Benefits of rice wine Essay

Louis Pasteur said that wine is the most healthful and the most hygienic of all beverages. It can give the human body 500 calories that are normally taken from fats and carbohydrates. All these energy is completely consumed by the body and will not add an ounce of the body weight (Lichine, et al. 1968). There are several health benefits that can be derived from wine. Aside from being a healthy beverage, it was said that wine can deter food poisoning. It can help wipe out the bacteria that are responsible for food-related stomach problems. In addition, red wine reduces the build-up of fat cells in the arteries, thus it protects those who are wine-drinker against heart disease. Recent studies in medicine show the positive effects of moderate wine consumption to the heart. One of the popular findings is the â€Å"French Paradox.† France is considered both as land of wine-producers and wine-drinkers. It is one of the countries with highest amount of saturated fat intake which is positively correlated with arteroschlerosis, yet there is low incidence of coronary heart disease (Landrault, et al. 2001). Some of the locally produced wines include â€Å"basi† (sugarcane wine), â€Å"laksoy† (nipa wine), â€Å"tapuy† (rice wine) and â€Å"tuba† (coco wine). On the other hand, she discussed the challenges to today’s wine manufacturers such as production of consistent quality products, competitive advantage in terms of product presentation (packaging, label, closure or seal), innovative products, willingness to work hard to establish a thriving business, protecting the natural flavor of the product, identifying functional properties of the product, expand cultivating area for minor but potential fruits for making wine, and utilization of by-products from wine processing. http://www.bar.gov.ph/chronicle-home/archives-list/142-august-2008-issue/2207-learning-about-tropical-fruit-wine-processing This type of wine, when compare to other regular wine, contain a higher level of alcohol content. Regular wine usually contains 10%-20% alcohol but rice wine contains 18%-25%. Unsurprisingly, it has way more alcohol content that beer which only contains about 4%-8% of alcohol. It is natural to think that drinking too much of this wine, or any other alcoholic beverage for that matter, is  bad for the body. It will have side effects such as nausea, hangover, blurry vision, lost balance and lost muscle control. The side effects might be felt earlier when drinking rice wine because of its higher alcohol content. However, there are also other health benefits from wine made from rice. It has been tested to help improve the skin’s protective function and also in skin whitening. In effect, it is concluded that rice wine may be a potential protectant from UV-induced skin aging phenomena. In addition, rice wine has also been linked to promote better blood circulation and enhanced body metabolism. There are citric and lactic acids in rice wine which helps the digestion of the food. When food is properly digested, nutrients are better sorted out and transferred to the proper body organ. There is also research that specially brewed medicinal rice wine can have more beneficial effects than other regular wines. Some consider rice wine to be more healthy than wine from grapes because rice wine contains large amount of protein, sugar and vitamin B2. These factors have been shown to regulate blood sugar, plus vitamin B2 supports the liver giving it more energy to assist with alcohol digestion. The kojic acids in rice wine (sake) decrease your skin’s ability to form the type of melanin found in age spots and freckles. If you put sake on your face or use skincare products containing sake or kojic acid, you’ll also find the rice wine keeps moisture in your skin. Turns out it may just be the most bar-and-body-friendly beverage the country has ever built a national and export marketing strategy around. â€Å"It’s low proof with an alcohol content of 6-7 percent,† notes Sung Ki-wook, a director at the Seoul Rice Wine Manufacturing Association, â€Å"so people with a lower tolerance can enjoy it.