Multiculturalism in Human Resource Management Essay

Multiculturalism in Human Resource Management - Essay Example I believe that the essence of diversity, cultural or otherwise, is the co-existence of different attributes within a single social environment. For instance, if there are different cultures involved, but each culture is encountered within the context of its own social milieu, then there is multiculturalism but no diversity, because the employees are not members of a minority culture subjected to a dominant culture. On the other hand, if the variety of cultures were encountered within the United States, then one might say that cultural diversity existed. The essence of â€Å"diversity† is pluralism within a single context, â€Å"diversity in the creation of a common society† (McGraw & Formicola, 2005, p. 14). Therefore, if the multiculturalism involved a multinational hiring individuals of different races or cultures in different overseas subsidiaries only because a particular race or culture is prevalent in that particular host country, then diversity did not exist as p lurality because the cultures were dominant in their own locales. The answer to the third question affirms that diversity and inclusion are important in the business environment, but is not clear on why diversity is important. The example given is that diversity draws world customers closer to the organization rather than alienates them. However, culture-sensitive marketing strategy changes consumer perception of the firm, without necessarily transforming the parent corporation into a diverse and inclusive entity (Van Mesdag, 1999). A devolved management approach that employs cultural adaptation in its marketing efforts does not necessarily result in a diverse work force, although a diverse work force may draw customers of different attributes and backgrounds, within the parent company’s environment, closer to it. Response for the post of Student 2 (Brandon Burton) The post points out an important challenge to diversity, that is, how the ideals and theoretical principles of d iversity are actualized so that one may say, â€Å"Our corporation has achieved diversity†. The difficulty in arriving at a cogent description of diversity is underscored by Brandon’s questions: Is it hiring more minorities? Is it seeking minorities who think differently? While these ambiguities are well illustrated, there appears to be something missing in the definition that is arrived at. Diversity in this post is defined in terms of possessing different ideas, personal as well as business experiences, and culture (in what sense is uncertain – culture related to nationality or ethnicity, or culture related to personal upbringing and orientation?). It appears that this definition defeats the concept behind â€Å"diversity and inclusion† because it ignores the sense behind â€Å"inclusion.† â€Å"It is generally accepted that ‘Inclusion’ means inviting those who have been historically locked out to ‘come in’.† (Asa nte, n.d.). The post is correct in stressing that the person with the right qualifications must be hired, but the implicit premise here is that diversity will compel the business to hire one who is not qualified. Diversity and inclusion are specific in that they are initiatives which aim to set straight the historical prejudices that relegated people of certain races, creeds, cultures, and other attributes to cycles of poverty and exclusion. Diversity is â€Å"a moral imperative to ensure justice and fair treatment of all members of society†¦The comprehensive proactive organization focuses not only on the business case for diversity, but also actively on the social justice case and what is ‘the right thing to do’

Jazz Music between World Wars Essay Example for Free

Jazz Music between World Wars Essay The jazz craze in music during the 1920s reflected a general spirit of the times for many commentators like Seldes that this decade became known as the Jazz Age. Following World War I, jazz music certainly captured the popular imagination. The rapid popularity of jazz music led to its equally rapid spread among musicians. No other style up to this time in American popular music so quickly came to dominate popular performance. The American vernacular, which had already made significant inroads into the commercial popular music market, had captured popular tastes at an unprecedented level, seemingly sweeping aside the old â€Å"standards. † And just as ragtime and syncopated dance music became part of earlier commercial popular music, the dominance of jazz in the 1920s also represented a major triumph of the black vernacular in American popular music. The jazz craze began through the influence of non-professional musicians. While still marginal to most legitimate venues, non-professional musicians performing the jazz vernacular were attracting audiences to clubs, theaters, restaurants, and were popular in the speakeasies of the 1920s. They also had opportunities for their music to reach a broader audience in a booming record market following World War I. Professional musicians, however, quickly adopted jazz music in their orchestras and smaller bands. They co-opted the jazz fever while simultaneously distancing themselves from non-professionals. (Charters, 39-43) By occupying the most lucrative jobs in theaters, dance halls, hotels, and other venues, professional musicians positioned themselves as the premier interpreters of this new vernacular idiom in commercial popular music. The common defense of jazz as good music during the Jazz Age embraced the professional musicians and professional composers who performed and created jazz music, not the non-professional musicians who first introduced it. In adopting jazz idioms, professional musicians were simply continuing the process of cultivating the American vernacular. Black professional musicians were already adopting black vernacular idioms in their music making in earlier syncopated society orchestras and simply adopted jazz idioms as well as the name in their â€Å"jazz† orchestras. (Bushell, 72-75) White professional musicians had performed rags as part of their repertoire in the past, but with the jazz craze, many were quick to adopt syncopated dance and jazz practices in some form as the defining style of their profession. White professional musicians also quickly followed black professional musicians in transforming their bands into jazz orchestras, and just as quickly claimed to be the modern proponents of this new