Saturday, August 31, 2019

Discuss the Journeys Represented in the Happiest Refugee

A Journey is a physical or psychological adventure that takes from one place to another. Various types of Journeys can be seen clearly in the three texts studied this year: The Happiest Refugee extract, written by Ann. DOD in 2010, The Silver Donkey novel by Sonny Hairnets in 2004 and the film Bend It Like Beckman directed by Grinder Chad in 2002. The techniques that the composer uses to express the journeys are personification, onomatopoeia, repetition, similes, metaphors, music and acting skills. In The Happiest Refuge, there are both physical and emotional Journeys.The extract s about Vietnam refugees escape from their war-torn country in an overcrowded, battered boat. The aim of their Journey was to safely reach Australia. Throughout their physical Journey they had to overcome many problems. For example when refugees' boat engine started spluttering, the reader is in suspense because the refugees Journey could come to an end. â€Å"†¦ The engine was spewing out thick petrol fumes†¦ † This quote uses the technique personification to gives the reader a better description and mental picture of the physical Journey. Ann. DOD also uses onomatopoeia to create a more vivid image of the experience.For example, when the patrol boat starts shooting at the refugees, their life is at risk. â€Å"Bang! Bang! Bang! † The technique onomatopoeia communicates the danger of the physical Journey and how all of their hard work, effort and preparation could all come to a halt so easily. Emotional Journeys are also represented in The Happiest Refugee. Throughout their overall Journey, the refugees faced emotions of fear, hope, relief and frustration. They were in constant fear that they could be caught by the army. In one case, pirates approached their boat forcing them to give over all of their goods. The refugees' were in a state of shock and horror. We stood there silent and numb, like sheep awaiting slaughter. † Ann. DOD uses a simile to describ e the emotions that the refugees were facing. The simile expresses the feeling of fright and makes the reader feel the same way. In other situations, feelings of weakness are conveyed. â€Å"†¦ SHUT UP! † The pirates created emotional Journeys for the refugees as they made them feel vulnerable. The quote is an example of the confidence and power of the pirates because of the emotive language as well as the exclamation mark and capital letters o stress the words. Imaginary and physical Journeys are represented in The Silver Donkey.The novel is about two sisters who find a wounded soldier in the woods. The soldier is trying to get back home so the children help and take care of him. The soldier tells the journeys. For example in one of the tales, an old donkey named Hazel is told to carry a pregnant woman a far distance. The donkey has to try and make it the distance since he is very weak to show his loyalty to his owner. â€Å"Steadily, steadily she walked keeping the da ncing baby safe†¦ † The author uses the technique repetition and alliteration to convey the imaginary Journey. This is not a real life Journey; it is the soldier making up a story.Another type of Journey that is conveyed in The Silver Donkey is the physical Journey of the soldier. The soldier has fled from the awful environment of war. He has been physically damaged resulting in weakness and suffering psychological blindness. â€Å"The soldier struggled to see the boy through the lingering fog in his eyes† This metaphor represents the physical Journey of his blindness. In the film Bend It Like Beckman there are both cultural and emotional Journeys. It is bout an Indian girl, Jess, who loves to play soccer although her family is totally against it as it's not their tradition.Jess has a special talent for the sport and knows that she can succeed in it as a career so she lies to her parent's and secretly Joins a soccer team. Jess' cultural Journey begins when she deci des that she is not going to follow her Indian culture as she can't be herself and please her family. Throughout the film Jess is switching between her fake, home Indian life and her real, outside soccer life. This cultural Journey is represented through music. When Jess is at home, vying an Indian lifestyle, there is sad, Indian music playing.Then when she is outside playing soccer there is upbeat, Joyful music playing. This technique displays that Jess is not happy with wanting to follow her Indian cultural values and is happier being herself. The emotional Journey of Jess' parent's is how they have to learn to accept who Jess is and what she wants to do with her life. At first her parent's are strict on her, not wanting her to play at all but they eventually saw the talent their daughter had and accepted it. Their emotional Journey comes from being ashamed and annoyed to coming proud and happy for their child.This Journey is conveyed from the use of drama and emotions of the acto rs. When the parent's are ashamed, their attitude is angry and disappointed and then when their emotions towards their daughter change they have a more positive attitude. When they have a positive attitude their face softens and their eyes become more warming. In conclusion the three texts studied display the types of emotional, physical, imaginary and cultural Journeys. These Journeys are clearly expressed through the techniques such as personification, onomatopoeia, repetition, music and acting skills.

Friday, August 30, 2019

Lincoln Electric Company Case Essay

After reviewing the case I feel that the main reason of Lincoln’s foreign operation dilemma was because of its unique corporate strategy, which was the similar strategy that made Lincoln so strong in the United States. Lincoln’s competitive advantage in the United States was based in its unique culture and incentive system (Anthony and Govindarajan, 2007). A corporate culture that emphasized open communication and trust began with its top management. Lincoln’s leaders used an approach that encouraged all employees to share their thoughts not only with their managers but also with the CEO (Anthony and Govindarajan, 2007). This corporate wide approach to management, encouraged by the company’s incentive system, created an exceptionally committed and skilled workforce. Lincoln thought that its management style and incentive system would work to regenerate the foreign operations performance by energizing and committing its workers (Anthony and Govindarajan, 20 07). But Lincoln did not realize was that its corporate culture had been created and confirmed for over almost a hundred year and took time to build such a successful corporate culture (Anthony and Govindarajan, 2007). By 1993, Hastings realized the mistakes they had made (Anthony and Govindarajan, 2007). The corporate culture of European countries would not be compatible with their programs. For example, German workers were highly skilled and Germans worked fewer hours a week than Lincoln’s U.S. workers did (Anthony and Govindarajan, 2007). The U.S. workers frequently worked overtime and usually on short notice, which helped to make the incentive system work successfully (Anthony and Govindarajan, 2007). German workers were not as productive as Lincoln’s U.S. workers (Anthony and Govindarajan, 2007). Donald Hastings began to become conscious of what the company was up against. For the first time Lincoln evaluated the projects that it was undertaking with the view of what th e company was facing and what it could actually accomplish (Anthony and Govindarajan, 2007). Lincoln Electric would have to cut back on almost all of the operations it had invested in just a few years prior. Lincoln was forced to begin restructuring plan for all of its foreign operations to go outside the  company to find innovative top management (Anthony and Govindarajan, 2007). In order to improve global operations, I recommend that Lincoln Electric must improve its company relations, its production systems, and its placement in the global community. Lincoln Electric should concentrate on developing and manufacturing inventive products. This action will help Lincoln Electric achieve a competitive advantage to its competitors. Furthermore, contracts should be set up with Lincoln’s supplier and buyers. By creating contracts with the suppliers, Lincoln can lessen material costs and price its products competitively. Additionally, I think that they should have partnerships with great buyers will help in the creation of new products, as well as securing a contractual agreement. Given that Lincoln Electric has gone beyond its experimental global expansion stage, it should carry on such opportunities in profitable and a cost-effective environment. Lincoln should attempt to only come into new markets when it has a firm partner that currently operates in the market. Lincoln’s incentive system should only be put into practice in operations where the workforce and its culture are compatible with their program. This case did alter my viewpoint regarding managing foreign operations. I think that in order to pursue business in another country you must have knowledge of the international markets or cultures. What may work in one country may not work in another country. I think that when deciding which countries to decide to expand in, that all factors regarding culture should be considered. Lincoln Electric Holdings has proven to be a successful, innovative company that holds a immense leadership position in its industry. References: Anthony, R. N., & Govindarajan, V. (2007). Management control systems (12th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

The Sequence of and the Rate of Development Why Is It Important to Understand This Difference

