International business ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

International business ethics - Essay Example Virtue ethics is a philosophy that de-emphasizes rules and concentrates its focus on the 'nature' of the person acting. It does not argue that an act is good or bad but instead puts the moral fiber of the person under the microscope. To say an act is virtuous does not mean anything. There is no context for analysis. A person is virtuous, not the action itself. To say that a person acted out of virtue rather than fear of consequences and did the right thing or made the right choice in keeping with his morals better describes the philosophy of Aristotelian virtue ethics. He or she made the choice they did because they personally thought it the right thing to do, regardless of the rules or the opinions or advice of others in their society. They had the intestinal fortitude, responsibility, and accountability to themselves to make what they considered to be the right decision. Perhaps the phrase "I couldn't sleep with myself if I did it any other way" or, as the great bard William Shakes peare put it; "to thine own self be true". These everyday phrases describe the ethical nature of this philosophy. On the other hand, there are other philosophies out there as well. One of which deals with the nature of personal and societal group ethics. Jeremy Bentham's Principle of Utility founded on the philosophy of eighteenth century David Hume is one that has stood the test of the ages with, granted, some modifications. But for all intents and purposes it has survived mainly intact and is based on four fundamental pillars: Utilitarianism "(1) Recognizes the fundamental role of pain and pleasure in human life, (2) approves or disapproves of an action on the basis of the amount of pain or pleasure brought about i.e, consequences, (3) equates good with pleasure and evil with pain, and (4) asserts that pleasure and pain are capable of quantification (and hence 'measure')" (Cavalier p1). From these four pillars, Bentham developed utilitarian calculus as a way of measuring whether an act gave more pain than pleasure or vice versa. If it was demonstrated that the action was more pleasurable than painful then it was in keeping with the utilitarian philosophy and the action should be undertaken. This was modified over the years by philosophers such as John Stuart Mills and Ludwig Von Mises to come to mean the greatest good (or happiness/pleasure) for the greatest amount of people. There are a variety of utilitarian philosophies that have evolved since the time of David Hume. Two of those have bearing here. Act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. The first is whether an act itself is morally good defined as meeting the four rules. The second is an action taken by evaluating a rule and then following the rule that brings the most good or happiness to the most people. This appears to give the notion that there are good and bad rules. The question arises that if we follow utilitarian principles how can we make bad rules Aren't we following Act utilitarianism in making those rules Can bad rules come into being even with the best intentions These two philosophy's, virtue ethics and utilitarianism, have at their core one basic fundamental difference: individual versus society. Virtue ethics proposes that the person should make the right choice because they have considered all necessary things, been brought up right, were

Master of Suspense Essay Example for Free

Master of Suspense Essay Alfred Hitchcock has been called the Master of Suspense, considering Psycho state how effectively he achieves the element of suspense in this film. Alfred Hitchcock is known as the master of suspense. After the shocking triumph of his 1960 masterpiece Psycho, there was much demand for the classic stalk and slash horror film. The real question is: What is Suspense? The dictionary definition of suspense is:- 1. The condition of being insecure or uncertain 2. (i) Mental uncertainty (ii) anxiety 3. Excitement felt at the approach of a climax Collins English Dictionary Suspense can be shown in many ways. Music can psychologically affect the way we think of this. The pitch and line frequency of music affects the way that our brain thinks about certain situations. For Example: If you were watching a horror film, such as, Psycho you would be more afraid if the background music was a high pitch shrieking sound rather than if it was a calm pleasant tune. We associate different sounds with different moods. A piece of music played in a minor key is considered sad, compared to the same piece played in a major key which would then be considered happy. Hitchcock selected high pitch, shrieking music, which is mostly played in minor keys. This promotes the audience to become terrified as the shrieking symbolizes screaming. By choosing such dramatic and emotional music Alfred Hitchcock has created a gripping and beguiling film. Hitchcocks film Psycho is about a young girl called Marion who steals $40,000 in hope to pay off her boyfriends debts. She stays the night in The Bates Motel and is brutally murdered by an anonymous killer. The story line quickly changes from a thriller about Marion stealing the money to a stalk and slash horror film. Marions disappearance is investigated by private detective Arbogast who is murdered later on in the film by what looks like an old woman. Marions sister then sneaks into the house to investigate. She snoops round the rooms until she comes across the fruit cellar where she finds Norman Batess mothers corpse which had been down there for at least a decade. Norman Bates turns out to have a spilt personality of which he plays both himself and his mother. He is then locked in a mental institution. The shower scene is probably the key scene in Hitchcocks movie. This is the point were the movie starts to divide itself into two separate story lines. Hitchcocks moral beliefs are reflected in his films. At the beginning of the film, Marion is seen in white underwear, which symbolizes purity and innocence. During the shower scene this is changed to black underwear, which means to the audience that she has committed a crime and will be punished. In truth, Janet Leigh should not have been wearing a brassiere. I can see nothing immoral about that scene and I get no special kick out of it. But the scene would have been more interesting if the girls bare breasts had been rubbing against the mans chest. Alfred Hitchcock 1962 This quotation shows that there are huge moral differences between today and back in 1962 and it tells us that censorship at the time was very strict and were not able to have blur effects to conceal any unwanted images. Alfred Hitchcock used 70 different camera set-ups for 45 seconds of footage. These sharp and short images create an effect to which the audience doesnt know what theyre going to see next. This effect creates an enormous amount of suspense for the audience. The shrieking music yet again adds to the feeling of suspense that is created during the scene. Throughout the scene the killers face remains carefully concealed thus increasing fear and suspense as the true nature of the scene is left in the audiences imagination. During the footage each cut of the knife seems to coincide with cut in the film. The effect of this on the audience is intriguing. It draws the audience into the film thus creating a visual effect on the viewers mind. Hitchcocks intention for the shower scene was to suggest and not to show. During the stabbing incident you never actually see the victim (Marion) being stabbed. You assume that she is being stabbed due to the movement of the knife and the blood dripping in the bath and the stabbing sound, which is actually a knife being stabbed into a melon. and not an actual bare breast or plunging knife is to be found in the final cut, just illusion through montage. The Hitchcock Collection Hitchcock used thousands of different camera shots. In Arbogasts murder he used a High Angle shot when the killer approached Arbogast and murdered him; this stopped the audience seeing the killers face, making the scene more exciting and intriguing. When Arbogast is walking up the hill towards the house, the background music continuously goes up an octave each one or two steps he takes up the hill. This effect simulates walking. You could listen to the film and not watch it and still know that there was a ascending camera shot.. Hitchcock had to make the house and the surroundings look disturbing in order to convince the audience that the film and the overall setting is disturbing. The weather coincides with the setting and the mood of the act. Each time when something grim or bad was about to happen, it would either rain or a storm could be heard in the background. This builds tension into the audience The architectural contrast between the vertical house and the horizontal motel makes a pleasing sight to the eye. It adds to the eeriness of the house and shows how disturbing the house is compared to a basic structure such as the motel. I chose that house and motel because I realized that if I had taken an ordinary low bungalow the effect wouldnt have been the same. I felt that type of architecture would help the atmosphere of the yarn.

Will the European Union Survive? :: European Union Essays

"Europe must prevent Greece from becoming an out-and-out catastrophe and make sure that the same fiscal 'remedy' is not applied to other weak economies" -- Franziska Brantner. The EU (European Union) has gone thru many changes. For some countries it has been a blessing and a huge success. For others adapting to a single currency and marketplace has been quite a struggle. The EU hopes to expand even further with the introduction of more states and become one of the largest marketplaces in the world. But will the EU survive in the long term? Is it really of benefit to its members? The EU was established in 1993. It was the EEC (European Economic Community) before that in 1967 and the ECSC (European Coal and Steal Community) in 1951. Its main focus has been for the economic development of its members. Now it seems to be more focused on government, social and legal issues. But the primary reason for the EU was to create a united states of Europe. The objective for this union is to create free trade among member states creating a more competitive market place thus developing competition and in doing so giving a better standard of living for its people. This could be said true for one of its members, Ireland. Ireland has been a textbook case for the EU. Obviously each country in the EU has its different experiences with membership. Ireland has been quite the model EU member in its ability to adapt to the concept of the EU and has seen its GDP almost double in size. Currently Ireland holds the presidency for the EU and will play host to the introduction of the newer members this summer. But has Ireland really benefited from its membership or is its success due to its nearest neighbor west, America. Since its independence from the United Kingdom in 1940 Ireland has had to establish its own economy independent from British rule. Prior to this time being a part of the British Empire guaranteed commercialism for ones country. Although it could be said to be one-sided the British Empire relied on its colonies for trade. In some respects Ireland was not an industrialist nation and was predominantly an agricultural country. In order to succeed and further develop itself she had to change its way of doing business. One of the first orders of business was to introduce a better educational system.

