women in the major roles. In fact, the witches are not fully women, with their beards and supernatural aspect. In this essay we will treat on Lady Macbeth, the greatest misfit of them all, in detail, and on other women only incidentally.    A.C. Bradley in Shakespearean Tragedy demonstrates Lady Macbeth's inflexibility of will which enables her to dominate her husband:    Sharing, as we have seen, certain traits with her husband, she is at once clearly distinguished from him by an inflexibility of will, which appears to hold imagination, feeling, and conscience completely in check. [. . .] On the moment of Macbeth's rejoining her, after braving infinite dangers and winning infinite praise, without a syllable on these subjects or a word of affection, she goes straight to her purpose and permits him to speak of nothing else. She takes the superior position and assumes the direction of affairs - appears to assume it even more than she really can, that she may spur him on. (336-37)    Lily B. Campbell in her volume of criticism, Shakespeare's Tragic Heroes: Slaves of Passion, discusses how strong-willed is Lady Macduff:    Lady Macduff is distinctly of the opinion that her husband fled the land from fear, even without having done anything which should make him fear retribution. To Ross she says:    His flight was madness. When our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors.    As Ross argues that she cannot know whether it "was his wisdom or his fear", she very pertinently argues against the wisdom that will make a man fly from the place in which he leaves his wife and children, and she instances the courage of the wren that will make it fight the owl to protect its young ones in proof that Macduff's fear has made him unnatural in his actions.(230)    In Fools of Time: Studies in Shakespearean Tragedy, Northrop Frye shows that a lady is the actual driving force in the play:    That Macbeth is being hurried into a premature act by his wife is a point unlikely to escape the most listless member of the audience, but Macbeth comes to regret the instant of fatal delay in murdering Macduff, and draws the moral that

Dent’s Disastrous Pronouns Essay

Stewart Pidd Hates English contains the following information about pronouns: Pronouns function as replacement words for noun phrases and nouns. Three common types of pronouns that give writers trouble are indefinite pronouns, possessive pronouns, and personal pronouns. Pronouns have different functions. Pronouns that do not refer to an object or a particular person are indefinite pronouns; possessive pronouns show possession; personal pronouns replace an object or a specific person. Writers can use pronouns to prevent unneeded repetition. An antecedent is the noun that comes before or after the pronoun(s) that reference it (Pollitt and Baker 70-85). Faulty pronoun agreement is a common writing error. In â€Å"Go Big or Go Home,† Jimmy Dent fails to make his pronouns agree with their antecedents. Dent makes a pronoun/antecedent agreement error. He writes, â€Å"I was out front working on my old motorcycle and said, ‘Hey, Stewie, when a skater dude goes to Ludville Pipe, they need to go big or go home’†(1). The singular antecedent, â€Å"skater dude† does not agree with the plural pronoun â€Å"they.† To fix the sentence, Dent needs to change the singular antecedent â€Å"skater dude† to a plural antecedent â€Å"skater dudes.† The revised sentence will read, â€Å"I was out front working on my old motorcycle and said, ‘Hey, Stewie, when skater dudes go to Ludville Pipe, they need to go big or go home.’† Dent makes a pronoun/antecedent agreement error with an indefinite pronoun. He states, â€Å"‘Stewart Pidd!’ I yelled, through the rusty spokes or my front rim, ‘Nobody wants to put their relatives in a home’† (2). The singular antecedent â€Å"Nobody† does not agree with the plural possessive pronoun â€Å"their.† To fix the sentence, Dent needs to change the singular indefinite pronoun â€Å"Nobody† to a plural pronoun â€Å"In-laws.† The revised sentence will read, â€Å"‘Stewart Pidd!’ I yelled, through the rusty spokes or my front rim, ‘In-laws don’t want to put their relatives in a home’† Dent makes a pronoun/antecedent agreement error using a collective noun. He writes, â€Å"On a good day, the Dent clan will unite to make their relatives feel like chewed-up gum’† (2). The singular antecedent â€Å"clan† does not agree with the plural possessive pronoun â€Å"their.† The collective noun â€Å"clan† is singular because it a group functioning as a unit. In order to fix the sentence, Dent needs to replace the plural pronoun â€Å"their† with singular possessive pronoun â€Å"our.† The revised sentence will read, â€Å"On a good day, the Dent clan will unite to make our relatives feel like chewed-up gum.† Untrained writers and speakers who make pronoun agreement errors should consider the wise words of Thomas Browne: â€Å"There is music wherever there is harmony, order or proportion.† Good writing is like good music. Having pronoun agreement brings harmony, order, and proportion to one’s writing. Having harmony, order, and proportion creates music in the writing. Works Cited Browne, Thomas. Attackthetext.com. Web. 14 Feb. 2013. Dent, Jimmy. â€Å"Go Big or Go Home.† 28 Feb. 2010. Print. Pollitt, Gary, and Craig Baker. Stewart Pidd Hates English. 2nd ed. Oceanside: Attack The Text Publishing. 2010. Print.