Samantha Larvin CPY 3. 1 – Understanding child and young person’s development. Explain the sequence and rate of each aspect of development from birth to 19 years. NEW BORN BABY Physical – The first few days of a baby’s life are usually composed of long periods of sleep interspersed with short periods when the baby is awake. The duration of wakefulness lengthens gradually and includes periods of fretfulness, crying and calmness. The responsiveness of the baby depends on the state of sleep or wakefulness (Brazelton and Nugent 1995). At birth the arms and legs are characterisitically stiff (hypertonia) and the trunk and neck floppy (hypotonia). Lying on the back (supine) the arms and legs are kept semiflexed and the posture is symmetrical. Babies born after breech presentation usually keep their legs extended. Pulled to sitting, marked head lag is present. Held in a sitting position, the back is curved and the head falls forward. Placed on the abdonmen (prone) the head is promptly turned sideways. The buttocks are humped up, with the knees tucked under the abdonmen. The arms are close to the chest with the elbows fully flexed. Moro Reflex – Is in born, not learnt. It is normally present in new born baby’s to the age of 3 months. When the baby feels it is falling, the arms are flung back with the hands open, the arms are then together as if to clutch hold of something. Palmer grasp – A reflex in new born baby’s to 6 months. If you touch the palm of a baby’s hand, it’s reaction is to curl it’s fingers around your finger and cling to it. Planter – The reflex in the foot, when you stroke the sole of the baby’s foot. Toes spread out and foot turns inwards, up to the age of 12 months. Communication – Within a few days of birth, infants establish interaction with their carers through eye contact, spontaneous or imitative facial gestures and modulation of their sleep-wakefulness state. Intellectual/Cognitive – Babies are sensitive to light and sound at birth through visual responsiveness varies at birth. From birth onwards, or within a few days, infants turn their eyes towards a large and diffuse source of light and close their eyes to sudden bright light. An object or face must be brought to a distance of 30 centimetres to obtain interest and fixation. Infants usually turn their eyes to slowly follow a face. Social, emotional and behavioural – Patterns of interaction and subtle indications of individuality shown by babies from birth onwards strengthen the emotional ties between infants and their carers. 3 MONTH OLD Physical – Lying on back, prefers to lie with head in midline. Limbs more pliable, movements smoother and more continuous. Waves arms symmetrically, hands loosely open. Brings hands together in midline over chest or chin. Kicks vigorously, legs alternating or occasionally together. When pulled to sit, little or no head lag. Held sitting, back is straight except in lumbar region. Head held erect and steady for several seconds before bobbing forwards. Needs support at shoulders when being bathed and dressed. Lying on abdomen, lifts head and upper chest well up in midline, using forearms to support and often actively scratching at surface with hands, with buttocks flat. Held standing with feet on hard surface, sags at knees. Visually very alert, particularly looking at nearby human face. Moves head deliberately to gaze attentively around. Follows adults movements within their visual outlook. Follows dangling toy at 15-25 centimeters from face through half circle horizontally from side to side and usually also vertically from chest to brow. When lying supine watches movements of own hands before face and engages in finger play, opening and closing hands and pressing palms of hands together. Reaches out to grasp with both hands by 16-18 weeks of age. May move head from side to side as if searching for sound source. Quietens to sound of rattle or small bell rung gently out of sight. Communication – Cries when uncomfortable or annoyed. Often sucks or licks lips in response to sounds of preparation for feeding. Shows excitement at sound of approaching voices, footsteps, running bathwater etc. Vocalises delightedly when spoken to or pleased, also when alone. Vocalisations are integrated with smiles, eye contact and hand gestures during turn taking exchanges or ‘protoconversations’. Intellectual/Cognitive – Holds rattle for a few movements when placed in hand, may move towards face, sometimes bashing chin. Babies are starting to learn how to distinguish between faces and show obvious pleasure when they see a familiar face. Social, emotional and behavioural – Fixes eyes unblinkingly on parent’s or carer’s face when feeding, with contented purposeful gaze. Eager anticipation of breast or bottle feed. Beginning to show reactions to familiar situations by smiling, cooing and excited movements. Enjoys bathing and caring routines. Responds with obvious pleasure to friendly handling, especially when accompanied by playful tickling, child-friendly speech and singing. 6 MONTH OLD Physical –Lying on back, raises head up and moves arms up to be lifted. When hands grasped, braces shoulders and pulls self to sitting. Sits with support with head and back straight and turns head from side to side to look around. Can roll over from front to back (prone to supine) around 5 – 6 months and usually from back to front (supine to prone) a little later at around 6-7 months (Bly 1994). Placed on abdomen, lifts head and chest well up, supporting self on extended arms and flattened palms. Bears weight on feet and bounces up and down actively when held in supported standing with feet touching hard surface. Eye colour is established. Teeth may appear. Moves head and eyes eagerly in every direction when attention is distracted. Eyes move in unison. Follows peoples activities across room with purposeful alertness Communication – Vocalises tunefully to self and others, using sing song vowel sounds or single and double syllables i. e ‘a-a’ ‘goo’. Laughs, chuckles and squeals aloud in play. Screams with annoyance. Shows recognition of carer’s facial expressions such as happy or fearful and responds selectively to emotional tones of voice. Intellectual/Cognitive – Immediately stares at interesting small objects or toys within 15 – 30 centimetres. Shows awareness of depth. Stretches out both hands simultaneously to grasp, adjusts arm and hand posture to orientation of the object. Uses whole hand to palmer grasp and passes toy from one hand to another. Drops one object if another is on offer. Listens to voice, even if adult not in view. Turns to source when hears sound at ear level. Social, emotional and behavioural – Shows a happy response to rough and tumble play. Reacts enthusiastically to often repeated games. Shows anticipation responses if carer pauses before high points in nursery rhymes and other action songs. When offered a rattle, reaches for it immediately and shakes deliberately to make a sound, often regarding it closely at the same time. Still friendly with strangers but sometimes shows some shyness or even slight anxiety when approached too nearly or abruptly, especially if familiar adult is out of sight. Moral – 9 MONTH OLD Physical – Pulls self to sitting position. Sits unsupported on the floor and can adjust body posture when leaning forward to pick up and manipulate a toy without losing balance. Can turn body to look sideways while stretching out to pick up toy from floor. Progresses on floor by rolling, wriggling on abdomen or crawling. Pulls to standing, holding on to support for a few moments but cannot lower self and falls backwards with a bump. Held standing, steps purposefully on alternate feet. Only needs a bit of support when sitting on parent’s or carers lap and being dressed. When being carried by an adult supports self in upright position and turns head to look around. Can reach and grab a moving object by moving towards the anticipated position of the moving object. Picks up small object between finger and thumb with ‘inferior’ pincer grasp. Enjoys casting objects over the side of cot or chair. Communication – Shouts to attract attention, listens then shouts again. Babbles loudly and tunefully in long repetitive strings of syllables e. ‘dad-dad ‘mum-mum’. Responds when name is called. Understands ‘no’ and ‘bye bye’. Reacts to where’s mummy/daddy? by looking around. Intellectual/Cognitive – Shows understanding of things that are usually connected, e. g plays with cause and effect toys and pulls on a string to get the connected toy (c asual understanding). Looks in correct direction for falling or fallen toys (permanence of object) – the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard or touched. Jean Piaget argued that this was one of an infant’s most important accomplishments. At 9 months the baby forms multiple attachments as they become increasingly independent, becoming clingy and look for their primary carer. Bowlby (1969) believed attachment is characterised by specific behaviours in children, such as seeking proximity with the attachment figure when upset or threatened. Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emmerson (1964) discovered that baby’s attachments develop in stages. Social, emotional and behavioural – Throws body back and stiffens in annoyance or resistance, usually protesting vocally at same time. Clearly distinguishers strangers from familiars and requires reassurances before accepting their advances, lings to known person and hides face. Still takes everything to mouth. Plays ‘peek-a-boo’ and imitates hand clapping. Offers food to familiar people and animals. Grasps toys in hand and offers to adult but cannot yet give into adult’s hand. Puts hands on breast or around bottle or cup when drinking, tries to grasp spoo n when being fed, enjoys babbling with a mouthful of food. AGE 12 MONTHS Physical – Sits on floor for indefinite time. Can rise to sitting position from lying down with ease. Crawls on hands and knees, shuffles on buttocks or ‘bearwalks’ rapidly about the floor. May crawl upstairs. Pulls to standing and sits down again, holding onto furniture. Walks around furniture lifting one foot and stepping sideways. May stand alone for a few moments. Walks forwards and sideways with one or both hands held. May walk alone. Fine Motor skills – has a mature grasp, picks up small objects with neat pincer grasp between thumb and tip of index finger. By 13 months reaching and grasping become co-ordinated into one smooth action e. g closing of hand starts during approach and well before touching the object. Communication – Babbles loudly and incessantly in ‘jargon’. Shows by behaviour that some words are understood in usual context i. e car, drink, cat. Understands simple instructions with a gesture, such as ‘come to mummy’. Will follow the gaze of an adult (joint visual attention). Points to objects and then looks back to the adult for a reaction, for the purposes of requesting or eliciting a comment from the adult (Tomasello 1995). Intellectual/Cognitive – Drops and throws toys forwards deliberately and watches them fall to ground. Looks in correct place for toys which fall out of sight. Points with index finger at objects of interest. Uses both hands freely but may show preference for one. Holds two toy bricks, one in each hand with tripod grasp, and bangs together to make noise. Locates sounds from any direction well. Immediately responds to own name. Will put objects in and out of cup or box when shown. Plays ‘pat-a-cake’ and waves ‘good-bye’. Demonstrates understanding by use of objects, e. g hair brush (definition by use). Social, emotional and behavioural – Takes objects to mouth less often. Very little, if any, drooling of saliva. Likes to be insight and hearing of familiar people. Demonostrates affection to familiars. Enjoys joint play with adults, actively switching attention between objects and adult (co-ordinated joint attention). Shows recognition of familiar tunes by trying to join in. 18 MONTHS Physical – Walks well with feet only slightly apart, starts and stops safely. Runs carefully, head held erect in midline, eyes fixed on ground 1-2 metres ahead but finds difficulty in negotiating obstacles. Pushes and pulls large toys or boxes along the floor. Enjoys climbing and will climb forwards into adults chair, then turn around and sit. Walks upstairs with helping hand and sometimes downstairs. Kneels upright on flat surface without support. Flexes knees and hips in squatting position to pick up toy from floor and rises to feet using hands as support. Communication – Chatters continually to self during play, with conversational intonation and emotional inflections. Listens and responds to spoken communications addressed directly to self. Uses between six and twenty recognisable words and understands many more. Echoes prominent or last word in short sentences addressed to self. Hands familiar objects to adult when requested (even if more than one option available). Obeys simple instructions, i. shut the door, get your shoes. Beginning to give notice of urgent toilet needs by restlessness and vocalisation. Bowel control may be attained but very variable, may indicate wet or soiled pants. Intellectual/Cognitive – Picks up small objects immediately on sight with delicate pincer grasp. Recognises familiar people at a distance and points to distant interesting objec ts when outdoors. Enjoys simple picture books, often recognising and putting index finger on boldly cooured items on page. Turns several pages at a time. Holds pencil in mid or upper shaft in whole hand in a pronated grip. Spontaneous to and fro scribble and dots, using either hand alone or sometimes with pencils in both hands. Builds tower of three cubes after demonstration and sometimes spontaneously. Enjoys putting small objects in and out of containers and learning the relative size of objects. Beginning to show preference for using one hand. Assists with dressing and undressing, taking off shoes, socks and hat. Social, emotional and behavioural – Explores environment energetically and with increasing understanding, no sense of danger. No longer takes toys to mouth. Treats dolls and teddies as baby’s, ie hugging, feeding etc. Still casts objects to floor in play or anger, but less often and seldom troubles visually to verify arrival on target. Exchanges toys, both co-operatively and in conflict with peers. 2 YEAR OLD Physical – Runs safely on whole foot, stopping and starting with ease and avoiding obstacles. Squats with complete steadiness to rest or to play with an object on the ground and rises to feet without using hands. Pushes and pulls large wheeled toys easily forward and usually able to walk backwards pulling handle. Pulls small wheeled toy by chord with obvious appreciation of direction. Climbs on furniture to look out of window or to open doors and can get down again. Walks upstairs and downstairs holding onto rail or wall, two feet to a step. Communication – Uses fifty or more recognisable words appropriately and understands many more. Puts two or more words together to form simple sentences. Can understand verbal instructions and react to them and begins to listen with obvious interest to general conversation. Knows and uses their own name and talks to self continually during play but may be not understood to others. Constantly asks names of objects and people, joins in nursery rhymes and action songs. Can carry out simple instructions i. e ‘go and get your teddy and put it in the bag’. Intellectual/Cognitive – Shows increasing understanding of size of self in relation to size and position of objects in the environment and to enclosed spaces such as a cupboard or cardboard box. Good manipulative skills; picks up tiny objects accurately and quickly and places down neatly with increasing skill. Can match square, circular and triangular shapes in a simple jigsaw. Holds a pencil down near towards the point, using thumb and first two fingers, mostly uses preferred hand. Builds tower of six or seven cubes. Enjoys picture books, recognising fine details in favourite pictures. Turns pages singly. Can name and match pictures with toys or with other pictures. Social, emotional and behaviour – Follows parent/carer around the house and copies domestic activities in simultaneous play i. e hoovering. Extremely curious about environment, turns door handles and often runs outside without thought of common dangers. Constantly demanding parent/carer’s attention. Clings tightly in affection, fatigue or fear although resistive and rebellious when stopping them doing something they enjoy. Tantrums when frustrated or in trying to make self understood, but attention is usually readily distracted. Defends own possessions with determination. Resentful of attention shown to other children particularly by own familiars. Moral – May take turns but as yet little idea of sharing either toys or attention. AGE 3 – 7 YEARS Physical – At this stage, children will be able to carry out more co-ordinated movements e. g walking up and down stairs, moves rhythmically to music, grips strongly with either hand, throws and catches a ball well. They will be refining their skills developed so far and will have more control over fine motor skills such as writing, cutting and drawing. Children will be more confident in activities such as running, hopping and kicking a ball and using larger equipment. Throughout this time children should be out of nappies and toilet trained for both day and night. Communication – Speech becomes fluent, loves to be read and told stories. Gives full name, age and birthday. Delights in reciting or singing rhymes and jingles, enjoys jokes and riddles. As children become more social and have wider experiences, they start to use an increasing number of familiar phrases and expressions. They will also ask large numbers of questions and will be able to talk about things in the past and future tenses with greater confidence. Defines concrete nouns by use. Shows sense of humour in talk and social activities. Intellectual/Cognitive – This will be a period of development in which children are becoming skilled at aspects of number and writing, as well as continuing to learn about their world, they will still be looking for adult approval and learning to read. Throws and catches a ball well, plays all varieties of ball games with considerable ability, including those requiring appropriate placement or scoring according to accepted rules. Builds elaborate models when shown, holds cubes with the ulnar fingers tucked in and the hand diagonal to get a better view. Can cut a strip of paper neatly using scissors, can colour pictures neatly, staying within outlines. Can use knife and fork competently. Becomes competent in riding first a tricycle, pushing the feet along the floor and then moving onto a bike with stabilisers, and finally learning to ride a bike without stabilisers. Social, emotional and behavioural – Children will be developing their own identities and will be starting to play with their peers and socialise using imaginative play. This will help them to develop their concept of different roles in their lives. It is important that they are able to learn the importance of boundaries and why they are necessary. They will also respond well to being given responsibility i. e class helpers, dinner money monitors and fruit monitors and will need adult approval. Chooses own friends, can play co-operatively with peers most of the time and understands the need for rules and fair play. Appreciates meaning of time in relation to daily programme. Moral – Shows concern for younger siblings and sympathy for playmates in distress. Understands taking turns as well as sharing. Children should have understanding of respecting each other and adults alike and understand boundaries and rules. AGE 7 TO 11 Physical – Children between this age group enjoy participating in many sports, i. e playing football, being part of a football team in and out of school, going swimming, dancing, gymnastics etc. Communication – By this stage most children will be fluent speakers of a language and will be developing and refining their skills of reading and writing. Their language skills will enable them to think about and discuss their ideas and learning in more abstract terms. Intellectual/Cognitive – Children start to develop ideas about activities they enjoy, they will still be influenced by adults and are becoming fluent in reading and writing skills. They will be developing their own thoughts and preferences and will be able to transfer information and think in a more abstract way. Social, emotional and behavioural – Children’s friendships will become more settled and they will have groups of friends. There is some evidence to suggest that boys friendships are likely to be group based while girls prefer closer but fewer friendships. They will need to have the chance to solve problems and carry out activities which require more independence. They will still need praise and encouragement and will become more aware of what others may think of them. Moral – AGE 12 TO 16 YEARS Physical – Behaviour in this age range is complex. Children physically are changing and hormones might be affecting their moods. In addition, young people will be making the transition from dependence on family to independence. Communication – Young people should be encouraged to talk and negotiate their own boundaries, and be encouraged to be independent. Intellectual/Cognitive – Young people will usually now have a clear idea about their favourite subjects or activities and will usually be motivated in these areas. They will be reflecting on their achievements and choosing their learning pathway. They may lack confidence or avoid situations in which they have to do less popular subjects, to the extent they may truant. Social, emotional and behavioural – At this stage the self esteem of children and young people can be very vulnerable, their bodies will be taking on the outer signs of adulthood but they will still need guidance in many different ways, they will want to be independent of adults and spend more time with friends of their own age, but can continue to display childish behaviour. It is particularly important to teenagers that they feel good about themselves and want to belong. Moral – They can find that they are under the pressures of growing up and have increasing expectations and may be unsure on how to behave in different situations. Young people can find themselves caught between wanting to remain in a group but not wanting to adopt the group’s values and behaviour. AGE 16 TO 19 YEARS Physical – Communication – Intellectual/cognitive – By the time they come to leave school young people will be thinking about career choices based on the pathway and subjects they have selected they will be able to focus on their areas of strength and look forward to continue to develop these as they move on. Social, emotional and behavioural – Children enter adulthood will still sometimes need advice and guidance from other adults. They will lack experience and individuals will vary in emotional maturity and the way in which they interact with others. Moral – B. Explain the difference between: The sequence of and the rate of development: Each child is unique and will develop at their own rate, while they usually follow the same pattern of development the ages at which they reach them may vary. Milestones of development are given as a broad average of when children may be expected to attain a particular stage. You may notice in particular classes or year groups, some children may stand out as they have reached milestones earlier or later than other children. Sometimes if children’s growth patterns are very different from their peers this may have an effect on their behaviour. For example children in the last two years of primary school may become taller and develop some of the first signs of puberty. Girls in particular can become much taller than boys and this can put pressure on them to behave differently. There may need to be additional provision made in these cases for example when getting changed to PE there may also be pupils who are very tall or very small for their age and this can sometimes affect how they are treated by their peers. It can also affect social and emotional development. The patterns of development discussed here should therefore be seen as a guide to help you draw up an overall idea of these different stages. Why is it important to understand this difference:

