The Challenge of Starting Up A New Internet Venture

Lui and Wong had made a good choice in choosing music as there online start up business, because of the nature of music itself is information rich, easy to distribute, consumption experience are indifferent between digital or physical product, also, without the space limitation of a physical store, MusicJuice. net can provide a large amount of selection for user to choose. In addition, internet landscape empowers the business model of Crowd-Sourcing, where millions of vertical interest group can form their own communities, share and support each other on the internet.And such business model has proven to be very successful in Europe, theoretically, MusicJuice. net should also be successful in North America where the potential market size was approximately 240,000 musicians. However, the company has been losing money month after month since launched in April 2008, only 70 artistes has signed up in July 2008 and none of them had reached the fundraising goal, and of course, no premium m embers at all. The two co-founders have to decide what could be done to save MusicJuice. et or whether they should close the business for good. Before jumping into conclusion, let’s examine the situation with the 5 Forces analysis. First of all, the threats of new entrants are too high, just like their competitor – Slicethepie. com was launched one month after MusicJuice. net began its development. Forming such music portal requires relatively low capital investment, and there is no customer or brand loyalty at all, because the users will only loyalty to the musicians. The threats of substitute products for MusicJuice. et is also very high, as people will enjoy and obtain the music they like in many different sources, CD Store, radio, youtube, iTunes, sharing between friends, or even download from piracy websites! Not only facing the threats of new entrants and substitute, what really bothers MusicJuice. net is the high bargaining power of supplier, i. e. the musicians . The business of MusicJuice. net is bet on the quality of their signed musicians, but what musicians really cares is to expand their fans network, but not to build any relationship with a particular platform.Even though the bargaining power of customers is comparatively low when the user addicted into any single musician, but such advantage is not sustainable once the musician switch to other platform. And the biggest force affecting MusicJuice. net is the high intensity of competitive rivalry, many companies including those major music labels and big IT corporations e. g. Microsoft also attempted to use MySpace to slice the pie of the profitable music industry, not to mention those giants like iTunes and Amazon.Even thought in such unfavorable situation, MusicJuice. net can still do something to rescue their business, not just working on marketing campaign or functional enhancement, but to focus on building the pure music community by forming strategic partners with indie band and independent music labels, line up with quality musicians to build few showcases of successful stories, aforementioned, their business is bet on the quality of their suppliers, they should provide a reason for the musicians to sign up on their platform.After all, people are looking for music as an enjoyment, not an investment, MusicJuice. net should provide more interesting free content for the user to enjoy music, but not just invest on music. (end)

Mobile Number Portability Essay

Introduction Mobile number portability (MNP) enables mobile telephone users to retain their mobile telephone numbers when changing from one mobile network operator to another. MNP (Mobile number portability) is implemented in different ways across the globe. In India the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) implemented the MNP facility firstly in Haryana in November 2010 and then extended to all parts of the country in January 2011. The facility is available for both pre paid and post paid customers across mobile operators with in the same telecom circle. Vodafone India, formerly Vodafone Essar and Hutchison Essar, is the second largest mobile network operator in India after Airtel. It is based in Mumbai, Maharashtra and which operates nationally. It has approximately 146.84 million customers as of November 2011. In terms of active subscriber base in Kerala Vodafone is the second largest player with a market share of 19.8%. Kerala is one of slowest growing market with high proportion of MNP requests. By March 2012, Kerala registered 2,066,487 Mobile Number Portability (MNP) requests, resulting into churn rate of 6.08% which is one of the highest in India. This study is an attempt to understand the customers’ response towards MNP facility with special reference to Vodafone customers in Pookottumpadam. Pookottumpadam is one of the growing villages in Nilambur taluk of Malappuram district Comment [a2]: Heading font size 14 and body text 12 Comment [a3]: In this paragraph introduce about your topic Comment [a4]: Here introduce about your special reference product or organisation Comment [a5]: Here introduce about what you are going to do with this project Significance of the study Active wireless subscriber base in Kerala is 72.67% resulting in 24.72 million active mobile users. Vodafone is the second largest mobile operator in terms of active subscriber base and fastest growing wireless operator in Kerala. By March 2012, Kerala registered 2,066,487 Mobile Number Portability (MNP) requests, resulting into churn rate of 6.08% which is one of the highest in India. Vodafone is one of the companies which benefitted from the MNP service. So this study highly relevant and will be useful to mobile operators as well as to mobile subscribers for making informed decision regarding porting from one operator to other. Comment [a6]: State why your study is relevant and how it will useful to various interested groups Statement of the Problem Mobile Number Portability is a powerful tool in the hands of customers to bargain from their existing mobile operators for better quality in services and fare tariff for services. Under MNP, if the subscribers are not satisfied with the services of their service provider, they can change their service provider while retaining the existing phone number. But in India this facility has got poor response comparing to other countries because of very little pent up demand for it when compared to other countries. So this study will reveal awareness level, opinion and use of MNP facility among Vodafone subscribers in Pookottumpadam. Comment [a7]: State your hypothesis here. Hypothesis is your assumption that you are going to prove through this study Objectives of the study To know the awareness level of MNP facility among Vodafone subscribers To examine the factors influencing the porting decision of mobile users To analyse customers satisfaction after availing MNP facility Comment [a8]: Write two or three specific objectives of the study. Methodology and Data Collection a. Scope of the study This study will be conducted among Vodafone customers in Pookottumpadam village, Nimambur taluk, Malappuram district Comment [a9]: Scope means the area of coverage. Ie the geographical area where you are conducting your study b. Sampling Plan 30 Vodafone customers will be randomly choosen for the purpose of study. The data will be collected through structured questionnaire. Comment [a10]: Mention about the number of samples and methods of sampling c. Methodology This study will be based on both primary and secondary data. The primary data will be collected through questionnaire specially designed for this survey. And secondary data will be gathered from the relevant journals, web sites and other sources. Comment [a11]: Here mention about the sources of data and methods of collecting data Chapterisation The study will be presented through the following chapter schemes 1. 2. 3. 4. Introduction Review of Literature Analysis and Interpretations Finding, Suggestions and Conclusions Comment [a12]: The important chapter in your project Limitations of the study 1. The shortage of time and money will limit the number of samples in to minimum 2. The advanced statistical tools not used for analysis Comment [a13]: Mention two or three factors that will limit the quality of your study Reference http://www.boneless.in/2012/05/kerala-wireless-telecom-market-2012.html www.vodafone.in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_number_portability Comment [a14]: Quote the material you referred while drafting synopsis preferably books

Organic Food Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Organic Food - Essay Example The consumption of organic food has increased owing to the fact that people consider it to have a better taste. It is also believed to be environment friendly owing to the lack of chemicals used in its plantation. Studies have analyzed the fact that organic food consist of a greater amount of anti-oxidants in comparison to the conventional foods. It has also been proved that organic foods do not have traces of chemicals on them. Organic foods have a few drawbacks as well. These include the fact that they rot at a fast pace owing to lack of usage of preservative chemicals. They are also expensive in comparison to the conventional foods. The break out of salmonella disease in the United States owing to the consumption of organic peanuts also raised doubts about the credibility of organic foods. Studies have also claimed regarding the lack of strong benefits of organic foods. Despite of this, further studies and researches have proved that organic foods are beneficial. It is believed th at to prevent disease with organic foods, regulatory bodies should be made strict to check the production of these foods. Organic Food Every individual in today’s world has become health conscious and is aware of the fact that healthy eating and lifestyle changes can result in the promotion of good health. This has led to the encouragement of food choices that serve to enhance the health status of an individual. Organic food has been an essential part of this health conscious drive. According to the Department of Agriculture in the United States, organic food is that food which â€Å"is generally free of synthetic substances; contains no antibiotics and hormones; has not been irradiated or fertilized with sewage sludge; was raised without the use of most conventional pesticides; and contains no genetically modified ingredients.† The organic food was officially recognized and permitted in the United States in the year 2002. This food was originally classified to be more nutritious and healthy for the consumers. But researches were conducted to rebut this claim and to signify the fact that there is no added benefit by the consumption of these foods (Bittman 2009; Severson et al 2009). The subject of organic food has been central to many arguments as there are claims by the producers of these foods that they are beneficial for the health of the people but this has been strongly disagreed upon by a few researchers. The organic food industry has been booming in the United States at a very fast pace. It has been seen that the sales of the organic foods has increased from 11 billion dollars in 2001 to 20 billion dollars in the year 2009. In the year 2006 alone 16.7 billion dollars were achieved from the selling of organic drinks and edibles. Furthermore, a survey conducted by Harris in the year 2007 highlighted the fact that approximately 30 percent of Americans purchase and consume organic food at some point. The survey further elaborated the fact that it was a strong belief of most of the Americans that organic food is better than the conventional food. The American first lady, Michelle Obama also created an initiative for the promotion of organic foods. She started a small plantation of organic foods in the White House to support the increased usage of organic foods for the promotion of healthy eating habits amongst the Americans (Bittman 2009; Severson et al 2009). Organic food has become a top choice owing to many factors. Many people prefer to consume organic food owing to the consideration that organic food is of a greater nutritive value in comparison to the non-organic food. The restricted use of pesticides for organic foods is also considered to be an added point. This is owing to the fact that pesticides are used for the