American popular music. Black and white professional jazz orchestras in the 1920s established the basic instrumentation, arrangement, and techniques of the big band dance orchestras that dominated American popular music until the 1950s. In the 1920s, an emerging new ideal of good music involved a balancing of the previous cultivated practices and cultivated music of professional musicians with popular vernacular idioms. The proper balance, however, was hotly debated. Professional musicians would constantly distance themselves from the pure vernacular of non-professional musicians. In defending their balance of the cultivated and the vernacular in popular performance, popular tastes, however, were demanding jazz music and a professional musician would be remiss to ignore his patrons in the popular music market as much as stodgy critics and some professional musicians would rail against the pernicious influence of jazz. Professional musicians in mediating the popular music market had to continue to navigate the moral, aesthetic, class, and racial construction of good music in America. While popular tastes in musical entertainment promoted the black vernacular in commercial popular music, the plight of the African American community in the United States continued to be dire. Some leaders in the black community had hoped that African Americans participation during World War I in both the military and in industry, and the Great Migration out of the Jim Crow South, would change their fortunes as segregated and oppressed second class citizens. The post-war years, however, dashed most hopes of any immediate positive change. (DeVeaux, 6-29) Race relations went in the opposite direction. Race riots sprung up across the nation while lynching continued to be a regular occurrence. Efforts continued to secure the legal segregation of black communities, and the labor movement continued to exclude blacks. The Ku Klux Klan reached its peak membership and popularity during the 1920s. The segregation and denigration of the black community was also reflected in the social organization of American music. (Hansen, 493-97) Besides the segregation of audiences and most venues, black professional musicians also remained outside the artistic community of white professional musicians in terms of unions, band organizations, and this communitys vision of a professional class of artist in America. The balance of the cultivated and the vernacular among professional musicians also continued to run against elitist conceptions of popular music and popular musicians as less legitimate than the music, musicians, and composers of the European cultivated tradition of classical and opera music. Black professional musicians also continued to strive to break through the barriers erected against them in the world of European cultivated music. This continuing tension in the implied lower status of professional musicians who performed American popular music erupted during the Jazz Age into an open rebellion against the European cultivated tradition. Professional musicians in jazz orchestras attempted to counter the singular role claimed by the European cultivated tradition. These musicians asserted that jazz was a true American or African American school of fine art music in contrast to cultivated European music – a populist appeal for high art legitimacy. This high art turn in American popular music, however, ultimately failed when the depression wreaked havoc on the popular music market. With the introduction of a new popular music market of live performances, records, broadcasts, and films, the quest for legitimacy among professional popular musicians would have to take another route. It was a period where professional popular musicians in adopting the jazz vernacular went against the reigning cultural hierarchy in America. (Peretti, 234-40) The period following World War I was a crucial turning point in American popular music. The American vernacular in general was storming the ramparts of the old edifice of good music as Tin Pan Alley song and dance dominated popular performance. Both professional and nonprofessional musicians also were benefiting from more affluent times and the growing importance of entertainment in the lives of most urban Americans. To the chagrin of elite and moral defenders of nineteenth century cultural idealism, most urban Americans were readily joining a Cultural Revolution in commercial popular entertainment. And at the center of this revolution was the national craze for jazz music and jazz dance. The jazz craze made syncopated rhythms and other black vernacular idioms central elements of American popular music making. While many small jazz bands performed a black vernacular style of music from the Delta Region of New Orleans, jazz music in the 1920s encompassed not only this style but syncopated dance music, blues music, piano rags, and virtually any tune jazzed up by musicians. The jazz craze in essence was the craze for the black vernacular among popular audiences and the performance of this vernacular in some form by popular musicians and popular singers both professional and non-professional. The extent to which musicians and singers actually adopted the black vernacular rather than a superficial imitation – critique later jazz critics would make of certain sweet jazz during the 1920s – is less important than the fact that jazz entered the consciousness of the nation and musicians as the reigning popular music. The word Jazz seems to have found a permanent place in the vocabulary of popular music. It was used originally as an adjective describing a band that in playing for dancing were so infected with their own rhythm that they themselves executed as much, if not more, contortions than the dancers. The popularity of the raggy music has created a demand for music with exaggerated syncopation, an attempt as it were to produce the wonderful broken rhythms of the primitive African jungle orchestra. The jazz craze also coincided with the growth of black entertainment. During the 1920s, black entertainment districts like the South Side in Chicago and Harlem in New York City witnessed a major boom. Besides entertaining the large black populations of The Great Migration, black musicians and singers were entertaining white audiences who went uptown for their entertainment. The boom in the 1920s in black entertainment, as Kenny (1993, 89-92) and Shaw (1987, 122-30) show, was driven by the demand for the black vernacular. In