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Halewood Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Halewood - Essay Example Halewood must be cognizant of the fact that it is very difficult to introduce a new product in the market and this is even worsen if there are alternative product that has been in the market for a long time that will be posing a challenge. It thus needs several strategy measures to ensure that the expectedniche is occupied in the market, among other things that will affect their marketing strategy in this case includes; Competition from Alternative Products In designing their marketing and service delivery strategy, the company should look at the issue of alternative products in terms of prices, availability, and the customer’s loyalty associated with them. This is very important in coming up with a marketing strategy that will counter strong sense of establishment in the market from other products. Prices of the alternative products will play a significant role in affecting Halewood marketing strategy because for them to make a break through, they have to retail at a cost low er than those of the established product. The cost of the alternative products will thus be very critical for Halewood to make informed choice on how best they should sell their products in the market in order to have a competitive edge. The availability of the product is equally important for Halewood to evaluate the strategy that should be used to make the product have sufficient inroads in most of the prospective market zones. In most cases, one will find that products availability are skewed to one zone than others, with this realization, Halewood are able to have different strategies in the different areas based on the intensity of other products in the different areas. In an area with more competitive products, there will be intense marketing than those areas that do not experience business rivalry on the same product. Product’s Strength in the Market Halewood will have to consider their product’s strength that the competitive products are not giving, Like in the case of the new product being introduced, the company came up with this taste to provide a solution for those who want an alternative product to consume other than Alcohol or caffeine. This is the strength of the product the company has come up with that probably most business competitors are not providing; most of the probable competitors provide purely alcohol or soft drinks. In this case, Halewood will be providing an intermediary product that will cater for the needs of those who do not want alcohol and caffeine in the afternoon. In their marketing, this should be boldly captured so that the prospective customers can know the unique taste that is provided by the new product (Lawley, 2007, p.83). The fact that the new product is designed in a way to bring in a new taste in the market should be categorically captured in the marketing strategy so that the customers will develop the urge to have its taste and make choice out of it. Understanding Competition Introduction of every ne w product in the market meets an existing competition, to effectively compete with those companies that are already established or introduce customers to new products, a lot has to be done in relation to understanding strategies used by other companies. This will involves researching on the marketing strategies of the competitive companies so that a good understanding of their strengths and weaknesses are known. This will help Halewood to devise a marketing strategy that will counter those that are played by the competitors, it is important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors in deciding which option to consider (Lawley, 2007, p.88). Having known the weakness and the strengths of the competitor

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

The Journey of the Life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Journey of the Life - Essay Example I never got along well with my brothers, especially the eldest one. For some reason, they always picked on me and I started to hate my childhood. Though I made efforts to do whatever was in my reach to defend myself, it never worked for us. If I look bad at all those years, I think that my life as a child wasn't that bad as I thought it was but many times I felt I had nobody I could talk to. I felt very lonely in life. When I was at the age of 11, I visited New York and there I decided to stay with my mother to finish my education. But, unfortunately, my mother also did not understand me. I felt so frustrated that I started to make more and more friends and began to socialize as much as possible to be able to speak out my mind in front of my friends. Whenever I felt the need to vent, I spoke or met my friends and felt light at heart. At least, I had few people in life whom I could turn to in such times. The adolescence age according to Erik Erikson is an age when we try to find our i dentity amidst social issues which surround us. That is the age when we discover ourselves as individuals. We try to fight with the world and with moral issues and if by chance we are unsuccessful, we experience "role confusion." (Harder A, 2002).

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Cause and Effect of the Unemployment Rate Term Paper

Cause and Effect of the Unemployment Rate - Term Paper Example The paper will also try to identify other causes for such extraordinary situation not seen ever before. Understanding Phillips Curve Below is a typical Phillips Curve drawn for the period between 1961 to 1969 as unemployment rate versus inflation rate. Source: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PhillipsCurve.html The curve shows inverse relationship between the unemployment rate and inflation. During the years 1961-67, as unemployment rate rises from 4 percent to 6 percent, inflation rate reduces from 3 to 1 percent. A way back in those years, Philips curve was used as a guide for policy makers. To reduce the unemployment rate from 6 percent to 5 percent, the government would think of stimulating the economy by spending more but later on Phelps and Friedman put forward their views that in order to achieve lower unemployment rate government cannot trade with higher inflation rate. If unemployment is at the natural rate and the real wage also remains constant and the government uses mo netary and fiscal policy tools to lower unemployment rate below its natural rate, then the resultant increase in demand will encourage firms to raise their prices quickly and would like to pay more. Due to this, labor supply will increase and unemployment rate goes down. This is an illusion for labor as price will rise more rapidly than they would anticipate. The moment they feel the pinch of inflation, labor supply gets reduced at the old wage rates or they will demand increase in wages. In this process, real wage gets back to its previous level and the unemployment rate comes back to the natural rate. The price inflation continues at the higher rates due to expansionary fiscal policies. (Hoover 2008) Friedman’s and Phelps’s analyses explained first time that Phillips curves behave differently in the long run. The average inflation rate in 1960s was about 2.5 percent which rose to 7 percent in the 1970s; however during the same period the unemployment rate did not fal l but increased from about 4 percent to about 6 percent. This implied that at some rate of unemployment there would always be a stable rate of inflation. This came to be known as NAIRU (nonaccelerating inflation rate of unemployment). NAIRU is presented here below for the period between 1945 and 2000. (Hoover 2008) Source: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PhillipsCurve.html NAIRU does not suggest that unemployment rate is constant unlike natural rate of unemployment. Milton Friedman developed the Expectations-Augmented Phillips Curve that explained the breakdown of the Phillips Curve. The Expectations-Augmented Phillips Curve for the period from 1976 up to 2002 for the changes in the rate of inflation versus unemployment rate is plotted as per the following. (Hoover 2008) http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PhillipsCurve.html The chart shows NAIRU at about 6 percent. Assuming a situation when economy is at NAIRU, rate of inflation at 3 percent, and the government wants to reduce it to zero. The chart suggests that monetary and fiscal policy which drives unemployment rate from 6 to 7 percent brings down the inflation rate by 1 percentage point. If fiscal management causes unemployment rate to remain at 7 percent; it will take almost three years for inflation to reach to zero. The expectations-augmented Phillips Curve is considered a most basic macroeconomic forecasting tool used by most of the central banks while modulating fiscal policies. Most diverse schools of macroeconomic thought accept the applicability of this model. It is

Monday, August 26, 2019

Case study IT and Business (Maturity rating) Essay

Case study IT and Business (Maturity rating) - Essay Example ] a culture of plain talking, and telling it as it was†¦removed the notion of an individual win (p.7) and that for special arrangements†¦ all were treated straight forwardly and professionally (p.7). The relationship between business and IT for Sunshine State was commendable considering that they formed joint teams to work on the project. Leadership was also evident in that we see the external suppliers being given autonomy so long as they meet their deliverables. This element of trust and knowledge sharing must have been a big contributor to the project’s success. And what about the number of dissatisfied customers? In the end, there were only 167 of them, and most of these were dissatisfied with their share allocation rather than the share dealing system (p.9). The fortnightly report†¦ was a list of milestones... it had a list of things achieved in the last 2 weeks, a list of things to be achieved in the next 2 weeks, and a set of issues for management attention (p.6). The aim here is to have a formal process that ensures that assessment and reviews of the IT investment by Sunshine State allows for changes to be made based on the outcome of the reviews. Thus by instilling a culture of open communication the company is able to ensure that assessments based on the IT and business metric and service level agreements are analysed and spoken of truthfully such that an iterative process of constant improvement is developed. The programme office was tasked with the development of high level plans that would steer the company towards its longer term objective while not losing sight of the immediate need for an IT system ready for the IPO. The nominee account and bulk dealing where all cost control measures that fitted well with the IT strategic plan and allowed for budgetary control. The longer term objectives concerned the capability for further development and it was recognised early on that it would be possible to make share dealing and related activities a

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Carmax System in China Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Carmax System in China - Essay Example The company expects to open five new stores in 2012 in the U.S market, with a total of 103 used car stores across U.S by the end of 2011, making CarMax the largest used car company in the U.S. The online market is the most active market, with more than 75% of used car customers in the country visiting the company’s websites, or buying their cars online (CarMax, 2011). The company has an integrated RFID system that tracks vehicles as an inventory management system; the system tracks vehicles throughout the purchase life; from the purchase, to reconditioning, test drives to the final sale (CarMax, 2011). The use of the Radio Frequency Identification ensures that all vehicles in the company are scanned accordingly, tracked to prevent any possible theft or losses in the process. The use of RFID makes each vehicle to be linked to sales consultant, and aids in tracking the market pricing in wholesale of vehicles. The use of the RFID technology is critical in ensuring the management has the required real time information concerning storage and transportation, inventory, pricing, vehicle transfers, auctions, productivity, credit process, information among other processes (CarMax, 2011). In addition to the above inventory management, the Electronic Repair Order System (ERO) is strategically used in reconditioning processes, and procedures in the company. The technology enhances quality, while reducing costs, which are then transferred to the customer as enhanced services and profitability (CarMax, 2011). The above information technology in inventory tracking, and in managing the repair works ensure that the company has a competitive advantage over other second hand car dealers in U.S. CarMax in United States market is highly developed with leading technologies in inventory and repair process. This is due to the high volume of cars handed by the company annually, with large auction stores; about 103 stores across the U.S. CarMax Co. Ltd is a car accessory distribu tor for Hotai Motor Co. Ltd, a Taiwan based distributor of Japanese car maker, Toyota (CNA, 2011). The company started its operations in China in March 2011, by initiating two branches dealing with used cars, and car systems. According to Hotai, used car market in china is still at its infancy as at 2011, but with a great growth potential expected. In China, the total car sales are about 20 million units, compared to the 300,000 units sold annually in Taiwan (CNA, 2011). Currently, the high sales volume of used cars in China portrays a rapid increase in the used cars market that will certainly surpass the purchase of new cars in the near future. A Study report conducted by Arthur D. Little, a world renown management consulting firm, indicates the annual sales volume of used cars in China will surpass the sales of new cars, by the year 2020 (Tong, 2011). The compound annual growth of used cars in China between 2006 and 2012 was about 25%, and predicted to grow at much higher rates in the future. However, the Chinese used car market is on the budding stage, with more Chinese realizing a fertile market in used cars, boosted by increasing business in rental cars. The standard of used cars will mature with time, and the ratio of used cars to new cars expected to be more than 1 in the near future (Tong, 2011). Therefore, CarMax looks forward for a booming business in used car market in China in the near future. The improving used car market has led CarMax to open two new branches in China; in preparation for the expected high demand of used cars in future. China has become the world leading market for RFID by value. For example, in 2008 the East Asia countries bought an equivalent of about $2.8 billion of the $5.29 worth of RFID spent globally. China alone spent $1.96 billion to

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Case study Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Case study - Coursework Example Rajaratnam had a continuous pattern of using insider trading to make millions of dollars in profits. Typically insider trading occurs as one time tips that a person exploits. A smart insider trader will not abuse his knowledge to earn money to stay off the radar of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Greed was the primary factor that led to the demise of Raj Rajaratnam. The financial market suffered a risk in regards to the integrity of Wall Street as a whole. The SEC discovered during its rigorous investigation of the insider trading activities of Raj Rajaratnam that insider trading was more widespread across America than what the authorities thought. Raj Rajaratnam had a network of informants he paid for the insider information he used. During the investigation 16 people were charged with financial crimes. It appears as if insider trading is more widespread than anyone ever thought. The reason insider trading is illegal is because it gives the recipient of the information an unfair advantage in comparison with the typical investor2. The stock market is supposed to have asymmetry and everyone should have the same information. It is my opinion that the judge was completely correct in the harsh sentence he gave out to Raj Rajaratnam. The judge said, â€Å"His crimes and the scope of his crimes reflect a virus in our business culture that needs to be eradicated.† Insider trading is no joke; it hurts the integrity of the financial market, while at the same time giving an unethical trader an advantage which he can capitalize to receive a personal benefit. Rich insider traders can affect the whole market by making huge buy or sell orders on a particular stock. The large trade can alter the day’s price quotation on a stock. Raj Rajaratnam was a greedy dragon that wanted to get rich quick at the expense of the investor community. It is a bit sad that Raj Rajaratnam resorted to the illicit activity since he was already a millionaire and he did

Friday, August 23, 2019

LAMPOSTS CLAIM IN THE LAW OF TORT Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