Prelude to Foundation Chapter 12 Aerie

ROBOT-†¦ A term used in the ancient legends of several worlds for what are more usually called â€Å"automata.† Robots are described as generally human in shape and made of metal, although some are supposed to have been pseudo-organic in nature. Hari Seldon, in the course of The Flight, is popularly supposed to have seen an actual robot, but that story is of dubious origin. Nowhere in Seldon's voluminous writings does he mention robots at all, although†¦ Encyclopedia Galactica 56. They were not noticed. Hari Seldon and Dors Venabili repeated the trip of the day before and this time no one gave them a second look. Hardly anyone even gave them a first look. On several occasions, they had to tuck their knees to one side to allow someone sitting on an inner seat to get past them and out. When someone got in, they quickly realized they had to move over if there was an inner empty seat. This time they quickly grew tired of the smell of kirtles that were not freshly laundered because they were not so easily diverted by what went on outside. But eventually they were there. â€Å"That's the library,† said Seldon in a low voice. â€Å"I suppose so,† said Dors. â€Å"At least that's the building that Mycelium Seventy-Two pointed out yesterday.† They sauntered toward it leisurely. â€Å"Take a deep breath,† said Seldon. â€Å"This is the first hurdle.† The door ahead was open, the light within subdued. There were five broad stone steps leading upward. They stepped onto the lowermost one and waited several moments before they realized that their weight did not cause the steps to move upward. Dors grimaced very slightly and gestured Seldon upward. Together they walked up the stairs, feeling embarrassed on behalf of Mycogen for its backwardness. Then, through a door, where, at a desk immediately inside was a man bent over the simplest and clumsiest computer Seldon had ever seen. The man did not look up at them. No need, Seldon supposed. White kirtle, bald head-all Mycogenians looked so nearly the same that one's eyes slid off them and that was to the tribespeople's advantage at the moment. The man, who still seemed to be studying something on the desk, said, â€Å"Scholars?† â€Å"Scholars,† said Seldon. The man jerked his head toward a door. â€Å"Go in. Enjoy.† They moved inward and, as nearly as they could see, they were the only ones in this section of the library. Either the library was not a popular resort or the scholars were few or-most likely-both. Seldon whispered, â€Å"I thought surely we would have to present some sort of license or permission form and I would have to plead having forgotten it.† â€Å"He probably welcomes our presence under any terms. Did you ever see a place like this? If a place, like a person, could be dead, we would be inside a corpse.† Most of the books in this section were print-books like the Book in Seldon's inner pocket. Dors drifted along the shelves, studying them. She said, â€Å"Old books, for the most part. Part classic. Part worthless.† â€Å"Outside books? Non-Mycogen, I mean?† â€Å"Oh yes. If they have their own books, they must be kept in another section. This one is for outside research for poor little self-styled scholars like yesterday's.-This is the reference department and here's an Imperial Encyclopedia†¦ must be fifty years old if a day†¦ and a computer.† She reached for the keys and Seldon stopped her. â€Å"Wait. Something could go wrong and we'll be delayed.† He pointed to a discreet sign above a free-standing set of shelves that glowed with the letters TO THE SACR TORIUM. The second A in SACRATORIUM was dead, possibly recently or possibly because no one cared. (The Empire, thought Seldon, was in decay. All parts of it. Mycogen too.) He looked about. The poor library, so necessary to Mycogenian pride, perhaps so useful to the Elders who could use it to find crumbs to shore up their own beliefs and present them as being those of sophisticated tribespeople, seemed to be completely empty. No one had entered after them. Seldon said, â€Å"Let's step in here, out of eyeshot of the man at the door, and put on our sashes.† And then, at the door, aware suddenly there would be no turning back if they passed this second hurdle, he said, â€Å"Dors, don't come in with me.† She frowned. â€Å"Why not?† â€Å"It's not safe and I don't want you to be at risk.† â€Å"I am here to protect you,† she said with soft firmness. â€Å"What kind of protection can you be? I can protect myself, though you may not think it. And I'd be handicapped by having to protect you. Don't you see that?† â€Å"You mustn't be concerned about me, Hari,† said Dors. â€Å"Concern is my part.† She tapped her sash where it crossed in the space between her obscured breasts. â€Å"Because Hummin asked you to?† â€Å"Because those are my orders.† She seized Seldon's arms just above his elbow and, as always, he was surprised by her firm grip. She said, â€Å"I'm against this, Hari, but if you feel you must go in, then I must go in too.† â€Å"All right, then. But if anything happens and you can wriggle out of it, run. Don't worry about me.† â€Å"You're wasting your breath, Hari. And you're insulting me.† Seldon touched the entrance panel and the portal slid open. Together, almost in unison, they walked through. 57. A large room, all the larger because it was empty of anything resembling furniture. No chairs, no benches, no seats of any kind. No stage, no drapery, no decorations. No lights, merely a uniform illumination of mild, unfocused light. The walls were not entirely blank. Periodically, arranged in spaced fashion at various heights and in no easy repetitive order, there were small, primitive, two-dimensional television screens, all of which were operating. From where Dors and Seldon stood, there was not even the illusion of a third dimension, not a breath of true holovision. There were people present. Not many and nowhere together. They stood singly and, like the television monitors, in no easy repetitive order. All were white-kirtled, all sashed. For the most part, there was silence. No one talked in the usual sense. Some moved their lips, murmuring softly. Those who walked did so stealthily, eyes downcast. The atmosphere was absolutely funereal. Seldon leaned toward Dors, who instantly put a finger to her lips, then pointed to one of the television monitors. The screen showed an idyllic garden bursting with blooms, the camera panning over it slowly. They walked toward the monitor in a fashion that imitated the others-slow steps, putting each foot down softly. When they were within half a meter of the screen, a soft insinuating voice made itself heard: â€Å"The garden of Antennin, as reproduced from ancient guidebooks and photographs, located in the outskirts of Eos. Note the-â€Å" Dors said in a whisper Seldon had trouble catching over the sound of the set, â€Å"It turns on when someone is close and it will turn off if we step away. If we're close enough, we can talk under cover, but don't look at me and stop speaking if anyone approaches.