Management accounting system Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Management accounting system - Essay Example A cost management system for Skytop would provide information to make life easier for all involved.Cost accounting system will assign costs (costing) to specific products (meals, room per night, gaming machine round, etc.) and services (cleaning, room service, meal preparation, etc.) and other cost objects as identified by management. This in-turn will satisfy the financial reporting requirements then management decision-making essentials. For example the General Manager gets to know the actual cost of a room to make the pricing decision; the HR Manager is informed of the actual cost of each staff (salary, benefits, etc.) for HR related decisions; the Marketing Manager would be able to find out actual profit (revenue from the campaign minus the actual cost of the campaign) generated by a specific marketing campaign; the respected owners will be informed of the actual cost of keeping a hotel and would be able to make related decisions. Operational control system on the other hand will provide accurate and timely feedback concerning performance; the activities that should be performed and evaluation of those activities (controlling). Furthermore it concentrates on finding scope for improvement and aids in the planning process. In other words helps planning realistic budgets (uses information from cost accounting system as well) and accordingly enables performance control. For instant all managers will be able to compare budgeted costs to actual costs, understand the difference and thereby use the information to find means of improvement e.g. cost cutting, hire new staff, changing the menu policy, etc. The owners too can conduct performance evaluations of the management, measure actual return on investment and assess hotel’s growth in financial and non-financial terms. b) Type of information required For efficient function of the system the management will be required to gather variety of information both fina ncial and non-financial. The sources of this information could be from both internal (within the company) and external sources (external environment for comparison purposes). The internal information from within the company which are financial such as cash flows, labor charges, material costs etc Also non-financial information such as time records (labor hours, meal preparation time), stock levels, quality measures, customer feedback ratings, etc. The external information from the environment would typically include global competition, growth of the hotel industry, advances in information technology, advances in the food preparation, customer orientations, new product development, total quality management, time as a competitive element, and efficiency. Depending on the budgetary control system and the reporting system that is used these information would be required regularly on daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly basis. c) Key cost drivers A cost driver is an activity or factor that originates costs. Activity based costing which is considered to be the most realistic and accurate method of costing requires identification of cost drivers. Thus, ‘Number of rooms’ night’ and ‘number of stays’ is two of the key cost drivers that are widely used in the hotel industry (Pavlatos & Paggios,

Environmental Problems and Role of International, European Community, Essay

Environmental Problems and Role of International, European Community, and Domestic Laws for Environment Protection - Essay Example The paper tells that today, it is an era of various environmental issues that have emerged in our society because of the technological advancement, man has made for ease and comfort. There are numerous environmental problems, which have become a part of our world today causing other hazardous situation for the people living in the society. Environmental laws have been proposed by the concerned authorities to address the problem in most efficient manner. Problems relate to environment are not only confined to local regions, but this problem has reached up to global level adding complexities in daily routine of people and imposing further health related issues at other side. Environmentalists and experts from all over the world have considered it an important issue that could create more problems for all living organisms. They have suggested various suitable methods and strategic tools to deal with the problems of environment without increasing risk factors for any other problem. Conce rned professionals have made environmental laws, comprise of crucial interlocking figures in the form of treaties, rules, conventions, and other statutes that organized and maintain a bond between people and the natural atmosphere, where they live. All environmental issues have resulted from human activities and inventions. At one side, there are several problems related to environment, but the core issue is termed as pollution, an undesirable and intolerable situation around living environment, which gives birth to various other problems in the society by polluting air, water, and land. 1. Apart, from pollution other environmental issues involve the challenges of saving plants, animals and countless natural resources along with specific areas of human life from hazardous influences of those conditions that are responsible for destroying and eroding living and non-living both components of the world2. Other than human activities, climate change in the form of global warming is anoth er major factor that contributes to cause many environmental changes in an inverse direction. But, the changes in earth`s climate is also a result of human inventions and use of technology, made to create fastest production of goods, communication and travelling. For instance, burning of fossil fuels, woods, and elimination of greenhouse gases from industries are influencing our environment dangerously3. The elimination of these toxic gases in the air is polluting our surroundings and making it difficult for every living organism to breathe in fresh air from the environment containing mixtures of many gases, which are dangerous for human`s skin, brain and heart4. Maintaining life of animals and plants and other precious creatures of the world is another vital concern of environmental problem. It is mainly because changes in earth`s temperature and polluting of air present in the atmosphere are not the only matters related to environmental issues, but the forests and marine life is a lso suffering equally5. Researchers have found that global warming is resulting in increasing sea level and its temperature as well, which cause death to many tiny marine animals and plants present on the upper surface of the sea level. In addition, man is consuming trees and plants to burn wood and manufacture required products along with the preparation of other goods as well such as, rubber, glue, medicines, food, and many more6. In this way, methods of deforestation are contributing to remove those natural sources that purify our environment by

QUESTIONS 2 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

QUESTIONS 2 - Assignment Example 2. Such a leader has to use the charismatic leadership style, which is a style of transformational leadership. In this style, the leader will inspire the team members and motivate them to move in the required direction without the use of power or command. For example, a company introduces a new organizational culture where certain dressing codes and behaviors have to be observed. The leader would best inspire others by being an example in observing such dressing or behavioral codes, while the others will be motivated and inspired to follow them. 3. The first approach would be to audit all processes involved from ordering material from suppliers, delivery and logistic processes to reviewing all lead times. Additional machinery or workforce may be added where the review points to such problems. Streamlining processes would ensure supplies are done well in advance, delivery of all necessary equipment and material completed where necessary before starting the project, and eradicating any lead time that may surface from these processes. Logistical processes in most cases may lead to delays. Next would be to review the conditions of the workforce and machinery with a view of establishing any weaknesses, and with a view of adding more workers or machinery where necessary. After all the review of processes, next would be to ensure manpower and equipment are utilized at an optimum level to maximize their utility in the project and cut the time required for delivery of such project. The graph above portrays the trends in demographic and revenue changes based on patients below and above 65 years of age who are under Medicare. The revenue in thousands portrays a drastic decrease in the Medicare revenue based on a rapidly increasing number of patients above 65 years. Patients in this category as the chart shows are rapidly increasing compared to those less than 65 years who as the graph portrays have a gradual

Culture and Organization Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Culture and Organization - Essay Example Additionally, organizational culture extents its manifestation in ways which an entity allows for autonomy and freedom of making decisions, personal expression, and development of new ideas. Organizational culture gives a clear outline on how information and power flows through its set channels and influences strengths of employees by encouraging commitment towards the organization’s collective goals (Stallman, 2010:4). The culture of an organization is crucial since it affects its productivity and performance mechanism and provides guidelines suitable for establishing an appropriate customer service channel, product quality, and safety. Introduction Southwest Airlines Company is a low cost, American airline that has its base in Dallas, Texas. According to articles published the company’s public relations office, the company came into being in 1967. It adopted its company name in 1971 and by the fifth day of June 2011, documented evidence revealed that the airline is th e largest in the United States basing the data on number of domestic passengers that it carried (Kelly, 2009:22). Despite the fact that the airline operated Boeing 727 aircraft for a very time in the years between 1970s and 1980s, between this stated period and 2012 the scooped identity of the sole airline that operates Boeing 737. In addition to that, by the last day of September 2011, this airline became the world’s largest operator of 737 recording over 550 of these aircrafts already in operation whereby, each operated an average of six flights in a single day. Following its performance and uniqueness, this paper warranted it an intense research based on its organizational culture (Khastar, 2011:2). As such, this paper will seek to analyze the culture of the Southwest Airlines using and applying theoretical frameworks used in the study of organizational culture such as those developed by Schein and Harrison. The concept of organizational culture With reference to Schein th eoretical framework, the processes whereby the Southwest Airlines became the largest Boeing 737 operator in America and globally as well, led it reproduce its systems and practices of management in order to gain competitive advantages over other airlines eyeing the same uniqueness. Nevertheless, despite the fact that it sough to reproduce its management practices as closely as possible, the results were rarely compatible. Generally, the managers encountered issues they did not have to face in the operating environment (Achtmeyer, 2002:2). This is the reason as to why the first notions of culture used by the managing team were so similar to those deployed by the company with the view of defining the national culture. At this point, the development of the concept of organizational culture was ultimately polemic as opposed to what took place with other theoretical constructs such as organizational climate. Scholarly research reveals that, the concept of an organizational culture is a t hing borrowed from basic social sciences, mainly sociology and anthropology (Flamholtz and Randle, 2011:83). As opposed to organizational climate, which is a product of a conducted research, the concept of an organization is a construct embedded in the theoretical framework that employs the use of organizational environment and academics to listen to management theory (Bundgaard, Bejjani, and Helmer, 2006:16). Given the power of the Southwest