† â€Å"It contains lots of lactobacilli and fiber, matching the current ‘well-being’ trend in our society,† adds Kooksoondang Brewery spokesman, Shin Woo-chang. Of course, low alcohol content, gastro-intestinal benefits and a tricky nickname have never buoyed a drink’s popularity all that much even during the best of times. Especially a drink derived from steaming glutinous rice that’s traditionally quaffed from an unwashed wooden bowl. Nutrition Facts Calculated for 1 fl oz Amount Per Serving %DV Calories 14 Calories from Fat 0 (0%) Total Fat 0.0g 0% Saturated Fat 0.0g 0% Monounsaturated Fat 0.0g Polyunsaturated Fat 0.0g Trans Fat 0.0g Cholesterol 0mg 0% Sodium 181mg 7% Potassium 25mg 0% Total Carbohydrate 1.8g 0% Dietary Fiber 0.0g 0% Sugars 0.0g Protein 0.1g 0% This wine should be named â€Å"rice beer† because it is fermented from a grain and not a fruit. The Japanese have developed two kinds of rice wine; one being sake and the other a dry one. Red rice wine is a sweet wine, which has low alcohol content. Used in both cooking and drinking. There are three varieties available: Mirin: a sweet wine pronounced MEE-reen. Sake: white wine pronounced SAH-kee. Shaoxing wine: Chinese rice wine. Substitutions; sake or sherry. Chia Fan, Shan Nian and Yen Hung are Chinese rice wines. plural: rice wines Ingredient Season: available year-round How to select: Also sold as â€Å"sweet cooking seasoning† Substitutions: Mirin: 1 tbsp dry sherry +  ½ tsp sugar, OR sherry, OR heat two parts sake and one part sugar, OR white wine and sugar to taste OT white wine. Sake: Shaoxing wine or Vermouth, dry white wine, or dry sherry. Read more: http://www.food.com/library/rice-wine-97?oc=linkback

Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings Chapter 34

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR Necrophiliacs Anonymous, Gooville Chapter Amy was carrying two stoppered porcelain bottles of beer when she entered the Colonel's chambers. The ruler of Gooville came sliding out of the pink wall as if it had given birth to him. He extended his arms to hug her, but instead of returning his embrace, Amy held up a beer. â€Å"I brought you a beer.† â€Å"Amy, you know I don't really eat anymore.† â€Å"I thought you might like a beer, for old times' sake.† â€Å"Why are you here?† â€Å"I hadn't seen you since I got back from Maui. I thought you'd want to debrief me or something.† â€Å"I've talked to Nathan Quinn.† â€Å"You have?† â€Å"Don't be cute, Amy. I know what's going on between you two.† â€Å"I really don't have any choice, Colonel, I am cute. It's the burden I have to bear.† â€Å"He doesn't know what you are, does he?† â€Å"Drink your beer, it's getting warm. Why do you keep it so steamy in here anyway?† The Colonel accepted the beer from her and took a long pull. When he came up for air, he stared at the beer bottle with a look of surprise, as if it had just spoken to him. â€Å"My, that's good. That's really good. I'd forgotten.† Amy toasted him with her own bottle and took a drink. â€Å"Colonel, we've known each other a long time. You've been like a father to me, but you are out of touch. I'm worried about you. I think you need to come out of here occasionally, like you used to. Walk around. Have some interaction with the people in town.† â€Å"Don't try to get in the way of what I'm doing, Amy.† â€Å"What are you talking about? I'm just worried about you.† The Colonel looked at the beer bottle in his hand again, as if it had just been teleported there, then he looked back to Amy with a little panic in his eyes. â€Å"Nate didn't tell you, then?† â€Å"Tell me what? Nate doesn't have anything to do with this. You have lost touch.† The Colonel nodded, then leaned back into the wall of Goo behind him. It cradled him and formed a chaise longue, which he sat down on as he rubbed his temples. â€Å"Amy, did you ever do anything for a purpose greater than your own ambition? Did you ever feel a duty to something beyond yourself?† â€Å"You mean, like persuading people that I'm something that I'm not to gain their trust so they could be kidnapped or killed in order to preserve my community? Yes, I have some concept of the idea of serving the greater good.† â€Å"I guess you do. I guess you do. Forgive me. Perhaps I do spend too much time alone.† â€Å"You think?† â€Å"Could you leave me now? I do have to think.† â€Å"So you want to be alone now? That's what you're saying? This is how you're going to address the problem of spending too much time alone?† â€Å"Go, Amy, and please don't interfere with Nate.† â€Å"Not yet.† â€Å"What do you mean, ‘not yet'?† â€Å"There's a deposit on that bottle. I'm not leaving without it.† â€Å"Then, Nate, he's not a problem? You're sure?† Here the Colonel forced a smile that looked much more like something menacing than an actual smile. â€Å"Because I will tell him about you if I must.† â€Å"The greater good,† Amy said, returning the forced smile with a real one. â€Å"Good,† said the Colonel, draining the last of his beer. â€Å"Come back. And bring me another of these.