musical theater, musical revues, vaudeville, dance, and speakeasies, the black vernacular and black artists were in demand. This demand was met not only in black entertainment districts, but also outside these districts as black artists performed for white audiences in musical revues, dance halls, and clubs in white entertainment districts. The popularity of the black vernacular also increased when record producers discovered a race market in black music. Most members of the New England School of cultivated music like Mason, and other defenders of the old ideal of good music, were stridently against the influence of jazz in both popular music and classical music. Repeating the moral, aesthetic, class, and racial epithets used to condemn the popularization of vernacular jazz, the guardians of the old ideal ridiculed any idea of jazz meriting the status of high art or even having an influence on serious music composition and performance. As David Stanley Smith, Professor of Music at Yale University, argued in The Musician of August 1926, jazz musics â€Å"monotonous rhythm, as unvaried as the chug-chug of a steam engine, enslaves its practitioners within a formula, and induces in composer, performer, and listener a stupor of mind and emotion. † On the other hand, many of those individuals who embraced â€Å"modernism† in cultivated music were sympathetic to jazz music. These modernists emphasized jazz as the legitimate expression of the times and a nation. (Stewart, 102-109) The debate within the cultivated tradition between old idealists and modernists on the influence of jazz revolved mainly around the influence of popular jazz on serious music composition and performance. That the question would be posed in such a manner spoke to how, by the 1920s, the European cultivated tradition had organizationally and ideologically broken from the world of commercial popular music. Crossover between popular music and cultivated music occurred during the 1920s, but organizational and ideological barriers left little chance that jazz musicians would transform the cultivated tradition. The very formation of a separate world of cultivated music in the United States was predicated on its distinction from commercial popular music, popular musicians, and popular tastes – a distinction further exacerbated by jazz music being an expression of the black vernacular. The influence of jazz within the cultivated tradition, however, was debated during the 1920s as professional musicians laid claim to a truly American art form and modernists promoted the incorporation of jazz in serious music composition and performance. (Badger, 48-67) Traditionalists, of course, had reason to be optimistic as the economic depression following the 1929 stock market crash wreaked havoc on the commercial market of popular jazz music. Defenders of the European cultivated tradition also had reason to celebrate as the confident proclamations of professional musicians on jazz as Americas first authentic art receded to the background as these musicians adjusted to changed economic circumstances and a new popular music market. Professional musicians struggle for legitimacy during the Jazz Age, however, laid the ideological and musical foundation upon which the next generation of professional musicians would construct a modern jazz paradigm. In their quest for legitimacy as professional artists, they were the first popular artists to attempt to transform the moral, aesthetic, class, and racial constructions of the old ideal of good music in America. While their efforts contained their own complicity in manners of distinction, the contradictions of an elite populism embedded in a racist culture, they did struggle to create an alternative understanding of art and society in America. As the self-appointed mediators of the American vernacular, professional musicians and composers ardently worked to construct an alternative form of good music to that of the European cultivated music tradition – a music reflecting in some fashion the world of popular audiences and popular tastes. ( DeVeaux, 525-40) In this process of syncretism, the reinvention and reinterpretation of musical idioms and practices, these artists created the American big band dance orchestra and the Tin Pan Alley song that dominated American popular music until the middle of the twentieth century. While jazz did not become a universally recognized American high art form during the Jazz Age, professional musicians and composers transformed it into legitimate popular art music, although at the expense of those non-professional vernacular musicians who did not assimilate into their profession. The need for professional musicians to legitimate popular dance orchestras disappeared after the 1920s, and the old ideal of good music no longer occupied this professional class of musician. (Gioia, 213-20) The emergence of an alternative ideal of good music among professional musicians signaled a final separation between popular music making and the cultivated tradition in American music. This break was both ideological and practical; a reflection of both a new professional ethos among professional musicians and the culmination of the division in the social organization of American music between the world of popular music and the world of European cultivated music. (Lopes, 25-36) The previous crisscrossing professionally between the cultivated tradition and popular music making was no longer part of this profession. The future big band leaders and musicians of the Swing Era began their professional careers not in symphonies, but in the small jazz ensembles and jazz orchestras of the Jazz Age. The fate of jazz was seemed threatened by the power over popular music of a new mass media industry of broadcasts, recordings, and film. Just when the fortunes of jazz seemed dead and buried, however, the swing craze reignited popular interest in the cultivated jazz vernacular. (Hennessey, 156-60) The promotion of sweet music and the subsequent swing craze, however, set in motion a new distinction within the profession of musician. No longer than singularly obsessed with the world of European cultivated music, professional musicians who assimilated the black jazz vernacular now viewed sweet music as their more direct nemesis. The race and class boundaries articulated in the old ideal of good music were now articulated more directly for professional musicians in the distinction between the popular music cultures of sweet and swing.