LAMPOSTS CLAIM IN THE LAW OF TORT - Case Study Example But the safety crew did not give the warning. Such failure of BBC, through the safety crew, is considered negligent which caused Jones' accident. Thus, the BBC was liable for Jones' injuries. The cameraman and Jones worked as a team because their equipment was linked. Jones with his equipment was following the cameraman who had decided to pass beneath the mast thereby leading Jones into the hazardous area. The cameraman was then in breached of his duty of care and the BBC was vicariously liable for that negligence. In Wilsons & Clyde Coal Company, Limited v English, [1938] A.C. 57, the House of Lords stated as follows: " primarily the master has a duty to take due care to provide and maintain a reasonably safe system of working in the mine, and a master, who has delegated the duty of taking due care in the provision of a reasonably safe system of working to a competent servant, is responsible for a defect in the system of which he had no knowledge" Breach of Employer's Duty. Following the rulings in the Jones and Wilsons cases, it is clear that the football club is under a duty of care to provide Lampost with competent fellow employees, properly maintained site and facilities, and to provide a safe place and system of work. The question of whether the football club breached that duty of care depends on the standard of care owed by the defendant football club to its employee and whether it has taken reasonable steps considering the circumstances. (Latimer v A.E.C. Ltd.[1953]) In Jones, the breach of the employer's duty consists in BBC's failure (through its safety crew) to discuss with the cameraman and Jones the risk of the falling mast and to warn the cameraman and Jones in unequivocal terms that they must not go beneath it. In Wilsons, the breach by the employer consists of its failure to provide competent fellow employees, properly maintained mine and equipment, and to provide a safe place and system of work. In the case of Lampost, the failure of the football club to provide sufficient number of medical personnel and immediate treatment which caused Lampost's permanent limp and disability to play professional football constitutes a breach of the standard care required of the football club. Under the circumstances, having only one emergency doctor during a match is far from meeting the reasonable standard of care. First, it can reasonably be expected that injuries are bound to occur in a football match because, by the very nature of the game alone, it is physically strenuous and demanding. Second, it is a mathematical fact that the game is played by at least 22 players and having only one doctor during a match clearly does not meet the required standard of care. Third, considering that it was a premiership match, it can reasonably be expected that players are more competitive than usual and thus, injuries are bound to result from the matches. Hence, the football club should have hired more than one do ctor. Moreover, following McDermid v Nash Dredging and Reclamation Co. Ltd. [1987], it can also be inferred that the football club is in breach

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Study case (Information Resources Management) Essay - 5

Study case (Information Resources Management) - Essay Example The two should start with a baseline understanding of all the items of IT that the company spends its money. After identification, they should focus on helping the company develop strategies that will help focus on the highest value spending from the standpoint of supporting the business units (Rabin 202). The process will involve an understanding of the IT’s contribution to the business units that posed as intermittent and contentious in the past. They should aim at creating a process to start a dialogue between IT and the business units. The CIO should ask the consultant to help him in analysis of the portfolio and budgeting, provision of discipline and structure that enables him to sort through and get to the business cases for IT spending (Law 307). The CIO should develop insights that will enable the business leaders and the IT management to put up processes that will lead to IT priority agreements. It will also enable the process of creation of a detailed, pragmatic and dynamic view of key IT initiatives and objectives (Rabin 203). The CIO should initiate strategies that will lead to development of clear, business-focused, and flexible action plans. The CIO and the IT experts should device ways that will educate the business-unit leaders as to how IT could be directly integrated into their business plans and become a key enabler to achieve results. Apart from reviewing the effectiveness of the company’s global IT budget, the CIO should also consider the elements of the strategic plan and device ways to ef fectively implement the resolutions (Rabin 204). One of the executive level decisions that can be made in order to influence the directions of the company is developing a CIO authority and pulling the CEO to support the authority based on consultant documentation (Law 309). Decision-making is the core of all business activities. The executives should set strategies and weigh a variety of factors to arrive at the desired balance of risk

Violent video Games Essay Example for Free

Violent video Games Essay There is perhaps no bigger or more important issue in America right now than youth violence. Our children are being fed a dependable daily dose of violence-and it sells. The affects on childrens behavior from violent video games is a newly, well-researched topic for psychologists. Violent video games are giving our children the practice and experience needed to act out these aggressive behaviors in the real world. Alienated, disaffected youths, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, vent their anger to get famous by shooting up their school. On April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, these two young men carried out a shooting rampage. They killed twelve fellow students and a teacher, as well as wounding twenty-four others, before committing suicide. It is considered to be the deadliest school shooting, and the second deadliest attack on a school in US History (DeGaetano 47). Both of these boys were drowning in a violent pop culture of bloody movies and video games. High on the morning of April 20, 1999, before the massacre, Dylan and Eric filmed their own back story videos, explaining their aims and motives. Its going to be like f**king Doom! Harris said on one of the tapes, referring to his favorite shoot-em-up video game. Tick-tock, tick, tick? Ha!? Straight out of Doom! (qtd. in Steyer 70). These two young boys had played this game very often and were so used to the violence of killing innocent people with no remorse. They gained the experience and knowledge from this video game on how to kill other human beings while getting a sense of satisfaction. A direct link between violent video games and increasing rates of violence among children is right in your backyard with this chilling story. In Paducah, Kentucky a fourteen-year-old boy, Michael Carneal, steals a gun from a neighbors house, brings it to school, and fires eight shots into a student prayer meeting that is breaking up. Prior to stealing the gun, he had never shot a real handgun in his life. The FBI says that the average experienced law enforcement officer, in the average shootout, at an average range of seven yards, hits with approximately one bullet in five. So how many hits did Michael Carneal make? He fired eight shots; ho got eight hits, on eight different kids. Five of them were headshots, and the other three were upper torso. The result was three dead and one paralyzed for life. Nowhere in law enforcement or military history can an equivalent achievement be found. And these from a boy on his first try. How did Michael Carneal acquire this kind of killing ability? Simple: practice. At the age of fourteen he had practiced killing thousands of people. His simulators were point-and-shoot video games he played for hundreds of hours in video arcades and in the comfort of his own home. His superhuman accuracy, combined with the fact that he stood still, firing two handed, and firing only one shot at each target, are all behaviors that are completely unnatural to either trained or native shooters, behaviors that could only have been learned in a video game. If you do not think these games resemble the real thing, you should know that the military and law enforcement communities use video marksmanship training simulators to supplement their training. And the most popular simulator the United States Army uses in a minor modification of a popular Super Nintendo game. Across America we are reaping the bitter harvest of this training as ever more kids are shooting other individuals that they have a grudge against. A horrific development in this is that rather than just stopping with their intended target, these kids keep firing- and a simple grudge turns into a mass murder (DeGaetano 4, 9, 74). As a player in the video game your goal is simply to rack up the highest score as quickly as possible. And, many of the video games (such as House of the Dead, Golden-eye, or Turock) give bonus effects for headshots (Gerdes 61). These kind of video games provide the motor reflexes responsible for over 75% of the firing on the modern battlefield. In addition, they provide violent suggestions and reinforcement for violent behavior. These games teach young people to kill with all the precision of a military training program, but none of the character training that goes along with it (Gerdes 62). For children who get the right training at home and who have theability to distinguish between real and unreal consequences, they are still games. But for children who are especially vulnerable to the lure of violence, they can be far more. Even more than violent television and movies, violent video games have been shown to increase aggression among those who play them. It seems as if even a brief exposure to these games can temporarily increase ones aggressiveness. Researchers stated that Violent video games provide a forum for learning and practicing aggressive solutions to conflict situations. New aggression-related scripts can become more and more accessible for use when real-life conflict situations arise (qtd. in Steyer 90). One study reveals that young men who are habitually aggressive may be especially vulnerable to the aggression-enhancing effects of repeated exposure to violent games (Violent). Violent video games have stronger effects on childrens aggression because the games are highly appealing and interactive. Also, the games are rewarding violent behavior, and because children repeat these behaviors over and over as the play. The more often children rehearse violent acts; the more likely they are to commit them in real life. This is what makes electronic games different from more inactive experiences of violence, in movies and on television. Through practice, the use of violence can become a learned response- a scripted reflex like the trigger rate effectively refined by the army (Steyer 90-91). There can be intense psychological effects from playing interactive video games. Recent research has begun to find connections between childrens playing of violent video games and later aggressive behavior. A research review done by the National Coalition on Television Violence found that 9 of 12 research studies on the impact of violent video games on normal children and adolescents reported harmful effects. In general, while video game playing has not been implicated as a direct cause of severe psychopathology, research suggests that there is a short-term relationship between playing violent video games and increased aggressive behavior in younger children (Steyer 130). Violent video games appear to also put the human brain in a mood to fight, according to a new study from Michigan State University. In the study, 13 males played the first-person shooter game Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror while in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) system, which measures brain activity. The brain scans of 11 of thesubjects exhibited large observed effects, a characteristic of aggressive thoughts. The researchers said the pattern of brain activity could be considered to be cause by virtual violence. fMRI monitors the brain and examines how different types of physical sensation or activity stimulate it. Sight, sound, touch and other physical sensations show up on an fMRI image. Increased blood flow to a section of the brain indicated increased activity. Playing violent video games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D or Mortal Combat can increase a persons aggressive thoughts, feelings and behavior both in laboratory settings and in actual life, according to two studies. Furthermore, violent video games may be more harmful than violent television and movies because they are interactive, very engrossing and require the player to identify with the aggressor, say the researchers. Psychologists Craig A. Anderson, Ph. D. , and Karen E. Dill, Ph. D. said, One study reveals that young men who are habitually aggressive may be especially vulnerable to the aggression-enhancing effects of repeated exposure to violent games. The other study reveals that even a brief exposure to violent video games can temporarily increase aggressive behavior in all types of participants. The first study involved 227 college students who completed a measure of trait aggressiveness and reported their actual aggressive behaviors (delinquency) in the recent past. They also reported their video game playing habits. We found that students who reported playing more violent video games in junior and high school engaged in more aggressive behavior, said lead author Anderson, of Iowa State University. We also found that amount of time spent playing video games in the past was associated with lower academic grades in college. In the second study, 210 college students played either a violent (Wolfenstein 3D) or nonviolent video game (Myst). A short time later, the students who played the violent video game punished an opponent (received a noise blast with varying intensity) for a longer period of time than did students who had played the nonviolent video game. Violent video games provide a forum for learning and practicing aggressive solutions to conflict situations, said Dr. Anderson. In the short run, playing a violent video game appears to affect aggression by priming aggressive thoughts. Longer-term effects are likely to be longer lasting as well, as the player learns and practices new aggression-related scripts thatcan become more and more accessible for use when real-life conflict situations arise. One major concern is the active nature of the learning environment of the video game, say the authors. This medium is potentially more dangerous than exposure to violent television and movies, which are known to have substantial effects on aggression and violence (Video 220-235). Violent video games can increase aggressive behavior in children and adolescents, both in the short- and long-term, according to an empirical review of the last 20 years of research. These findings are presented at the 113th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in Washington, DC. According to researchers Jessica Nicoll, B. A. , and Kevin M. Kieffer, Ph. D. , of Saint Leo University, youth who played violent video games for a short time experienced an increase in aggressive behavior following the video game. One study showed participants who played a violent game for less than 10 minutes rate themselves with aggressive traits and aggressive actions shortly after playing. In another study of over 600 8th and 9th graders, the children who spent more time playing violent video games were rated by their teachers as more hostile than other children in the study. The children who played more violent video games had more arguments with authority figures and were more likely to be involved in physical altercations with other students. They also performed more poorly on academic tasks. Violent video game players tend to imitate the moves that they just acted out in the game they played, said Dr. Kieffer. For example, children who played violent karate games duplicated this type of behavior while playing with friends. These findings demonstrate the possible dangers associated with playing this type of video game over and over again. The authors also found that boys tend to play video games for longer periods of time than girls. Boys may play more of these types of video games, said Kieffer, because women are portrayed in subordinate roles and the girls may find less incentive to play. But those girls who did play violent video games, according to the review, were more likely to prefer playing with an aggressive toy and were more aggressive when playing. Both Nicoll and Kieffer say that the recent changes that put age limits and rating systems on games make it more difficult for young children to purchase and play these video games. But, say the psychologists,future research needs to explore why many children and adolescents prefer to play a violent video game rather than play outside, and why certain personalities are drawn to these types of games (Playing). The observational studies looking at childrens free play, tended to show that children become more aggressive after either playing or observing a violent video game. At a theoretical level, these evidences suggest empirical data supporting the social learning theory. As others have cautioned, the validity and reliability of the procedures used to measure aggressions should be questioned (Griffiths, 99; Cooper Mackie, 19). The limiting conditions under which video games may have an affect that were considered were gender, age, and class/level of education. With regards to gender, although few studies looking at the differential effects were found, the study mentioned above suggests that females are more affected by video game violence than males. Cooper and Mackie, which inexperience with video games led to greater arousal, suggested one hypothesis for this difference. Another possibility may be that since males have been found is have more experience with video games; they may have become more desensitized to the violence than females. Once again, more research is necessary to draw conclusions on the differential effects of video game violence on gender. When age was look at it was discovered that age played no significant part in determining if a player was affected by the content of video games or not. The difference of age showed up in the manifestation of its affect. Herz introduces an interesting explanation of this increase in aggressive behavior of children. A large number of the studies involved adolescent children; these children are at an age when they are naturally violent, aggressive and moody. So when put in a situation with increased agitation like many of the studies involved, increases in aggressive behavior may be natural regardless of stimulation. While this particular situation is not true of older students the method of study does need to be questioned. The effects of education levels and economic class have not yet been looked at, possibly due to a lack in conclusive evidence showing an overall relation (Herz, 51-59). I couldnt make myself clearer when I say that there is a deadly link between this kind of graphic imagery and the escalating incidence of youth violence. Violent video games are giving our children the practice and experience needed to act out these aggressive behaviors in the real world. If you dont think that these games resemble the real thing, you should take some time to play one of these games once. You will be absolutely shocked as to what our children are seeing on a daily basis. Works Cited Cooper, Joel, Mackie, Diane. Video Games and Aggression in Children. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. Vol. 16, No. 8, 726-744. DeGaetano, Gloria, and Dave Grossman. Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill. New York: Crown, 1999. France, Bill. Violent video games are training children to kill. HeraldNet 18 Nov 2003. 19 Oct 2005 . Gerdes, Louis. Media Violence. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven, 2004. Griffiths, Mark. Violent Video Games and Aggression: A Review of the Literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior. Vol. 4, No. 10, 203-212. Herz, J. C. Joystick Nation: HowVideogames Ate Our Quartes, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds. Toronto: Little, Brown Company, 1997. Steyer, James P. The Other Parent. New York: Atria Books, 2002. Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life, Craig A. Anderson, Ph. D. , Iowa State University of Science and Technology and Karen E. Dill, Ph. D. , Lenoir-Rhyne College, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 78, No. 4. Violent Video Games Can Increase Aggression. Science Daily. 25 Apr 2000. American Psychological Association. 02 Oct 2005 . Willenz, Pam. Playing violent video games can heighten aggression. Medical News Today 21 Aug 2005. 25 Nov 2005 .