† â€Å"You got it,† Amy said. Then she took the bottle from him and left the chamber. Thin line between genius and full-blown batshit, she thought. Very thin line. For two weeks the Colonel didn't send for Nate. Cielle Nuà ±ez had stopped by the third morning that Amy was at Nate's apartment. â€Å"Well, you don't need me anymore,† Cielle had said. â€Å"I'd just as soon get back to my ship anyway, although it doesn't look like we're going anywhere soon.† Nate was disappointed that she hadn't been jealous. â€Å"He's afraid of the cupboards, the fridge, and the garbage disposal,† Cielle told Amy, as if she were talking to the dog sitter. â€Å"And you'll need to take him to get his clothes cleaned. You know he's going to be terrified of the washing machines.† â€Å"I'm right here,† Nate said. â€Å"And I'm not afraid of the appliances. I'm just cautious.† â€Å"Your mother will be thrilled for you two, Amy. Her ship should be back at base soon.† â€Å"No, she's not due in for another six weeks,† Amy said. â€Å"Not anymore. The Colonel's called all the ships back to base.† â€Å"All of them? Why?† Cielle shrugged. â€Å"He's the Colonel. Ours is not to question why. Well, Nate, it's been a pleasure, really. I'll probably see you around. You're in good hands.† She hugged Nate quickly and started out the door. â€Å"Cielle, wait. I want to ask you something. If you don't mind.† She turned. â€Å"Ask away.† â€Å"When did your husband's yacht sink?† Cielle raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Amy. â€Å"It's okay,† Amy said. â€Å"He knows.† â€Å"Nineteen twenty-seven, Nate. In retrospect it was a blessing of sorts. He died doing what he liked doing, and two years later he would have been wiped out when the stock market crashed. I'm not sure he would have survived that.† â€Å"Thanks. I'm sorry.† â€Å"Don't be. Cal and I have a really good life.† â€Å"Cal? Cal from the ship? You didn't tell me that – ; â€Å"He's my husband? The Colonel thought you might be more comfortable with a single woman to orient you. Women down here have never taken their husband's surname, Nate.† â€Å"Females run the show in a whale society,† Amy explained. â€Å"You know, as it should be.† Cielle Nu;ez looked from Amy to Nate and smiled. â€Å"Oh, Nate, what have you gotten yourself into?† And then she snickered like a whaley boy and left. â€Å"She wanted you,† Amy said. â€Å"She hides it really well, but I could tell.† From then on they went out together every morning. Nate insisted that Amy take him far into the catacombs during the day. There they found Gooville's underground farms: tunnels where grains of wheat grew right on the walls – no stalks – others where you could pick tomatoes from two-inch stems that seemed to grow directly out of rock. â€Å"How does any of this ripen without photosynthesis?† Nate asked, handling an apricot that was growing not on a tree but on a broad stem like a mushroom. â€Å"Don't know,† Amy shrugged. â€Å"Geothermal heat. The Colonel says the Goo extends deep under the continent, where it draws heat from the earth. I'll show you the kitchens where they prepare most of the food – it's all geothermal. The old-timers say that at first there was only seafood to eat, but over the years the Goo has provided more and different foods.† â€Å"What are these? Chicken nuggets?† He plucked one from the ceiling. A whaley boy working nearby whistled and clicked harshly. â€Å"He says not to pick them, they're not ripe.† Nate tossed the nugget to the floor of the cave, where a softball-size multilegged thing scurried out of a hatch, retrieved it, and scurried back into its trapdoor. â€Å"I've seen enough here,† Nate said. In the afternoon they did errands and shopping, but still no one asked Nate for any form of payment, and he'd stopped offering. In the evening they usually had dinner in his apartment. After they had shared two meals out at Gooville cafs, Amy had insisted that they eat in. â€Å"You're studying them,† she said, meaning the whaley boys. â€Å"No I'm not. I'm just looking at them.† â€Å"Who are you kidding? You have that look, that researcher look, that lost-in-your-theories look. You think I don't know that look? I worked with you, remember?† Nate shrugged. â€Å"It's what I do. I study whales.† He'd been trying to learn the whaley boys' whistle-and-click language. Emily 7 had come by his apartment a couple of afternoons when Amy was away, and while he thought she might have come for amorous reasons, he managed to channel her energies into lessons on whaleyspeak. They'd become friends of sorts. He hadn't mentioned the lessons to Amy, afraid that she might tease him about Emily the way the whale-ship crew had. â€Å"I observe. I collect data and try to find meaning in it.