The Power of Community Service :: Community Service Essays

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." - Winston Churchill "If you knew what I know about the power of giving, you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way." - Buddha In 2014, I traveled to New Orleans for a National Youth Gathering. Some 30,000 students and advisers donned orange t-shirts and fanned out across the city to serve. Our group was assigned the task of clearing roadsides and medians. We spent the day picking up trash and removing cat claw, an invasive and difficult weed. It was the kind of work most of us took for granted because it was something we would do at home. I remember being shocked at the number of people who stopped, rolled down their car windows, and said thank you. Regular yard work that seemed so insignificant to us made a big difference to them. We all had something to contribute and in turn were transformed by the experience; we gave our labor and the people of New Orleans showed us amazing hospitality. For me this reciprocal effect is the most transformational of community service. The more I give and serve, the more I find my life enriched by sharing with others. Community service is part of my life, something ordinary rather than extraordinary, part of life’s journey rather than a goal, destination or high school graduation requirement. As long as I can remember service to others was modeled and encouraged by my family and teachers. To say how I have been transformed in past tense paints an incomplete picture because I am still learning and growing, both being shaped by the process of service and shaping the process by which I serve. This much I can say with certainty: we all have something to give, and a life of service expands one’s world exponentially and unexpectedly. It is easy to feel too small to make a difference as only one of more than seven billion people on this planet. Even the smallest candle is capable of giving light, and when myriad tiny candles burn together a room, a life or a cause can turn into a conflagration of hope and change. The simplest action can initiate a ripple effect that spreads around the world. What I can never hope to do alone may be possible with the shared efforts of others. The Power of Community Service :: Community Service Essays "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." - Winston Churchill "If you knew what I know about the power of giving, you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way." - Buddha In 2014, I traveled to New Orleans for a National Youth Gathering. Some 30,000 students and advisers donned orange t-shirts and fanned out across the city to serve. Our group was assigned the task of clearing roadsides and medians. We spent the day picking up trash and removing cat claw, an invasive and difficult weed. It was the kind of work most of us took for granted because it was something we would do at home. I remember being shocked at the number of people who stopped, rolled down their car windows, and said thank you. Regular yard work that seemed so insignificant to us made a big difference to them. We all had something to contribute and in turn were transformed by the experience; we gave our labor and the people of New Orleans showed us amazing hospitality. For me this reciprocal effect is the most transformational of community service. The more I give and serve, the more I find my life enriched by sharing with others. Community service is part of my life, something ordinary rather than extraordinary, part of life’s journey rather than a goal, destination or high school graduation requirement. As long as I can remember service to others was modeled and encouraged by my family and teachers. To say how I have been transformed in past tense paints an incomplete picture because I am still learning and growing, both being shaped by the process of service and shaping the process by which I serve. This much I can say with certainty: we all have something to give, and a life of service expands one’s world exponentially and unexpectedly. It is easy to feel too small to make a difference as only one of more than seven billion people on this planet. Even the smallest candle is capable of giving light, and when myriad tiny candles burn together a room, a life or a cause can turn into a conflagration of hope and change. The simplest action can initiate a ripple effect that spreads around the world. What I can never hope to do alone may be possible with the shared efforts of others.

The Return: Shadow Souls Chapter 18

Elena came back to the real world slowly, fighting it all the way. She sank her nails into the leather of Damon's jacket, found herself wondering briefly if removing it would help, and then her mood was shattered again by that sound – a sharp, imperative knock. Damon raised his head and snarled. We are a pair of wolves, aren't we? Elena thought. Fighting nail and tooth. But, another part of her mind supplied, that isn't stopping the knocking. He warned those girls†¦. Those girls! Bonnie and Meredith! And he'd said not to interrupt unless the house was on fire! But, the doctor – oh, God, something's happened to that poor, wretched woman! She's dying! Damon was still snarling, a trace of blood on his lips. It was only a trace, because her second wound had really been healed just as thoroughly as the first, the one across her cheekbone. Elena had no idea how long it had been since she had pulled Damon to her to kiss this cut. But now, with her blood in his veins and his pleasure interrupted, he was like an untamed black panther in her arms. She didn't know whether she could stop him or even slow him down without using raw Power on him. â€Å"Damon!† she said aloud. â€Å"Out there – those are our friends. Remember? Bonnie and Meredith and the healer.