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Sympathy In The Story Perfume English Literature Essay

Sympathy In The Story Perfume English Literature Essay As Perfume created by Suskind unravels the story of an olfactory vampire, the reader is introduced to its tragic anti-hero   JeanBaptiste Grenouille the literal translation of which is frog, an amphibian known for its despicable appearance and keen sense of smell. Grenouille is introduced with traits like arrogance, misanthropy, immorality, or, more succinctly, wickedness  [1]  . Born amidst the stench and the squalor of Paris with streets that stank of manure, the stench of costic Iyes from the tanneries  [2]  , Grenouille is rejected by his mother at his birth and by cutting of the umbilical cord with her gutting knife  [3]  she disassociates and distances herself from him forever. Unlike her four still births, who she left to die, Grenouille survived in this repulsive and sickening neighborhood to evolve into a serial killer.  This childhood trauma of abandonment and abuse and the grotesque way in which the mother literally leaves Grenouille to fend for himself in the foetid odour of burnt animal horn  [4]  evokes pity and sympathy for the baby.These smells create an atmosphere and prepare the reader for what has yet to come. He is callously dumped in an orphanage where the other children almost asphyxiate him to death but he survived the measles, chicken pox, a twenty foot fall into a well and a scalding with boiling water poured over his ch est  [5]  which left him with a slightly crippled foot  [6]  and a limp but he lived.  [7]  Any other child faced with such traumatic experience without the care of a mothers warmth would have breathed his last, but not Grenouille. He was a survivor and ironically lived in the claustrophobic world of eighteenth century France in which he was overpowered by olfactory  experiences. The House of the Spirits crafted by Isabelle Allende is set against the backdrop of political turmoil and social upheaval of Chile   a politically volatile country in Latin America. Esteban Trueba belonged to that minority of socially and economically elite class which controlled the fortunes of the majority: peasants and laborers. He is the outcome of an alliance between his wealthy mother Dona Ester Trueba and a good for nothing immigrant  [8]  father who squandered away the wealth leaving his children to resurrect their lives. Esteban is, like Grenouille, devoid of warm, caring touch of his mother since she was immobile in her chair and was put back into her bed, propped up in the half seated position that was the only one her arthritis allowed  [9]  . Being in the company of a money driven father and a bed ridden mother, Esteban Trueba is a character sculpted by the circumstances. His had been a childhood of privations, discomfort, harshness, interminable night-time ros aries, fear, and guilt.  [10]  Ã‚   In Perfume the uncanny description of Grenouille committing his first murder accidentally to capture the smell of a young virgin elicits two strong emotions from the reader: repulsion for killing an innocent; bafflement at having not assaulted her;However,Grenouillerealized the meaning and goal and purpose of his life had a higher destiny: nothing less than to revolutionize the odiferous world.  [11]  A murder had been start of his splendor. If he was at all aware of the fact, it was a matter of total indifference to him.  [12]  Later, when he begs Baldini to give him work the reader wants him to succeed even though we hope that he fails. Moreover, in his ruthless killing of young girls in pursuit of a distilled, pure scent, we are morbidly fascinated by the vials of perfume yet sickened by our own thoughts. The reader is confronted with Grenouilles desperation and his need for acceptance for which he would go to any length. At the end of his self imposed hibernation, he real izes that only one odour was not there-his own odor  [13]  , a scream as dreadful and loud as if he were being burned alive  [14]  came out of him.Since Grenouille determines identity through smell and the fact that he cannot smell himself brings himthe realisation that he does not have an identity. He experiences the fear of not knowing anything about himself. The reader identifies and sympathises with the insecurity that Grenouille possesses, because he has no odour and thus he is an outcast in society. Similarly, Esteban is a savage and a barbaric in Tres Marias tumbling young girls on the rushes of the riverbankà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦sowing the entire region with his bastard offspring.  [15]  However, Tres Marias is the microcosm of the systematic and generational abuse of the labour class and Esteban represents the autocratic dictator. he could tolerate no opposition; he viewed the slightest disagreement as a provocation  [16]  This evokes extreme dislike for Esteban but by bringing out the callous and insensitive side of Esteban, Allende depicts the oligarchy that controlled the government, preventing the voice of the people from being expressed.The peasants had not heard of unions, or Sundays off, or the minimum wages.  [17]  Atrocities were committed against the citizens as torture, beatings, and rape was common practice. Esteban Truebas rape of PanchaGarcà ­a is a reflection of the exploitation of the peasant classes by the upper classes. Thus, Esteban is a metaphor for all the ills plaguing the society at that time. He has to be seen not as a cruel patriarch but embodiment of the rotting, declining system that mirrors the class struggle, the gender bias and the political dichotomy.   Both books follow the tradition of bildungsroman: the protagonists suffer an emotional loss in the beginning of the story and both feature their journey through life, conflicts between them and society and their steely determination to excel and follow the path they have chartered for themselves. Grenouille found purpose to his life in Baldinis perfumery and Suskind cheats the reader into believing that they are witness to a genius in making. Grenouille is driven, excessively obsessed with the idea of perfecting the best perfume. The reader admires his passion, his frantic pace of rushing against time to prove something to himself for which he suffered tiny cramped living quarters, surviving on bare minimum food and winning the battle against life threatening syphilitic small pox. In The House of the spirits Esteban Truebas cruel treatment of his wife, daughter, and female workers represents Allendes depiction of females as sexual objects. But despite the fact that Esteban rapes, pillages, kills and conspires, he never entirely loses the readers sympathy. It is a remarkable achievement to make the old monster lovable not just to his wife, daughter, and granddaughter, and the other women in his life, but also to the reader. This is done through the third voice that belongs to Esteban Trueba, whose first person accounts serve to express either his intense passion or his acute suffering. Im the patron here now. Esteban is a complex character as his words would reveal. Had these words not been there, we would have summarily dismissed him as a fiendish rogue. Despite his hatred of peasants, Esteban is driven by a desire for the attention and affection of others. Approaching death however, he begins to see the negative outcomes of his violent, selfish actions and be comes increasingly aware of how lonely he is.   The gothic and the gruesome start early in The House of the Spirits with Clara witnessing the autopsy of her sister and the assistant ravaging her corpse. When Nivea meets with an accident and her head is split from her body and thrown away in the bushes an acute chill runs down the readers spine which is further accentuated by the head being brought and placed in the basement of the house. These gory images coupled with a matter of fact tone to bring forth the massacre, violence and Albas captivity during the coup serve to highlight that the characters and their situations are mirrors of the clash and turmoil in Chile at that time. We respond to the tragic and repulsive nature of the unfortunate Grenouille and Esteban with a certain amount of horror and pity. Grenouilles mastery at creating an unparalleled perfume is not overshadowed by the mass orgy that he evokes on dousing himself with this perfume made from the skin of virgins. It is ironic that each man, each woman, in the hands of the little man in the blue frock coat for better or worse loved him.  [18]  Ironic also because of the terror instilled by the murders that went into the making of the scent.   We admire his intelligence and his amazing sense of smell which leads to his success in achieving acceptance from society. He does not kill others for pleasure, but to obtain their scent. For this reasons his victims were only the ones who Grenouille thought had extraordinary scents. Since the reader knows that scent represents identity it could be said that Grenouilles motive for murdering his victims is to acquire an identity. Suskind and Alendes writing techniques are also distinctive in the way that they use phrases and imagery to make violent and grotesque descriptions realistic and repulsive. They drove their claws and teeth into his flesh, they attacked him like hyenas  [19]  and Esteban wore a tiny suede bag à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦in it were his wifes false teeth, which he treated as a token of good luck and expiation  [20]  Through these techniques, we are drawn into the world of Grenouille and Esteban. Esteban and Grenouille follow the path that they charter for themselves. In their pursuit to seek identity and acceptance, they commit unforgivable crimes for which the reader does not pardon them but accepts their reasons for doing so. They hold a mirror to the society and ask the question: who really is the monster?

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Judith Butler Gender Performativity Cultural Studies Essay

Judith Butler Gender Performativity Cultural Studies Essay The challenge presented by Butlers theory depicted in Gender Trouble is derived from her revision of the generally established orthodox assumptions in our western society regarding gender and sexual identity. She attacks the accepted naturalness of gender and reveals it as the fiction that it essentially is. According to Butler, the actions that are associated with a persons sexual identity are not a reflection of someones innermost self but rather culturally coded acts. Butlers theory is primarily based upon the philosophical views of the French theorist Renà © Descartes that a persons conception of his own identity is essentially dualistic. Descartes claimed that a persons process of self-identification transpires by making a clear distinction between the body and the mind. The essence of this opposition is that the body is in fact perceived as inferior to the mind. The basis of this claim is exactly what Butler intends to reverse, namely that a persons everyday behaviour reflects his or her gender and sexual identity and is essentially a reflection of that persons individual psyche. Her provocative argument that gender is merely a stylized repetition of acts essentially implies a form of materialism that negates any possibility of a spiritual explanation of self-identity. Unlike Luce Irigaray, Butler refutes the notion of sex as a naturally established category. Butler argues that alongside gender, sex is also an acquired socio-cultural category. Butler argues that the construction of gender and sexual identity emerges out of culturally and socially established practices. These practices, including their discourse, have their own recorded history as well as their own social and political dynamics. Furthermore, Butlers criticism of Irigaray is essentially that Irigarays Womans natural state is outside of the phallocentric economy. In her influential book Gender Trouble (1990), Butler does not offer an ontological or essentialist description of what it is to be a woman (Butler, 32). Instead she presents the argument that the traditional power structures of our society in fact create the very identities that it regulates. These power structures are essential to the notion of sexuality. Butler claims that sexuality does not have a natural state where powe r later comes in to disrupt that state. According to Butler, sexuality does not exist outside of power. It is for this reason that Butler does not present any ontological arguments. For Butler, the concern with the ontology of a woman is simply a misrecognition of some ontological core for what is merely a series of repetitions. The essence of gender is a matter of repetitions. Butler ascripes power to regimes as in the power regimes of heterosexism and phallogocentrism seek to augment themselves through a repetition of their logic . . . (Butler, p.32). Consequently, if repetition is bound to persist as the mechanism of the cultural reproduction of identities, then the crucial question emerges: what kind of subversive repetition might call into question the regulatory practice of identity itself? (Butler, p. 32). This question is directly relation to the core argument that Butler presents in Gender Trouble. In other words, Butlers understanding of gender as performative is grounded in her belief that the very core of gender identity is produced through the repetition of behaviour. She talks of repetitions in which the subject is neither outside of those repetitions nor that the subject is something internal which is expressed through those repetitions. So much as the repetitions themselves are the very mechanisms by which those identities are reproduced and the very positive concepts of identities are brought forward. In addition to this ground-breaking claim, Butler introduces the concept of gender as a performance or gender performativity. In discussing this notion of gender performativity, Butler stresses the importance of the distinction between performing a gender and gender as a performance. When she talks about gender as performative, Butler argues that this is not similar as saying that gender is performed. When we say that we perform a gender weve taken on a role, were acting or role-playing in some way. This performance of a rule is definitely crucial to the gender that we are and the gender that we present to the world. Nevertheless, it is very different from what she means by gender performativity. For something to be performative means that it produces a series of effects. We act and walk, speak and talk in ways that consolidate the impression with being a man or being a woman. Butler explains that in our modern-day society people act as if being of a man or being of woman is actually an internal reality or in fact something that is simply true about us. Instead it is a phenomenon that is produced and reproduced all the time. Butler claims that no person is born with a fixed gender. Gender is not to be perceived as a manifestation of a subjects internal essence. Alternately, one should view gender identity as a produced product of our actions and discourse. That is to say, Butler argues that everyday actions, speech, utterances, gestures and representations, dress codes and behaviours as well as certain prohibitions and taboos all work to produce what is perceived as an essential masculine or feminine identity.  [1]   By introducing the notion of gender performativity, Butler criticizes the traditional power structures whose agenda is to keep people in their socially accepted gendered place. Institutional powers like psychiatrical normalization intend to prevent the disruption of the established gender norms. Butler questions how these institutions are established or whether they ought to be policed. She insists on the historical and cultural foundation of these institutional powers and emphasizes the importance of overcoming this silent gender police function that the institutional powers project. Furthermore, Butler expresses her desire to resist the violence that is opposed by ideal gendered norms against those who are non-conforming in their gender presentation. In the final chapter of Gender Trouble Bodily inscription, Performative subversions, Butler gives the important inner-outer distinction regarding our notions of gender the attention which it merits. Butler argues that in the orthodox view of gender the figure of our inner soul is inscribed on the outer body. However, these inscriptions on the body or the outside create the illusion of a concrete and organized gender core. Thus, what makes this problematic is that so far we have gained our understanding of our own inner essence through the inscription on the body. To support her own theory, Judith Butler adopts the argument made by Foucault in his influential work Discipline and Punish that the suffering imposed on prisoners is, contrary to western belief, externalized. The oppression of the prisoners is not manifested in the inner soul but rather on the external body. Foucault argues that since the methods of punishment used by the agents of the institutional power are inflicted on the body, these actions similarly justify the institutes control over the prisoners body. Butler engenders Foucaults argument and claims that gender is fundamentally the principal representative of western cultural society which operates on the external body, and in this process formulates the definition of masculine or feminine, in addition to standardizing the image of heterosexuality.