Marc Kasky versus Nike Essay

1. What responsibility does Nike have for conditions of work at foreign factories making its products? The company expanded efforts to stop workplace abuse and started a public relations campaign. It became the only shoe company in the world to eliminate the use of polyvinyl chloride in shoes construction, ending worker exposure to chloride compounds. It revised its conduct code, expanding protections for workers. It set up a compliance department of more than 50 employees. Its staff members were assigned to specific Asian plants or to a region, where they trained local managers and did audits assessing code compliance. Nike helped to start a voluntary CSR initiative called the Fair Labor Association to enforce a code of conduct and monitoring scheme to end sweatshop labor The Nike Code of Conduct said that: *Forced labor: The contractor doesn’t use forced labor in any form-prision, indentured, bonded or otherwise. *Child labor: The contractor doesn’t employ any person below the age to 16. *Compensation: Provides each employee at least the minimum wage. *Benefits: The contractor provides each employee all legally mandated benefits. *Hours of work/overtime: Contractor employees do not work more than 60 hours per week, or regular and overtime hours allowed by the laws of the manufacturing country. Extra work is pay. * Environment, safety and health (ES&H): Nike considers every member of our supply chain like a partner in our business. We work with Asian to achieve specific environmental, health and safety goals. *Documentation and inspection: The contractor maintains on file all documentation needed to demonstrate compliance whit this code of conduct and required laws. This are some of the responsibility does Nike have for conditions of work. 2. Could Nike have better anticipated and more effectively handled the sweatshop issue? What did it to right? What was ineffective or counterproductive? In the early 90s, when the media and activists began reporting conditions Nike suppliers in Asia and Central America, the company imposed sweeping reforms designed to eradicate child abuse worker then  opened those operations to inspection. He developed a code of conduct for contractors, requiring them to have workplaces where there was no harassment or abuse. They could not hire minors must pay at least the minimum wage and bring a clear accounting of each pay period, before deductions for disciplinary infractions. Nike purchase full pages editorial advertisements in newspapers to broadcast his generally favorable for of work and the exceptional conditions that have her workers. Which was somewhat self-defeating way of Nike was creating advertising that said the way in which he treated his workers, placing children and black people in their ads, as this planted the problem in Marc Kasky to make an investigation, and brought forth the whole problem. That is due not Nike give information on how your company works, so perhaps this case will never happened. 3. Has Nike created and implemented and effective approach to social responsibility? Does it address root causes of problems in Nike’s supply chain? Should it now do more or do something different? Nike now cares more about corporate social responsibility and careful in some of these aspects. In 2012 Nike wanted to be more transparent and publicize new purposes to help the environment and try to control the rights of all subcontracted workers in underdeveloped countries. The publication of this document (summary of the Sustainable Business Performance). The objectives cited in the report were varied and among them the most important were: NIKE interactive web page on sustainability. Regarding the weather i hope to achieve energy reduction of 20% in CO2 emissions per unit for the period 2015 (the footprint impact on infrastructure, transport and shoemaking) .Also, improve 15% efficiency in water use in the processes of dyeing and tailoring, and shoemaking. Make no use of hazardous chemicals by 2020 and ultimately achieve 10% reduction in manufacturing waste and weight per unit shoebox. Regarding the most controversial social and yet throughout the history of NIKE to the end of 2020 is expected to have only topics contract factories that demonstrate a commitment to their employees and include protection and workers’ rights, issues health and safety, and a progressive movement toward defining the approach of the â€Å"just wage† proposed by the fair Labor Association. Although this is advertised, what really matters is to be met, so hopefully within the program when finished, have minimally met these standards have been proposed. And if so, NIKE would be an example of a brand with a good Corporative Social Responsibility 4. Did the California Supreme Court correctly decide the Kasky case? Why or why not? The highest American court decided to send the famous record vs. Nike Kasky lower courts, saying that did not belong to his jurisdiction. The Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the Nike Company in which it was stated that an advertising campaign to refute accusations of exploitation of staff was protected by the right to freedom of expression. The case of Nike vs Kasky, was rejected on a technicality, and in fact goes back to the lower courts of the American legal structure. But, anyway, has major implications for advertisers in general. If Nike had actually lost, would have severely limited the possibilities for companies to defend themselves publicly. Corporations and groups linked to advertising, which clung to the First Amendment to hold the event, are now in what is called â€Å"limbo†. El tema especà ­fico que trata la Corte Suprema es si las declaraciones pà ºblicas hechas por Nike en respuesta a acusaciones de abusos de explotacià ³n son â€Å"opinià ³n comercial† o â€Å"libertad de opinià ³n†. Sean o no verdad las declaraciones pà ºblicas de Nike sobre asuntos sociales y ambientales no es un tema en el caso ante la Corte Suprema. El tema principal detrà ¡s de la cuestià ³n especà ­fica bajo revisià ³n es si las corporaciones deben ser tratadas como â€Å"personas† en lo que concierne a la Primera Enmienda Constitucional de los EE UU sobre libertad de opinià ³n, si las corporaciones pueden ser hechas responsables por declaraciones falsas sobre sus prà ¡cticas sociales y  ambientales, y si las causas judiciales sobre este tema harà ¡ mà ¡s responsables a las corporaciones o las harà ¡ menos dispuestas a informar voluntariamente sobre acciones que està ¡n realizando para tratar con problemas sociales y ambientales. 5. How should the line between commercial and noncommercial speech be drawn? Advertising, as a sector of the economy by operation of law, is a multiplier of economic growth, so in it, the added values ​​are growing twice as fast as in the whole economy and its contribution to employment growth is four times higher than the current average. Advertising consequently exerts a positive pulse on growth. Inappropriately limit the freedom of communication and marketing major sector operators, means pushing the competition to a price cut because of a lower quality, lack of security and the very informality of economic performance. Commercial speech is fundamental to the exercise of free enterprise and economic growth of nations. No sustainable economic growth is possible in closed markets or inadequately controlled limit commercial speech is an act that: * Directly affects the possibility of improved quality and lower prices of products and services; * Limits the expansion of the economy; * Reduces freedom of enterprise, and * Compromises the freedom and independence of the media.

Worst Day of My Life

The Worst Day of My Life It was August 20th 2005 on a Friday morning. I woke up and I was feeling alright. I did what I usually do on Fridays. I cooked, cleaned, took a shower, brushed my hair, and then sat in the living room to watch T. V. Next, my favorite show came on and I was happy and excited to  watch the new episode. Later, the phone rang while I was watching the T. V, then I got up  and then answered the phone. It was my sister in law calling, to tell us that our father had passed away about  an hour  ago.I could not believe what I was hearing; I throw the phone on the floor, fell to my knees and started crying. My mother and everyone else ran towards me, asked me what was wrong and what I found out over the phone. I could not talk at all; I was out of breath from crying. But they all knew something terrible had happened. My mom picked up the phone from the floor and then talked with my sister in law, to find out the sad truth. My mom was shocked like me when she hea rd what I heard.When my siblings found out, we all fell apart and started to cry and hug each other. We prayed and asked god to get us through the tough time we were going through. After we prayed I went and sat in the corner with my brother and older sister. Three of us kept sitting and crying. After that my mother was trying to comfort us, but she could barely talk because she was crying so much. Unfortunately crying wouldn’t change the reality. My mother had to break the news to everyone over the phone.It was very painful hearing my mom breaking the news to the rest of the relatives, but we had no choice. In conclusion, our life has changed dramatically ever since my father’s death because my mother had to take all the responsibilities. Life was never the same for us, for we are missing the head of the household. Since the loss of our father is a fact, we had to live with the pain and get used to it. And every time that date passes we remember the grief of losing ou r father. Worst Day of My Life The Worst Day of My Life It was August 20th 2005 on a Friday morning. I woke up and I was feeling alright. I did what I usually do on Fridays. I cooked, cleaned, took a shower, brushed my hair, and then sat in the living room to watch T. V. Next, my favorite show came on and I was happy and excited to  watch the new episode. Later, the phone rang while I was watching the T. V, then I got up  and then answered the phone. It was my sister in law calling, to tell us that our father had passed away about  an hour  ago.I could not believe what I was hearing; I throw the phone on the floor, fell to my knees and started crying. My mother and everyone else ran towards me, asked me what was wrong and what I found out over the phone. I could not talk at all; I was out of breath from crying. But they all knew something terrible had happened. My mom picked up the phone from the floor and then talked with my sister in law, to find out the sad truth. My mom was shocked like me when she hea rd what I heard.When my siblings found out, we all fell apart and started to cry and hug each other. We prayed and asked god to get us through the tough time we were going through. After we prayed I went and sat in the corner with my brother and older sister. Three of us kept sitting and crying. After that my mother was trying to comfort us, but she could barely talk because she was crying so much. Unfortunately crying wouldn’t change the reality. My mother had to break the news to everyone over the phone.It was very painful hearing my mom breaking the news to the rest of the relatives, but we had no choice. In conclusion, our life has changed dramatically ever since my father’s death because my mother had to take all the responsibilities. Life was never the same for us, for we are missing the head of the household. Since the loss of our father is a fact, we had to live with the pain and get used to it. And every time that date passes we remember the grief of losing ou r father.

Free Essays on Age Of Industry

In consumer America, the perfectly competitive market is always under pressure to improve. Demands of increased efficiency and convenience keep producers on there toes in order to stay in the market. It seems that Americans are always dissatisfied with the quality at which any firm runs. At the supermarket, we see complaints about dirty, badly lit and crowded stores, confusing layouts, rude and difficult-to-find staff, unavailable products, and queuing at the checkout. A response to these accusations was the development of self-scanning and checkout. These demands have now extended themselves into our homes. New innovations in technology has promoted the creation of products that can now keep our minds worry free as they sweep along our floors, brew our coffee, and even untwist our jars. These things have become not only pedestrian in our society, but required for our daily living. The sheer though of vacuuming our own pools, or even dare to bake our bread could remind us of our grandmothers. Such menial jobs have been put out of our minds buy these new technological revolutions. As we step back into history, we see that man has always strived to be a little more efficient in their efforts. The first man to tie a sharp rock to a stick had a much easier time hunting then his counter part with throwing stones. Even from an early time, as man discovered jobs for survival, they also looked for methods of making them easier to accomplish. Convenience began as mostly being a luxury to the wealthy. This of course, was until the further development of our technological field. Such discoveries now make it possible for what once beyond the reach of the average American, affordable. Many today can remember when the change happened and still reminisce about times previous to the age of technology. But as the new generation moves in, one must notice how they perceive these products. The new generation has never dealt with toils that their eld... Free Essays on Age Of Industry Free Essays on Age Of Industry In consumer America, the perfectly competitive market is always under pressure to improve. Demands of increased efficiency and convenience keep producers on there toes in order to stay in the market. It seems that Americans are always dissatisfied with the quality at which any firm runs. At the supermarket, we see complaints about dirty, badly lit and crowded stores, confusing layouts, rude and difficult-to-find staff, unavailable products, and queuing at the checkout. A response to these accusations was the development of self-scanning and checkout. These demands have now extended themselves into our homes. New innovations in technology has promoted the creation of products that can now keep our minds worry free as they sweep along our floors, brew our coffee, and even untwist our jars. These things have become not only pedestrian in our society, but required for our daily living. The sheer though of vacuuming our own pools, or even dare to bake our bread could remind us of our grandmothers. Such menial jobs have been put out of our minds buy these new technological revolutions. As we step back into history, we see that man has always strived to be a little more efficient in their efforts. The first man to tie a sharp rock to a stick had a much easier time hunting then his counter part with throwing stones. Even from an early time, as man discovered jobs for survival, they also looked for methods of making them easier to accomplish. Convenience began as mostly being a luxury to the wealthy. This of course, was until the further development of our technological field. Such discoveries now make it possible for what once beyond the reach of the average American, affordable. Many today can remember when the change happened and still reminisce about times previous to the age of technology. But as the new generation moves in, one must notice how they perceive these products. The new generation has never dealt with toils that their eld...