† â€Å"Meredith,† Damon said, and again his lips peeled back, exposing terrifyingly long canines. He still wasn't in reality. If he saw Meredith now, he wouldn't be frightened, Elena thought – and, oh yes, she knew how her logical, thoughtful friend made Damon uneasy. They saw the world through such different eyes. She irked him like a pebble in his shoe. But right now he might deal with that unease in a way that would leave Meredith a savaged corpse. â€Å"Let me go see,† she said, as the knock came again – couldn't they stop that? Didn't she have enough to deal with? Damon's arms merely tightened around her. She felt a flash of heat, because she knew that, even as he restrained her, he was holding back so much of his strength. He didn't want to crush her, as he could if he used a tenth of the power in his hard muscles alone. The wave of feeling that washed over her made her shut her eyes briefly, helplessly, but she knew she had to be the voice of sanity here. â€Å"Damon! They could be warning us – or Ulma may have died.† Death got through to him. His eyes were slits, the bloodred light from the kitchen shutters throwing bars of scarlet and black across his face, making him look more handsome – and more demonic – than ever. â€Å"You'll stay here.† Damon said it flatly, with no idea of being a â€Å"master† or a â€Å"gentleman.† He was a wild beast protecting his mate, the only creature in the world that wasn't competition or food. There was no arguing with him, not in this state. Elena would stay here. Damon would go to do whatever needed to be done. And Elena would stay for as long as he thought necessary. Elena truly didn't know whose thoughts these last were. She and Damon were still trying to untangle their emotions. She decided to watch him and only if he really got out of control†¦ You don't want to see me out of control. Feeling him snap from raw animal instinct to icy, perfect mental dominance was even scarier than the animal alone. She didn't know whether Damon was the sanest person she had ever met or just the one best able to cover up his wildness. She held her torn blouse together and watched as he moved with effortless grace to the door and then, suddenly, violently, wrenched it almost off its hinges. No one fell; no one had been listening in on their private conversation. But Meredith stood, restraining Bonnie with one hand, and with the other hand raised, ready to knock again. â€Å"Yes?† Damon said in glacial tones. â€Å"I thought I told you – â€Å" â€Å"You did, and there is,† Meredith said, interrupting this Damon in an unusual attempt to commit suicide. â€Å"There is what?† Damon snarled. â€Å"There's a mob outside threatening to burn the whole building down. I don't know if they're upset about Drohzne, or about us taking Ulma, but they're enraged about something, and they've got torches. I didn't want to interrupt Elena's – treatment – but Dr. Meggar says they won't listen to him. He's a human.† â€Å"He used to be a slave,† Bonnie added, wresting free of the chokehold that Meredith had on her. She looked up at Damon with streaming brown eyes, hands outstretched. â€Å"Only you can save us,† she said, translating the message of her gaze aloud – which meant that things were really serious. â€Å"All right, all right. I'll go take care of them. You take care of Elena.† â€Å"Of course, but – â€Å" â€Å"No.† Damon had either gone reckless with the blood – and the memories that were still keeping Elena from forming a coherent sentence – or he had somehow overcome all his fear of Meredith. He put a hand on each of her shoulders. He was only one and a half or two inches taller than she was, so he had no trouble holding her eyes. â€Å"You, personally, take care of Elena. Tragedies happen here every minute of the day: unforeseeable, horrible, deadly tragedies. I do not want one happening to Elena.† Meredith looked at him for a long moment, and for once didn't consult Elena with her eyes before answering a question involving her. She simply said, â€Å"I'll protect her,† in a low voice that nevertheless carried. From her stance, from her tone, one could almost hear the unspoken addition, â€Å"with my life† – and it didn't even seem melodramatic. Damon let go of her, strode out the door, and without a backward glance disappeared from Elena's sight. But his mental voice was crystalline in her mind: You'll be safe if there is any way to save you. I swear it. If there was any way to save her. Wonderful. Elena tried to kickstart her brain. Meredith and Bonnie were both staring at her. Elena took a deep breath, automatically sucked for a moment back into the old days, when a girl fresh from a hot date could expect a long and serious debriefing. But all Bonnie said was, â€Å"Your face – it looks much better now!† â€Å"Yes,† Elena said, using the two ends of her blouse to tie a makeshift top around her. â€Å"My leg's the problem. We didn't – didn't finish it yet.† Bonnie opened her mouth, but closed it determinedly, which from Bonnie was a display of heroics similar to Meredith's promise to Damon. When she opened it again it was to say, â€Å"Take my scarf and tie it around your leg. We can fold it sideways and then tie a bow over the side that got hurt. That'll keep pressure on it.† Meredith said, â€Å"I think Dr. Meggar has finished with Ulma. Maybe he can see you.† In the other room, the doctor was once again washing his hands, using a large pump to get more water into the basin. There were deeply red-stained cloths in a pile and a smell that Elena was grateful the doctor had camouflaged with herbs. Also in a large, comfortable-looking chair there sat a woman whom Elena did not recognize. Suffering and terror could change a person, Elena knew, but she could never have realized how much – nor how much relief and freedom from pain could change a face. She had brought with her a woman who huddled until she was almost child-size in Elena's mind, and whose thin, ravaged face, twisted with agony and unrelenting dread, had seemed almost a sort of abstract drawing of a goblin hag. Her skin had been sickly gray in color, her thin hair had scarcely seemed enough to cover her head, and yet it had hung down in strands like seaweed. Everything about her screamed out that she was a slave, from the iron bands around her wrists, to her nakedness and scarred, bloody body, to her bare and rusty feet. Elena could not even have told you the color of the woman's eyes, for they had seemed as gray as the rest of her. Now Elena was confronted by a woman who was perhaps in her early-to mid-thirties. She had a lean, attractive, somehow aristocratic face, with a strong, patrician nose, dark, keen-looking eyes, and beautiful eyebrows like the wings