† Amy nodded, thinking about it, then said, â€Å"So if rescuing manatees and dolphins got you into the field, why didn't you do something more active to help the animals? Veterinary medicine or something.† â€Å"I always wonder. I've thought about the people at Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd, putting themselves in harm's way, ramming whaling ships, running Zodiacs in front of harpoon guns to try to protect the animals. I've wondered if that was the way to go.† â€Å"And you thought you could do more as a scientist, studying them?† â€Å"No, I thought that being a scientist was something that I could do. There's a path to becoming a biologist – an educational process. There isn't for being a pirate.† â€Å"No, you're wrong, there is a school for that. I saw it on a matchbook when I was in Maui. I'm sure it said you could learn to be a pirate if you passed a simple test.† â€Å"That's learn to draw a pirate.† â€Å"Whatever. So you compromised?† â€Å"Did I? I think what we – what I do has value.† â€Å"So do I. I'm not saying that. I'm just wondering, you know, now that you're dead, do you feel your life was wasted?† â€Å"I'm not dead, Amy. Jeez, that's an awful thing to say.† â€Å"You know, effectively dead, I mean. Your life being over. Jeepers, does that make me a necrophiliac? When we get out of here, maybe I'll have to go to a meeting or something. Do they have those?† â€Å"Amy, I'm wondering if maybe I don't want to get out of here.† He'd been thinking about it a lot. Life here really wasn't bad, and since he'd been looking for a way out on their daily excursions (only to be reminded that he'd have to go through the miles of pressure locks only to emerge six hundred feet below the sea), maybe he and Amy could make a future together. The whole Gooville ecosystem would certainly keep him interested. â€Å"Hi, my name's Amy, and I hump the dead.† â€Å"Maybe, if I can talk the Colonel out of his plan, I can stay here with you. You know, adapt.† â€Å"I can't imagine that they'd get up at a meeting and say, ‘Hi, my name's so-and-so, and I like to bone the dead. It's sort of crude. Although strangely appropriate.† â€Å"You're not listening to me, Amy.† â€Å"Yes I am. We're not staying here. I'll find a way out, but we can't stay. You have to convince the Colonel not to try to hurt the Goo, but then we're leaving. As soon as possible.† Nate was a little shocked at how adamant she was. She seemed to be staring at nothing, concentrating, thinking about something she didn't want to share, and she didn't seem happy about. But then she brightened. â€Å"Hey, you're going to get to meet my mother.† A week later it happened. â€Å"Well, you always said that the jazz of what you do was knowing something that no one else in the world knows,† Amy said. â€Å"You jazzed?† She took his arm and draped it around her neck as they walked. They had just left the Gooville apartment of Amelia Earhart. â€Å"She looks good, doesn't she?† Amy asked. Amelia was a beautiful, gracious woman, and after sixty-seven years in Gooville, the aviatrix didn't look a day over fifty. She'd been just under forty when she disappeared in 1937. In her presence Nate had felt as if he were fifteen again, out on his first date, stuttering and stumbling and blushing – blushing, for Christ's sake – when Amy mentioned that she'd been spending nights at his place. Amelia made Nate sit next to her on the couch and took his hand as she spoke to him. â€Å"Nathan, I hope what I'm about to say to you doesn't sound racist, because it's not, but I want to put your mind at ease. I have had a very long time to get used to the idea of my daughter's being a sexually active adult, and, frankly, if after all these years you are the one that she has chosen to fall in love with, which appears to be the case, I can only tell you how relieved I am that you are of the human species. So please relax.† Nate had shot a look to Amy. She shrugged. â€Å"Every girl has her adventurous period.† â€Å"Thank you,† Nate said to Amelia Earhart. Now, out on the street, to Amy he said, â€Å"I shouldn't have asked how the flight was.† â€Å"She's still a little sensitive about that. Even after all these years. My dad was her navigator. He didn't survive the crash.† â€Å"But you said you were born in 1940. How could that be if your father died in 1937?† â€Å"Robust sperms?† â€Å"Three years? That's really robust.† She punched his arm. â€Å"I was rounding up. Give me a break, Nate, I'm old. You never grilled the Old Broad for accuracy like this.