Family Poll Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Family Poll - Essay Example As much as one would wish to have his/her decision to get married or not, some cultures have not option for that. They are very dictatorial in that, when the right time approaches, one has to get married. This mainly applies to the males. Slaves were not regarded in any way in the society. They held no rights; therefore, their marriage could not be recognized or rather respected. Depending on the motives of their masters, the slave masters could be given a go ahead to oversee the ceremony, and rarely would the local minister be allowed to bind the couples. It’s not yet determined where such a custom stemmed from, but whether in Africa or in foreign countries, it makes no difference. At first, the enslaved people were traumatized about this, but after realizing that nothing actually changed they got used to it and they partially embraced as part of the custom. They knew that actually one day, it shall come to surpass. On the other hand, regarding the marriage between African-American couples, we cannot conclude the culture started from the white world, since most of the niggers from the white world were sired by slaves during the early times and from that such people were incorporated into that society and now here they are!. It therefore still makes no difference considering their origin; they still bear the label of slaves. This will therefore, always contradict with the traditional rituals that are deemed sacred on matters pertaining to marriage. Culture or rather traditional rituals can be amended to suit one interest, as at the present moment it is not very much respected. The concept of ownership in marriage life is very fundamental in people’s marriage life. People rejoice and feel they are really married when they are bind by their culture which they themselves have implemented. In other words, how would one feel when ruled or governed by your own

Government subsidies Essay Example for Free

Government subsidies Essay An agricultural subsidy can be defined as a grant offered to farmers for their products. These subsidies are provided in order to add-on to farmers incomes, to control the costs of agricultural products in the market and to regulate supply of these products. The US government is required by the law to provide farm subsidies and is required to grant about twelve products. Some of the products that the government of US has subsidized include; corn, maize, wheat, barley, cotton, peanuts, milk, sugar among other products. (Robert, 2004) Agricultural subsidies have been in place ever since the early twentieth century. In the 1930s, farmers were very vulnerable to price fluctuations. This vulnerability caused them to strike in order to get the governments attention. A law was passed to protect them through tariffs. This was not very successful because it caused the international market to fear imports from the US. Years later, the government introduced another law that facilitated the control of goods produced by farmers, purchase of excess products and provisions for minimum payment to farmers. These changes that were made in the 1950s are still in place today. Some slight modifications have been made but the basics have been retained. Agricultural subsidies have had a lot of changes over the past decades in the country. In the early twentieth Century, there was a large chunk of the country’s population that engaged and resided in farms. At that time in history, farmers took up a large portion of grants. In the recent years, this has dramatically changed largely due to the fact that the number of farmers has reduced dramatically consequently reducing the amount of funds spent on them. A subsidy normally focuses on a particular product. This entails price considerations in that farmers are granted a certain amount of cash for a specific weight of product. On top of that payment, farmers expect a fixed price for any subsidized crop. So if market prices are lower than what farmers were promised, then the government compensates farmers for this balance. Payments are obtained from taxes meaning that the rest of the country’s population is involved on this matter Part 1: Government subsidies There are scores of subsidies that re currently offered by the government. But they can all be placed under certain groupings. These are what will be examined in detail below; (Robert, 2004) Export subsidies can be described as a settlement between the government and farmers regarding crops or agricultural products that will be exported or sold internationally. It was initiated in order to ensure that farmers have adequate funding when exporting their products. This kind of subsidization can sometimes result in farmers having extra finances. This implies that they can be able to sell their goods in target countries at a price that may be lower than cost of production. Consequently, farmers in those host countries maybe out competed. This has caused developing countries to raise an alarm. The United States has taken its exports to many countries some of which include South American countries. Some of the proponents of this type of subsidy claim that it perpetuates low prices for commodities in developing countries. This means that locals in those importing countries can be able to purchase agricultural goods at low prices. Complaints have been registered about cases of dumping in these countries: Where agricultural dumping is the sale of products at unfairly low prices that exceed their cost of production. This is propagated by availability of extra funds from export subsidies. Conservation payments are also another type of subsidy offered by the US government. The subsidies are normally done in support of the environment and for conservation purposes. The two plans under which this subsidy is implemented are the Conservation Security Program and the Conservation Reserve Program. It normally targets farmers that use environmentally friendly methods for their practices. This program was initiated after it was observed that agricultural activities cause immense pollution to the country’s resources. In the year 2003, the government spent close to two billion dollars on payments related to this scheme. Supporters of this type of subsidy claim that it protects the environment through promotion of environmentally friendly practices. These include issues like growth of nutrient-rich crops like beans rather than those that consume nutrients like corn, use of contour stripping and other methods that eradicate soil erosion.

Global Politics Essay Example for Free

Global Politics Essay Ethnic nationalism is formed by a group with members that may or may not exist within the boundaries of a single state, and yet can be categorized as a group of individuals that share a common ethnic national identity. The nations that practice nationalism share a common heritage, including a common faith, a common language, common ethnic ancestry and a common culture. The first stage in the formation of ethnic nationalism is a form of cultural and moral relativism. It is inspired by a sense of inferiority and resentment against societies (or social groups) perceived to be morally and culturally superior. The architects of such nationalisms begin by insisting on the plurality and equality of (national) cultures, with the fact of plurality being taken as a sign of value. Appeal of ethnic nationalism By the end of the nineteenth century, ethnic nationalism was already the most common type of nationalism in the world. The real meaning of nationalism has been confused by many people. People’s inability to distinguish between different types of nationalism and to perceive the close similarity between the ideologies of ethnic identity and ethnic nationalism, shows how natural it has become for us to think in terms of ethnic nationalism, how unproblematic, how legitimate its vision appears to us. Ethnic nationality is appealing to us because as compared to civic nationalism, it provides superior psychological gratification. It limits individual’s freedom, while at the same time relieves them of responsibility and offers a sense of tangible order. It offers the universal need, to live in a free society, where one may choose one’s identity. It is natural, what with the anomie and the disconcerting indeterminacy of one’s reality, to yearn for the comfort for the regulated world where one is never allowed more than what one can accomplish. It allows for one to be respected and the maintenance of his dignity is assured by his membership in the dignified community irrespective of his accomplishments. The experience of modernity, in other words, created as it is by nationalism, favors ethnic nationalism. (Goldmann etal 34-35) Ethnic nationality has also been promoted by the recent wave of democratization which has spread throughout the world alienation from increasingly impersonal, bureaucratic and centralized states; and the declining importance of class-based political parties and movements. Uneven economic development has often frustrated the desires of regionally based ethnic groups for educational and occupational mobility and an improved standard of living. In this light, ethnic nationalism can be seen as an attempt to maintain or to create a sense of identity and community in the face of the threat of cultural assimilation or cultural destruction. Ethnic nationalism is used by governments, including its use for elite manipulation, its involvement in situations of threat and defense, its relationship to relative economic deprivation and the interstate rivalries that feed on ethnic secession and irredentism for their own needs. Limits of ethnic nationalism On the other hand, ethnic nationalism is associated with several limitations. In the modern world, the rise of ethnic nationalism has often resulted in disruptive changes such as the disintegration experienced by several multiethnic states. As a result, it is incompatible with the idea of the state nationalism that seeks the convergence of territorial and political loyalty, irrespective of competing locus of affiliation, such as kinship, profession, religion, economic interest, race or even language. This may occur, for example, where the government forces the members of certain ethnic groups to agree to ethnic nationalism. For example, the officials of Pakistani present the country as one united nation with a common history, common culture and common religion. But various ethnic groups refuse to accept those lies and, despite a common religion, challenge them with the myths of their own distinct history, culture and language. Due to such reasons many people have sympathized with ethnic nationalism and said that it at least faces up to the negativity of the existing world. (Khan 25) Zhao Suisheng says that repression is not the only measure the state has deployed to retain ethnic minority areas. The role of the state, even the totalitarian state, has its limits. Ethnic nationalism has a resilience of its own; it cannot be easily dislodged from the minds of minority peoples by repression. The state may rewrite history as a means to colonize ethnic minorities and to control them through coercive policies. It can not however eliminate the historical memory of ethnic minorities. The inclusion of identity as a factor in ethnic nationalist should be considered. Many nations that support ethnic nationalism encourage its citizens to follow only one culture, leading to the loss of identity to many people in the country. Maintenance of people’s identity should be considered as it plays a key role in motivating ethnic nationalistic communities, and in explaining the shared goals among the members. While identity is important in explaining the shared goals within an ethnic nationalist community, other factors such as homeland relationships should also not be overlooked. (Zhao Suisheng 79) Question two Multilateralism Multilateralism is a term used in international relations to refer to many countries working jointly on certain issues. There are several principles and features of multilateralism, which it follows for the sake of its effective operation, such as defending human rights, promoting free trade and globalization, conserving the environment and encouraging freedom of movement to mention but a few. Although all the aforementioned principles are set for the good of multilateralism, they may either weaken or strengthen it as an approach to finding solutions to global problems. Principles and features of the international system affecting multilateralism Human rights Multilateralism encourages the leaders of its member countries to consider the humanitarian needs and the human rights of the citizens first, before their personal interests. It also encourages them to maintain good relations with other countries. This is especially the case when it comes to political instability. Due to multilateralism, international organizations have offered help to the member countries, for example, in cases of political instability. On the other hand, politically stable countries have helped the politically unstable ones to regain peaceful relations. This shows the role of multilateralism as a good approach to resolving problems affecting several countries. For example, the United Nations played a big role in the recent fight between Israel and Gaza. A report by the United Nations accused the Israeli troops of abusing the human rights. The troop was accused of human rights violations such as shelling a building they had ordered the civilians to enter, using a Palestinian child as a human shield during fighting in Gaza, shooting Palestinian children among many others. The United Nations was at the fore front of urging the two countries to settle their differences and observe peaceful relations. Globalization and free trade Multilateralism encourages globalization. Globalization is defined as the sense of wide spread international movement. It implies a higher place of organization, where discrete international entities dissolve, so that all major political and economic decisions are transmitted globally. It sees the death of boundaries encouraging free trade; in this sense, it is seen as a factor strengthening multilateralism as the preferred approach for resolving global problems. Globalization has been of utmost performance in reducing barriers to trade in both goods and services and capital flows. Occurrence of unhampered trade has not only caused maximum economic welfare for the participating states, but has also caused peaceful relations among states. No single country is completely self-sufficient in terms of its consumer needs, such as food. Multilateralism has therefore been able to balance the two aspects; it has provided a market for the big producers of consumer products, while satisfying the consumer needs for the people in the low producing countries. Health Multilateralism involves and encourages the movement of people from one country to another. It has seen the movement of people among nations, resulting to immigration. Immigrants find their way in an environment that is new to them due to several reasons such as wars, the search for a better life and famine among many other reasons. Multilateralism has given people the freedom to move to foreign countries and easily acquire passports, work permits and other documents required for one to settle in the country. However, this movement has seen crowding in the developed nations, as the people from the third world struggle to find ways to migrate to the developed nations. It has also resulted to the spread of diseases from one nation to the other. Many of the people who migrate as refugees are not screened for dangerous or contagious diseases. They spread diseases from their home countries to the foreign country. A good example was the spread of diseases that happened in the 20th century is spread of Ebola by Uganda immigrants to the neighboring countries like Kenya and Tanzania, and the spread of small pox by immigrants form Congo. Environmental conservation One of the principles of multilateralism is to oversee environmental conservation, especially today, when global warming has been declared a global environmental crisis. It’s well known that multilateralism encouraged the developed countries to establish industries in the developing countries. However, in doing this, it has accelerated the rate of global warming in the developing countries. Initially, the developing countries have little levels of global warming. When the multinational companies in the developed nations establish subsidiaries in the developing nations, they accelerate global warming through the increased emission of the green house gases to the atmosphere, and increasing chances acidic rain. This, not only poses health risks to the people in the developing nations, but is also a cause for the destruction of their crops as most of them rely on farming. Even though multilateralism intends to encourage environmental conservation and the development of the third world countries, it ends up encouraging global warming indirectly. Works cited 1) Khan Adeel. â€Å"Politics of identity: ethnic nationalism and the state in Pakistan. † SAGE, 2005. Pg 25 2) Goldmann Kjell, Hannerz Ulf, Westin Charles. â€Å"Nationalism and Internationalism in the Post-Cold War Era† New York: Routledge, 2000. Pg 34-35 3) Hider James, UN accuses Israeli troops of Gaza human right abuses; Times Online. 3/24/2009, retrieved on 4/17/2009 from http://www. timesonline. co. uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5962905. ece 4) Zhao Suisheng. A nation-state by construction: dynamics of modern Chinese nationalism. Stanford University Press, Beijing; 2004. pg 79