of a flying bird. She was relaxing in the armchair, with her feet up on an ottoman, slowly brushing her hair, which was dark with occasional streaks of gray that lent an air of dignity to the simple deep blue housecoat she was wearing. Her face had wrinkles that lent it character, but overall one sensed a sort of yearning tenderness about her, perhaps because of the slight bulge in her abdomen, which she now gently laid a hand on. When she did this her face bloomed with color and her whole aspect glowed. For an instant Elena thought this must be the doctor's wife or housekeeper and she had a temptation to ask whether Ulma, the poor wreck of a slave, had died. Then she saw what one cuff of the deep blue housecoat could not quite conceal: a glimpse of an iron bracelet. This lean dark aristocratic woman was Ulma. The doctor had worked a miracle. A healer, he had called himself. It was obvious that, like Damon, he could heal wounds. No one who had been whipped as Ulma had could have come round to this state without some powerful magic. Trying to simply stitch up the bloody mess that Elena had brought in had obviously been impossible, and so Dr. Meggar had healed her. Elena had never experienced a situation like this, so she fell back upon the good manners that had been bred into her as a Virginian. â€Å"It's nice to meet you, ma'am. I'm Elena,† she said, and held out her hand. The brush fell onto the chair. The woman reached out with both hands to take Elena's into hers. Those keen dark eyes seemed to devour Elena's face. â€Å"You're the one,† she said, and then, swinging her slippered feet off the ottoman, she went down on her knees. â€Å"Oh, no, ma'am! Please! I'm sure the doctor told you to rest. It's best to sit quietly now.† â€Å"But you are the one.† For some reason, the woman seemed to need confirmation. And Elena was willing to do anything to pacify her. â€Å"I'm the one,† Elena said. â€Å"And now I think you should sit down again.† Obedience was immediate, and yet there was a sort of joyful light about everything Ulma did. Elena understood it after only a few hours of slavery. Obeying when one had a choice was entirely different from obeying because disobedience could mean death. But even as Ulma sat, she held out her arms. â€Å"Look at me! Dear seraph, goddess, Guardian – whatever you are: look at me! After three years of living as a beast I have become human again – because of you! You came like an angel of lightning and stood between me and the lash.† Ulma began to weep, but they seemed to be tears of joy. Her eyes searched Elena's face, lingering on the scarred cheekbone. â€Å"But you're no Guardian; they have magicks that protect them and they never interfere. For three years, they never interfered. I saw all my friends, my fellow slaves, fall to his whip and his rage.† She shook her head, as if physically unable to say Drohzne's name. â€Å"I'm so sorry – so sorry†¦.† Elena was fumbling. She glanced back and saw that Bonnie and Meredith were similarly stricken. â€Å"It doesn't matter. I heard your mate killed him on the street.† â€Å"I told her that,† Lakshmi said proudly. She had entered the room without anyone noticing her. â€Å"My mate?† Elena faltered. â€Å"Well, he's not my – I mean, he and I – we – â€Å" â€Å"He's our master,† Meredith said bluntly, from behind Elena. Ulma was still looking at Elena with her heart in her eyes. â€Å"Every day, I will pray for your soul to ascend from here.† Elena was startled. â€Å"Souls can ascend from here?† â€Å"Of course. Repentance and good deeds may accomplish it, and the prayers of others are always taken into consideration, I think.† You sure don't talk like a slave, Elena mused. She tried to think of a way to put it delicately, but she was confused and her leg hurt and her emotions were in turmoil. â€Å"You don't sound like – well, like what I'd expect from a slave,† she said. â€Å"Or am I just being an idiot?† She could see the tears form in Ulma's eyes. â€Å"Oh, God! Please, forget I asked. Please – â€Å" â€Å"No! There is no one I would rather tell. If you wish to hear how I came to this degraded state.† Ulma waited, watching Elena – it was clear that Elena's least wish was to Ulma, a command. Elena looked at Meredith and Bonnie. She couldn't hear any more noises of yelling outside on the street and the building certainly didn't seem to be on fire. Fortunately, at that moment, Dr. Meggar wandered in again. â€Å"Everybody getting acquainted?† he asked, his eyebrows working in opposition now; one up, one down. He had the remnants of a bottle of Black Magic in his hand. â€Å"Yes,† Elena said, â€Å"but I was just wondering if we should be trying to evacuate or anything. Apparently there was a mob – â€Å" â€Å"Elena's mate is going to give them something to think about,† Lakshmi said with relish. â€Å"They've all gone to the Meeting Place to resolve the stuff about Drohzne's property. I bet he'll bash a few heads in and be back in no time,† she added cheerfully, leaving no doubt as to he was. â€Å"Wish I was a boy so I could see it.† â€Å"You were braver than the boys; you were the one who led us here,† Elena told her. Then she consulted Meredith and Bonnie with her eyes. It sounded as if the commotion had moved on elsewhere, and Damon was a master at getting himself out of commotions. He might also†¦need to fight, to rid himself of excess energy from Elena's blood. A commotion might actually be good for him, Elena thought. She looked at Dr. Meggar. â€Å"Will my – will our master be all right, do you think?† Dr. Meggar's eyebrows went up and down. â€Å"He'll probably have to pay Old Drohzne's relatives a blood price, but it shouldn't be too high. Then he can do what he likes with the old bastard's property,† he said. â€Å"I'd say the safest place for you right now is here, away from the Meeting Place.† He went on to enforce that opinion by pouring them all glasses – liqueur glasses, Elena noted – of Black Magic wine. â€Å"Good for the nerves,† he said and took a sip. Ulma smiled her beautiful, heartwarming smile at him, as he took the tray around. â€Å"Thank you – and thank you – and thank you,† she said. â€Å"I won't bore you with my story – â€Å" â€Å"No, tell us; tell us, please!