† â€Å"I wasn't sleeping with the Old Broad.† â€Å"But you wanted to, didn't you? Admit it? You were hot to get into her muumuu.† â€Å"Stop.† Nate glanced at some whaley-boy males who were hanging out in front of the bakery (they always seemed to be there) doing a synchronized display wave with their willies, and he was about to defend himself with a comment about Amy's past, but then he decided that there was just no need to watch that little brain movie, let alone use it as some kind of weapon against what was essentially just Amy-style teasing – one of the things he found he adored about her as soon as he'd allowed himself to admit that he could adore someone again. The whaley boys snickered at him as they passed. â€Å"You guys are all just big, squeaky bath toys,† Nate said under his breath, knowing they could hear him anyway. Nate had been insulting them every time he and Amy went by for a week or so, just to irritate them. Maybe Amy was rubbing off on him. The whaley boys blew a collective sputtering raspberry. â€Å"Sentient? You guys can't even spell sentient,† Nate whispered. And then the reward. He loved watching creatures with four digits try to flip him the middle finger. â€Å"Yeah, I'm the immature one,† Amy said. Life is good, Nate thought. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he was happy. Kinda. In the morning a brace of whaley boys came to take him to the Colonel. Amy wasn't even there to kiss him good-bye. Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings Chapter 3~4 CHAPTER THREE A Little Razor Wire Around Heaven The gate to the Papa Lani compound was hanging open when Nate drove up. Not good. Clay was adamant about their always replacing the big Masterlock on the gate when they left the compound. Papa Lani was a group of wood-frame buildings on two acres northeast of Lahaina in the middle of a half dozen sugarcane fields that had been donated to Maui Whale by a wealthy woman Clay and Nate affectionately referred to as the â€Å"Old Broad.† The property consisted of six small bungalows that had once been used to board plantation workers but had long since been converted to housing, laboratory, and office space for Clay, Nate, and any assistants, researchers, or film crews who might be working with them for the season. Getting the compound had been a godsend for Maui Whale, given the cost of housing and storage in Lahaina. Clay had named the compound Papa Lani (Hawaiian for â€Å"heaven†) in honor of their good fortune, but someone had left the gate to heaven open, and from what Nate could tell as he drove in, the angel shit had hit the fan. Before he even got out of the truck, Nate saw a beat-up green BMW parked in the compound and a trail of papers leading out of the building they used for an office. He snatched a few of them up as he ran across the sand driveway and up the steps into the little bungalow. Inside was chaos: drawers torn out of filing cabinets, toppled racks of cassette tape – the tapes strewn across the room in great streamers – computers overturned, the sides of their cases open, trailing wires. Nate stood among the mess, not really knowing what to do or even what to look at, feeling violated and on the verge of throwing up. Even if nothing was missing, a lifetime of research had been typhooned around the room. â€Å"Oh, Jah's sweet mercy,† came a voice from behind him. â€Å"This a bit of fuckery most heinous for sure, mon.† Nate spun and dropped into a martial-arts stance, notwithstanding the fact that he didn't know any martial arts and that he had loosed a little-girl shriek in the process. The serpent-haired figure of a gorgon was silhouetted in the doorway, and Nate would have screamed again if the figure hadn't stepped into the light, revealing a lean, bare-chested teenager in surfer shorts and flip-flops, sporting a giant tangle of blond dreadlocks and about six hundred nose rings. â€Å"Cool head main ting, brah, cool head,† the kid almost sang. There was pot and steel drums in his voice, bemusement and youth and two joints' worth of separation from the rest of reality. Nate went from fear to confusion in an instant. â€Å"What the fuck are you talking about?† â€Å"Relax, brah, no make li'dat. Kona and I come help out.† Nate thought he might feel better if he strangled this kid – just a little frustration strangle to vent some of the shock of the wrecked lab, not a full choke – but instead he said, â€Å"Who are you, and what are you doing here?† â€Å"Kona,† the kid said. â€Å"Dat boss name Clay hire me for the boats dat day before.† â€Å"You're the kid Clay hired to work with us on the boats?