Monday, August 19, 2019

Background Information :: essays research papers

I. BACKROUND INFORMATION   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Jill Stacey Moreland(born Itabari Njeri) was born in Brooklyn, New York. She started off as being a singer/actress; but she found a calling in journalism. She obtained her B.S. from Boston University, and then later on she received her M.S. form Columbia University. She worked as a writer for numerous projects, and then was the author of three books. She wrote â€Å"Family Portraits and Personal Escapades,† â€Å"The Challenge of Diversity†, and â€Å"Reflections of a New World Black.† Currently Jill Stacey does public speaking at Universities about memoir, multiculturalism, and ethnic conflict. II. GENERAL SUMMARY   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The story, â€Å"When Morpheus Held Him,† was about a girl who had a drunk for a father. When the girl was three her parents separated, she did not see her father again until her parents reunited when she was seven. When her father came back into her life, she said that she could not stand her father. Her father ended up teaching younger students around an age where he thought was most influential. When the girl’s mother went away for a couple of weeks, the daughter wanted to stay with her aunt pearl so she would not have to stay with her father. The father said no unless aunt pearl asked her if she wanted to stay with her. Of course aunt pearl did not ask her but she went anyway. When her father found out what happened, he beat her bad enough to leave welts and bruises for months. The only time that the daughter and the father bonded was when the father would play some music on his old piano and she would come and sing for him. When the mother came back the fights continued. After the fights were over, the father would fall asleep due to his drunken rage. The only time the daughter felt safe around her father was when he was asleep. III. RELATIONSHIP TO TODAYS SOCIETY   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In today’s society, there are a lot of kids that didn’t grow up with their father due to their parents fighting all the time. A lot of the times the father is a drunk and gets violent towards his partner or his children. I think that I can relate a little to this story because I was in a similar situation with my father. When I was little my parents would separate often. I could not understand why they would separate when I was little.

Sunday, August 18, 2019

The American Nurses Association Code of Ethics Essay -- Ethics

The American Nurses Association (ANA) is an organization with a strong ethical foundation. Nurses in general are known as an honest and trustworthy profession in the United States. This reputation was created because of nursing organizations like the ANA. In this paper the ANA’s goals are described and tied to their ethical principles. The role and importance of the ANA’s ethical values are explored. A discussion of the ANA’s culture and ethical decision making is described. The ANA’s ethical values and how they support author’s ethical views is explained and last the ANA’s social responsibility to the community. ANA’s goals and ethical principles The ANA’s goals are to provide a unified focus of professional, competent, and ethical care to all patients. To treat every patient with dignity, respect, and compassion free from any personal judgment of race, social or economic status, personal disparities, or disregard to health status. The Nursing organization strives to provide equal care to all individuals with their primary focus on the patient, without regard to outside influences, such as the media, family, or the community. Nurses are accountable for the best welfare of the patient while in his or her care. They must respect professional boundaries, to include the privacy and confidentiality of the patient and family. Nurses must maintain a respect for human dignity, and hold in highest regard the importance of the patient’s best interests. The nurse’s duties include the responsibility to follow guidelines and regulations, acting only on duties within the scope of the professional practice. The nursing organization also has responsibilities to the public in maintaining awareness and knowledge regarding the health and welf... ...unity education and wellness and especially to the response efforts during disasters. The ANA is there for the wellbeing and ethical treatment of all mankind. Works Cited American College of Healthcare Executives. (2011). Creating an ethical culture within the healthcare organization. Retrieved from http://www.ache.org/policy/environ.cfm International Institute for Sustainable Development. (2012). Corporate social responsibility. Retrieved from http://www.iisd.org/business/issues/sr.aspx Rakichevikj, G., Strezoska, J., & Najdeska, K. (2010). Professional Ethics-- Basic component of organizational culture. Tourism & Hospitality Management, 1168-1177. Wright, D., Brajtman, S. (2011). Nursing Ethics, relational and embodied knowing: Nursing ethics within the inter-professional team. Vol.18 Issue 1, p20-30. Sage Publications at EBSCO Host

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Causes and Effects Essay the Effects of Noise Pollution

Generally, Sound is very much important to our daily live, but noise is not. Noise is used as an annoying sound. Most of us every time hear the sounds in everyday life, likewise the traffic, the television, , Loud music, people talking on their phone and even pets are also shouting in the middle of the night.The whole things of these have come to a part of the culture and hardly annoy us. Moreover, noise is made by big trucks, household gadgets, vehicles, motorbikes on the road, loud speakers and jet planes and helicopters’ flying over cites, etc.Health effects of noise contain stress and reaction also in dangerous cases fright. The physiological appearances are headaches, feeling of fatigue, nervousness and irritability, and losses work effectiveness. Noise raises the risks of occurrence of sicknesses such as heart failure, blood pressure, headache, etc.For instance, the siren of police, fire fighters or ambulance in your urban all night daily leave people (specially old peop le) anxiety and stresses in the morning. Stress, Blood pressure levels, and cardio-vascular disease connected heart problems are on the rise.Studies propose that high strength noise causes high blood pressure and increases heart beat rate as it disturbs the standard blood flow. Carrying them to a controllable level rest on our thoughtful noise pollution and how we challenge it. These in opportunity can cause further simple and continuing health issues later in life.Any annoying sound that our ears have not been assembled to filter can affect problems within the body. Our ears can take in a definite variety of sounds without accomplishment injured. Man made noises such as horns, jackhammers, airplanes, machinery, and even automobiles can be moreover loud for our hearing variety.Continuous experiences to loud levels of noise can simply consequence in the injury of our ear drums and loss of hearing. Noise also decreases our understanding to sounds that our ears pick up automatically to regulate our body’s beat.As you know that there do not occur several solutions to decrease sound pollution. On an individual level, everyone can help decreasing the noise in their homes by pull down the volume of the music system, radio and the television. Some people listen to music lacking headphones is similarly a good step forward. Exclusion of public loudspeakers is additional way in which the pollution can be disputed.