† Now that there was no immediate danger to her friends or to Damon, Elena was eager to hear the tale. Everyone else was nodding. Ulma flushed a little, but began sedately, â€Å"I was born in the reign of Kelemen II,† she said. â€Å"I'm sure that means nothing to our visitors but much to those who knew him and his – indulgences. I studied under my mother, who became a very popular designer of fashions in fabrics. My father was a designer of jewelry almost as famous as she was. They had an estate on the outskirts of the city and could afford a house as fine as many of their wealthiest customers – though they were careful not to show the true extent of their wealth. I was the young Lady Ulma then, not Ulma the hag. My parents did their best to keep me out of sight, for my own safety. But†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Ulma – Lady Ulma, Elena thought, stopped and took a deep sip of her wine. Her eyes had changed; she was seeing the past, and trying not to upset her listeners. But just as Elena was about to ask her to stop, at least until she felt better, she continued. â€Å"But despite all their care†¦someone†¦saw me anyway and demanded my hand in marriage. Not Drohzne, he was just a furrier from the Outlands, and I never saw him until three years ago. This was a lord, a General, a demon with a terrible reputation – and my father refused his demand. They came on us in the night. I was fourteen when it happened. And that is how I became a slave.† Elena found that she was feeling emotional pain directly from Lady Ulma's mind. Oh, my God, I've done it again, she thought, hurriedly trying to tune down her psychic senses. â€Å"Please, you don't need to tell us this. Maybe another time†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I would like to tell you – you – so you will know what you have done. And I would prefer to say it only once. But if you do not wish to hear it – â€Å" Politeness was warring with politeness here. â€Å"No, no, if you want – go ahead. I – I just want you to know how sorry I am.† Elena glanced at the doctor, who was patiently waiting by the table for her with the brown bottle in his hands. â€Å"And if you don't mind, I'd like to get my leg†¦healed?† She was aware that she'd said the last word doubtfully, wondering how any one being could have the power to heal Ulma like this. She was not surprised when he shook his head. â€Å"Or stitched up, rather, while you talk, if you don't mind,† she said. It took several minutes to overcome Lady Ulma's shock and distress that she had left her savior waiting, but at last Elena was on the table and the doctor was encouraging her to drink from the bottle, which smelled like cherry cough syrup. Oh, well, she might as well try the Dark Dimension version of anesthetic – especially since the stitching was bound to hurt, Elena thought. She took a sip from the bottle and felt the room reel around her. She waved away the offer of a second sip. Dr. Meggar undid Bonnie's ruined scarf, and then began to cut off her blood-soaked jeans leg above the knee. â€Å"Well – you are so good to listen,† Lady Ulma said. â€Å"But I knew you were good already. I will spare us both the painful details of my slavery. Perhaps it's enough to say that I was passed from one master to another over the years, always a slave, always going down. At last, as a joke, someone said, ‘Give her to Old Drohzne. He'll squeeze the last use out of her if anyone can.'† â€Å"God!† Elena said, and hoped that everyone would attribute it to the story and not to the bite of the cleansing solution the doctor was swabbing over her swollen flesh. Damon was so much better at this, she thought. I didn't even realize how lucky I was before. Elena tried not to wince as the doctor began to use his needle, but her grip on Meredith's hand tightened until Elena was afraid she was breaking bones. She tried to ease the grip, but Meredith squeezed back hard. Her long, smooth hand was almost like a boy's, but softer. Elena was glad to be able to squeeze as hard as she liked. â€Å"My strength has been giving out on me lately,† Lady Ulma said softly. â€Å"I thought it was that† – here she used a particularly crude expression for her owner – â€Å"that was leading me to death. Then I realized the truth.† All at once radiance changed her face, so much that Elena could see what she must have looked like when she was in her teens and so beautiful that a demon would demand her as a wife. â€Å"I knew that new life stirred within me – and I knew that Drohzne would kill it if he had the chance – â€Å" She didn't seem to recognize the expressions of astonishment and horror on the three girl's faces. Elena, however, had the feeling that she was groping through a nightmare, on the edge of a black crevasse, and that she would have to keep groping in the dark, around treacherous, unseen fissures in the ice in the Dark Dimension until she reached Stefan and got him free of this place. This casual reference to abomination wasn't the first of her steps around a crevasse, but it was the first she had recognized and counted. â€Å"You young women are very new here,† Lady Ulma said, as the silence stretched and stretched. â€Å"I did not mean to say anything out of place†¦.† â€Å"We're slaves here,† Meredith replied, picking up a length of rope. â€Å"I think the more we learn the better.† â€Å"Your master – I've never seen anyone so quick to fight Old Drohzne before. Many people clucked their tongues, but that was all most dared to do. But your master – â€Å" â€Å"We call him Damon,† Bonnie put in pointedly. It went right over Lady Ulma's head. â€Å"Master Damon – do you think he might keep me? After he pays the blood price to – to Drohzne's relatives, he will get first pick of all Drohzne's property. I am one of the few slaves he has not killed.† The hope in the woman's face was almost too painful for Elena to look at. It was only then that she consciously realized how long it had been since she'd seen Damon. How long should Damon's business be taking? She looked at Meredith anxiously. Meredith understood exactly what the look meant. She shook her head helplessly. Even if they had Lakshmi take them to the Meeting Place, what could they do? Elena bit back a wince of pain and smiled at Lady Ulma. â€Å"Why don't you tell us about when you were a girl?† she said.