Free Essays on Shays Rebellion

Troubled Farmers â€Å"In the first years of peacetime, following the Revolutionary War, the future of both the agrarian and commercial society appeared threatened by a strangling chain of debt which aggravated the depressed economy of the postwar years†.1 This poor economy affected almost everyone in New England especially the farmers. For years these farmers, or yeomen as they were commonly called, had been used to growing just enough for what they needed and grew little in surplus. As one farmer explained â€Å" My farm provides me and my family with a good living. Nothing we wear, eat, or drink was purchased, because my farm provides it all.†2 The only problem with this way of life is that with no surplus there was no way to make enough money to pay excessive debts. For example, since farmer possessed little money the merchants offered the articles they needed on short-term credit and accepted any surplus farm goods on a seasonal basis for payment. However if the farmer experie nced a poor crop, shopkeepers usually extended credit and thereby tied the farmer to their businesses on a yearly basis.3 During a credit crisis, the gradual disintegration of the traditional culture became more apparent. During hard times, merchants in need of ready cash withdrew credit from their yeomen customers and called for the repayment of loans in hard cash. Such demands showed the growing power of the commercial elite.4 As one could imagine this brought much social and economic unrest to the farmers of New England. Many of the farmers in debt were dragged into court and in many cases they were put into debtors prison. Many decided to take action: The farmers waited for the legal due process as long as them could. The Legislature, also know as the General Court, took little action to address the farmers complaints. 5 â€Å"So without waiting for General Court to come back into session to work on grievances as requested, the People took matters ... Free Essays on Shays Rebellion Free Essays on Shays Rebellion Troubled Farmers â€Å"In the first years of peacetime, following the Revolutionary War, the future of both the agrarian and commercial society appeared threatened by a strangling chain of debt which aggravated the depressed economy of the postwar years†.1 This poor economy affected almost everyone in New England especially the farmers. For years these farmers, or yeomen as they were commonly called, had been used to growing just enough for what they needed and grew little in surplus. As one farmer explained â€Å" My farm provides me and my family with a good living. Nothing we wear, eat, or drink was purchased, because my farm provides it all.†2 The only problem with this way of life is that with no surplus there was no way to make enough money to pay excessive debts. For example, since farmer possessed little money the merchants offered the articles they needed on short-term credit and accepted any surplus farm goods on a seasonal basis for payment. However if the farmer experie nced a poor crop, shopkeepers usually extended credit and thereby tied the farmer to their businesses on a yearly basis.3 During a credit crisis, the gradual disintegration of the traditional culture became more apparent. During hard times, merchants in need of ready cash withdrew credit from their yeomen customers and called for the repayment of loans in hard cash. Such demands showed the growing power of the commercial elite.4 As one could imagine this brought much social and economic unrest to the farmers of New England. Many of the farmers in debt were dragged into court and in many cases they were put into debtors prison. Many decided to take action: The farmers waited for the legal due process as long as them could. The Legislature, also know as the General Court, took little action to address the farmers complaints. 5 â€Å"So without waiting for General Court to come back into session to work on grievances as requested, the People took matters ...

Writing an Essay

Writing an Essay Writing an Essay Writing an Essay Ability to take analytical approach in non-standard situations is one of the core competencies a recent graduate has to possess. For this reason, a lot of attention is paid to the organization of independent creative work of students, to the development of analytical thinking skills, supported by credible evidence and expert opinion. The quality of any essay, such as term paper, depends on three components: The quality of the source materials (the notes of the collected material, lectures, recordings of the discussions, student's ideas and experience on this issue); The quality of the processed material (the material systematization, its organization, reasoning and arguments); Reasoning (ability to analyze, discuss, and relate theoretical information to examples). It is impossible to write college essay without referencing primary and secondary information. Typically, prior to giving an assignment to the students to write an essay, the teacher encourages them to read several different primary sources on the topic. These sources contain contradictory information or complementary ideas. These sources are chapters from textbooks, books, articles and various publications. It is important that among the different sources students can select by themselves or with the help of the tutor choose 2-3 key articles or chapters of the book that provide a conceptual framework and theoretical reasoning. Essay Writing Essay writing is evaluated using the following criteria: The ability to respond to a question; The ability to focus on the main question, and not to be distracted by related topics; The ability to use argumentation (evidence); The ability to use data and analysis while writing description of the problem; The ability to present different points of view and to express his/she own views. Writing an Essay Tips Essay genre gives an opportunity to a subjective description of the problem in a form of free composition. Its boundaries, in general, are blurred. Essays are defined as a note, draft, and thoughts. It is usually small by volume and it freely expresses individual impressions and author's thoughts concerning the article, book, picture, film, etc. The goal of essay writing is to disclose the proposed topic by bringing arguments. Essay can not contain many ideas. While writing essay, you should reflect on one or several ideas and develop them. Writing essay outline helps you create a good and logical essay. Writing an essay try to respond clearly to the posed question, and don't go away from the topic. .com Our site is devoted to providing high school and college students with custom essay writing assistance. Writing an essay is a challenge for you, while it is our pleasure to be able to help. Every client receives free plagiarism report and free bibliography list.

Business & Project Creation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Business & Project Creation - Essay Example equently observe a variety of aspects concerned in entering, or not entering, a market, together with the markets structural blockades to entry and the probable response of competitors. Market Analysis can work out a study using a mixture of surveys, focus groups, questionnaires and/or telephone interviews. This before time analysis will make one more conscious of companys strengths and weaknesses and progress chances of gaining an aggressive benefit and increasing market share. The Market Analysis Team has foundation abilities in performing market assessments and public strategy impact assessments using an analysis model. Any cost-effective model — which reproduces a detailed nominal cash flow for fresh products — estimates earnings, cash flows, and debt payment to estimate a projects leveled cost-of-launch, nominal Internal Rate of Return, and annual Debt-Service-Coverage-Ratios. The Market Analysis Team encourages and facilitates greater acceptance of new technologies in the market by functioning with services and other stakeholders to recognize suitable technologies and to deal with system incorporation matters. The Market Analysis Team fosters improved understanding of the role of markets by identifying market barriers and opportunities, and promoting market-based solutions, when possible, to achieve greater development. The Market Analysis Team informs and guides the key conclusion makers in order to optimistically manipulate progress decisions. This contains developing the establishment of nationwide and regional electorates through work with a range of interest groups, and given that support to client and stakeholder groups to widen and execute market-based plans for its products. The Market Analysis Team carries out assessments of the insinuations of industry reorganization for its new products technologies. One has to execute analyses of diverse suggestions for a normal, transmission pricing, and autonomous system operators; as well as analyses

CRM Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

CRM - Research Paper Example Its market share has reached 20% in the hypertension drug market. The company wanted to raise the awareness about Amodipine brand through advertising it as nation’s hypertension drug (Hanmi, â€Å"Hanmi at Glance†). Clari is another major pharmaceutical product of Hanmi Pharmaceutical Company. It is a Macrolide Antibiotic. It is one the Hanmi’s first generic drugs which are used to cure infection. It has benefited Hanami with robust sales and has ranked second in the sales of drugs after amodipine. Its sales were above 10 million USD in the year 2009 (Hanmi, â€Å"Hanmi at Glance†). Hanmi Pharmaceutical Hanmi Pharmaceutical Company was established in the year 1973 and from then onwards it has grown remarkably. Hanmi incessantly showed 20% to 30% growth rate since its establishment. It has emerged as one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Korea. In the year 2008 its sales was more than 558 million USD. By developing good R&D strategy Hanami Pharmace utical has now been able to become a most competitive organization in the international market (Hanmi, â€Å"Hanmi at Glance†). Value of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) CRM is an approach to create, expand and maintain customer relationship. It provides a vision to an organization in order to deal with their valuable customers. To meet these visions, organization should implement effective CRM strategies that can increase the sales, develop the customer service, marketing and data analysis activities. Notably, the main objective of CRM is to maximize beneficial relationship with customer for both dealer and customer. Hanmi’s high quality marketing as well as sales based information technology is considered as the main driving force which has resulted in consumer growth. Hanmi Pharmaceutical is dedicated to develop and provide innovative and valuable drugs to the customer to maintain an effective customer relationship. Hanmi Pharmaceuticals has been producing Cep halosporin products since 1987 and supplies products in over 40 countries. Hanmi has a wide range of customers in many countries of the USA, Europe and Asia. Their new manufacturing plant has the ability to produce many ‘innovative drug APIs and intermediates’ (Hanmi, â€Å"Hanmi at Glance†). Hanmi Pharmaceutical also maintains efficient relationship with their global partners for exploring modified drugs such as esomeprazole, clopidogrel, clari, amodipine and others. Hanmi is also working to find business partners in other parts of the world where they have not established yet (Hanmi, â€Å"News Archives†). In the year 2007 Hanmi Pharmaceutical got â€Å"Forbes management first prize†. Forbes had put a high valuation on Hanmi because of adopting ERP IT technology and took the social responsibility through a sustainable management approach. Hanmi Pharmaceutical always supports society to help customers live better in a cleaner environment. For insta nce, for children Hanmi changed single cap medicine to double capped medicine. It planned and promoted various strategies to upgrade the quality of life of customers with efficient CRM strategies (Hanmi, â€Å"News Archives†). Customer Retention Program (CRP) Often organizations develop programs which offer purchase inducement, such as discounts on any purchase from any company or â€Å"soft benefits† which is referred to as Customer Retention Program (CRP). An effective CRP includes plans and methods for identification and registration of customer, customer segmentation, design