† â€Å"Shoots, mon, I just said that? What, you a ninja, brah?† The kid nodded, his dreads sweeping around his shoulders, and Nate was about to scream at him again when he realized that he was still crouched into his pseudo combat stance and probably looked like a total loon. He stood up, shrugged, then pretended to stretch his neck and roll his head in a cocky way he'd seen boxers do, as if he had just disarmed a very dangerous enemy or something. â€Å"You were supposed to meet Clay down at the dock an hour ago.† â€Å"Some rippin' sets North Shore, they be callin' to me this morning.† The kid shrugged. What could he do? Rippin' sets had called to him. Nate squinted at the surfer, realizing that the kid was speaking some mix of Rasta talk, pidgin, surfspeak and†¦ well, bullshit. â€Å"Stop talking that way, or you're fired right now.† â€Å"So you ichiban big whale kahuna, like Clay say, hey?† â€Å"Yeah,† Nate said. â€Å"I'm the number-one whale kahuna. You're fired.† â€Å"Bummah, mon,† The kid said. He shrugged again, turned, and started out the door. â€Å"Jah's love to ye, brah. Cool runnings,† he sang over his shoulder. â€Å"Wait,† Nate said. The kid spun around, his dreads enveloping his face like a furry octopus attacking a crab. He sputtered a dreadlock out of his mouth and was about to speak. Quinn held up a finger to signal silence. â€Å"Not a word of pidgin, Hawaiian, or Rasta talk, or you're done.† â€Å"Okay.† The kid waited. Quinn composed himself and looked around at the mess, then at the kid. â€Å"There are papers strewn around all over outside, hanging in the fences, in the bushes. I need you to gather them up and stack them as neatly as you can. Bring them here. Can you do that?† The kid nodded. â€Å"Excellent. I'm Nathan Quinn.† Nate extended his hand to shake. The kid moved across the room and caught Nate's hand in a powerful grip. The scientist almost winced but instead returned the pressure and tried to smile. â€Å"Pelekekona,† said the kid. â€Å"Call me Kona.† â€Å"Welcome aboard, Kona.† The kid looked around now, looking as if by giving his name he had relinquished some of his power and was suddenly weak, despite the muscles that rippled across his chest and abdomen. â€Å"Who did this?† â€Å"No idea.† Nate picked up a cassette tape that had been pulled out of the spools and wadded into a bird's nest of brown plastic. â€Å"You go get those papers. I'm going to call the police. That a problem?† Kona shook his head. â€Å"Why would it be?† â€Å"No reason. Grab those papers now. Nothing is trash until I look at it, eh?† â€Å"Overstood, brah,† Kona said, grinning back at Nate as he headed out into sun. Once outside, he turned and called, â€Å"Hey, Kahuna Quinn.† â€Å"What?† â€Å"How come them humpies sing like dat?† â€Å"What do you think?† Nate asked, and in the asking there was hope. Despite the fact that the kid was young and irritating and probably stoned, the biologist truly hoped that Kona – unburdened by too much knowledge – would give him the answer. He didn't care where it came from or how it came (and it would still have to be proved); he just wanted to know, which is what set him apart from the hacks, the wannabes, the backstabbers, and the ego jockeys in the field. Nate just wanted to know. â€Å"I think they trying to shout down Babylon, maybe.† â€Å"You'll have to explain to me what that means.† â€Å"We fix this fuckery, then we fire up a spliff and think over it, brah.† Five hours later Clay came through the door talking. â€Å"We got some amazing stuff today, Nate. Some of the best cow/calf stuff I've ever shot.† Clay was still so excited he almost skipped into the room. â€Å"Okay,† Nate said with a zombielike lack of enthusiasm. He sat in front of his patched-together computer at one of the desks. The office was mostly put back in order, but the open computer case sitting on the desk with wires spread out to a diaspora of refugee drive units told a tale of data gone wild. â€Å"Someone broke in. Tore apart the office.† Clay didn't want to be concerned. He had great videotape to edit. Suddenly, looking at the fans and wires, it occurred to him that someone might have broken his editing setup. He whirled around to see his forty-two-inch flat-panel monitor leaning against the wall, a long diagonal crack bisected the glass. â€Å"Oh,† he said. â€Å"Oh, jeez.† Amy walked in smiling, â€Å"Nate you won't believe the – † She pulled up, saw Clay staring at his broken monitor, the computer scattered over Nate's desk, files stacked here and there where they shouldn't be. â€Å"Oh,† she said. â€Å"Someone broke in,† Clay said forlornly. She put her hand on Clay's shoulder. â€Å"Today? In broad daylight?