† Seldon, his head bent, his hands clasped before him (he had noted that this was a preferred posture), said, â€Å"Any moment I expect someone to start wailing.† â€Å"Someone might. They're mourning their Lost World,† said Dors. â€Å"I hope they change the films every once in a while. It would be deadly to always see the same ones.† â€Å"They're all different,† said Dors, her eyes sliding this way and that. â€Å"They may change periodically. I don't know.† â€Å"Wait!† said Seldon just a hair's breadth too loud. He lowered his voice and said, â€Å"Come this way.† Dors frowned, failing to make out the words, but Seldon gestured slightly with his head. Again the stealthy walk, but Seldon's footsteps increased in length as he felt the need for greater speed and Dors, catching up, pulled sharply-if very briefly-at his kirtle. He slowed. â€Å"Robots here,† he said under the cover of the sound as it came on. The picture showed the corner of a dwelling place with a rolling lawn and a line of hedges in the foreground and three of what could only be described as robots. They were metallic, apparently, and vaguely human in shape. The recording said, â€Å"This is a view, recently constructed, of the establishment of the famous Wendome estate of the third century. The robot you see near the center was, according to tradition, named Bendar and served twenty-two years, according to the ancient records, before being replaced.† Dors said, † ‘Recently constructed,' so they must change views.† â€Å"Unless they've been saying ‘recently constructed' for the last thousand years.† Another Mycogenian stepped into the sound pattern of the scene and said in a low voice, though not as low as the whisperings of Seldon and Dors, â€Å"Greetings, Brothers.† He did not look at Seldon and Dors as he spoke and after one involuntary and startled glance, Seldon kept his head averted. Dors had ignored it all. Seldon hesitated. Mycelium Seventy-Two had said that there was no talking in the Sacratorium. Perhaps he had exaggerated. Then too he had not been in the Sacratorium since he was a child. Desperately, Seldon decided he must speak. He said in a whisper, â€Å"And to you, Brother, greetings.† He had no idea whether that was the correct formula of reply or if there was a formula, but the Mycogenian seemed to find nothing amiss in it. â€Å"To you in Aurora,† he said. â€Å"And to you,† said Seldon and because it seemed to him that the other expected more, he added, â€Å"in Aurora,† and there was an impalpable release of tension. Seldon felt his forehead growing moist. The Mycogenian said, â€Å"Beautiful! I haven't seen this before.† â€Å"Skillfully done,† said Seldon. Then, in a burst of daring, he added, â€Å"A loss never to be forgotten.† The other seemed startled, then said, â€Å"Indeed, indeed,† and moved away. Dors hissed, â€Å"Take no chances. Don't say what you don't have to.† â€Å"It seemed natural. Anyway, this it recent. But those are disappointing robots. They are what I would expect automata to be. I want to see the organic ones-the humanoids.† â€Å"If they existed,† said Dors with some hesitation, â€Å"it seems to me they wouldn't be used for gardening jobs.† â€Å"True,† said Seldon. â€Å"We must find the Elders' aerie.† â€Å"If that exists. It seems to me there is nothing in this hollow cave but a hollow cave.† â€Å"Let's look.† They paced along the wall, passing from screen to screen, trying to wait at each for irregular intervals until Dors clutched Seldon's arms. Between two screens were lines marking out a faint rectangle. â€Å"A door,† Dors said. Then she weakened the assertion by adding, â€Å"Do you think?† Seldon looked about surreptitiously. It was in the highest degree convenient that, in keeping with the mourning atmosphere, every face, when not fixed on a television monitor, was bent in sad concentration on the floor. Seldon said, â€Å"How do you suppose it would open?† â€Å"An entrance patch.† â€Å"I can't make out any.† â€Å"It's just not marked out, but there's a slight discoloration there. Do you see it? How many palms? How many times?† â€Å"I'll try. Keep an eye out and kick me if anyone looks in this direction.† He held his breath casually, touched the discolored spot to no avail, and then placed his palm full upon it and pressed. The door opened silently-not a creak, not a scrape. Seldon stepped through as rapidly as he could and Dors followed him. The door closed behind them. â€Å"The question is,† said Dors, â€Å"did anyone see us?† Seldon said, â€Å"Elders must go through this door frequently.† â€Å"Yes, but will anyone think we are Elders?† Seldon waited, then said, â€Å"If we were observed and if anyone thought something was wrong, this door would have been flung open again within fifteen seconds of our entering.† â€Å"Possibly,† said Dors dryly, â€Å"or possibly there is nothing to be seen or done on this side of the door and no one cares if we enter.† â€Å"That remains to be seen,† muttered Seldon. The rather narrow room they had entered was somewhat dark, but as they stepped farther into it, the light brightened. There were chairs, wide and comfortable, small tables, several davenports, a deep and tall refrigerator, cupboards. â€Å"If this is the Elders' aerie,† said Seldon, â€Å"the Elders seem to do themselves comfortably, despite the austerity of the Sacratorium itself.† â€Å"As would be expected,† said Dors. â€Å"Asceticism among a ruling class-except for public show-is very rare. Put that down in your notebook for psychohistorical aphorisms.† She looked about. â€Å"And there is no robot.† Seldon said, â€Å"An aerie is a high position, remember, and this ceiling is not. There must be upper storeys and that must be the way.