Trusts and Equity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Trusts and Equity - Essay Example In both cases, Chambers writes equity assumptions that the owner was not intended to receive the benefit of the property and raises a resulting trust in favour of the provider of that property. In Re Vandervell's Trusts (No. 2), Megarry J. concluded that the resulting trust operated on different principles in each of these two situations. His lordship classified the resulting trust of an apparent gift as 'presumed' and the resulting trust on the failure of an express trust as 'automatic'. The presumed resulting trust was said to be based on the presumed intention of the provider of the property to create it and could be rebutted by evidence to the contrary. The automatic resulting trust arose independently of intention and was indisputable 2. Resulting trusts arise by operation of law settled on by equity. That means trust is dependant on the decisions of equity particularly in conditions where property has been transferred to another and the provider of that property did not intend to benefit the recipient, equity responds by imposing a resulting trust. The distinction between express and resulting trusts is that the former are created by an intention to create a trust, whereas the latter arise because of a lack of intention to benefit the recipient 3. Geldart writes, "Apart from Common Law and Statute Law, the most important department of our legal system is Equity" 4. That means the vitality of equity is apparent in English law system, that's why when the terms 'law' and 'equity' are used in legal sense, it does not concern about equity being an aspect of law and order, all it means is two different kinds of law the Common Law on the one side while the rules of Equity on the other. It is due to the rule that morally and legally binds to the decisions enforced by the courts. These two sets of rules imposed in the terms of 'law' and 'equity', must not be looked upon as two co-ordinate and independent systems. On the contrary, the rules of Equity are only a sort of supplement or appendix to the Common Law; they assume its existence but they add something further. In this way Equity is an addition to the Common Law. Further, the rules of Equity, though they did not contradict the rules of Common Law, in effect and in practice produce a result opposed to that which would have been produced if the Common Law rules had remained alone. A Common Law right was practically, though not theoretically, nullified by the existence of a countervailing equitable right 5. Though since the Judicature Act came into force in 1875 the rules of Common Law and Equity are recognised and administered in the same court, yet they still remain distinct bodies of law, governed largely by different principles. In order to ascertain the rights to which any given set of facts gives rise, we must always ask (i) what is the rule of Common Law (ii) What difference (if any) is made in the working of this rule by the existence of some rule of Equity applying to the case 6 Like the Common Law, the rules of Equity are judicial law, i.e. to find them we must look in the first instances to the decisions of the judges who have administered Equity. But some branches

Media Economics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Media Economics - Essay Example The Big 6 Media Giants namely General Electric, Walt Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom and CBS are a practical example of this definition. These conglomerations not only control what we see, hear and read but also control our thoughts. They are all vertically integrated which allows them to produce and distribute media and news to their likings and manipulate our views (Shah, 2009). Media ownership and conglomeration have taken a new form with time. They are no longer attached to the purity of journalism or of best interests of the audiences. The media conglomerations are now slanted towards corporate goals and interests. In order to achieve the goals, the conglomerates are most often accused of being biased with allegations of corporate whitewashing and censorship (Bagdikian, 1997). In addition, to promote their own interests, media conglomerates favor infotainment over relevant news stories. Although the idea of media conglomeration and ownership is not a bad idea as it can create a healthy competition providing viable and valid news to the audiences. The concern is basically related to the concentration of ownership which can and is increasing the economic and political influence. According to Rifka Rosenwein, the concentration of media ownership has increased the control over expressions which has led to an aggressive competition and silencing of the news and ideas in the marketplace (Shah, 2009). According to the latest statistics, in 2009, there are only six giant conglomerates that own the US media namely the Big 6. This is eventually leading to monopolies and oligopolies which from a business perspective is not a good sign. Considering the role played by media in a prevailing democracy, reaching out to masses is of paramount importance. Many of the media conglomerates own entertainment companies such as Walt Disney where one cannot expect the company to discuss sw eatshop labor when, on the other hand, it is accused of being part of it (Shah,

Position Paper on Achilles (As the Hero) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Position Paper on Achilles (As the Hero) - Essay Example In Greek mythology honor meant courage, integrity in ones belief and actions and honesty of intent. Achilles fulfills all of them whereas we see that Hector is unable to stand his ground in trying to fight for his people. In book 22, Hector was the single Trojan left outside Troy. His father, Priam, stands guard observing the battleground from the Trojan fortifications. He pleads with Hector to come inside. We then see that Hector contemplates finding a less damaging solution by giving over Helen of troy, who was the fountainhead of the war, and with her the treasures that Alexandrus bought, in order to settle with Achilles. But he still stands guard deciding that Achilles would not be merciful. However, the sight of Achilles at the gates struck fear in the heart of Hector who fled with Achilles in hot pursuit. Hector runs the length of troy thrice, trying to rid himself of Achilles. Meanwhile in Olympus Zeus, watched this chase and pitied the noble Hector who had ‘burned many a heifer’ in his honor and considers saving him. Minerva (Athena) then flares up saying that if her father wishes to alter the prophesied fate of Hector then she would not be of mind with him. In response to Athena’s disapproval, Zeus urges her to descent from Olympus and fulfill Hectors predefined fate. Then at last as the two warriors were approaching the fountains of Troy for the fourth Troy, Zeus balanced his golden scales and placed on each end the fate of Achilles and Hector, whereby Hectors scale fell into the depths of Hades. We witness then that Athena goes to Achilles relays news of his upcoming victory and informs him of her plan to trick Hector. Athena then appears near Hector disguised as Deiphobus and convinces Hector to face Achilles with Deiphobus by Hectors side. When Hector finally faces Achilles he pledges not to mistreat his body if Achilles is slain and return it to the Achaeans, in turn for a return favor incase Hector meets his end. Achilles refu ses to bind himself in any such pledges and tried to strike his spear at Hector. But Hector managed to avoid it. In retaliation Hector, with remarkable aim, hurls his spear at Achilles but it bounces off his armor. When Hector turns to Deiphobus to ask for another spear he finds that his brother has disappeared and then it dawns on him that Minerva has tricked him to his doom. Hector, nevertheless, wants to die a glorious death and swoops upon Achilles with a sword. Achilles moves forward for an attack as well and having spotted the exposed collarbone of Hector through the armor he pierces his neck. As the last breathe leaves him Hector asks for his body to be sent to his parents instead of being devoured at the banks of the Achaen ships but Achilles does not honor his request and ridicules him. Following this the Achaen soldiers wounded the body of Hector and his body was then dragged in dirt by the chariot of Achilles. The city mourns for their hero as Hectors father, mother and w ife go manic with grief. An example of a show of honor is when Achilles shows immense resolve and righteousness for his cause as Hector nears his end. While Hector lay bleeding, he tries to entice Achilles with promises of gold and treasure if Achilles would return Hectors body to his people. Earlier when Hector asks Achilles to deliver his body to his city if he dies, he replies: â€Å"Hector stop! You unforgivable you †¦ don’t talk to me of pacts. There are no binding oaths between men and lions –

Media Economics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Media Economics - Essay Example The Big 6 Media Giants namely General Electric, Walt Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom and CBS are a practical example of this definition. These conglomerations not only control what we see, hear and read but also control our thoughts. They are all vertically integrated which allows them to produce and distribute media and news to their likings and manipulate our views (Shah, 2009). Media ownership and conglomeration have taken a new form with time. They are no longer attached to the purity of journalism or of best interests of the audiences. The media conglomerations are now slanted towards corporate goals and interests. In order to achieve the goals, the conglomerates are most often accused of being biased with allegations of corporate whitewashing and censorship (Bagdikian, 1997). In addition, to promote their own interests, media conglomerates favor infotainment over relevant news stories. Although the idea of media conglomeration and ownership is not a bad idea as it can create a healthy competition providing viable and valid news to the audiences. The concern is basically related to the concentration of ownership which can and is increasing the economic and political influence. According to Rifka Rosenwein, the concentration of media ownership has increased the control over expressions which has led to an aggressive competition and silencing of the news and ideas in the marketplace (Shah, 2009). According to the latest statistics, in 2009, there are only six giant conglomerates that own the US media namely the Big 6. This is eventually leading to monopolies and oligopolies which from a business perspective is not a good sign. Considering the role played by media in a prevailing democracy, reaching out to masses is of paramount importance. Many of the media conglomerates own entertainment companies such as Walt Disney where one cannot expect the company to discuss sw eatshop labor when, on the other hand, it is accused of being part of it (Shah,

Individual Projct Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Individual Projct - Essay Example Style of management which needs to be applied to a particular organization depends upon various facts. The style of management should be selected according to the nature and size of the organization. The respective style of management should be able to solve all the problems faced by the organization and it should positively contribute for the overall growth and prosperity of the organization. Style of management selected for an organization should be able to handle all the departments, infrastructure and human resource of the organization. The appropriate style of management can increase the efficiency and performance of an organization to a good extent. ‘The right to strike’ is the most basic aspect of any style of management. The level to which the employees are able to strike and the extent to which they are capable of doing so are crucial factors as far as the success of the organization is concerned. The organization will be successful only if the work is coordinat ed and organized properly and if all the staff shows a cooperative mood. The work flow as well as the commitment of the employees depends upon the style of management that is implemented in that organization. Different organizations choose different styles of management. Scientific management is opted by certain organizations as their management strategy. Some other organizations go for human relations management. Scientific management is a particular type of approach to management and industrial organizational psychology. Scientific management is applicable in large manufacturing factories having complex production methods. This style of management talks about the advantages of division of labor. According to the theories of scientific management jobs should be assigned to people depending upon their talents and capabilities. It should be categorized and divided among the respective suitable staff. Scientific management explains the necessity of allocating

Learning disability Essay Example for Free

Learning disability Essay Special education refers to the arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials, accessible settings, and other interventions designed to address the needs of students with learning differences, mental health issues, physical and developmental disabilities, and giftedness. Provision of special education is inferred from two provisions of the 1987 Philippine Constitution. Article II, Section 17 provides that the state must give priority to education, while Article XIV, Section 1 guarantees that this education be accessible to all: appropriate steps must be taken. School can be particularly challenging for children with special needs, including those with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, who often experience poor academic performance, behavior problems, and difficulties with social interaction. The situation can be further complicated by the fact that there is no typical, predictable classroom style common to all children with special needs, for that matter. It can also be hard for parents to tell how much of any problem identified by a teacher falls into the normal range of a child development, for example how much is due to ADHD, and how much is due to coexisting problem such as learning disability, anxiety disorder, or disruptive behavior and others. Add to this fact that the public school system here in the Philippines may not have Individualized Education Program (IEP) that will meet the needs of these special children. In this study, the researchers will use different basic methods of assessing special education curriculum how it may be integrated into the mainstream or general education particularly in the Philippine public school system, without compromising quality of education.