† Nate swiveled around in his chair. â€Å"They went through our living quarters, too. The police have already been here.† He saw Clay staring at his monitor. â€Å"Oh, and that. Sorry, Clay.† â€Å"You guys have insurance, right?† Amy said. Clay didn't look away from his broken monitor. â€Å"Dr. Quinn, did you pay the insurance?† Clay called Nate  «doctor » only when he wanted to remind him of just how official and absolutely professional they really ought to be. â€Å"Last week. Went out with the boat insurance.† â€Å"Well, then, we're okay,† Amy said, jostling Clay, squeezing his shoulder, punching his arm, pinching his butt. â€Å"We can order a new monitor tonight, ya big palooka.† she chirped, looking like a goth version of the bluebird of happiness. â€Å"Hey!† Clay grinned, â€Å"Yeah, we're okay.† He turned to Nate, smiling. â€Å"Anything else broken? Anything missing?† Nate pointed to the wastebasket where a virtual haystack of audiotape was spilling over in tangles. â€Å"That was spread all over the compound along with all the files. We lost most of the tape, going back two years.† Amy stopped being cheerful and looked appropriately concerned. â€Å"What about the digitals?† She elbowed Clay, who was still grinning, and he joined her in gravity. They frowned. (Nate recorded all the audio on analog tape, then transferred it to the computer for analysis. Theoretically, there should be digital copies of everything.) â€Å"These hard drives have been erased. I can't pull up anything from them.† Nate took a deep breath, sighed, then spun back around in his chair and let his forehead fall against the desk with a thud that shook the whole bungalow. Amy and Clay winced. There were a lot of screws on that desk. Clay said, â€Å"Well, it couldn't have been that bad, Nate. You got it all cleaned up pretty quickly.† â€Å"The guy you hired showed up late and helped me.† Nate was speaking into the desk, his face right where it had landed. â€Å"Kona? Where is he?† â€Å"I sent him to the lab. I had some film I want to see right away.† â€Å"I knew he wouldn't stand us up on his first day.† â€Å"Clay, I need to talk to you. Amy, could you excuse us a minute, please?† â€Å"Sure,† Amy said. â€Å"I'll go see if anything's missing from my cabin.† She left. Clay said, â€Å"You going to look up? Or should I get down on the floor so I can see your face?† â€Å"Could you grab the first-aid kit while we talk?† â€Å"Screws embedded in your forehead?† â€Å"Feels like four, maybe five.† â€Å"They're small, though, those little drive-mount screws.† â€Å"Clay, you're always trying to cheer me up.† â€Å"It's who I am,† Clay said. CHAPTER FOUR Whale Men of Maui Who Clay was, was a guy who liked things – liked people, liked animals, liked cars, liked boats – who had an almost supernatural ability to spot the likability in almost anyone or anything. When he walked down the streets of Lahaina, he would nod and say hello to sunburned tourist couples in matching aloha wear (people generally considered to be a waste of humanity by most locals), but by the same token he would trade a backhanded hang-loose shaka (thumb and fingers extended, three middle fingers tucked, always backhand if you're a local) with a crash of native bruddahs in the parking lot of the ABC Store and get no scowls or pidgin curses, as would most haoles. People could sense that Clay liked them, as could animals, which was probably why Clay was still alive. Twenty-five years in the water with hunters and giants, and the worst he'd come out of it was to get a close tail-wash from a southern right whale that tumbled him like a cartoon into the idling prop of a Zodiac. (Oh, there were the two times he was drowned and the hypothermia, but that stuff wasn't caused by the animals; that was the sea, and she'll kill you whether you liked her or not, which Clay did.) Doing what he wanted to do and his boundless affinity for everything made Clay Demodocus a happy guy, but he was also shrewd enough not to be too open about his happiness. Animals might put up with that smiley shit, but people will eventually kill you for it. â€Å"How's the new kid?† Clay said, trying to distract from the iodine he was applying to Nate's forehead while simultaneously calculating the time to ship his new monitor over to Maui from the discount house in Seattle. Clay liked gadgets. â€Å"He's a criminal,† Nate said. â€Å"He'll come around. He's a water guy.† For Clay this said it all. You were a water guy or you weren't. If you weren't†¦ well, you were pretty much useless, weren't you? â€Å"He was an hour late, and he showed up in the wrong place.