† He pointed to a well-carpeted stairway. He did not advance toward it, however, but looked about vaguely. Dors guessed what he was seeking. She said, â€Å"Forget about elevators. There's a cult of primitivism in Mycogen. Surely, you haven't forgotten that, have you? There would be no elevators and, what's more, if we place our weight at the foot of the stairs, I am quite certain it will not begin moving upward. We're going to have to climb it. Several flights, perhaps.† â€Å"Climb it?† â€Å"It must, in the nature of things, lead to the aerie-if it leads anywhere. Do you want to see the aerie or don't you?† Together they stepped toward the staircase and began the climb. They went up three flights and, as they did, the light level decreased perceptibly and in steady increments. Seldon took a deep breath and whispered, â€Å"I consider myself to be in pretty good shape, but I hate this.† â€Å"You're not used to this precise type of physical exertion.† She showed no signs of physical distress whatever. At the top of the third flight the stairs ended and before them was another door. â€Å"And if it's locked?† said Seldon, more to himself than to Dors. â€Å"Do we try to break it down?† But Dors said, â€Å"Why should it be locked when the lower door was not? If this is the Elders' aerie, I imagine there's a taboo on anyone but Elders coming here and a taboo is much stronger than any lock.† â€Å"As far as those who accept the taboo are concerned,† said Seldon, but he made no move toward the door. â€Å"There's still time to turn back, since you hesitate,† said Dors. â€Å"In fact, I would advise you to rum back.† â€Å"I only hesitate because I don't know what we'll find inside. If it's empty-† And then he added in a rather louder voice, â€Å"Then it's empty,† and he strode forward and pushed against the entry panel. The door retracted with silent speed and Seldon took a step back at the surprising flood of light from within. And there, facing him, eyes alive with light, arms half-upraised, one foot slightly advanced before the other, gleaming with a faintly yellow metallic shine, was a human figure. For a few moments, it seemed to be wearing a tight-fitting tunic, but on closer inspection it became apparent that the tunic was part of the structure of the object. â€Å"It's the robot,† said Seldon in awe, â€Å"but it's metallic.† â€Å"Worse than that,† said Dors, who had stepped quickly to one side and then to the other. â€Å"Its eyes don't follow me. Its arms don't as much as tremble. It's not alive-if one can speak of robots as being alive.† And a man-unmistakably a man-stepped out from behind the robot and said, â€Å"Perhaps not. But I am alive.† And almost automatically, Dors stepped forward and took her place between Seldon and the man who had suddenly appeared. 58. Seldon pushed Dors to one side, perhaps a shade more roughly than he intended. â€Å"I don't need protection. This is our old friend Sunmaster Fourteen.† The man who faced them, wearing a double sash that was perhaps his right as High Elder, said, â€Å"And you are Tribesman Seldon.† â€Å"Of course,† said Seldon. â€Å"And this, despite her masculine dress, is Tribeswoman Venabili.† Dors said nothing. Sunmaster Fourteen said, â€Å"You are right, of course, tribesman. You are in no danger of physical harm from me. Please sit down. Both of you. Since you are not a Sister, tribeswoman, you need not retire. There is a seat for you which, if you value such a distinction, you will be the first woman ever to have used.† â€Å"I do not value such a distinction,† said Dors, spacing her words for emphasis. Sunmaster Fourteen nodded. â€Å"That is as you wish. I too will sit down, for I must ask you questions and I do not care to do it standing.† They were sitting now in a corner of the room. Seldon's eyes wandered to the metal robot. Sunmaster Fourteen said, â€Å"It is a robot.† â€Å"I know,† said Seldon briefly. â€Å"I know you do,† said Sunmaster Fourteen with similar curtness. â€Å"But now that we have settled that matter, why are you here?† Seldon gazed steadily at Sunmaster Fourteen and said, â€Å"To see the robot.† â€Å"Do you know that no one but an Elder is allowed in the aerie?† â€Å"I did not know that, but I suspected it.† â€Å"Do you know that no tribesperson is allowed in the Sacratorium?† â€Å"I was told that.† â€Å"And you ignored the fact, is that it?† â€Å"As I said, we wanted to see the robot.† â€Å"Do you know that no woman, even a Sister, is allowed in the Sacratorium except at certain stated-and rare-occasions?† â€Å"I was told that.† â€Å"And do you know that no woman is at any time-or for any reason-allowed to dress in masculine garb? That holds, within the borders of Mycogen, for tribeswomen as well as for Sisters.† â€Å"I was not told that, but I am not surprised.† â€Å"Good. I want you to understand all this. Now, why did you want to see the robot?† Seldon said with a shrug, â€Å"Curiosity. I had never seen a robot or even known that such a thing existed.† â€Å"And how did you come to know that it did exist and, specifically, that it existed here?† Seldon was silent, then said, â€Å"I do not wish to answer that question.† â€Å"Is that why you were brought to Mycogen by Tribesman Hummin? To investigate robots?† â€Å"No. Tribesman Hummin brought us here that we might be secure. However, we are scholars, Dr. Venabili and I. Knowledge is our province and to gain knowledge is our purpose. Mycogen is little understood outside its borders and we wish to know more about your ways and your methods of thought. It is a natural desire and, it seems to us, a harmless-even praiseworthy-one.† â€Å"Ah, but we do not wish the outer tribes and worlds to know about us. That is our natural desire and we are the judge of what is harmless to us and what harmful. So I ask you again, tribesman: How did you know that a robot existed in Mycogen and that it existed in this room?† â€Å"General rumor,† said Seldon at length. â€Å"Do you insist on that?† â€Å"General rumor. I insist on it.† Sunmaster Fourteen's keen blue eyes seemed to sharpen and he said without raising his voice, â€Å"Tribesman Seldon, we have long cooperated with Tribesman Hummin. For a tribesman, he has seemed a decent and trustworthy individual. For a tribesman! When he brought you two to us and commended you to our protection, we granted it. But Tribesman Hummin, whatever his virtues, is still a tribesman and we had misgivings. We were not at all sure what your-or his-real purpose might be.