Foundation’s Edge CHAPTER NINETEEN DECISION

DECISION Janov Pelorat said, with a small trace of petulance in his voice, â€Å"Really, Golan, no one seems to care for the fact that this is the first time in a moderately long life – not too long, I assure you, Bliss – in which I have been traveling through the Galaxy. Yet each time I come to a world, I am off it again and back in space before I can really have a chance to study it. It has happened twice now.† â€Å"Yes,† said Bliss, â€Å"but if you had not left the other one so quickly, you would not have met me until who knows when. Surely that justifies the first time.† â€Å"It does. Honestly, my – my dear, it does.† â€Å"And this time, Pel, you may be off the planet, but you have me – and I am Gaia, as much as any particle of it, as much as all of it.† â€Å"You are, and surely I want no other particle of it.† Trevize, who had been listening to the exchange with a frown, said, â€Å"This is disgusting. Why didn't Dom come with us? – Space, I'll never get used to this monosyllabization. Two hundred fifty syllables to a name and we use just one of them. – Why didn't he come, together with all two hundred fifty syllables? If all this is so important – if the very existence of Gaia depends on it – why didn't he come with us to direct us?† â€Å"I am here, Trev,† said Bliss, â€Å"and I am as much Gaia as he is.† Then, with a quick sideways and upward look from her dark eyes, â€Å"Does it annoy you, then, to have me call you ‘Trev'?† â€Å"Yes, it does. I have as much right to my ways as you to yours. My name is Trevize. Two syllables. Tre-vize.† â€Å"Gladly. I do not wish to anger you, Trevize.† â€Å"I am not angry. I am annoyed.† He rose suddenly, walked from one end of the room to the other, stepping over the outstretched legs of Pelorat (who drew them in quickly), and then back again. He stopped, turned, and faced Bliss. He pointed a finger at her. â€Å"Look! I am not my own master! I have been maneuvered from Terminus to Gaia – and even when I began to suspect that this was so, there seemed no way to break the grip. And then, when I get to Gaia, I am told that the whole purpose for my arrival was to save Gaia. Why? How? What is Gaia to me – or I to Gaia – that I should save it? Is there no other of the quintillion human beings in the Galaxy who could do the job?† â€Å"Please, Trevize,† said Bliss – and there was a sudden downcast air about her, all of the gamine affectation disappearing. â€Å"Do not be angry. You see, I use your name properly and I will be very serious. Dom asked you to be patient.† â€Å"By every planet in the Galaxy, habitable or not, I don't want to be patient. If I am so important, do I not deserve an explanation? To begin with, I ask again why Dom did not come with us? Is it not sufficiently important for him to be here on the Far Star with us?† â€Å"He is here, Trevize,† said Bliss. â€Å"While I am here, he is here, and everyone on Gaia is here, and every living thing, and every speck of the planet.† â€Å"You are satisfied that that is so, but it's not my way of thinking. I'm not a Gaian. We can't squeeze the whole planet on to my ship, we can only squeeze one person on to it. We have you, and Dom is part of you. Very well. Why couldn't we have taken Dom, and let you be part of him?† â€Å"For one thing,† said Bliss, â€Å"Pel – I mean, Pel-o-rat – asked that I be on the ship with you. I, not Dom.† â€Å"He was being gallant. Who would take that seriously?† â€Å"Oh, now, my dear fellow,† said Pelorat, rising to his feet with his face reddening, â€Å"I was quite serious. I don't want to be dismissed like that. I accept the fact that it doesn't matter which component of the Gaian whole is on board, and it is more pleasant for me to have Bliss here than Dom, and it should be for you as well. Come, Golan, you are behaving childishly.† â€Å"Am I? Am I?† said Trevize, frowning darkly. â€Å"All right, then, I am. Just the same,† again he pointed at Bliss, â€Å"whatever it is I am expected to do, I assure you that I won't do it if I am not treated like a human being. Two questions to begin with. What am I supposed to do? And why me?† Bliss was wide-eyed and backing away. She said, â€Å"Please, I can't tell you that now. All of Gaia can't tell you. You must come to the place without knowing anything to begin with. You must learn it all there. You must then do what you must do – but you must do it calmly and unemotionally. If you remain as you are, nothing will be of use and, one way or another, Gaia will come to an end. You must change this feeling of yours and I do not know how to change it.† â€Å"Would Dom know if he were here?† said Trevize remorselessly. â€Å"Dom is here,† said Bliss. â€Å"He/I/we do not know how to change you or calm you. We do not understand a human being who cannot sense his place in the scheme of things, who does not feel like part of a greater whole.† Trevize said, â€Å"That is not so. You could seize my ship at a distance of a million kilometers and more – and keep us calm while we were helpless. Well, calm me now. Don't pretend you are not capable of doing it.† â€Å"But we mustn't. Not now. If we changed you or adjusted you in any way now, then you would be no more valuable to us than any other person in the Galaxy and we could not use you. We can only use you because you are you – and you must remain you. If we touch you at this moment in any way, we are lost. Please. You must be calm of your own accord.† â€Å"Not a chance, miss, unless you tell me some of what I want to know.† Pelorat said, â€Å"Bliss, let me try. Please go into the other room.† Bliss left, backing slowly out. Pelorat closed the door behind her. Trevize said, â€Å"She can hear and see – sense everything. What difference does this make?† Pelorat said, â€Å"It makes a difference to me. I want to be alone with you, even if isolation is an illusion. – Golan, you're afraid.† â€Å"Don't be a fool.† â€Å"Of course you are. You don't know where you're going, what you'll be facing, what you'll be expected to do. You have a right to be afraid.† â€Å"But I'm not.† â€Å"Yes, you are. Perhaps you're not afraid of physical danger in the way that I am. I've been afraid of venturing out into space, afraid of each new world I see, afraid of every new thing I encounter. After all, I've lived half a century of a constricted, withdrawn and limited life, while you have been in the Navy and in politics, in the thick and hurly-burly at home and in space. Yet I've tried not to be afraid and you've helped me. In this time that we've been together, you've been patient with me, you've been kind to me and understanding, and because of you, I've managed to master my fears and behave well. Let me, then, return the favor and help you.† â€Å"I'm not afraid, I tell you.† â€Å"Of course you are. If nothing else, you're afraid of the responsibility you'll be facing. Apparently there's a whole world depending on you – and you will therefore have to live with the destruction of a whole world if you fail. Why should you have to face that possibility for a world that means nothing to you? ‘What right have they to place this load upon you? You're not only afraid of failure, as any person would be in your place, but you're furious that they should put you in the position where you have to be afraid.† â€Å"You're all wrong.† â€Å"I don't think so. Consequently let me take your place. I'll do it. Whatever it is they expect you to do, I volunteer as substitute. I assume that it's not something that requires great physical strength or vitality, since a simple mechanical device would outdo you in that respect. I assume it's not something that requires mentalics, for they have enough of that themselves. It's something that – well, I don't know, but if it requires neither brawn nor brain, then I have everything else as well as you – and I am ready to take the responsibility.† Trevize said sharply, â€Å"Why are you so willing to bear the load?† Pelorat looked down at the floor, as though fearing to meet the other's eyes. He said, â€Å"I have had a wife, Golan. I have known women. Yet they have never been very important to me. Interesting. Pleasant. Never very important. Yet, this one†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Who? Bliss?† â€Å"She's different, somehow – to me.† â€Å"By Terminus, Janov, she knows every word you're saying.† â€Å"That makes no difference. She knows anyhow. – I want to please her. I will undertake this task, whatever it is; run any risk, take any responsibility, on the smallest chance that it will make her – think well of me.† â€Å"Janov, she's a child.† â€Å"She's not a child – and what you think of her makes no difference to me.† â€Å"Don't you understand what you must seem to her?† â€Å"An old man? What's the difference? She's part of a greater whole and I am not – and that alone builds an insuperable wall between us. Don't you think I know that? But I don't ask anything of her but that she†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Think well of you?† â€Å"Yes. Or whatever else she can make herself feel for me.† â€Å"And for that you will do my job? – But Janov, haven't you been listening. They don't want you; they want me for some space-ridden reason I can't understand.† â€Å"If they can't have you and if they must have someone, I will be better than nothing, surely.† Trevize shook his head. â€Å"I can't believe that this is happening. Old age is overtaking you and you have discovered youth. Janov, you're trying to be a hero, so that you can die for that body.† â€Å"Don't say that, Golan. This is not a fit subject for humor.† Trevize tried to laugh, but his eyes met Pelorat's grave face and he cleared his throat instead. He said, â€Å"You're right. I apologize. Call her in, Janov. Call her in.† Bliss entered, shrinking a little. She said in a small voice, â€Å"I'm sorry, Pel. You cannot substitute. It must be Trevize or no one.† Trevize said, â€Å"Very well. I'll be calm. Whatever it is, I'll try to do it. Anything to keep Janov from trying to play the romantic hero at his age.† â€Å"I know my age,† muttered Pelorat. Bliss approached him slowly, placed her hand on his shoulder. â€Å"Pel, I – I think well of you.† Pelorat looked away. â€Å"It's all right, Bliss. You needn't be kind.† â€Å"I'm not being kind, Pel. I think – very well of you.† Dimly, then more strongly, Sura Novi knew that she was Suranoviremblastiran and that when she was a child, she had been known as Su to her parents and Vito her friends. She had never really forgotten, of course, but the facts were, on occasion, buried deep within her. Never had it been buried as deeply or for as long as in this last month, for never had she been so close for so long to a mind so powerful. But now it was time. She did not will it herself. She had no need to. The vast remainder of her was pushing her portion of itself to the surface, for the sake of the global need. Accompanying that was a vague discomfort, a kind of itch that was rapidly overwhelmed by the comfort of selfness unmasked. Not in years had she been so close to the globe of Gaia. She remembered one of the life-forms she had loved on Gaia as a child. Having understood its feelings then as a dim part of her own, she recognized her own sharper ones now. She was a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. Stor Gendibal stared sharply and penetratingly at Novi – and with such surprise that he came within a hair of loosening his grip upon Mayor Branno. That he did not do so was, perhaps, the result of a sudden support from without that steadied him and that, for the moment, he ignored. He said, â€Å"What do you Know of Councilman Trevize, Novi?† And then, in cold disturbance at the sudden and growing complexity of her mind, he cried out, â€Å"What are you?† He attempted to seize hold of her mind and found it impenetrable. At that moment, he recognized that his hold on Branno was supported by a grip stronger than his own. He repeated, â€Å"What are you?† There was a hint of the tragic on Novi's face. â€Å"Master,† she said, â€Å"Speaker Gendibal. My true name is Suranoviremblastiran and I am Gaia.† It was all she said in words, but Gendibal, in sudden fury, had intensified his own mental aura and with great skill, now that his blood was up, evaded the strengthening bar and held Branno on his own and more strongly than before, while he gripped Novi's mind in a tight and silent struggle. She held him off with equal skill, but she could not keep her mind closed to him – or perhaps she did not wish to. He spoke to her as he would to another Speaker. â€Å"You have played a part, deceived me, lured me here, and you are one of the species from which the Mule was derived.† â€Å"The Mule was an aberration, Speaker. I/we are not Mules. I/we are Gaia.† The whole essence of Gaia was described in what she complexly communicated, far more than it could have been in any number of words. â€Å"A whole planet alive,† said Gendibal. â€Å"And with a mentalic field greater as a whole than is yours as an individual. Please do not resist with such force. I fear the danger of harming you, something I do not wish to do.† â€Å"Even as a living planet, you are not stronger than the sum of my colleagues on Trantor. We, too, are, in a way, a planet alive.† â€Å"Only some thousands of people in mentalic co-operation, Speaker, and you cannot draw upon their support, for I have blocked it off. Test that and you will see.† â€Å"What is it you plan to do, Gaia?† â€Å"I would hope, Speaker, that you would call me Novi. What I do now I do as Gaia, but I am Novi also – and with reference to you, I am only Novi.† â€Å"What is it you plan to do, Gaia?† There was the trembling mentalic equivalent of a sigh and Novi said, â€Å"We will remain in triple stalemate. You will hold Mayor Branno through her shield, and I will help you do so, and we will not tire. You, I suppose, will maintain your grip on me, and I will maintain mine on you, and neither one of us will tire there either. And so it will stay.† â€Å"To what end?† â€Å"As I have told you. – We are waiting for Councilman Trevize of Terminus. It is he who will break the stalemate – as he chooses.† The computer on board the Far Star located the two ships and Golan Trevize displayed them together on the split screen. They were both Foundation vessels. One was precisely like the Far Star and was undoubtedly Compor's ship. The other was larger and far more powerful. He turned toward Bliss and said, â€Å"Well, do you know what's going on? Is there anything you can now tell me?† â€Å"Yes! Do not be alarmed! They will not harm you.† â€Å"Why is everyone convinced I'm sitting here all a – tremble with panic?† Trevize demanded petulantly. Pelorat said hastily, â€Å"Let her talk, Golan. Don't snap at her.† Trevize raised his arms in a gesture of impatient surrender. â€Å"I will not snap. Speak, lady.† Bliss said, â€Å"On the large ship is the ruler of your Foundation. With her†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Trevize said in astonishment, â€Å"The ruler? You mean Old Lady Branno?† â€Å"Surely that is not her title,† said Bliss, her lips twitching a little in amusement. â€Å"But she is a woman, yes.† She paused a little, as though listening intently to the rest of the general organism of which she was part. â€Å"Her name is Harlabranno. It seems odd to have only four syllables when one is so important on her world, but I suppose non-Gaians have their own ways.† â€Å"I suppose,† said Trevize dryly. â€Å"You would call her Brann, I think. But what is she doing here? Why isn't she back on. I see. Gaia has maneuvered her here, too. Why?† Bliss did not answer that question. She said, â€Å"With her is Lionokodell, five syllables, though her underling. It seems a lack of respect. He is an important official of your world. With them are four others who control the ship's weapons. Do you want their names?† â€Å"No. I take it that on the other ship there is one man, Munn Li Compor, and that he represents the Second Foundation. You've brought both Foundations together, obviously. Why?† â€Å"Not exactly, Trev – I mean, Trevize†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Oh, go ahead and say Trev. I don't give a puff of comet gas.† â€Å"Not exactly, Trev. Compor has left that ship and has been replaced by two people. One is Storgendibal, an important official of the Second Foundation. He is called a Speaker.† â€Å"An important official? He's got mentalic power, I imagine.† â€Å"Oh yes. A great deal.† â€Å"Will you be able to handle that?† â€Å"Certainly. The second person, on the ship with him, is Gaia.† â€Å"One of your people?† â€Å"Yes. Her name is Suranoviremblastiran. It should be much longer, but she has been away from me/us/rest so long.† â€Å"Is she capable of holding a high official of the Second Foundation?† â€Å"It is not she, it is Gaia who holds him. She/I/we/all are capable of crushing him.† â€Å"Is that what she's going to do? She's going to crush him and Branno? What is this? Is Gaia going to destroy the Foundations and set up a Galactic Empire of its own? The Mule back again? A greater Mule†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"No no, Trev. Do not become agitated. You must not. All three are in a stalemate. They are waiting.† â€Å"For what?† â€Å"For your decision.† â€Å"Here we go again. What decision? Why me?† â€Å"Please, Trev,† said Bliss. â€Å"It will soon be explained. I/we/she have said as much as I/we/she can for now.† Branno said wearily, â€Å"It is clear I have made a mistake, Liono, perhaps a fatal one.† â€Å"Is this something that ought to be admitted?† muttered Kodell through motionless lips. â€Å"They know what I think. It will do no further harm to say so. Nor do they know less about what you think if you do not move your lips. – I should have waited until the shield was further strengthened.† Kodell said, â€Å"How could you have known, Mayor? If we waited until assurance was doubly and triply and quadruply and endlessly sure, we would have waited forever. – To be sure, I wish we had not gone ourselves. It would have been well to have experimented with someone else – with your lightning rod, Trevize, perhaps.