Ted Talk Script Technology Repercussions in Youth

Ted Talk Script Technology Repercussions in Youth Is this ipad a piece of technology or this scissor? Now probably you are thinking for sure the ipad is no doubt and scissors are just a tool. But let me tell you, you are actually wrong; both of these materials are categorized as technology. Now let me introduce you to what technology really is, by telling you a brief meaning so, what is Technology? Technology is a material that has various forms which helps a person performs a task on a daily basis. In todays world Technology is necessary in every aspect of live as it has changed and evolved the very world we live in. Technology has impacted youth of the 21st century as well as the adults, who are going through the era of simplicity into robotic evolution. But todays Ted Talk will mainly focus on the effects of technology on mainly youth. But many benefits of technology have been seen as years have passed, for example discoveries in all mechanical industries, efficiency of business work, advancements in medical care and many more. Side effects that is evident when you here technology,ÂÂ   deficiency in child thinking and social skills , privacy is at risk , climate change and the most worrying is the laziness in humans. Technology has never been so improved and developed in the history of humanity since the invention of the first wheel to now the era of virtual reality. I personally believe that technology, being used by anyone is not harmful at all but it does not affect a person until someone misuses it for their own sake or benefit. In todays world the youth run the technology and technology is its main target, the relationship between them is vice versa and none of them can stay without each other, note that I am not talking about a person but rather about a no living thing but now in this era these technological things are given more importance than actual living human beings. This technology indeed causes youth of today to like tech in the form of phones but also it causes harmful effects that stay with the youth throughout their lives. For example, depression and extreme isolation is evident in most of todays youth, this happens due to the lack of contact with people in their real lives other than virtual friends on Facebook. This happens often in institutions like social gatherings and when there is a pause or silence or you might feel awkward , in order to cope with it taking out your phone and using it without a purpose make us youth feel better than talking to a person right in front. Isolation then leads to Depression which then shows us that we lack human contact which includes physical exercise. Not exercising and staying home all day also adds obesity within you. This moreover relates to the reason why this happens and so its because youth utilizing their time in video games, taking to friends online and mostly watching YouTube videos most of the ir day rather than studying or using their time effectively in other things which I think is known as studying. Face to face interaction between people has been reduced, resulting absence of social skills, which are needed in our daily lives. Through the media, for likely Hollywood movies we have seen how children get bullied in school by kids are more tougher than them but this still exists but bullying has taken another form in todays time , instead kids get bullied more likely through social media now. This is just simple as a kid posting a picture on instagram and then waiting for instant likes but less that he know instead of likes he gets bombarded my comments my his friends that how ugly he or she looks. This internal depression and pain within a kids mind affects them mentally which remains with them during their life span, just like a pavement, a part of like taking away apart life. Kids who get involved in the act of bullying other kids , this happens since these bullies are more like to say things online on Facebook or twitter or other social media applications rather in person , face to face but they do not have guts bully in real life. Eventually, increase in cyber-bullying leads to teen suicides and parents get hurt and eventually wanting to know the reason why this happened. But now we all know reasons behind this? Dont we? I can just not stop talking about the negative effects of technology as they are reoccurring in my mind while I am trying to pursue you to lessen down the amount of time you send on technology. Now I am going to tell you some information that you might not really pay attention while your parents are telling you! I will take my parents as an example and display it to you guys and assume that all parents tell this to their kids. So what Parents say is basically, dont use headphones while sleeping or overusing and listening to music a lot during the day at constant pace but guess what? It causes loss of hearing over time. Just like the previous outcome looking at a phone or any display can affect people and mostly likely children to have vision loss resulting optical glasses much earlier in life. For example, I am assuming you have a younger sibling who wears glasses and he plays games on the ipad right in front of his eyes as close as he could be to the screen. But your parents are shouting at him, telling him stop playing it to close to your eyes, as your sibling is ruining his precious eyes or this might be you too. While you would like to have much longer conversations with Siri then real friends and people, it shows how much you love your phone and you have created this person in your life that displays family to you. Force yourself to have a relaxing electronic free day where you appreciate the surroundings near your which will help calm all your stress down from these worldly things. The article in Psychology Today says that, the use of technology can alter the actual wiring of the brain. More than a third of children under the age of two use mobile media. That number only increases as children age, with 95% of teens 12-17 spending time online. The article, explains this as video games form the brain in a way that leads to a diminishing memory and distraction. Children who use search engine to find information might be good at finding it but not at remembering. Also children who use too much of technology may not use their imagination to deeply analyze the information or material. Another study on two groups of sixth graders found that kids who had no access to electronic devices for five days were better at picking up on emotions and nonverbal cues of photos of faces than the group that used their devices during that time. Also this relates to how, Pediatricians say that severe obesity is increasing among young people which clearly reflects the type of foods kids eat also as we use more technology, we exercise little. Now, let me give you an advice, go for a vacation, do not take your phone despite all those important pictures you have to upload then actually enjoying the real sensation of the actual place. Creating an absolute balance in your life will help you appreciate the people around you as well as the technology you use but rather becoming a senseless zombie that you often kill in the games. Lastly, I am not saying that you by using technology are a bad person, but what I am trying to convey is that technology is now getting advance day by day, you being dependent on it could ruin your live in a way that you would not even imagine. By advance technology I mean, how you see in movies that the artificial intelligent robots designed by humans, attack humans and then take over the world by causing a terrifying robotic apocalypse. So consider this question, What if you were the one who invented this weapon of mass destruction and caused us, humans to extinct? Works Cited Walsh, Kelly. Awesome Free Ed Tech Resources EBook! Emerging Education Technologies RSS. 20 June 2012. Web. 15 January. 2017. The Four Negative Sides of Technology. The Four Negative Sides of Technology | Edudemic. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2017.