Themes And Controversy In Fight Club

Themes And Controversy In Fight Club The conversion of the novel Fight Club to film, though controversial, turned out to be a very effective way of enhancing the authors reputation while spreading the message of its themes, such as the emasculation of men, to a wider audience and inciting much discussion on its social and cultural effects. Columbine occurred only six months previously and in its shadow many blamed violent media on their actions, as the author of Fight Club saved by Cast does, calling the movie a story about a secret society of men who like to pick fights for no other reason than they simply enjoy fighting. He seems to believe that the film took the fighting out of the context of its themes and therefore becomes an ad for violence and nothing more. 3. Yet most critics agree that the movie delves deeper than that, perhaps as a commentary on modern society or National Socialism or the soullessness of corporate America. Many think as I do though, and believe that the film s main focus is the emasculation of men (Lim). 4. Though any of these have the potential to be true, the actors themselves agree that the movie should be left up to interpretation; it becomes for you what you need it to be. B. Lead up to and follow up of thesis 1. Fight Club raises a number of different reactions, many negative because of the violence, but the book isn t about violence, it s about finding your worth, getting your identity and holding onto it, earning your place. 2. Thesis 3. This movie was designed to lure in controversy, especially in light of the Columbine shooting, by not only making the statement that men want to and enjoy doing this, but hides no brutality in the film itself. There is no shortage of blood or bruises and no mercy in the sound of skulls smacking pavement (Lim). II. The Cultural effects of Fight Club A. Author s reputation 1. The film adaptation of his novel made Palahniuk s reputation skyrocket, it propelled his work to the forefront of modern literature ( COMMENTARY ). It initiated the creation of a video game and men s clothing line, and provided people with plenty of catchphrases. (Lim) B. Culture: Background 1. This film has also had a massive effect on culture and produced a following unprecedented by early road bumps. 2. Ads for the film, to the director s dismay, ran during wrestling matches, It was sold as, hey come see people beat each other up. To truly understand and appreciate the movie it had to be freed from initial misconceptions that all it was about was a group of men who enjoy beating the tar out of one another. 3. The film also cost more than sixty million dollars and it sadly, as many had hoped, bombed at the box office only earning thirty seven million (Lim). C. Mormon Fight Club in Provo, Utah (Source 5, Gumbel) 1. Even with these road bumps it was still powerful enough to start fight clubs around North America, even in the heart of America s Mormon country. 2. Mormon students attending Brigham Young University and Utah State College had been meeting in secret and modeled a Fight Club of their own after the movie. 3. Looking for bloody violence with a friendly twist? asks the club s website, Fight Club where friends gather to enjoy a relaxing beating (Gumbel). 4. Fight Club not only drew a lot of attention but also was powerful enough to start Fight Clubs that hold true to the movie in rhetoric and serve the same purpose. III. Themes A. Nobody Knows for Sure 1. With no one willing to give the film a clear thematic purpose, including the director, it is wide open to interpretation, and with plenty of people willing to offer up their thoughts there is no shortage of potential themes. 2. The movie seems to have created ubiquitous controversy amongst critics, authors and everyday people all debating over its influences and themes. Is it Nietzschean? Buddhist? Marxist? Is it about the rhetoric of masculinity? The poetics of the body? The economics of patriarchy? (Lim). 3. The argument with the most merit seems to be that it should take on the interpretation that the viewer finds applies to him/herself the best. 4. Mr. Norton agrees saying, Joseph Campbell has that great idea about mythologies: that a myth functions best when it s transparent, when people see through the story to themselves. When something gets to the point where it becomes the vehicle for people sorting out their own themes, I think you ve achieved a kind of holy grail. Maybe the best you can say is that you ve managed to do something true to your own sensations. But at the same time you realize that this has nothing to do with you. B. Emasculation of Men 1. Even in light of this one of the most popular themes appears to be the emasculation of men and their loss of male identity in the late 20th century up to today. 2. Though society condemns violence and aggression, both part of masculinity since the beginning of time, they praise violent actions in the right context. When the passengers on Flight 93 used violence on the high jackers to bring the plane down their actions were considered valiant (Boon). 3. As this applies to all men, and functions as a commentary on society as a whole, this is one of the most significant of all possibilities. Aside from that the idea of this loss of power and identity in men to the point of reclusive masculinity is becoming more and more true. IV. Conclusion A. Wrap up of themes 1. In short, Fight Club is a film of lost identity, masculinity being slowly drained from its keepers. 2. How can any man be expected to perform his function with the contradictory standards presented by culture? Men are chastised by society for practicing rituals traditionally used to prepare them for the duties they must perform as men, yet are still expected to complete those duties. Men are to: a. physically defend without training in single combat, to exhibit bravery and valor without physically imposing themselves on anyone else, to conquer without dominating, to acquiesce without surrendering, to control their environment without being controlling, to attain victory without defeating anyone, and to remain ready to fight without fighting (Boon). 3. With such limits men are forced to practice their masculinity in secret and left angry and abandoned by society. B. The End 1. Fight Club is an incredible film ripe with controversy and open to interpretation. 2. Though many critics were unforgiving, one dubbing it a film without a single redeeming quality, which may have to find its audience in Hell, anyone should be able to appreciate its dark humor and clever twists regardless of a person s stance on violence or interpretation of the film. The invention of the movie s director David Fincher makes the movie a work of art and adds immeasurably to its effectiveness; he keeps you guessing until the end (Fight Club). Other than that it holds truer to the novel it was based on than any other film I have ever seen. 3. And finally, I think the author of Fight Club says it best when he concludes, a. At the end of the day you could agree that Fight Club is a celebration of corrupted masculinity as vehemently as the opposing view that it s a parody of these ideals. It won t make any difference though because, either way, this is a thrilling, intelligent and shocking blasterpiece.

National Westminster Bank Essay -- Business and Management Studies:

National Westminster Bank 1. Introduction The purpose of this report is to analyse the case â€Å"National Westminster Bank† (David Woodgate and Nigel Slack, 1992), in order to identify any existing and potential problems, then after careful consideration recommend possible courses of action to rectify them. During the review of the organisation described in the case, the key issues will be identified and then related to relevant theory. Analysis will then be made of all relevant factors and recommendations will be made after consideration of all factors. Overview of the Case The case study to be analysed focuses on the St James’s Square branch of the National Westminster Bank in London’s West End. The case gives a clear and concise representation of the bank’s structure giving detailed descriptions of the all the employees roles and functions and an organisation chart. The focus is then applied to the Records Section and account opening procedure, which is where the problems are found and complaints have been registered. The results of a survey are summarised in the case to show the apparent level of customer dissatisfaction with the account opening procedure, the importance of such factors are then highlighted with a brief description of the level of competition within the banking industry. The views of are also considered and suggest areas where current systems may be failing the organisation. 2. Problem Key Issues The location of the bank in St James’s square is both a blessing and a burden to the organisation. The sophisticated clientele resulted in the bank being the most profitable in its region, yet they also expected an extremely high level of customer service. This high level of expectation from the customers resulted in any lapses in service being highly scrutinised. The key issues to be addressed within this branch occur in or around the process of opening accounts which is the responsibility of the Records Section, they are as follows:  · Customers joining the wrong queue and requiring redirection because the enquiries desk was â€Å"neither well positioned or signposted†.  · Competition is â€Å"tough† within the banking industry, particularly in this branch’s immediate vicinity.  · 36 per cent of customers felt formalities were not properly explained.  · 76 per cent had not received the sta... ...nt a new system in the Records Section. After consideration of alternatives it is apparent that it would be possible and practical for the organisation to do this without major disruption to the organisational structure. 5. Recommendations The main recommendation from the findings in this report is for the St James's Square branch to implement a cell layout in order for the Records Section to handle its workload. This would enable them to carry out all their tasks much more efficiently and fulfil its duties while maintaining customer satisfaction. To implement such a system the bank will need to employ a process of windows in which customers are able to come in and open accounts or to arrange appointments on the phone. Possible drawbacks with such a service would be that customers would not be able to open accounts at their convenience and may become dissatisfied with this process but the quality of product they would receive is likely to be much improved. --------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Statistics derived from a survey the branch carried out in 1989 on customer's views of their account opening procedures.