† Branno sighed. â€Å"I wanted to give them no warning, Liono. Still, there you put the finger on the nub of my mistake. I might have waited until the shield was reasonably impenetrable. Not ultimately impenetrable but reasonably so. I knew there was perceptible leakage now, but I could not bear to wait longer. To wipe out the leakage would have meant waiting past my term of office and I wanted it done in my time – and I wanted to be on the spot. So like a fool, I forced myself to believe the shield was adequate. I would listen to no caution – to your doubts, for instance.† â€Å"We may still win out if we are patient.† â€Å"Can you give the order to fire on the other ship?† â€Å"No, I cannot, Mayor. The thought is, somehow, not something I can endure.† â€Å"Nor I. And if you or I managed to give the order, I am certain that the men on board would not follow it, that they would not be able to.† â€Å"Not under present circumstances, Mayor, but circumstances might change. As a matter of fact, a new actor appears on the scene.† He pointed to the screen. The ship's computer had automatically split the screen as a new ship came within its ken. The second ship appeared on the right-hand side. â€Å"Can you magnify the image, Liono?† â€Å"No trouble. The Second Foundationer is skillful. We are free to do anything he is not troubled by.† â€Å"Well,† said Branno, studying the screen, â€Å"that's the Far Star, I'm sure. And I imagine Trevize and Pelorat are on board. Then, bitterly, â€Å"Unless they too have been replaced by Second Foundationers. My lightning rod has been very efficient indeed. – If only my shield had been stronger.† â€Å"Patience!† said Kodell. A voice rang out in the confines of the ship's control room and Branno could somehow tell it did not consist of sound waves. She heard it in her mind directly and a glance at Kodell was sufficient to tell her that he had heard it, too. It said, â€Å"Can you hear me, Mayor Branno? If you can, don't bother saying so. It will be enough if you think so.† Branno said calmly, â€Å"What are you?† â€Å"I am Gaia.† The three ships were each essentially at rest, relative to the other two. All three were turning very slowly about the planet Gaia, as a distant three-part satellite of the planet. All three were accompanying Gaia on its endless journey about its sun. Trevize sat, watching the screen, tired of guessing what his role might be – what he had been dragged across a thousand parsecs to do. The sound in his mind did not startle him. It was as though he had been waiting for it. It said, â€Å"Can you hear me, Golan Trevize? If you can, don't bother saying so. It will be enough if you think it.† Trevize looked about. Pelorat, clearly startled, was looking in various directions, as though trying to find the source. Bliss sat quietly, her hands held loosely in her lap. Trevize had no doubt, for a moment, that she was aware of the sound. He ignored the order to use thoughts and spoke with deliberate clarity of enunciation. â€Å"If I don't find out what this is about, I will do nothing I am asked to do.† And the voice said, â€Å"You are about to find out.† Novi said, â€Å"You will all hear me in your mind. You are all free to respond in thought. I will arrange it so that all of you can hear each other. And, as you are all aware, we are all close enough so that at the normal light – speed of the spatial mentalic field, there will be no inconvenient delays. To begin with, we are all here by arrangement.† â€Å"In what manner?† came Branno's voice. â€Å"Not by mental tampering,† said Novi. â€Å"Gaia has interfered with no one's mind. It is not our way. We merely took advantage of ambition. Mayor Branno wanted to establish a Second Empire at once; Speaker Gendibal wanted to be First Speaker. It was enough to encourage these desires and to ride the wind, selectively and with judgment.† â€Å"I know how I was brought here,† said Gendibal stiffly. And indeed he did. He knew why he had been so anxious to move out into space, so anxious to pursue Trevize, so sure he could handle it all. – It was all Novi. – Oh, Novi! â€Å"You were a particular case, Speaker Gendibal. Your ambition was powerful, but there were softnesses about you that offered a shortcut. You were a person who would be kind to someone whom you had been trained to think of as beneath you in every respect. I took advantage of this in you and turned it against you. I/we am/are deeply ashamed. The excuse is that the future of the Galaxy is in hazard.† Novi paused and her voice (though she was not speaking by way of vocal cords) grew more somber, her face more drawn. â€Å"This was the time. Gaia could wait no longer. For over a century, the people of Terminus had been developing a mentalic shield. Left to themselves another generation, it would have been impervious even to Gaia and they would have been free to use their physical weapons at will. The Galaxy would not have been able to resist them and a Second Galactic Empire, after the fashion of Terminus, would have been established at once, despite the Seldon Plan, despite the people of Trantor, and despite Gaia. Mayor Branno had to be somehow maneuvered into making her move while the shield was still imperfect. â€Å"Then there is Trantor. The Seldon Plan was working perfectly, for Gaia itself labored to keep it on track with precision. And for over a century, there had been quietist First Speakers, so that Trantor vegetated. Now, however, Stor Gendibal was rising quickly. He would certainly become First Speaker and under him Trantor would take on an activist role. It would surely concentrate on physical power and would recognize the danger of Terminus and take action against it. If he could act against Terminus before its shield was perfected, then the Seldon Plan would be worked out to its conclusion in a Second Galactic Empire – after the fashion of Trantor – despite the people of Terminus and despite Gaia. Consequently Gendibal had to be somehow maneuvered into making his move before he became First Speaker. â€Å"Fortunately, because Gaia has been working carefully for decades, we have brought both Foundations to the proper place at the proper time. I repeat all this primarily so that Councilman Golan Trevize of Terminus may understand.† Trevize cut in at once and again ignored the effort to converse by thought. He spoke words firmly, â€Å"I do not understand. What is wrong with either version of the Second Galactic Empire?† Novi said, â€Å"The Second Galactic Empire – worked out after the fashion of Terminus – will be a military Empire, established by strife, maintained by strife, and eventually destroyed by strife. It will be nothing but the First Galactic Empire reborn. That is the view of Gaia. â€Å"The Second Galactic Empire – worked out after the fashion of Trantor – will be a paternalistic Empire, established by calculation, maintained by calculation, and in perpetual living death by calculation. It will be a dead end. That is the view of Gaia.† Trevize said, â€Å"And what does Gaia have to offer as an alternative?† â€Å"Greater Gaia! Galaxia! Every inhabited planet as alive as Gaia. Every living planet combined into a still greater hyperspatial life. Every uninhabited planet participating. Every star. Every scrap of interstellar gas. Perhaps even the great central black hole. A living galaxy and one that can be made favorable for all life in ways that we yet cannot foresee. A way of life fundamentally different from all that has gone before and repeating none of the old mistakes.† â€Å"Originating new ones,† muttered Gendibal sarcastically. â€Å"We have had thousands of years of Gaia to work those out.† â€Å"But not on a Galactic scale.† Trevize, ignoring the short exchange and driving to his point, said, â€Å"And what is my role in all this?† The voice of Gaia-channeled through Novi's mind-thundered, â€Å"Choose! Which alternative is it to be?† There was a vast silence that followed and finally, in that silence, Trevize's voice – mental at last, for he was too taken aback to speak – sounded small and still defiant. â€Å"Why me?† Novi said, â€Å"Though we recognized the moment had come when either Terminus or Trantor would become too powerful to stop – or worse yet, when both might become so powerful that a deadly stalemate would develop that would devastate the Galaxy – we still could not move. For our purposes, we needed someone – a particular someone – with the talent for rightness. We found you, Councilman. – No, we cannot take the credit. The people of Trantor found you through the man named Compor, though even they did not know what they had. The act of finding you attracted our attention to you. Golan Trevize, you have the gift of knowing the right thing to do.† â€Å"I deny it,† said Trevize. â€Å"You are, every once in a while, sure. And we want you to be sure this time on behalf of the Galaxy. You do not wish the responsibility, perhaps. You may do your best not to have to choose. Nevertheless, you will realize that it is right to do so. You will be sure! And you will then choose. Once we found you, we knew the search was over and for years we have labored to encourage a course of action that would, without direct mentalic interference, so influence events that all three of you – Mayor Branno, Speaker Gendibal, and Councilman Trevize – would be in the neighborhood of Gaia at the same time. We have done it.† Trevize said, â€Å"At this point in space, under present circumstances, is it not true, Gaia – if that is what you want me to call you – that you can overpower both the Mayor and the Speaker? Is it not true that you can establish this living Galaxy you speak of without my doing anything? Why, then, do you not?† Novi said, â€Å"I do not know if I can explain this to your satisfaction. Gaia was formed thousands of years ago with the help of robots that once, for a brief time, served the human species and now serve them no more. They made it quite clear to us that we could survive only by a strict application of the Three Laws of Robotics as applied to life generally. The First Law, in those terms, is: ‘Gaia may not harm life or, through inaction, allow life to come to harm. ‘ We have followed this rule through all of our history and we can do no other. â€Å"The result is that we are now helpless. We cannot force our vision of the living Galaxy upon a quintillion human beings and countless other forms of life and perhaps do harm to vast numbers. Nor can we do nothing and watch the Galaxy half-destroy itself in a struggle that we might have prevented. We do not know whether action or inaction will cost the Galaxy less; nor, if we choose action, do we know whether supporting Terminus or Trantor will cost the Galaxy less. Let Councilman Trevize decide then – and whatever that decision is, Gaia will follow it.† Trevize said, â€Å"How do you expect me to make a decision? What do I do?† Novi said, â€Å"You have your computer. The people of Terminus did not know that when they made it, they made it better than they knew. The computer on board your ship incorporates some of Gaia. Place your hands on the terminals and think. You may think Mayor Branno's shield impervious, for instance. If you do, it is possible that she will at once use her weapons to disable or destroy the other two ships, establish physical rule over Gaia and, later on, Trantor.† â€Å"And you will do nothing to stop that?† said Trevize with astonishment. â€Å"Not a thing. If you are sure that domination by Terminus will do the Galaxy less harm than any other alternative, we will gladly help that domination along – even at the cost of our own destruction. â€Å"On the other hand, you may find Speaker Gendibal's mentalic field and you may then join your computer-magnified push to his. He will, in that case, surely break free of me and push me back. He may then adjust the Mayor's mind and, in combination with her ships, establish physical domination over Gaia and assure the continued supremacy of the Seldon Plan. Gaia will not move to stop that. â€Å"Or you may find my mentalic field and join that – and then the living Galaxy will be set in motion to reach its fulfillment, not in this generation or the next, but after centuries of labor during which the Seldon Plan will continue. The choice is yours.† Mayor Branno said, â€Å"Wait! Do not make a decision just yet. May I speak?† Novi said, â€Å"You may speak freely. So may Speaker Gendibal.† Branno said, â€Å"Councilman Trevize. The last time we met on Terminus, you said, ‘The time may come, Madam Mayor, when you will ask me for an effort, and I will then do as I choose, and I will remember the past two days. ‘ I don't know whether you foresaw this, or intuitively felt it would happen, or simply had what this woman who speaks of a living Galaxy calls a talent for rightness. In any case, you were right. I am asking you for an effort on behalf of the Federation. â€Å"You may, I suppose, feel that you would like to even the score with me for having arrested and exiled you. I ask you to remember that I did it for what I considered the good of the Foundation Federation. Even if I were wrong or even if I acted out of callous self-interest, remember that it was I who did it – and not the Federation. Do not now destroy the entire Federation out of a desire to balance what I alone have done to you. Remember that you are a Foundationer and a human being, that you do not want to be a cipher in the plans of the bloodless mathematicians of Trantor or less than a cipher in a Galactic mish-mash of life and nonlife. You want yourself, your descendants, your fellow-people to be independent organisms, possessing free will. Nothing else matters. â€Å"These others may tell you that our Empire will lead to bloodshed and misery – but it need not. It is our free-will choice whether this should be so or not. We may choose otherwise. And, in any case, it is better to go to defeat with free will than to live in meaningless security as a cog in a machine. Observe that you are now being asked to make a decision as a free-will human being. These things of Gaia are unable to make a decision because their machinery will not allow them to, so that they depend on you. And they will destroy themselves if you bid them to. Is this what you want for all the Galaxy?† Trevize said, â€Å"I do not know that I have free will, Mayor. My mind may have been subtly dealt with, so that I will give the answer that is desired.† Novi said, â€Å"Your mind is totally untouched. If we could bring ourselves to adjust you to suit our purposes, this whole meeting would be unnecessary. Were we that unprincipled, we could have proceeded with what we would find most pleasing to ourselves with no concern for the greater needs and good of humanity as a whole.† Gendibal said, â€Å"I believe it is my turn to speak. Councilman Trevize, do not be guided by narrow parochialism. The fact that you are Terminus-born should not lead you to believe that Terminus comes before the Galaxy. For five centuries now, the Galaxy has been operating in accordance with the Seldon Plan. In and out of the Foundation Federation, that operation has been proceeding. â€Å"You are, and have been, part of the Seldon Plan above and beyond your lesser role as Foundationer. Do not do anything to disrupt the Plan, either on behalf of a narrow concept of patriotism or out of a romantic longing for the new and untried. The Second Foundationers will in no way hamper the free will of humanity. We are guides, not despots. â€Å"And we offer a Second Galactic Empire fundamentally different from the First. Throughout human history, no decade in all the tens of thousands of years during which hyperspatial travel has existed has been completely free of bloodshed and violent death throughout the Galaxy, even in those periods when the Foundation itself was at peace. Choose Mayor Branno and that will continue endlessly into the future. The same dreary, deadly round. The Seldon Plan offers release from that at last – and not at the price of becoming one more atom in a Galaxy of atoms, being reduced to equality with grass, bacteria, and dust.† Novi said, â€Å"What Speaker Gendibal says of the First Foundation's Second Empire, I agree with. What he says of his own, I do not. The Speakers of Trantor are, after all, independent free-will human beings and are the same as they have always been. Are they free of destructive competition, of politics, of clawing upward at all costs? Are there no quarrels and even hatreds at the Speaker's Table – and will they always be guides you dare follow? Put Speaker Gendibal on his honor and ask him this.† â€Å"No need to put me on my honor,† said Gendibal. â€Å"I freely admit we have our hatreds, competitions, and betrayals at the Table. But once a decision is reached, it is obeyed by all. There has never been an exception to this.† Trevize said, â€Å"What if I will not make a choice?† â€Å"You must,† said Novi. â€Å"You will know that it is right to do so and you will therefore make a choice.† â€Å"What if I try to make a choice and cannot?† â€Å"You must.† Trevize said, â€Å"How much time do I have?† Novi said, â€Å"Until you are sure, however much time that takes.† Trevize sat silently. Though the others were silent too, it seemed to Trevize that he could hear the pulsing of his bloodstream. He could hear Mayor Branno's voice say firmly, â€Å"Free will!† Speaker Gendibal's voice said peremptorily, â€Å"Guidance and peace!† Novi's voice said wistfully, â€Å"Life.† Trevize turned and found Pelorat looking at him intently. He said, â€Å"Janov. Have you heard all this?† â€Å"Yes, I have, Golan.† â€Å"What do you think?† â€Å"The decision is not mine.† â€Å"I know that. But what do you think.† â€Å"I don't know. I am frightened by all three alternatives. And yet a peculiar thought comes to me†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Yes?† â€Å"When we first went out into space, you showed me the Galaxy. Do you remember?† â€Å"Of course.† â€Å"You speeded time and the Galaxy rotated visibly. And I said, as though anticipating this very time, ‘The Galaxy looks like a living thing, crawling through space. ‘ Do you think that, in a way, it is alive already?† And Trevize, remembering that moment, was suddenly sure. He remembered suddenly his feeling that Pelorat, too, would have a vital role to play. He turned in haste, anxious not to have time to think, to doubt, to grow uncertain. He placed his hands on the terminals and thought with an intensity he had never known before. He had made his decision – the decision on which the fate of the Galaxy hung.