Indian Economic Movements :: Essays Papers

Indian Economic Movements Net losses at Tata Engineering Co (Telco) rose to Rs 60.36 crore, even as it struggled to absorb the full commissioning costs of its Rs 1,700 crore passenger car project. Turnover during the quarter was more encouraging, jumping 52 per cent to Rs 2,390 crore on the back of strong volume growth in the medium & heavy commercial vehicles segment and higher passenger car sales. Telco said it expected to break even towards the end of the year. Analysts said the Pune-based auto major’s margins came under pressure following lower, less-than-anticipated, profitability in the ambitious Indica project, Telco’s answer to the assault of global car makers in the domestic market. Margins, they said, will remain under pressure thanks to the competition in the commercial vehicles and car businesses. The relatively-insulated commercial vehicles segment, for instance, will see Swedish truck major Volvo going into expansion mode and Eicher (a newcomer in this segment) will launch its HCV sometime this year. PRODUCTION of petroleum products has fallen by almost 30 per cent in the last four months following a severe drop in refinery margins. Indian Oil Corporation, Reliance Petroleum, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum are amongst the leading refinery companies who are likely to take a hit following the sharp increase in international crude prices which have been rising at a faster pace than the product prices. Standalone refineries like the Mangalore refinery have cut production by almost one-third. Crude throughput, (processing crude in the refineries) has fallen significantly forcing the government to increase product imports. But theres a risk of getting exposed to a more volatile product market and going in for short term deals which may not always be on the best rates. Sources claimed that they have been fortunate in being able to procure the products at reasonable rates. â€Å"However, this is not a favourable situation, and should be avoided,† industry experts said. Sources argued that the benefits of attaining self sufficiency in refining capacity are not being reaped as the domestic refineries cannot function at optimum margin levels under the given duty structure. Had the duties on crude been lower, refineries would be encouraged to import and produce. â€Å"Buying crude at $24 a barrel may still allow you to make your margins, but when you pay an additional $3 just as duties, selling products become unviable.† In an update on an

Cassio, the Lieutenant, in Othello Essay -- Othello essays

Cassio, the Lieutenant, in Othello  Ã‚     Ã‚   Michael Cassio, the lieutenant who supposedly stole away Iago’s coveted promotion in Shakespeare’s Othello, is a strange sort of character. He shows great appreciation of other people; he is radiant with truth and honor; and yet he patronizes a prostitute, Bianca. This essay will delve into the character of Cassio.    Blanche Coles in Shakespeare’s Four Giants comments on the character of Cassio:    In a casual reading of Othello, it may seem that the character of Cassio is not sufficiently well drawn, because, for reasons connected with his portrayal of Iago, Shakespeare delays the full characterization of Cassio until almost the end of the play. However, we have a number of brief revelations of his personality that mark him distinctly – in his genuine anxiety for Othello’s safety, in his abstaining from taking part in the bold and suggestive comments of Iago to the two women as they wait for Othello’s ship and, a little later, in his sincere regret about the loss of his reputation after he has partaken of the wine which Iago has forced upon him. (85-86)    Cassio makes his first appearance in the play in Act 1 Scene 2, when he is conducting the official business of the duke of Venice, namely the request of the â€Å"haste-post-haste appearance / Even on the instant† of the general because of the Ottoman threat on Cyprus. Brabantio’s mob briefly delays matters, and then Cassio disappears from the stage until Act 2. He disembarks in Cyprus and graciously announces: â€Å"Thanks, you the valiant of this warlike isle, / That so approve the Moor!† After chatting with Montano and other gentlemen of the isle, he welcomes Desdemona, â€Å"our great captain’s captain,† ashore: â€Å"The ric... ...s corpse produces a letter which â€Å"imports the death of Cassio to be undertook / By Roderigo† – another emotional revelation for Michael Cassio. Finally, the ultimate emotional blow to the ex-officer comes when Othello stabs himself and dies: â€Å"This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon; / For he was great of heart.†    As â€Å"lord governor† of the island of Cyprus now, Michael Cassio has charge of the â€Å"censure of this hellish villain, / The time, the place, the torture.† Lodovico appeals to Cassio to let his justice, not his mercy prevail: â€Å"O, enforce it!†    WORKS CITED    Shakespeare, William. Othello. In The Electric Shakespeare. Princeton University. 1996. http://www.eiu.edu/~multilit/studyabroad/othello/othello_all.html No line nos.    Coles, Blanche. Shakespeare’s Four Giants. Rindge, New Hampshire: Richard Smith Publisher, 1957.   

Quality revolution Essay

Managers involved in helping their organizations improve quality are frequently puzzled over which approach to use. Some organizations adopt an eclectic approach using components of the three philosophies and combining what they consider to be the best from the best. Other organizations select the Crosby, Deming, or Juran approach and remain loyal to it; all their education, training, and implementation efforts reflect support for that one approach. There are organizations that switch in midstream (e.g., begin with Crosby, move to Juran, and then move to Deming). These organizations expect dramatic improvements in a short period of time and their obsession with immediate results forces them to try different approaches on a trial-and-error basis, without thought to a long-term strategy. The key to successful implementation of quality principles and methods is tied to leadership. In fact, lack of management and leadership commitment is considered by Crosby to be the number one cause of quality improvement failure. According to Juran, every successful quality revolution has included the active participation of upper management. There are no exceptions. Deming agrees. He says the transformation is top management’s job and it cannot be delegated. Quality is not a quick fix to address management problems. It is not a program, but a transformation. As part of this effort, top managers must recognize the need for assessment, strategic planning, and the development of a long-term, integrated organization-wide approach. Leadership is needed to establish policies defining the positions the organization will take in regard to quality Leadership is also needed to cultivate a customer orientation and provide all employees with ongoing education and training. These arguments notwithstanding, success or failure will rest upon the correct assessment of how to achieve customer-defined quality criteria and the kind of leadership required to get the organization mobilized in the most cost-acceptable way. â€Å"The approaches of Crosby, Deming, and Juran do not represent â€Å"programs† in the usual sense of the word, but they do not have starting and ending dates.† â€Å"The key successful implementation of quality principles and methods is tied to leadership. â€Å"

Principles of economics: understanding monopoly Essay

| |Refer to the diagram below for a non-discriminating monopolist and answer the following questions 1 to 7: | | | |[pic] | | |1. |The profit-maximizing output for this firm is M. |T / F | |2. |At the profit-maximizing output the firm’s economic profit will be BAFG. |T / F | |3. |At output R economic profits will be zero. |T / F | |4. |At output Q production will be unprofitable. |T / F | |5. |The profit-maximizing price for this firm is J. |T / F | |6. |At output M total cost will be 0CHM. |T / F | |7. |If the government regulates the monopolist so that it charges the socially optimal price, the monopolist will |T / F | | |produce output Q. | | |8. |A monopoly is an industry with a single firm in which the entry of new firms is blocked. |T / F | |9. |If entry of new firms is prohibited in a pure monopoly industry the monopolist may be able to earn normal profit in|T / F | | |the long run. | | |10. |The pure monopolist’s demand curve is the industry demand curve. |T / F | |11. |A monopolist sets the price at which marginal revenue equals marginal cost. |T / F | |12. |When a monopolist incurs a loss it will produce as long as its total revenue covers its total variable costs. |T / F | |13. |Natural monopolies result from extensive economies of scale in production. |T / F | |SECTION B | |1. |[pic] | | |Refer to the diagram above. Determine the: | | | | | | |i. |Price equilibrium | | |ii. |Quantity equilibrium | | | | | | |At equilibrium, calculate the: | | | | | | |iii. |Total variable costs | | |iv. |Total costs | | |v. |Total fixed costs | | |vi. |Total revenue | | |vii. |Total profit/loss | |2. |The following diagram shows the costs and revenues for the producer of Company DeMassa. | | | | | | | |[pic] | | | | AR = average revenue | | | | MR = marginal revenue | | | | AC = average cost | | | | MC = marginal cost | | | | | | | | | | |a. |At what output and price will the producer maximize its profits? Explain | | | | | | |b. |How much profit/loss will be made? Should the firm continue production? | | | | | | |c. |Would you categorize Company DeMassa’s market structure as perfect competition or imperfect competition? | | | |Explain. | | | | | | |d. |List four characteristics of the market structure above. | | | | | | |e. |Based on part a, calculate the total fixed cost of the firm. | | | | | | SECTION C 1. Explain the various price discrimination practices. Price discrimination is bad for the public. Do you agree with this statement? 2. List four types of barriers to entry. 3. Explain the advantages and disadvantages of monopoly. MC AC AVC 9 10 11 12 AR Quantity (million, unit) MR Price, $ 7 6 5 4 Quantity (‘000) MR AR 22 20 17 16 14 Price (RM) MC AC AVC 160 185.