Bag of Bones CHAPTER NINE

At nine o'clock the following morning I filled a squeeze-bottle with grapefruit juice and set out for a good long walk south along The Street. The day was bright and already hot. It was also silent the kind of silence you experience only after a Saturday holiday, I think, one composed of equal parts holiness and hangover. I could see two or three fishermen parked far out on the lake, but not a single power boat burred, not a single gaggle of kids shouted and splashed. I passed half a dozen cottages on the slope above me, and although all of them were likely inhabited at this time of year, the only signs of life I saw were bathing suits hung over the deck rail at the Passendales' and a half-deflated fluorescent-green seahorse on the Batchelders' stub of a dock. But did the Passendales' little gray cottage still belong to the Passendales? Did the Batchelders' amusing circular summer-camp with its Cinerama picture-window pointing at the lake and the mountains beyond still belong to the Batchelders? No way of telling, of course. Four years can bring a lot of changes. I walked and made no effort to think an old trick from my writing days. Work your body, rest your mind, let the boys in the basement do their jobs. I made my way past camps where Jo and I had once had drinks and barbecues and attended the occasional card-party, I soaked up the silence like a sponge, I drank my juice, I armed sweat off my forehead, and I waited to see what thoughts might come. The first was an odd realization: that the crying child in the night seemed somehow more real than the call from Max Devore. Had I actually been phoned by a rich and obviously bad-tempered techno-mogul on my first full evening back on the TR? Had said mogul actually called me a liar at one point? (I was, considering the tale I had told, but that was beside the point.) I knew it had happened, but it was actually easier to believe in The Ghost of Dark Score Lake, known around some campfires as The Mysterious Crying Kiddie. My next thought this was just before I finished my juice was that I should call Mattie Devore and tell her what had happened. I decided it was a natural impulse but probably a bad idea. I was too old to believe in such simplicities as The Damsel in Distress Versus The Wicked Stepfather . . . or, in this case, Father-in-Law. I had my own fish to fry this summer, and I didn't want to complicate my job by getting into a potentially ugly dispute between Mr. Computer and Ms. Doublewide. Devore had rubbed my fur the wrong way and vigorously but that probably wasn't personal, only something he did as a matter of course. Hey, some guys snap bra-straps. Did I want to get in his face on this? No. I did not. I had saved Little Miss Red Sox, I had gotten myself an inadvertent feel of Mom's small but pleasantly firm breast, I had learned that Kyra was Greek for ladylike. Any more than that would be gluttony, by God. I stopped at that point, feet as well as brain, realizing I'd walked all the way to Warrington's, a vast barnboard structure which locals sometimes called the country club. It was, sort of there was a six-hole golf course, a stable and riding trails, a restaurant, a bar, and lodging for perhaps three dozen in the main building and the eight or nine satellite cabins. There was even a two-lane bowling alley, although you and your competition had to take turns setting up the pins. Warrington's had been built around the beginning of World War I. That made it younger than Sara Laughs, but not by much. A long dock led out to a smaller building called The Sunset Bar. It was there that Warrington's summer guests would gather for drinks at the end of the day (and some for Bloody Marys at the beginning). And when I glanced out that way, I realized I was no longer alone. There was a woman standing on the porch to the left of the floating bar's door, watching me. She gave me a pretty good jump. My nerves weren't in their best condition right then, and that probably had something to do with it . . . but I think she would have given me a jump in any case. Part of it was her stillness. Part was her extraordinary thinness. Most of it was her face. Have you ever seen that Edvard Munch drawing, The Cry? Well, if you imagine that screaming face at rest, mouth closed and eyes watchful, you'll have a pretty good image of the woman standing at the end of the dock with one long-fingered hand resting on the rail. Although I must tell you that my first thought was not Edvard Munch but Mrs. Danvers. She looked about seventy and was wearing black shorts over a black tank bathing suit. The combination looked strangely formal, a variation on the ever-popular little black cocktail dress. Her skin was cream-white, except above her nearly flat bosom and along her bony shoulders. There it swam with large brown age-spots. Her face was a wedge featuring prominent skull-like cheekbones and an unlined lamp of brow. Beneath that bulge, her eyes were lost in sockets of shadow. White hair hung scant and lank around her ears and down to the prominent shelf of her jaw. God, she's thin, I thought. She's nothing but a bag of A shudder twisted through me at that. It was a strong one, as if someone were spinning a wire in my flesh. I didn't want her to notice it what a way to start a summer day, by revolting a guy so badly that he stood there shaking and grimacing in front of you so I raised my hand and waved. I tried to smile, as well. Hello there, lady standing out by the floating bar. Hello there, you old bag of bones, you scared the living shit out of me but it doesn't take much these days and I forgive you. How the fuck ya doin? I wondered if my smile looked as much like a grimace to her as it felt to me. She didn't wave back. Feeling quite a bit like a fool THERE'S NO VILLAGE IDIOT HERE, WE ALL TAKE TURNS I ended my wave in a kind of half-assed salute and headed back the way I'd come. Five steps and I had to look over my shoulder; the sensation of her watching me was so strong it was like a hand pressing between my shoulderblades. The dock where she'd been was completely deserted. I squinted my eyes, at first sure she must have just retreated deeper into the shadow thrown by the little boozehaus, but she was gone. As if she had been a ghost herself. She stepped into the bar, hon, Jo said. You know that, don't you? I mean . . . you do know it, right? ‘Right, right,' I murmured, setting off north along The Street toward home. ‘Of course I do. Where else?' Except it didn't seem to me that there had been time; it didn't seem to me that she could have stepped in, even in her bare feet, without me hearing her. Not on such a quiet morning. Jo again: Perhaps she's stealthy. ‘Yes,' I murmured. I did a lot of talking out loud before that summer was over. ‘Yes, perhaps she is. Perhaps she's stealthy.' Sure. Like Mrs. Danvers. I stopped again and looked back, but the right-of-way path had followed the lake around a little bit of curve, and I could no longer see either Warrington's or The Sunset Bar. And really, I thought, that was just as well. On my way back, I tried to list the oddities which had preceded and then surrounded my return to Sara Laughs: the repeating dreams; the sunflowers; the radio-station sticker; the weeping in the night. I supposed that my encounter with Mattie and Kyra, plus the follow-up phone-call from Mr. Pixel Easel, also qualified as passing strange . . . but not in the same way as a child you heard sobbing in the night. And what about the fact that we had been in Derry instead of on Dark Score when Johanna died? Did that qualify for the list? I didn't know. I couldn't even remember why that was. In the fall and winter of 1993 I'd been fiddling with a screenplay for The Red-Shirt Man. In February of '94 I got going on All the Way from the Top, and that absorbed most of my attention. Besides, deciding to go west to the TR, west to Sara . . . ‘That was Jo's job,' I told the day, and as soon as I heard the words I understood how true they were. We'd both loved the old girl, but saying ‘Hey Irish, let's get our asses over to the TR for a few days' had been Jo's job. She might say it any time . . . except in the year before her death she hadn't said it once. And I had never thought to say it for her. Had somehow forgotten all about Sara Laughs, it seemed, even when summer came around. Was it possible to be that absorbed in a writing project? It didn't seem likely . . . but what other explanation was there? Something was very wrong with this picture, but I didn't know what it was. Not from nothin. That made me think of Sara Tidwell, and the lyrics to one of her songs. She had never been recorded, but I owned the Blind Lemon Jefferson version of this particular tune. One verse went: It ain't nuthin but a barn-dance sugar It ain't nuthin but a round-and-round Let me kiss you on your sweet lips sugar You the good thing that I found. I loved that song, and had always wondered how it would have sounded coming out of a woman's mouth instead of from that whiskey-voiced old troubadour. Out of Sara Tidwell's mouth. I bet she sang sweet. And boy, I bet she could swing it. I had gotten back to my own place again. I looked around, saw no one in the immediate vicinity (although I could now hear the day's first ski-boat burring away downwater), stripped to my underpants, and swam out to the float. I didn't climb it, only lay beside it holding onto the ladder with one hand and lazily kicking my feet. It was nice enough, but what was I going to do with the rest of the day? I decided to spend it cleaning my work area on the second floor. When that was done, maybe I'd go out and look around in Jo's studio. If I didn't lose my courage, that was. I swam back, kicking easily along, raising my head in and out of water which flowed along my body like cool silk. I felt like an otter. I was most of the way to the shore when I raised my dripping face and saw a woman standing on The Street, watching me. She was as thin as the one I'd seen down at Warrington's . . . but this one was green. Green and pointing north along the path like a dryad in some old legend. I gasped, swallowed water, coughed it back out. I stood up in chest-deep water and wiped my streaming eyes. Then I laughed (albeit a little doubtfully). The woman was green because she was a birch growing a little to the north of where my set of railroad-tie steps ended at The Street. And even with my eyes clear of water, there was something creepy about how the leaves around the ivory-streaked-with-black trunk almost made a peering face. The air was perfectly still and so the face was perfectly still (as still as the face of the woman in the black shorts and bathing suit had been), but on a breezy day it would seem to smile or frown . . . or perhaps to laugh. Behind it there grew a sickly pine. One bare branch jutted off to the north. It was this I had mistaken for a skinny arm and a bony, pointing hand. It wasn't the first time I'd spooked myself like that. I see things, that's all. Write enough stories and every shadow on the floor looks like a footprint, every line in the dirt like a secret message. Which did not, of course, ease the task of deciding what was really peculiar at Sara Laughs and what was peculiar only because my mind was peculiar. I glanced around, saw I still had this part of the lake to myself (although not for much longer; the bee-buzz of the first power boat had been joined by a second and third), and stripped off my soggy underpants. I wrung them out, put them on top of my shorts and tee-shirt, and walked naked up the railroad-tie steps with my clothes held against my chest. I pretended I was Bunter, bringing breakfast and the morning paper to Lord Peter Wimsey. By the time I got back inside the house I was grinning like a fool. The second floor was stifling in spite of the open windows, and I saw why as soon as I got to the top of the stairs. Jo and I had shared space up here, she on the left (only a little room, really just a cubby, which was all she needed with the studio north of the house), me on the right. At the far end of the hall was the grilled snout of the monster air-conditioning unit we'd bought the year after we bought the lodge. Looking at it, I realized I had missed its characteristic hum without even being aware of it. There was a sign taped to it which said, Mr. Noonan: Broken. Blows hot air when you turn it on & sounds full of broken glass. Dean says the part it needs is promised from Western Auto in Castle Rock. I'll believe it when I see it. B. Meserve. I grinned at that last -it was Mrs. M. right down to the ground and then I tried the switch. Machinery often responds favorably when it senses a penis-equipped human in the vicinity, Jo used to claim, but not this time. I listened to the air conditioner grind for five seconds or so, then snapped it off. ‘Damn thing shit the bed,' as TR folks like to say. And until it was fixed, I wouldn't even be doing crossword puzzles up here. I looked in my office just the same, as curious about what I might feel as about what I might find. The answer was next to nothing. There was the desk where I had finished The Red-Shirt Man, thus proving to myself that the first time wasn't a fluke; there was the photo of Richard Nixon, arms raised, flashing the double V-for-Victory sign, with the caption WOULD YOU BUY A USED CAR FROM THIS MAN? running beneath; there was the rag rug Jo had hooked for me a winter or two before she had discovered the wonderful world of afghans and pretty much gave up hooking. It wasn't quite the office of a stranger, but every item (most of all, the weirdly empty surface of the desk) said that it was the work-space of an earlier-generation Mike Noonan. Men's lives, I had read once, are usually defined by two primary forces: work and marriage. In my life the marriage was over and the career on what appeared to be permanent hiatus. Given that, it didn't seem strange to me that now the space where I'd spent so many days, usually in a state of real happiness as I made up various imaginary lives, seemed to mean nothing. It was like looking at the office of an employee who had been fired . . . or who had died suddenly. I started to leave, then had an idea. The filing cabinet in the corner was crammed with papers bank statements (most eight or ten years out of date), correspondence (mostly never answered), a few story fragments-but I didn't find what I was looking for. I moved on to the closet, where the temperature had to be at least a hundred and ten degrees, and in a cardboard box which Mrs. M. had marked GADGETS, I unearthed it a Sanyo Memo-Scriber Debra Weinstock gave me at the conclusion of our work on the first of the Putnam books. It could be set to turn itself on when you started to talk; it dropped into its PAUSE mode when you stopped to think. I never asked Debra if the thing just caught her eye and she thought, ‘Why, I'll bet any self-respecting popular novelist would enjoy owning one of these babies,' or if it was something a little more specific . . . some sort of hint, perhaps? Verbalize those little faxes from your subconscious while they're still fresh, Noonan? I hadn't known then and didn't now. But I had it, a genuine pro-quality dictating-machine, and there were at least a dozen cassette tapes in my car, home dubs I'd made to listen to while driving. I would insert one in the Memo-Scriber tonight, slide the volume control as high as it would go, and put the machine in its DICTATE mode. Then, if the noise I'd heard at least twice now repeated itself, I would have it on tape. I could play it for Bill Dean and ask him what he thought it was. What if I hear the sobbing child tonight and the machine never kicks on? ‘Well then, I'll know something else,' I told the empty, sunlit office. I was standing there in the doorway with the Memo-Scriber under