† â€Å"Our purpose was knowledge,† said Seldon. â€Å"Academic knowledge. Tribeswoman Venabili is a historian and I too have an interest in history. Why should we not be interested in Mycogenian history?† â€Å"For one thing, because we do not wish you to be.-In any case, two of our trusted Sisters were sent to you. They were to cooperate with you, try to find out what it was you wanted, and-what is the expression you tribesmen use?-play along with you. Yet not in such a way that you would be too aware as to what was happening.† Sunmaster Fourteen smiled, but it was a grim smile. â€Å"Raindrop Forty-Five,† Sunmaster Fourteen went on, â€Å"went shopping with Tribeswoman Venabili, but there seemed nothing out of the way in what happened on those trips. Naturally, we had a full report. Raindrop Forty-Three showed you, Tribesman Seldon, our microfarms. You might have been suspicious of her willingness to accompany you alone, something that is utterly out of the question for us, but you reasoned that what applied to Brothers did not apply to tribesmen and you flattered yourself that that flimsy bit of reasoning won her over. She complied with your desire, though at considerable cost to her peace of mind. And, eventually, you asked for the Book. To have handed it over too easily might have roused your suspicion, so she pretended to a perverse desire only you could satisfy. Her self-sacrifice will not be forgotten.-I take it, tribesman, you still have the Book and I suspect you have it with you now. May I have it?† Seldon sat in bitter silence. Sunmaster Fourteen's wrinkled hand remained obtrusively outstretched and he said, â€Å"How much better it would be than to wrest it from you by force.† And Seldon handed it over. Sunmaster Fourteen leafed through its pages briefly, as though to reassure himself it was unharmed. He said with a small sigh, â€Å"It will have to be carefully destroyed in the approved manner. Sad.-But once you had this Book, we were, of course, not surprised when you made your way out to the Sacratorium. You were watched at all times, for you cannot think that any Brother or Sister, not totally absorbed, would not recognize you for tribespeople at a glance. We know a skincap when we see one and there are less than seventy of them in Mycogen†¦ almost all belonging to tribesmen on official business who remain entirely in secular governmental buildings during the time they are here. So you were not only seen but unmistakably identified, over and over. â€Å"The elderly Brother who met you was careful to tell you about the library as well as about the Sacratorium, but he was also careful to tell you what you were forbidden to do, for we did not wish to entrap you. Skystrip Two also warned you†¦ and quite forcibly. Nevertheless, you did not turn away. â€Å"The shop at which you bought the white kirtle and the two sashes informed us at once and from that we knew well what you intended. The library was kept empty, the librarian was warned to keep his eyes to himself, the Sacratorium was kept under-utilized. The one Brother who inadvertently spoke to you almost gave it away, but hastened off when he realized with whom he was dealing. And then you came up here. â€Å"You see, then, that it was your intention to come up here and that we in no way lured you here. You came as a result of your own action, your own desire, and what I want to ask you-yet once again-is: Why?† It was Dors who answered this time, her voice firm, her eyes hard. â€Å"We will tell you yet once again, Mycogenian. We are scholars, who consider knowledge sacred and it is only knowledge that we seek. You did not lure us here, but you did not stop us either, as you might have done before ever we approached this building. You smoothed our way and made it easy for us and even that might be considered a lure. And what harm have we done? We have in no way disturbed the building, or this room, or you, or that.† She pointed to the robot. â€Å"It is a dead lump of metal that you hide here and we now know that it is dead and that is all the knowledge we sought. We thought it would be more significant and we are disappointed, but now that we know it is merely what it is, we will leave-and, if you wish, we will leave Mycogen as well.† Sunmaster Fourteen listened with no trace of expression on his face, but when she was done, he addressed Seldon, saying, â€Å"This robot, as you see it, is a symbol, a symbol of all we have lost and of all we no longer have, of all that, through thousands of years, we have not forgotten and what we intend someday to return to. Because it is all that remains to us that is both material and authentic, it is dear to us-yet to your woman it is only ‘a dead lump of metal.' Do you associate yourself with that judgment, Tribesman Seldon?† Seldon said, â€Å"We are members of societies that do not tie ourselves to a past that is thousands of years old, making no contact at all with what has existed between that past and ourselves. We live in the present, which we recognize as the product of all the past and not of one long-gone moment of time that we hug to our chests. We realize, intellectually, what the robot may mean to you and we are willing to let it continue to mean that to you. But we can only see it with our own eyes, as you can only see it with yours. To us, it is a dead lump of metal.† â€Å"And now,† said Dors, â€Å"we will leave.† â€Å"You will not,† said Sunmaster Fourteen. â€Å"By coming here, you have committed a crime. It is a crime only in our eyes, as you will hasten to point out†-his lips curved in a wintry smile-â€Å"but this is our territory and, within it, we make the definitions. And this crime, as we define it, is punishable by death.† â€Å"And you are going to shoot us down?† said Dors haughtily. Sunmaster Fourteen's expression was one of contempt and he continued to speak only to Seldon. â€Å"What do you think we are, Tribesman Seldon? Our culture is as old as yours, as complex, as civilized, as humane. I am not armed. You will be tried and, since you are manifestly guilty, executed according to law, quickly and painlessly. â€Å"If you were to try to leave now, I would not stop you, but there are many Brothers below, many more than there appeared to be when you entered the Sacratorium and, in their rage at your action, they may lay rough and forceful hands on you. It has happened in our history that tribespeople have even died so and it is not a pleasant death-certainly not a painless one.