Cause and Effect of Social Media Essay

The 21st century is defined by its obsession and advancements in technology, the younger generation in particular. Technology plays as a key factor in most lives, social media especially. Among the most popular of social media are Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, all with the main purpose to share or view personal information and experiences, communicate with others and meet new people on social or professional grounds. There are several positives and negatives effects associated with social media, making it a topic of debate whether it is creating more good or harm for today’s society. see more:positive and negative effects of social media We use technology as the number one means of communication, and social media has made communicating with each other even easier. We have the ability to stay linked to the world and available at all times with a simple email, text message or social media post. Because most of our conversations are through a tablet, cellphone or computer, face to face interaction is decreasing. More and more people are isolating themselves and losing the ability or desire to interact with real people in real life. It is becoming easier to go through life with less personal confrontations and conversations. This is a problem because we are social creatures and as human beings, that face to face, in person interaction is necessary. One of the main reasons social media was created was to link up with old friends near and far. In present day times we also use social media to form connections with new people. Through the use of forums and specialized pages on Facebook, you can connect with people who have interests similar to your own that you would not necessarily meet in real life and business connections also. Many people go on to build real friendships and even relationships with people they have met on social media. Only negative to this is that you never really know who you are talking to. Someone can claim to be one person, but in reality are lying to you about their identity the whole time. This has become such a common practice that the term â€Å"catfish† was created. A catfish is a person who invents a persona, or impersonates a person online through social media. There have been situations where people have been lured to meet up with who they’d consider a friend under false pretenses. Getting catfished can put one in a dangerous situation. Facebook, twitter and instagram are all methods used to share your life with others. You’re able to post pictures and type statuses to inform your friends, followers, etc., what you have been up to and how you have been living your life. Adults usually post pictures and statuses focusing on their family, trips and special events in their lives, while the younger generation takes social media a lot more serious. Every moment of their lives are put out there for the world to see, sometimes without the realization. Teenagers on social media are always trying to impress and one up each other. They sometimes post inappropriate material to try to look as cool as possible without realizing that ultimately employers, teachers, parents, law enforcement and strangers all have the ability to see. The problem is once something is on the internet it is there forever, and if caught you can find yourself in major trouble. Often when we’re bored we turn to social media for entertainment. We can check up on family friends or see what the hottest celebrity is up to. Then before we know it, our simple amusement becomes a huge distraction. The amount of people we can connect with on social media is endless and they are all so unique, we can spend an infinite amount of time browsing social media without getting bored. Many people have become addicted to social media and find themselves online way more often than they should. This creates a problem when it comes time to do schoolwork and study and even in the office for some. When trying to tackle tedious tasks, it is easy to get distracted and venture onto Facebook, twitter or Instagram. You may not have the intention to stay on for long, but before you know it hours have passed and no work has gotten done. For social media junkies they may have to turn off their phone and block these websites to focus all their attention on the task at hand and get anything done at all. Endless positive and negative effects of social media affect our society today. On one hand social media creates an easy way to communicate with one another, connect with people on a social and business level, share our lives with others and entertain us when we need it. While on the other hand social media comes with the possibility of causing isolation in many situations, putting ourselves in danger when we don’t know who we’re talking to, causing  trouble for ourselves and distracting us from school and work related tasks. Every person who uses social media needs to set limits for themselves to ensure their experience is much more positive than negative. Once that is completed social media can be used as a tool to do great things.