my arm, looking at the empty desk and sweating like a pig. ‘Or at least suspect it.' Jo's nook across the hall made my office seem crowded and homey by comparison. Never overfull, it was now nothing but a square room-shaped space. The rug was gone, her photos were gone, even the desk was gone. This looked like a do-it-yourself project which had been abandoned after ninety percent of the work had been done. Jo had been scrubbed out of it scraped out of it and I felt a moment's unreasonable anger at Brenda Meserve. I thought of what my mother usually said when I'd done something on my own initiative of which she disapproved: ‘You took a little too much on y'self, didn't you?' That was my feeling about Jo's little bit of office: that in emptying it to the walls this way, Mrs. Meserve had taken a little too much on herself. Maybe it wasn't Mrs. M. who cleaned it out, the UFO voice said. Maybe Jo did it herself. Ever think of that, sport? ‘That's stupid,' I said. ‘Why would she? I hardly think she had a premonition of her own death. Considering she'd just bought ‘ But I didn't want to say it. Not out loud. It seemed like a bad idea somehow. I turned to leave the room, and a sudden sigh of cool air, amazing in that heat, rushed past the sides of my face. Not my body; just my face. It was the most extraordinary sensation, like hands patting briefly but gently at my cheeks and forehead. At the same time there was a sighing in my ears . . . except that's not quite right. It was a susurrus that went past my ears, like a whispered message spoken in a hurry. I turned, expecting to see the curtains over the room's window in motion . . . but they hung perfectly straight. ‘Jo?' I said, and hearing her name made me shiver so violently that I almost dropped the Memo-Scriber. ‘Jo, was that you?' Nothing. No phantom hands patting my skin, no motion from the curtains . . . which there certainly would have been if there had been an actual draft. All was quiet. There was only a tall man with a sweaty face and a tape-recorder under his arm standing in the doorway of a bare room . . . but that was when I first began to really believe that I wasn't alone in Sara Laughs. So what? I asked myself. Even if it should be true, so what? Ghosts can't hurt anyone. That's what I thought then. When I visited Jo's studio (her air-conditioned studio) after lunch, I felt quite a lot better about Brenda Meserve she hadn't taken too much on herself after all. The few items I especially remembered from Jo's little office the framed square of her first afghan, the green rag rug, her framed poster depicting the wildflowers of Maine had been put out here, along with almost everything else I remembered. It was as if Mrs. M. had sent a message I can't ease your pain or shorten your sadness, and I can't prevent the wounds that coming back here may re-open, but I can put all the stuff that may hurt you in one place, so you won't be stumbling over it unexpected or unprepared. I can do that much. Out here were no bare walls; out here the walls jostled with my wife's spirit and creativity. There were knitted things (some serious, many whimsical), batik squares, rag dolls popping out of what she called ‘my baby collages,' an abstract desert painting made from strips of yellow, black, and orange silk, her flower photographs, even, on top of her bookshelf, what appeared to be a construction-in-progress, a head of Sara Laughs herself. It was made out of toothpicks and lollipop sticks. In one corner was her little loom and a wooden cabinet with a sign reading JO'S KNITTING STUFF! NO TRESPASSING! hung over the pull-knob. In another was the banjo she had tried to learn and then given up on, saying it hurt her fingers too much. In a third was a kayak paddle and a pair of Rollerblades with scuffed toes and little purple pompoms on the tips of the laces. The thing which caught and held my eye was sitting on the old roll-top desk in the center of the room. During the many good summers, falls, and winter weekends we had spent here, that desktop would have been littered with spools of thread, skeins of yarn, pincushions, sketches, maybe a book about the Spanish Civil War or famous American dogs. Johanna could be aggravating, at least to me, because she imposed no real system or order on what she did. She could also be daunting, even overwhelming at times. She was a brilliant scatterbrain, and her desk had always reflected that. But not now. It was possible to think that Mrs. M. had cleared the litter from the top of it and plunked down what was now there, but impossible to believe. Why would she? It made no sense. The object was covered with a gray plastic hood. I reached out to touch it, and my hand faltered an inch or two short as a memory of an old dream (give me that it's my dust-catcher) slipped across my mind much as that queer draft ad slipped across my face. Then it was gone, and I pulled the plastic, over off. Underneath it was my old green IBM Selectric, which I hadn't seen or thought of in years. I leaned closer, knowing that the typewriter ball would be Courier my old favorite even before I saw it. What in God's name was my old typewriter doing out here? Johanna painted (although not very well), she took photographs (very good ones indeed) and sometimes sold them, she knitted, she crocheted, she wove and dyed cloth, she could play eight or ten basic chords on the guitar. She could write, of course; most English majors can, which is why they become English majors. Did she demonstrate any blazing degree of literary creativity? No. After a few experiments with poetry as an undergrad, she gave up that particular branch of the arts as a bad job. You write for both of us, Mike, she had said once. That's all yours; I'll just take a little taste of everything else. Given the quality of her poems as opposed to the quality of her silks, photographs, and knitted art, I thought that was probably wise. But here was my old IBM. Why? ‘Letters,' I said. ‘She found it down cellar or something, and rescued it to write letters on.' Except that wasn't Jo. She showed me most of her letters, often urging me to write little postscripts of my own, guilt-tripping me with that old saying about how the shoemaker's kids always go barefoot (‘and the writer's friends would never hear from him if it weren't for Alexander Graham Bell,' she was apt to add). I hadn't seen a typed personal letter from my wife in all the time we'd been married if nothing else, she would have considered it shitty etiquette. She could type, producing mistake-free business letters slowly yet methodically, but she always used my desktop computer or her own Powerbook for those chores. ‘What were you up to, hon?' I asked, then began to investigate her desk drawers. Brenda Meserve had made an effort with these, but Jo's fundamental nature had defeated her. Surface order (spools of thread segregated by color, for instance) quickly gave way to Jo's old dear jumble. I found enough of her in those drawers to hurt my heart with a hundred unexpected memories, but I found no paperwork which had been typed on my old IBM, with or without the Courier ball. Not so much as a single page. When I was finished with my hunt, I leaned back in my chair (her chair) and looked at the little framed photo on her desk, one I couldn't remember ever having seen before. Jo had most likely printed it herself (the original might have come out of some local's attic) and then hand-tinted the result. The final product looked like a wanted poster colorized by Ted Turner. I picked it up and ran the ball of my thumb over the glass facing, bemused. Sara Tidwell, the turn-of-the-century blues shouter whose last known port of call had been right here in TR-90. When she and her folks some of them friends, most of them relatives had left the TR, they had gone on to Castle Rock for a little while . . . then had simply disappeared, like a cloud over the horizon or mist on a summer morning. She was smiling just a little in the picture, but the smile was hard to read. Her eyes were half-closed. The string of her guitar not a strap but a string was visible over one shoulder. In the background I could see a black man wearing a derby at a killer angle (one thing about musicians: they really know how to wear hats) and standing beside what appeared to be a washtub bass. Jo had tinted Sara's skin to a caf? ¦-au-lait shade, maybe based on other pictures she'd seen (there are quite a few knocking around, most showing Sara with her head thrown back and her hair hanging almost to her waist as she bellows out her famous carefree yell of a laugh), although none would have been in color. Not at the turn of the century. Sara Tidwell hadn't just left her mark in old photographs, either. I recalled Dickie Brooks, owner of the All-Purpose Garage, once telling me that his father claimed to have won a teddybear at the Castle County Fair's shooting-pitch, and to have given it to Sara Tidwell. She had rewarded him, Dickie said, with a kiss. According to Dickie the old man never forgot it, said it was the best kiss of his life . . . although I doubt if he said it in his wife's hearing. In this photo she was only smiling. Sara Tidwell, known as Sara Laughs. Never recorded, but her songs had lived just the same. One of them, ‘Walk Me Baby,' bears a remarkable resemblance to ‘Walk This Way,' by Aerosmith. Today the lady would be known as an African-American. In 1984, when Johanna and I bought the lodge and consequently got interested in her, she would have been known as a Black. In her own time she would have been called a Negress or a darkie or possibly an octoroon. And a nigger, of course. There would have been plenty of folks free with that one. And did I believe that she had kissed Dickie Brooks's father a white man in front of half of Castle County? No, I did not. Still, who could say for sure? No one. That was the entrancing thing about the past. ‘It ain't nuthin but a barn-dance sugar,' I sang, putting the picture back on the desk. ‘It ain't nuthin but a round-and-round.' I picked up the typewriter cover, then decided to leave it off. As I stood, my eyes went back to Sara, standing there with her eyes closed and the string which served her as a guitar strap visible over one shoulder. Something in her face and smile had always struck me as familiar, and suddenly it came to me. She looked oddly like Robert Johnson, whose primitive licks hid behind the chords of almost every Led Zeppelin and Yardbirds song ever recorded. Who, according to the legend, had gone down to the crossroads and sold his soul to Satan for seven years of fast living, high-tension liquor, and streetlife babies. And for a jukejoint brand of immortality, of course. Which he had gotten. Robert Johnson, supposedly poisoned over a woman. In the late afternoon I went down to the store and saw a good-looking piece of flounder in the cold-case. It looked like supper to me. I bought a bottle of white wine to go with it, and while I was waiting my turn at the cash register, a trembling old man's voice spoke up behind me. ‘See you made a new friend yes'ty.' The Yankee accent was so thick that it sounded almost like a joke . . . except the accent itself is only part of it; mostly, I've come to believe, it's that singsong tone real Mainers all sound like auctioneers. I turned and saw the geezer who had been standing out on the garage tarmac the day before, watching along with Dickie Brooks as I got to know Kyra, Mattie, and Scoutie. He still had the gold-headed cane, and I now recognized it. Sometime in the 1950s, the Boston Post had donated one of those canes to every county in the New England states. They were given to the oldest residents and passed along from old fart to old fart. And the joke of it was that the Post had gone toes-up years ago. ‘Actually two new friends,' I replied, trying to dredge up his name. I couldn't, but I remembered him from when Jo had been alive, holding down one of the overstuffed chairs in Dickie's waiting room, discussing weather and politics, politics and weather, as the hammers whanged and the air-compressor chugged. A regular. And if something happened out there on Highway 68, eye-God, he was there to see it. ‘I hear Mattie Devore can be quite a dear,' he said heah, Devoah, deeah and one of his crusty eyelids drooped. I have seen a fair number of salacious winks in my time, but none that was a patch on the one tipped me by that old man with the gold-headed cane. I felt a strong urge to knock his waxy beak of a nose off. The sound of it parting company from his face would be like the crack of a dead branch broken over a bent knee. ‘Do you hear a lot, old-timer?' I asked. ‘Oh, ayuh!' he said. His lips dark as strips of liver parted in a grin. His gums swarmed with white patches. He had a couple of yellow teeth still planted in the top one, and a couple more on the bottom. ‘And she gut that little one cunnin, she is! Ayuh!' ‘Cunnin as a cat a-runnin,' I agreed. He blinked at me, a little surprised to hear such an old one out of my presumably newfangled mouth, and then that reprehensible grin widened. ‘Her don't mind her, though,' he said. ‘Baby gut the run of the place, don'tcha know.' I became aware better belated than never that half a dozen people were watching and listening to us. ‘That wasn't my impression,' I said, raising my voice a bit. ‘No, that wasn't my impression at all.' He only grinned . . . that old man's grin that says Oh, ayuh, deah; I know one worth two of that. I left the store feeling worried for Mattie Devore. Too many people were minding her business, it seemed to me. When I got home, I took my bottle of wine into the kitchen it could chill while I got the barbecue going out on the deck. I reached for the fridge door, then paused. Perhaps as many as four dozen little magnets had been scattered randomly across the front vegetables, fruits, plastic letters and numbers, even a good selection of the California Raisins but they weren't random anymore. Now they formed a circle on the front of the refrigerator. Someone had been in here. Someone had come in and . . . Rearranged the magnets on the fridge? If so, that was a burglar who needed to do some heavy remedial work. I touched one of them gingerly, with just the tip of my finger. Then, suddenly angry with myself, I reached out and spread them again, doing it with enough force to knock a couple to the floor. I didn't pick them up. That night, before going to bed, I placed the Memo-Scriber on the table beneath Bunter the Great Stuffed Moose, turning it on and putting it in the DICTATE mode. Then I slipped in one of my old home-dubbed cassettes, zeroed the counter, and went to bed, where I slept without dreams or other interruption for eight hours. The next morning, Monday, was the sort of day the tourists come to Maine for the air so sunny-clean that the hills across the lake seemed to be under subtle magnification. Mount Washington, New England's highest, floated in the farthest distance. I put on the coffee, then went into the living room, whistling. All my imaginings of the last few days seemed silly this morning. Then the whistle died away. The Memo-Scriber's counter, set to 000 when I went to bed, was now at 012. I rewound it, hesitated with my finger over the PLAY button, told myself (in Jo's voice) not to be a fool, and pushed it. ‘Oh Mike,' a voice whispered mourned, almost-on the tape, and I found myself having to press the heel of one hand to my mouth to hold back a scream. It was what I had heard in Jo's office when the draft rushed past the sides of my face . . . only now the words were slowed down just enough for me to understand them. ‘Oh Mike,' it said again. There was a faint click. The machine had shut down for some length of time. And then, once more, spoken in the living room as I had slept in the north wing: ‘Oh Mike.' Then it was gone.