† â€Å"We were warned of this,† said Dors, â€Å"by Skystrip Two. So much for your complex, civilized, and humane culture.† â€Å"People can be moved to violence at moments of emotion, Tribesman Seldon,† said Sunmaster Fourteen calmly, â€Å"whatever their humanity in moments of calm. This is true in every culture, as your woman, who is said to be a historian, must surely know.† Seldon said, â€Å"Let us remain reasonable, Sunmaster Fourteen. You may be the law in Mycogen over local affairs, but you are not the law over us and you know it. We are both non-Mycogenian citizens of the Empire and it is the Emperor and his designated legal officers who must remain in charge of any capital offense.† Sunmaster Fourteen said, â€Å"That may be so in statutes and on papers and on holovision screens, but we are not talking theory now. The High Elder has long had the power to punish crimes of sacrilege without interference from the Imperial throne.† â€Å"If the criminals are your own people,† said Seldon. â€Å"It would be quite different if they were outsiders.† â€Å"I doubt it in this case. Tribesman Hummin brought you here as fugitives and we are not so yeast-headed in Mycogen that we don't strongly suspect that you are fugitives from the Emperor's laws. Why should he object if we do his work for him?† â€Å"Because,† said Seldon, â€Å"he would. Even if we were fugitives from the Imperial authorities and even if he wanted us only to punish us, he would still want us. To allow you to kill, by whatever means and for whatever reason, non-Mycogenians without due Imperial process would be to defy his authority and no Emperor could allow such a precedent. No matter how eager he might be to see that the microfood trade not be interrupted, he would still feel it necessary to re-establish the Imperial prerogative. Do you wish, in your eagerness to kill us, to have a division of Imperial soldiery loot your farms and your dwellings, desecrate your Sacratorium, and take liberties with the Sisters: Consider.† Sunmaster Fourteen smiled once again, but displayed no softness. â€Å"Actually, I have considered and there is an alternative. After we condemn you, we could delay your execution to allow you to appeal to the Emperor for a review of your case. The Emperor might be grateful at this evidence of our ready submission to his authority and grateful too to lay his hands on you two-for some reason of his own-and Mycogen might profit. Is that what you want, then? To appeal to the Emperor in due course and to be delivered to him?† Seldon and Dors looked at each other briefly and were silent. Sunmaster Fourteen said, â€Å"I feel you would rather be delivered to the Emperor than die, but why do I get the impression that the preference is only by a slight margin?† â€Å"Actually,† said a new voice, â€Å"I think neither alternative is acceptable and that we must search for a third.† 59. It was Dors who identified the newcomer first, perhaps because it was she who expected him. â€Å"Hummin,† she said, â€Å"thank goodness you found us. I got in touch with you the moment I realized I was not going to deflect Hari from†-she held up her hands in a wide gesture â€Å"this.† Hummin's smile was a small one that did not alter the natural gravity of his face. There was a subtle weariness about him. â€Å"My dear,† he said, â€Å"I was engaged in other things. I cannot always pull away at a moment's notice. And when I got here, I had, like you two, to supply myself with a kirtle and sash, to say nothing of a skincap, and make my way out here. Had I been here earlier, I might have stopped this, but I believe I'm not too late.† Sunmaster Fourteen had recovered from what had seemed to be a painful shock. He said in a voice that lacked its customary severe depth, â€Å"How did you get in here, Tribesman Hummin?† â€Å"It was not easy, High Elder, but as Tribeswoman Venabili likes to say, I am a very persuasive person. Some of the citizens here remember who I was and what I have done for Mycogen in the past, that I am even an honorary Brother. Have you forgotten, Sunmaster Fourteen?† The Elder replied, â€Å"I have not forgotten, but even the most favorable memory can not survive certain actions. A tribesman here and a tribeswoman. There is no greater crime. All you have done is not great enough to balance that. My people are not unmindful. We will make it up to you some other way. But these two must die or be handed over to the Emperor.† â€Å"I am also here,† said Hummin calmly. â€Å"Is that not a crime as well?† â€Å"For you,† said Sunmaster Fourteen, â€Å"for you personally, as a kind of honorary Brother, I can†¦ overlook it†¦ once. Not these two.† â€Å"Because you expect a reward from the Emperor? Some favor? Some concession? Have you already been in touch with him or with his Chief of Staff, Eto Demerzel, more likely?† â€Å"That is not a subject for discussion.† â€Å"Which is itself an admission. Come on, I don't ask what the Emperor promised, but it cannot be much. He does not have much to give in these degenerate days. Let me make you an offer. Have these two told you they are scholars?† â€Å"They have.† â€Å"And they are. They are not lying. The tribeswoman is a historian and the tribesman is a mathematician. The two together are trying to combine their talents to make a mathematics of history and they call the combined subject ‘psychohistory.' â€Å" Sunmaster Fourteen said, â€Å"I know nothing about this psychohistory, nor do I care to know. Neither it nor any other facet of your tribal learning interests me.† â€Å"Nevertheless,† said Hummin, â€Å"I suggest that you listen to me.† It took Hummin some fifteen minutes, speaking concisely, to describe the possibility of organizing the natural laws of society (something he always mentioned with audible quotation marks in the tone of his voice) in such a way as to make it possible to anticipate the future with a substantial degree of probability. And when he was done, Sunmaster Fourteen, who had listened expressionlessly, said, â€Å"A highly unlikely piece of speculation, I should say.