The Loons

Journal of the Short Story in English 48   (Spring 2007) Varia †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Jennifer MurrayNegotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã ¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Electronic reference Jennifer Murray,  «Ã‚  Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons†Ã‚  Ã‚ », Journal of the Short Story in English [Online], 48  |  Spring 2007, Online since 01 juin 2009, Connection on 01 avril 2013. URL  : http:// jsse. revues. org/index858. html Publisher: Presses universitaires d'Angers http://jsse. revues. org http://www. revues. org Document available online on: http://jsse. revues. org/index858. html Document automatically generated on 01 avril 2013.The page numbering does not match that of the print edition.  © All rights reserved Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† 2 Jennifer Murray Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† : p. 71-80 1 2 3 4 5 â€Å"The Loons† belongs to Margaret Laurence’s story-sequence A Bird in the House which is built around the character Vanessa MacLeod and her growing-up years in the fictional town of Manawaka, Manitoba. Following on from the collection’s title story which has the death of Vanessa’s father as its central event, â€Å"The Loons† is set in a time prior to the father’s death and is the first of three stories which deal with Vanessa’s progressive opening up to the world around her and her increasing awareness of the suffering, poverty and forms of oppression outside of her family circle (Stovel 92). More specifically, â€Å"The Loons† gives us Vanessa’s perception of a young girl called Piquette Tonnerre who is of Metis descent and who accumulates the social disadvantages of poverty, illness, ethnic discrimination and being female.The story has been taken to task for the questionable values attached to its u se of Piquette as the stereotype of the doomed minority figure, most notably by Tracy Ware who asks: â€Å"To what extent [does this short story] confirm a debased master narrative that regards Natives as victims of a triumphant white civilization? † (71). At the same time, Ware recognizes the â€Å"enduring sense of [the] aesthetic merit† (71) of this story which so clearly has its place within the canon of Canadian literature.Evaluating the text against its depiction of the Metis can only lead to the negative conclusions that Ware arrives at, namely, that Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† falls ideologically short of the expectations of today’s politically-conscious reader. What this reading of â€Å"The Loons† does not take into account is that the â€Å"aesthetic merit† of the story is situated elsewhere—not in the portrait or role of Piquette as such, but in the story’s treatment of loss and in the central role of the fat her in the symbolics of this particular knot of meaning.In the context of the full story-sequence, loss and the father would seem more naturally associated in â€Å"A Bird in the House,† where the death of the father is the central event. In â€Å"The Loons,† the death of the father is recalled and reactivated as an informing event related to other moments in Vanessa’s life and to her relationship to others, Piquette bearing the weight of this role as ‘other’. On one level—that of Vanessa’s childhood perception of Piquette2—the story is about incomprehension, misconstruction, defensiveness and the impossibility of communication between the two girls.But the entire history of this failed relationship is revisited through the narrating voice of the adult Vanessa; in the telling of the story, she reshapes past events through the experience of loss provoked by her father’s death and invests them with symbolic value. Like the dreamer and the dream, Vanessa’s story is more about Vanessa than about those around her; it is her attempt to fit her own sense of loss into a world which is, more than she knows, beyond her.The father’s role in giving Vanessa access to symbolic values is central to the story; indeed, the first ‘event’ in the story is the father’s announcement of his concern (as a doctor) for the health of the young Piquette, who is in his care. After having prepared the ground briefly, he asks his wife: â€Å"Beth, I was thinking—what about taking her up to Diamond Lake with us this summer? A couple of months rest would give that bone a much better chance† (110).This act of social generosity, which is to involve his whole family, introduces the reader to the father’s values; it also inaugurates the continuing association in the text between the father and Piquette. The father is a reference point for Piquette; she invokes him to justify her re fusal to accompany Vanessa on a short walk: â€Å"Your dad said I ain’t supposed to do no more walking than I got to† (113), and in later years, Piquette tells Vanessa, â€Å"Your dad was the only person in Manawaka that ever done anything good to me† (116). This positive assessment of the father is Journal of the Short Story in English, 48 | Spring 2007Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† 3 6 the only shared ground between the girls. In response to the comment above, Vanessa â€Å"nodded speechlessly [†¦ ] certain that [Piquette] was speaking the truth† (116). In the name of her love for her father, Vanessa will make several attempts at approaching Piquette: these attempts are regularly met with rejection, leading to a moment of hurt for Vanessa: ‘Want to come and play? ’ Piquette looked at me with a sudden flash of scorn. ‘I ain’t a kid,’ she said. Wounded, I stamped a ngrily away [†¦]. 112) 7 8 This pattern recurs twice on the following page, with Piquette’s â€Å"scorn† taking on other forms —â€Å"Her voice was distant† (113); â€Å"her large dark unsmiling eyes† (113)—and her refusals becoming more verbally aggressive: â€Å"You nuts or somethin’? † (113); â€Å"Who gives a good goddamn? † (114). The impossibility of sharing between the girls is seen both from the perspective of the child Vanessa, who is mystified, â€Å"wondering what I could have said wrong† (113), and from the more experienced perspective offered by the narrated construction of events.This double vision allows the reader to see the misperceptions and involuntary insensitivity on which Vanessa’s attempts at communication are based. Where Vanessa fantasizes Piquette into â€Å"a real Indian† (112) and projects onto her the knowledge of the ‘secrets’ of nature, Piquette lives her identity as a Metis through the social rejection which characterizes Manawaka’s view of her family:   Ã¢â‚¬ËœI bet you know a lot about the woods and all that, eh? ’ I began respectfully. †¦] ‘I don’t know what in hell you’re talkin’ about,’ she replied. [†¦] If you mean where my old man, and me, and all them live, you better shut up, by Jesus, you hear? ’ (113) 9 While the child cannot understand the defensiveness of Piquette, as readers, our knowledge of Piquette’s social conditions, outlined in the opening paragraphs of the story, leads us to a position of empathy with the offended girl. Similar effects are produced by Vanessa’s enthusiasm about her summer cottage, —â€Å"‘I love it,’ I said. We come here every summer,’† (113)—expressed in the face of Piquette’s poverty, which habitually excludes her from the world of lakeside summer homes. Just as much as Piquette’s social disadvantages, Vanessa’s self-absorbed immersion in the comforts of middle-class Manawaka is the source of the girls’ mutual wariness. As the narrator of the story, the older version of Vanessa puts forward expressions of regret at the failure of the relationship between herself as a child, and Piquette.This regret, however, is not distinct from childhood, but a part of it, recounted in the past tense: â€Å"Piquette and I remained ill at ease with one another. I felt I had somehow failed my father, but I did not know what was the matter, nor why she would not or could not respond† (115). The linguistic markers â€Å"somehow† and â€Å"did not know† suggest that the emotional experience of failure remained confusing for the child, but the ability to formulate this metadiscourse indicates that things have become clearer to the adult Vanessa.This acquired comprehension allows the narrator to develop the expression of failure once again, two pages further on, including, this time, more details about the possible expectations of the father: Yet I felt no real warmth towards her—I only felt that I ought to, because of that distant summer and because my father had hoped she would be company for me, or perhaps that I would be for her, but it had not happened that way. (117) 10 Through the voice of the more experienced Vanessa, the regret of the past is understood to have been intimately related to a sense of having failed not herself, nor Piquette, but her father.The focus is on the father’s symbolic role in attributing potential value to the possibility of their friendship. Along with the father’s generosity towards Piquette, a series of other values related to the father are offered in the short story. The father’s name, MacLeod, is also the name which designates the family cottage (111), which itself is associated with nature and authenticity: it Journal of the Short St ory in English, 48 | Spring 2007 Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† 4 11 s the father who comes and sits by the lake with Vanessa to listen to the loons (114); the lake, the nighttime, the loons, all come to signify intuitive communication (â€Å"we waited, without speaking†), mystery and transcendence (â€Å"They rose like phantom birds†), a reproach to human civilization (â€Å"Plaintive, and yet with a quality of chilling mockery, those voices belonged to a world separated by aeons from our neat world of summer cottages and the lighted lamps of home†) (114). The idea that the loons belong to a separate world is reinforced by the father’s comment that the loons had been there â€Å"before any person ever set foot here† (114).The loons are both a form of access to the continuum of natural time as opposed to civilized time, and a reminder that man cannot bridge that gap; there is therefore a form of retrospective loss attached to the image of the loons: the imagined loss of what came before and is now inaccessible. However, the birds also prefigure future loss—the enduring presence of the loons is endangered, as Vanessa tells Piquette: My dad says we should listen and try to remember how they sound, because in a few years when more cottages are built at Diamond Lake and more people come in, the loons will go away. 114) 12 We can also see the metonymic association between this loss and the approaching end of the permanence of Vanessa’s world; her father, associated with the loons in Vanessa’s childhood, is soon to disappear: â€Å"Neither of us suspected that this would be the last time we would ever sit here together on the shore, listening† (115). The symbolic charge of the loss of the loons is therefore great for Vanessa, but meaningless to young Piquette, who, on learning of the precarious situation of the birds, says: â€Å"Who gives a good god damn? (114). For Piquette, they are literally, â€Å"a bunch of squawkin’ birds† (115). Meaning is to do with symbolic construction and â€Å"The Loons†, for all of its focus on Piquette, is about Vanessa’s construction of personal meaning. Coral Ann Howells notes that Vanessa’s choosing to write about Piquette is a way of â€Å"silently displacing her own feelings into [Piquette’s] story† (41). This process is clearest in the paragraph which announces the father’s death: That winter my father died of pneumonia, after less than a week’s illness.For some time I saw nothing around me, being completely immersed in my own pain and my mother’s. When I looked outward once more, I scarcely noticed that Piquette Tonnerre was no longer at school. (115) 13 14 The words which tell of the loss of the father are almost immediately followed by words which tell of the disappearance of Piquette. This is given in the form of a neg ation: â€Å"I scarcely noticed†¦,† but what the young Vanessa had â€Å"scarcely noticed,† the narrating Vanessa gives weight to by placing it in verbal proximity to the death of the father, obliquely associating the two events.Through indirection, therefore, Vanessa speaks of her own loss. But the process is not entirely parasitic; in the telling, she also constructs Piquette. Piquette is, in some ways, a difficult character for today’s reader to take on board: like Pique, the daughter of Morag Gunn in the final Manawaka story, â€Å"The Diviners†, she â€Å"suffers from the weight of too much thematic relevance† (Howells 51) since, as I noted earlier, she accumulates an extraordinary number of handicaps, all of which are seen to be indirectly related to her Metis origins.In spite of the older Vanessa’s gentle mocking of her earlier self in her desire to ‘naturalize’ Piquette into a folkloric Indian, the story does imply that part of Piquette’s tragedy is that, like the loons, she belongs to a more ‘authentic’ heritage which has been/is being destroyed. 3 The romanticism which the narrating voice mocks is nonetheless supported by the story’s symbolism, as is the attempt to fix Piquette into a sterile, stereotyped role of ‘representativity,’ something that Piquette’s direct discourse has violently rejected.Yet, we do have access to a more tenacious Piquette; in her silences, rejections, and refusals, she is a character who is fighting for her own survival in a world clearly divided along class lines and this tenacity is seen principally in her rejection of Vanessa’s self-satisfaction. Vanessa’s sense of superiority over Piquette is implicit in the narrator’s comments about the Metis girl’s invisibility to her younger self; at that time, Piquette was but â€Å"a vaguely embarrassing presence† who â€Å"moved somewhere w ithin my scope of vision† (109). Moreover, Piquette can drop out of sight for years without notice: â€Å"I do not remember seeing her at allJournal of the Short Story in English, 48 | Spring 2007 Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† 5 until four years later† (115). It would seem to be the total separateness of their social worlds that creates and sustains what might be experienced as a ‘lack of affinity’. Whereas these social differences remain unformulated to the child Vanessa, they are close to the surface for Piquette whose discourse refuses to endorse the smugness of the well-off Vanessa: ‘Do you like this place,’ I asked [†¦] Piquette shrugged. It’s okay. Good as anywhere. ’ ‘I love it,’ I said, ‘We come here every summer. ’ ‘So what? ’ (113) 15 Other details suggest a Piquette who has dreams of her own, but who cannot allow herself t o expose them to others: â€Å"When she saw me approaching, her hand squashed flat the sand castle she had been building, and she looked at me sullenly, without speaking† (113). For Piquette, the child Vanessa is a potential enemy, someone to guard oneself against. Dreams cannot be shared, and cannot even be envisaged within the society of which Vanessa is a part.Indeed, even in her later teenage years, Piquette holds no hope of improvement for herself within the confines of small-town Manawaka: â€Å"Boy, you couldn’t catch me stayin’ here. I don’ give a shit about this place. It stinks† (116). Piquette knows that Manawaka holds nothing for her in the sense that no one there believes in her chances for a better future. When she becomes engaged to be married, she remarks that, â€Å"All the bitches an’ biddies in this town will sure be surprised† (117).The implication that the town gossips have nothing good to say about Piquette is un derscored by Vanessa’s own reactions. On seeing Piquette several years after the summer at the cottage, Vanessa is â€Å"repelled† and â€Å"embarrassed† by her, and although she is â€Å"ashamed† at her own attitude, she gives way to an emphatic outpouring of animosity towards the teenage girl:   Ã‚  Ã‚  I could not help despising the self-pity in her voice. I wished she would go away. I did not want to see her. I did not know what to say to her.It seemed that we had nothing to say to one another. (117) 16 The force of this expression suggests a negative identification with Piquette on Vanessa’s part. It is as if Piquette represents the photo negative of Vanessa’s life; the result of poverty, illness, and lack of education made flesh and standing there as a threat to the integrity of Vanessa’s identity as a middle-class, reasonably well-educated girl with a future. There is no indication in the story that Vanessa ever overcomes thi s violent rejection of Piquette during the Metis girl’s lifetime.This moment of intense emotional confrontation is followed by what may be seen as the story’s signature moment: For the merest instant, then, I saw her. I really did see her, for the first and only time in all the years we had both lived in the same town. Her defiant face, momentarily, became unguarded and unmasked, and in her eyes there was a terrifying hope. (117) 17 These last two words encapsulate the relative positions of the two girls.Where Piquette ‘reveals’ her most guarded treasure—hope, arguably the most positive emotion which exists, Vanessa reproduces the condemning judgement of the town; with the word â€Å"terrifying,† she declares this hope to be without any ground. It is therefore coherent with Vanessa’s view of Piquette’s life that the Metis woman should be left as a single mother, follow in the drunken path of her father, and finally die in a hous e fire along with her two children. Vanessa’s reaction to this news is, â€Å"I did not say anything. As so often with Piquette, there did not seem to be anything to say† (119).It is not that there is ‘nothing to say’ about Piquette, but rather, that what there is to say would involve a questioning of community values which would also have to be a form of self-questioning. The narrative does not take the direction of a critique of human and social relationships; it deals with the vague sense of guilt expressed by the narrator—â€Å"I wished I could put from my memory the look that I had seen once in Piquette’s eyes† (119)—by sublimating Piquette into the symbol (along with the loons) of something lost.The ground is prepared through the falling action of the story which lists the avalanche of losses which Vanessa experiences after having heard about Piquette’s death: â€Å"The MacLeod cottage had been sold after my father ’s Journal of the Short Story in English, 48 | Spring 2007 Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† 6 death†; â€Å"The small pier which my father had built was gone†; â€Å"Diamond Lake had been renamed Lake Wapakata†; and finally, â€Å"I realized that the loons were no longer there† (119).These different elements reinstall the triad of the father, the loons and nature as the paradigm of loss and the narrator then brings Piquette into this sphere of symbolism: I remember how Piquette had scorned to come along when my father and I sat there and listened to the lake birds. It seemed to me now that in some unconscious and totally unrecognised way, Piquette might have been the only one, after all, who had heard the crying of the loons. (120) 18 19 â€Å"Piquette,† â€Å"father,† â€Å"lake,† â€Å"birds,† â€Å"loons†: all of these words are given a place in the final parag raph.The narrator too, is present amongst these elements, and her place as the one who reconstructs meaning is affirmed: â€Å"I remember how [†¦]. † But it is affirmed, finally, as a process of questioning: in the phrase, â€Å"It seemed to me now that in some unconscious and totally unrecognised way,† (where it is uncertain as to whether it is the narrator’s unconscious or Piquette’s which is being invoked), the narrator seems to romanticize Piquette’s Metis status into the ‘natural’ world and confer on her the positive charge of nostalgia related to loss. In this statement of restricted awareness, it would seem that the narrator is trying to resolve the problem of her own position in relation to Piquette; the irreconcilable distinction between how she felt towards Piquette and how she felt she should have felt, if only for her father’s sake. The solution to this is to transform Piquette from the living girl—judged by society, including Vanessa and her mother—as â€Å"sullen and gauche and badly dressed,† â€Å"a real slattern,† â€Å"a mess† (118), into a symbol: a young girl, representative of an oppressed minority, with a tragic destiny, doomed to die. In this form, the loss of Piquette can be associated with both the death of the father and the disappearance of the loons; the desire to bring Piquette into this association suggests an unresolved sense of guilt—towards the girl character, on the level of the diegesis, but also towards the Metis people, whose â€Å"long silence† (108) is echoed in the â€Å"quiet all around me† experienced by Vanessa (119) as she becomes aware of the disappearance of the loons.Silenced by death, Piquette’s ‘otherness’ can be neutralized and romanticized into nostalgia. The contradictions which structure â€Å"The Loons† give the story its force. In spite of the control of the adult n arrator in the choice and ordering of memory, there is no attempt to beautify the emotions of her childhood self. The limited, often egocentric aspects of her childhood perspective are rendered, so that the reader’s sympathy goes out towards the other girl, Piquette. This construction of perspective may be een as a form of generosity, whereby, in spite of Vanessa’s statement that â€Å"there was nothing to say,† the narrator’s rendering of the past has allowed the reader to achieve an awareness of Piquette’s specificity as a character: she has moved from the general sense of absence which characterizes her in Vanessa’s memory, to a form of visibility in which the reader may see her as the victim of multiple vectors of oppression; in this context, her ‘defiance’ and ‘sullenness’ become the marks of a fighting spirit, and her ‘hope,’ the sign of her humanity.Through these effects constructed by the narrat ing voice, the earlier generosity of the father is ultimately echoed and loss takes on its complex human dimension. Bibliography Howells, Coral Ann. Private and Fictional Words : Canadian Women Novelists of the 1970s and 1980s. London: Methuen, 1987. Laurence, Margaret. A Bird in the House (1970). Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 1993. Stovel, Bruce. â€Å"Coherence in A Bird in the House,† in New Perspectives on Margaret Laurence : Poetic Narrative, Multiculturalism, and Feminism.Ed. Greta McCormick Coger. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996. Vauthier, Simone. â€Å"‘A Momentary Stay Against Confusion’ : A Reading of Margaret Laurence’s ‘To Set Our House in Order. ’† The Journal of the Short Story in English vol. 3 (1984): 87-108. Ware, Tracy. â€Å"Race and Conflict in Garner’s ‘One-Two-Three Little Indians’ and Laurence’s ‘The Loons. ’† Studies in Canadian Literature vol. 23:2 (199 8) : 71-84. Journal of the Short Story in English, 48 | Spring 2007 Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons† 7 Notes   I am grateful to my colleagues in Besancon who participated in a discussion on â€Å"The Loons. † 2   See Vauthier (96-99) for a detailed analysis of Vanessa’s function as narrator (based on the short story â€Å"To Set Our House in Order,† but equally valid here). 3    Indeed, Tracy Ware argues that the association of Piquette with nature, on the basis of her Metis origins, â€Å"den[ies] Piquette her full humanity, [and it also] makes a tragic outcome inevitable. We will never be able to imagine a future for people whom we regard as separate[d] from us ‘by aeons’† (80).   Margery Fee’s comment, quoted in Ware, that â€Å"Native people [†¦] are so rarely depicted as individuals, because they must bear the burden of the Other—of representing all that the modern person has lost† (Ware 82), seems relevant to the construction of Piquette as a character who comes to bear the symbolic weight of the very idea of loss. 5   Ware declares that this symbol is â€Å"a misrecognition because it ignores the historical struggles of both Natives and Metis† (79). References Electronic referenceJennifer Murray,  «Ã‚  Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons†Ã‚  Ã‚ », Journal of the Short Story in English [Online], 48  |  Spring 2007, Online since 01 juin 2009, Connection on 01 avril 2013. URL  : http://jsse. revues. org/index858. html Bibliographical reference Jennifer Murray,  «Ã‚  Negotiating Loss and Otherness in Margaret Laurence’s â€Å"The Loons†Ã‚  Ã‚ », Journal of the Short Story in English, 48  |  2007, 71-80. Jennifer Murray Jennifer Murray is an associate professor at the University of Franche-Comte.Her research is focused primarily on Canadian literatur e and on American writers from the South. Ms. Murray’s publications include articles on Margaret Atwood, Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor and Tennessee Williams. She is currently working on the short stories of Margaret Laurence and Alice Munro. Copyright  © All rights reserved Abstract Je me propose ici d’etudier l’impact symbolique de la disparition du pere dans â€Å"  The Loons  Ã¢â‚¬ , une nouvelle de Margaret Laurence.Au niveau de l’intrigue, l’histoire est celle d’une amitie impossible entre la narratrice, Vanessa, fille de medecin, et une jeune metisse, Piquette, soignee par le pere de Vanessa. Les differences de niveau social, d’education et d’origine ethnique creent une incomprehension fondamentale entre les deux filles et vouent a l’echec les tentatives de Vanessa de sympathiser avec Piquette. Cet insucces attriste Vanessa  ; elle pense avoir decu son pere qui esperait que le sort de sa jeu ne patiente serait adouci par le contact avec sa famille.Devant son incapacite a transformer la realite et le remords qu’elle en eprouve, la narratrice transforme son souvenir de Piquette, l’exclue, en symbole. Ce symbole se developpe autour d’un noyau d’elements semantiques associes a l’authenticite, la nature, et la nostalgie du passe  ; des concepts valorises par le pere, et qui, pour la narratrice sont lies au sentiment de perte occasionne par sa mort Journal of the Short Story in English, 48 | Spring 2007