Mendus unconditional love

â€Å"l promise to love you unconditionally, to support you in your goals, to honor and respect you. † That is a line from a traditional wedding vow that two people who love each other say on their wedding day. Susan Emends believes that a marriage vow Is â€Å"a present intention to do something permanently, where that is distinct from having a permanent intention. † (Emends, p. 238) Emends believes that marriage vows are unconditional, she doesn't think that marriage Is unconditional however. She doesn't think marriage is unconditional because It can end In divorce. People say they fall out of love, cheat, or think their significant other changed.Emends says that If you think that a person has changed and that makes you â€Å"fall out of love† then you never truly loved them. She also thinks that once you make the commitment In marriage vows, you should remain married even If you feel Like you fell out of love. One reason that Emends believes marriage vows are unconditional Is because there Is no time limit on it. When you get married you do not decide that after so many ears you are going to get divorced, instead you plan to be happily in love for the rest of your lives. Throughout our lives we change and mature and because of the vow you made to be together forever, there will be change.If your significant other changes you should remain married because you love each other. Another reason Emends believes marriage vows are unconditional is because you do not make â€Å"terms and conditions†. When you marry someone and promise to love and honor you do not say â€Å"so long as you don't.. (Emends, p. 238) When you love someone you love them for who they are, you wouldn't tell them â€Å"l will love you if you.. – If there were conditions then we would not be able to distinguish the difference between â€Å"respect or admiration for the principles of another and the sort of unconditional commitment to him which the marriage vow involves. (Emends, p. 238) Loving someone is an honorable and cherish able thing. When you love someone you just want to spend time with them and not tell them who to be. If there s any question whether you love your significant other or like characteristics about then you will begin to make conditions and if that happens you should not marry one another. Emends unconditional love By Madison each other say on their wedding day. Susan Emends believes that a marriage vow is vows are unconditional, she doesn't think that marriage is unconditional however. She doesn't think marriage is unconditional because it can end in divorce.People say if you think that a person has changed and that makes you â€Å"fall out of love† then you ever truly loved them. She also thinks that once you make the commitment in marriage vows, you should remain married even if you feel like you fell out of love. One reason that Emends believes marriage vows are unconditional is because there is no ti me limit on it. When you get married you do not decide that after so many you.. † If there were conditions then we would not be able to distinguish the someone you Just want to spend time with them and not tell them who to be. If there

Scoliosis essays

Scoliosis essays Scoliosis is a other way to say crooked and is often referred as an s-shaped side or curve in the spine. Everybody has heard of Scoliosis at one time becuase of school or you know someone how has it. My cousin Jackie Walling had it. There are realativly fours types of scoliosis. Congenital present at birth, Scoliosis due to nueromuscular caused by polio, Idiopathic occurs in adolescence and is mostly mild, Postural caused by postural. My cousin had Idiopathic scoliosis when she was nine. The most common type of scoliosis is idiopathic (meaning unknow). The spinal column twists and rotates creating an uneven shoulder and rib hump. This can lead to discomfort and even breathing problems as the heart and lungs become compressed. The cause of scoliosis is not yet and is to believed to happen in girls more then boys. Scoliosis is not preventable but early detection can increase the chance of a successful treatment. Ways to detect scoliosis are very easy , just look for uneven shoulders, prominet shoulder blades, uneven waist, and hips, leaning towards one side. My cousin had gotten a bug bite on her back and when she bent over her parents noticed the she was leaning sideways. There is also a simple test involving touching your toes which will also show a rasied hump on your back. Scoliosis is a multi-faceted diease, affecting the body in many areas. In the infantile stages, a very mild rotation occurs and is often over looked by doctors. As the condition progresses, symptoms of shoulder unleveling, waitline discrepansices. Treatment should begin right away other wise it will lead to more painful adult scoliosis. The most popular way is to ware a brase on your back to help the back fix itself, my cousin did not ware the brace. Massage therapy does not really help the condition of scoliosis but does relieves muscular pain on a symptomatic basis. The most popular way as of right now for help is surgery, which...

Common Cold essays

Common Cold essays A common cold is an illness caused by a viruse Infection located in the nose.Colds are also involved in the sinuses,ears,and the bronchial tubes. the common cold is caused by any of a number of virusesthat can involve the upper repiratory tract.As your body reacts against the attacking virus you get the symptoms of a cold including nasal congestion,sneezing and shiffles. the best strategy for treating a common cold is to start treatment as soon as there is the recogntion thar a cold is begining and continue treatment on a regular basis until it appers that the cold is over (3-7)days. the other symptoms of a common cold including sneezing, runnynose, nasal odstruction,sore or scratchy throat,coughing,hoarseness and mild general symptoms,like headaches. It deposited into the front of the nasal passages by conaminated fingers or by droplets from coughs and seezes. ...