† Seldon, with a rueful expression, seemed about to speak, undoubtedly to agree, but Hummin's hand, resting lightly on the other's knee, tightened unmistakably. Hummin said, â€Å"Possibly, High Elder, but the Emperor doesn't think so. And by the Emperor, who is himself an amiable enough personage, I really mean Demerzel, concerning whose ambitions you need no instruction. They would like very much to have these two scholars, which is why I've brought them here for safekeeping. I had little expectation that you would do Demerzel's work for him by delivering the scholars to him.† â€Å"They have committed a crime that-â€Å" â€Å"Yes, we know, High Elder, but it is only a crime because you choose to call it so. No real harm has been done.† â€Å"It has been done to our belief, to our deepest felt-â€Å" â€Å"But imagine what harm will be done if psychohistory falls into the hands of Demerzel. Yes, I grant that nothing may come of it, but suppose for a moment that something does and that the Imperial government has the use of it-can foretell what is to come-can take measures with that foreknowledge which no one else would have-can take measures, in fact, designed to bring about an alternate future more to the Imperial liking.† â€Å"Well?† â€Å"Is there any doubt, High Elder, that the alternate future more to the Imperial liking would be one of tightened centralization? For centuries now, as you very well know, the Empire has been undergoing a steady decentralization. Many worlds now acknowledge only lip service to the Emperor and virtually rule themselves. Even here on Trantor, there is decentralization. Mycogen, as only one example, is free of Imperial interference for the most part. You rule its High Elder and there is no Imperial officer at your side overseeing your actions and decisions. How long do you think that will last with men like Demerzel adjusting the future to their liking?† â€Å"Still the flimsiest of speculation,† said Sunmaster Fourteen, â€Å"but a disturbing one, I admit.† â€Å"On the other hand, if these scholars can complete their task, an unlikely if, you might say, but an if-then they are sure to remember that you spared them when you might have chosen not to. And it would then be conceivable that they would learn to arrange a future, for instance, that would allow Mycogen to be given a world of its own, a world that could be terraformed into a close replica of the Lost World. And even if these two forget your kindness, I will be here to remind them.† â€Å"Well-† said Sunmaster Fourteen. â€Å"Come on,† said Hummin, â€Å"it is not hard to decide what must be going through your mind. Of all tribespeople, you must trust Demerzel the least. And though the chance of psychohistory might be small (if I was not being honest with you, I would not admit that) it is not zero; and if it will bring about a restoration of the Lost World, what can you want more than that? What would you not risk for even a tiny chance of that? Come now-I promise you and my promises are not lightly given. Release these two and choose a tiny chance of your heart's desire over no chance at all.† There was silence and then Sunmaster Fourteen sighed. â€Å"I don't know how it is, Tribesman Hummin, but on every occasion that we meet, you persuade me into something I do not really want to do.† â€Å"Have I ever misled you, High Elder?† â€Å"You have never offered me so small a chance?† â€Å"And so high a possible reward. The one balances the other.† And Sunmaster Fourteen nodded his head. â€Å"You are right. Take these two and take them out of Mycogen and never let me see them again unless there comes a time when-But surely it will not be in my lifetime.† â€Å"Perhaps not, High Elder. But your people have been waiting patiently for nearly twenty thousand years. Would you then object to waiting another-perhaps-two hundred?† â€Å"I would not willingly wait one moment, but my people will wait as long as they must.† And standing up, he said, â€Å"I will clear the path. Take them and go.† 60. They were finally back in a tunnel. Hummin and Seldon had traveled through one when they went from the Imperial Sector to Streeling University in the air-taxi. Now they were in another tunnel, going from Mycogen to†¦ Seldon did not know where. He hesitated to ask. Hummin's face seemed as if it was carved out of granite and it didn't welcome conversation. Hummin sat in the front of the four-seater, with no one to his right. Seldon and Dors shared the backseat. Seldon chanced a smile at Dors, who looked glum. â€Å"It's nice to be in real clothes again, isn't it?† â€Å"I will never,† said Dors with enormous sincerity, â€Å"wear or look at anything that resembles a kirtle. And I will never, under any circumstances, wear a skincap. In fact, I'm going to feel odd if I ever see a normally bald man.† And it was Dors who finally asked the question that Seldon had been reluctant to advance. â€Å"Chetter,† she said rather petulantly, â€Å"why won't you tell us where we're going?† Hummin hitched himself into a sideways position and he looked back at Dors and Seldon gravely. â€Å"Somewhere,† he said, â€Å"where it may be difficult for you to get into trouble-although I'm not sure such a place exists.† Dors was at once crestfallen. â€Å"Actually, Chetter, it's my fault. At Streeling, I let Hari go Upperside without accompanying him. In Mycogen, I at least accompanied him, but I suppose I ought not to have let him enter the Sacratorium at all.† â€Å"I was determined,† said Seldon warmly. â€Å"It was in no way Dors's fault.† Hummin made no effort to apportion blame. He simply said, â€Å"I gather you wanted to see the robot. Was there a reason for that? Can you tell me?† Seldon could feel himself redden. â€Å"I was wrong in that respect, Hummin. I did not see what I expected to see or what I hoped to see. If I had known the content of the aerie, I would never have bothered going there. Call it a complete fiasco.† â€Å"But then, Seldon, what was it you hoped to see? Please tell me. Take your time if you wish. This is a long trip and I am willing to listen.