BDM midterm

BDM midterm Essay Ralph Edmund loves steak and potatoes. Therefore, he has decided to go on a steady diet of only these two foods for all his meals. Ralph realizes that this is not the healthiest diet, so he wants to make sure that he eats the right quantities of the two foods to satisfy some key nutritional requirements. He has obtained the following nutritional and costs data. The Oak Works is a family owned business that makes hand crafted dining room tables and chairs. They obtain the oak from a local tree farm, which ships them 2500 pounds of oak each month. Each table uses 50 pounds of oak while each chair uses 25 pounds of oak. The family builds all the furniture itself and has 480 hours of labour available each month. Each table or chair requires 6 hours of labour. Each table nets Oak Works $400 in profit, while each chair nets them $100 in profit. Since chairs are often sold with tables they want to produce at least twice as many chairs as tables. Formula a linear program to maximize profit. BDM midterm. (2016, May 16).

Women Artist Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Women Artist - Essay Example The painting contains both contemporary and mythological subjects, as well as intimacy that arose during the reign of Louis XIV. The painting depicts a lavish garden setting with an aristocrat couple enjoying a lush picnic. However, the man is distracted by a shepherdess who is passing by as she gathers flowers of her own. In a flawless setting, Boucher takes the viewer to an imaginary land of love, innocence, and youth naughtiness. Boucher uses fine decorations and Rococo style details to allow viewers experience the beauty and innocence of love. In the painting, the surrounding bushes and trees have richly worked foliage while the woman’s dressing consists of creamy folds that epitomize characteristics of Rococo style (Levey 164). Additionally, these styles are typical of aristocratic paintings depicting their playfulness, intimacy, and lavish holidays. It is clear there is intimacy between the two couple lying on the ground whereby the man is making flowers on the woman’s hair. Unfortunately, this intimacy is interrupted by a shepherdess who is passing by and has taken the man’s attention from his woman. Furthermore, the beautiful landscape gives an insight into perspective because it shows that objects become smaller and sky bluer as the distance increases. Light illuminates in the middle of the picture creating a focus on the subjects, and contrasting with the shadows cast by the trees on the right side of the painting. These add to the overall theme of the painting, which is love and beauty Elegance and detailed decoration throughout the painting are other elements that extend the beauty in the painting. For instance, there is use of pastel colors that bring out the sensuality of the scene and the mythological subjects. Furthermore, the blue shading of the sky in the background is lovely to look at, and this is complimented with a little foreground with enumerated trees that