Digital Fortress Chapter 35

Becker stared in shock at Rocio. â€Å"You sold the ring?† The woman nodded, her silky red hair falling around her shoulders. Becker willed it not to be true. â€Å"Pero†¦ but†¦Ã¢â‚¬  She shrugged and said in Spanish, â€Å"A girl near the park.† Becker felt his legs go weak. This can't be! Rocio smiled coyly and motioned to the German. â€Å"El queria que lo guardara. He wanted to keep it, but I told him no. I've got Gitana blood in me, Gypsy blood; we Gitanas, in addition to having red hair, are very superstitious. A ring offered by a dying man is not a good sign.† â€Å"Did you know the girl?† Becker interrogated. Rocio arched her eyebrows. â€Å"Vaya. You really want this ring, don't you?† Becker nodded sternly. â€Å"Who did you sell it to?† The enormous German sat bewildered on the bed. His romantic evening was being ruined, and he apparently had no idea why. â€Å"Was passiert?† he asked nervously. â€Å"What's happening?† Becker ignored him. â€Å"I didn't actually sell it,† Rocio said. â€Å"I tried to, but she was just a kid and had no money. I ended up giving it to her. Had I known about your generous offer, I would have saved it for you.† â€Å"Why did you leave the park?† Becker demanded. â€Å"Somebody had died. Why didn't you wait for the police? And give them the ring?† â€Å"I solicit many things, Mr. Becker, but trouble is not one of them. Besides, that old man seemed to have things under control.† â€Å"The Canadian?† â€Å"Yes, he called the ambulance. We decided to leave. I saw no reason to involve my date or myself with the police.† Becker nodded absently. He was still trying to accept this cruel twist of fate. She gave the damn thing away! â€Å"I tried to help the dying man,† Rocio explained. â€Å"But he didn't seem to want it. He started with the ring-kept pushing it in our faces. He had these three crippled fingers sticking up. He kept pushing his hand at us-like we were supposed to take the ring. I didn't want to, but my friend here finally did. Then the guy died.† â€Å"And you tried CPR?† Becker guessed. â€Å"No. We didn't touch him. My friend got scared. He's big, but he's a wimp.† She smiled seductively at Becker. â€Å"Don't worry-he can't speak a word of Spanish.† Becker frowned. He was wondering again about the bruises on Tankado's chest. â€Å"Did the paramedics give CPR?† â€Å"I have no idea. As I told you, we left before they arrived.† â€Å"You mean after you stole the ring.† Becker scowled. Rocio glared at him. â€Å"We did not steal the ring. The man was dying. His intentions were clear. We gave him his last wish.† Becker softened. Rocio was right; he probably would have done the same damn thing. â€Å"But then you gave the ring to some girl?† â€Å"I told you. The ring made me nervous. The girl had lots of jewelry on. I thought she might like it.† â€Å"And she didn't think it was strange? That you'd just give her a ring?† â€Å"No. I told her I found it in the park. I thought she might offer to pay me for it, but she didn't. I didn't care. I just wanted to get rid of it.† â€Å"When did you give it to her?† Rocio shrugged. â€Å"This afternoon. About an hour after I got it.† Becker checked his watch: 11:48 p.m. The trail was eight hours old. What the hell am I doing here? I'm supposed to be in the Smokys. He sighed and asked the only question he could think of. â€Å"What did the girl look like?† â€Å"Era un punki,† Rocio replied. Becker looked up, puzzled. â€Å"Un punki?† â€Å"Si. Punki.† â€Å"A punk?† â€Å"Yes, a punk,† she said in rough English, and then immediately switched back to Spanish. â€Å"Mucha joyeria. Lots of jewelry. A weird pendant in one ear. A skull, I think.† â€Å"There are punk rockers in Seville?† Rocio smiled. â€Å"Todo bajo el sol. Everything under the sun.† It was the motto of Seville's Tourism Bureau. â€Å"Did she give you her name?† â€Å"No.† â€Å"Did she say where she was going?† â€Å"No. Her Spanish was poor.† â€Å"She wasn't Spanish?† Becker asked. â€Å"No. She was English, I think. She had wild hair-red, white, and blue.† Becker winced at the bizarre image. â€Å"Maybe she was American,† he offered. â€Å"I don't think so,† Rocio said. â€Å"She was wearing a T-shirt that looked like the British flag.† Becker nodded dumbly. â€Å"Okay. Red, white, and blue hair, a British flag T-shirt, a skull pendant in her ear. What else?† â€Å"Nothing. Just your average punk.† Average punk? Becker was from a world of collegiate sweatshirts and conservative haircuts-he couldn't even picture what the woman was talking about. â€Å"Can you think of anything else at all?† he pressed. Rocio thought a moment. â€Å"No. That's it.† Just then the bed creaked loudly. Rocio's client shifted his weight uncomfortably. Becker turned to him and spoke influent German. â€Å"Noch et was? Anything else? Anything to help me find the punk rocker with the ring?† There was a long silence. It was as if the giant man had something he wanted to say, but he wasn't sure how to say it. His lower lip quivered momentarily, there was a pause, and then he spoke. The four words that came out were definitely English, but they were barely intelligible beneath his thick German accent. â€Å"Fock off und die.† Becker gaped in shock. â€Å"I beg your pardon? â€Å"Fock off und die,† the man repeated, patting his left palm against his fleshy right forearm-a crude approximation of the Italian gesture for â€Å"fuck you.† Becker was too drained to be offended. Fuck off and die? What happened to Das Wimp? He turned back to Rocio and spoke in Spanish. â€Å"Sounds like I've overstayed my welcome.† â€Å"Don't worry about him.† She laughed. â€Å"He's just a little frustrated. He'll get what's coming to him.† She tossed her hair and winked. â€Å"Is there anything else?† Becker asked. â€Å"Anything you can tell me that might help?† Rocio shook her head. â€Å"That's all. But you'll never find her. Seville is a big city-it can be very deceptive.† â€Å"I'll do the best I can.† It's a matter of national security†¦ â€Å"If you have no luck,† Rocio said, eyeing the bulging envelope in Becker's pocket, â€Å"please stop back. My friend will be sleeping, no doubt. Knock quietly. I'll find us an extra room. You'll see a side of Spain you'll never forget.† She pouted lusciously. Becker forced a polite smile. â€Å"I should be going.† He apologized to the German for interrupting his evening. The giant smiled timidly. â€Å"Keine Ursache.† Becker headed out the door. No problem? Whatever happened to â€Å"Fuck off and die†?