† â€Å"The thing is, Hummin, that I had the idea that there were humaniform robots, that they were long-lived, that at least one might still be alive, and that it might be in the aerie. There was a robot there, but it was metallic, it was dead, and it was merely a symbol. Had I but known-â€Å" â€Å"Yes. Did we all but know, there would be no need for questions or for research of any kind. Where did you get your information about humaniform robots? Since no Mycogenian would have discussed that with you, I can think of only one source. The Mycogenian Book-a powered print-book in ancient Auroran and modern Galactic. Am I right?† â€Å"Yes.† â€Å"And how did you get a copy?† Seldon paused, then muttered, â€Å"Its somewhat embarrassing.† â€Å"I am not easily embarrassed, Seldon.† Seldon told him and Hummin allowed a very small smile to twitch across his face. Hummin said, â€Å"Didn't it occur to you that what occurred had to be a charade? No Sister would do a thing like that-except under instruction and with a great deal of persuading.† Seldon frowned and said with asperity, â€Å"That was not at all obvious. People are perverted now and then. And its easy for you to grin. I didn't have the information you had and neither did Dors. If you did not wish me to fall into traps, you might have warned me of those that existed.† â€Å"I agree. I withdraw my remark. In any case, you don't have the Book any longer, I'm sure.† â€Å"No. Sunmaster Fourteen took it from me.† â€Å"How much of it did you read?† â€Å"Only a small fraction. I didn't have time. It's a huge book and I must tell you, Hummin, it is dreadfully dull.† â€Å"Yes, I know that, for I think I have read more of it than you have. It is not only dull, it is totally unreliable. It is a one-sided, official Mycogenian view of history that is more intent on presenting that view than a reasoned objectivity. It is even deliberately unclear in spots so that outsiders-even if they were to read the Book-would never know entirely what they read. What was it, for instance, that you thought you read about robots that interested you?† â€Å"I've already told you. They speak of humaniform robots, robots that could not be distinguished from human beings in outward appearance.† â€Å"How many of these would exist?† asked Hummin. â€Å"They don't say.-At least, I didn't come across a passage in which they gave numbers. There may have been only a handful, but one of them, the Book refers to as ‘Renegade.' It seems to have an unpleasant significance, but I couldn't make out what.† â€Å"You didn't tell me anything about that,† interposed Dors. â€Å"If you had, I would have told you that it's not a proper name. It's another archaic word and it means, roughly, what ‘traitor' would mean in Galactic. The older word has a greater aura of fear about it. A traitor, somehow, sneaks to his treason, but a renegade flaunts it.† Hummin said, â€Å"I'll leave the fine points of archaic language to you, Dors, but, in any case, if the Renegade actually existed and if it was a humaniform robot, then, clearly, as a traitor and enemy, it would not be preserved and venerated in the Elders' aerie.† Seldon said, â€Å"I didn't know the meaning of ‘Renegade,' but, as I said, I did get the impression that it was an enemy. I thought it might have been defeated and preserved as a reminder of the Mycogenian triumph.† â€Å"Was there any indication in the Book that the Renegade was defeated?† â€Å"No, but I might have missed that portion-â€Å" â€Å"Not likely. Any Mycogenian victory would be announced in the Book unmistakably and referred to over and over again.† â€Å"There was another point the Book made about the Renegade,† said Seldon, hesitating, â€Å"but I can't be at all sure I understood it.† Hummin said, â€Å"As I told you†¦ They are deliberately obscure at times.† â€Å"Nevertheless, they seemed to say that the Renegade could somehow tap human emotions†¦ influence them-â€Å" â€Å"Any politician can,† said Hummin with a shrug. â€Å"It's called charisma-when it works.† Seldon sighed. â€Å"Well, I wanted to believe. That was it. I would have given a great deal to find an ancient humaniform robot that was still alive and that I could question.† â€Å"For what purpose?† asked Hummin. â€Å"To learn the details of the primordial Galactic society when it still consisted of only a handful of worlds. From so small a Galaxy psychohistory could be deduced more easily.† Hummin said, â€Å"Are you sure you could trust what you heard? After many thousands of years, would you be willing to rely on the robot's early memories? How much distortion would have entered into them?† â€Å"That's right,† said Dors suddenly. â€Å"It would be like the computerized records I told you of, Hari. Slowly, those robot memories would be discarded, lost, erased, distorted. You can only go back so far and the farther you go back, the less reliable the information becomes-no matter what you do.† Hummin nodded. â€Å"I've heard it referred to as a kind of uncertainty principle in information.† â€Å"But wouldn't it be possible,† said Seldon thoughtfully, â€Å"that some information, for special reasons, would be preserved? Parts of the Mycogenian Book may well refer to events of twenty thousand years ago and yet be very largely as it had been originally. The more valued and the more carefully preserved particular information is, the more long-lasting and accurate it may be.† â€Å"The key word is ‘particular.' What the Book may care to preserve may not be what you wish to have preserved and what a robot may remember best may be what you wish him to remember least.† Seldon said in despair, â€Å"In whatever direction I turn to seek a way of working out psychohistory, matters so arrange themselves as to make it impossible. Why bother trying?† â€Å"It might seem hopeless now,† said Hummin unemotionally, â€Å"but given the necessary genius, a route to psychohistory may be found that none of us would at this moment expect. Give yourself more time.-But we're coming to a rest area. Let us pull off and have dinner.† Over the lamb patties on rather tasteless bread (most unpalatable after the fare at Mycogen), Seldon said, â€Å"You seem to assume, Hummin, that I am the possessor of ‘the necessary genius.' I may not be, you know.† Hummin said, â€Å"That's true. You may not be. However, I know of no alternate candidate for the post, so I must cling to you.† And Seldon sighed and said, â€Å"Well, I'll try, but I'm out of any spark of hope. Possible but not practical, I said to begin with, and I'm more convinced of that now than I ever was before.†