† â€Å"He's a native. He'll help us deal with the whale cops.† â€Å"He's not a native, he's blond, Clay. He's more of a haole than you are, for Christ's sake.† â€Å"He'll come around. I was right about Amy, wasn't I?† Clay said. He liked the new kid, Kona, despite the employment interview, which had gone like this: Clay sat with the forty-two-inch monitor at his back, his world-famous photographs of whales and pinnipeds playing in a slide show behind him. Since he was conducting a job interview, he had put on his very best $5.99 ABC Store flip-flops. Kona stood in the middle of the office wearing sunglasses, his baggies, and, since he was applying for a job, a red-dirt-dyed shirt. â€Å"Your application says that your name is Pelke – ah, Pelekekona Ke – † Clay threw his hands up in surrender. â€Å"I be called Pelekekona Keohokalole – da warrior kine – Lion of Zion, brah.† â€Å"Can I call you Pele?† â€Å"Kona,† Kona said. â€Å"It says on your driver's license that your name is Preston Applebaum and you're from New Jersey.† â€Å"I be one hundred percent Hawaiian. Kona the best boat hand in the Island, yeah. I figga I be number-one good man for to keep track haole science boss's isms and skisms while he out oppressing the native bruddahs and stealing our land and the best wahines. Sovereignty now, but after a bruddah make his rent, don't you know?† Clay grinned at the blond kid. â€Å"You're just a mess, aren't you?† Kona lost his Rastafarian, laid-backness. â€Å"Look, I was born here when my parents were on vacation. I really am Hawaiian, kinda, and I really need this job. I'm going to lose my place to live if I don't make some money this week. I can't live on the beach in Paia again. All my shit got stolen last time.† â€Å"It says here that you last worked as a forensic calligrapher. What's that, handwriting analysis?† â€Å"Uh, no, actually, it was a business I started where I would write people's suicide notes for them.† Not a hint of pidgin in his speech, not a skankin' smidgen of reggae. â€Å"It didn't do that well. No one wants to kill himself in Hawaii. I think if I'd started it back in New Jersey, or maybe Portland, it would have gone over really well. You know business: location, location, location.† â€Å"I thought that was real estate.† Clay actually felt a twinge of missed opportunity, here, for although he had spent his life having adventures, doing exactly what he wanted to do, and although he often felt like the dumbest guy in the room (because he'd surrounded himself with scientists), now, talking to Kona, he realized that he had never realized his full potential as a self-deluded blockhead. Ahhh†¦ wistful regrets. Clay liked this kid. â€Å"Look, I'm a water guy,† Kona said. â€Å"I know boats, I know tides, I know waves, I love the ocean.† â€Å"You afraid of it?† Clay asked. â€Å"Terrified.† â€Å"Good. Meet me at the dock tomorrow morning at eight-thirty.† Now Nate rubbed at the crisscrrossed band-aids on his forehead as Clay went through the Pelican cases of camera equipment under the table across the room. The break-in and subsequent shit storm of activity had sidetracked him from what he'd seen this morning. It started to settle on him again like a black cloud of self-doubt, and he wondered whether he should even mention what he saw to Clay. In the world of behavioral biology, nothing existed until it was published. It didn't matter how much you knew – it wasn't real if it didn't appear in a scientific journal. But when it came to day-to-day life, publication was secondary. If he told Clay what he'd seen, it would suddenly become real. As with his attraction for Amy and the realization that years' worth of research was gone, he wasn't sure he wanted it to be real. â€Å"So why did you need to send Amy out?† Clay asked. â€Å"Clay, I don't see things I don't see, right? I mean, in all the time we've worked together, I haven't called something before the data backed it up, right?† Clay looked up from his inventory to see the expression of consternation on his friend's face. â€Å"Look, Nate, if the kid bothers you that much, we can find someone else –  » â€Å"It's not the kid.† Nate seemed to be weighing what he was going to say, not sure if he should say it, then blurted out, â€Å"Clay, I think I saw writing on the tail flukes of that singer this morning.† â€Å"What, like a pattern of scars that look like letters? I've seen that. I have a dolphin shot that shows tooth rakings on the animal's side that appear to spell out the word ‘zap.  » â€Å"No it was different. Not scars. It said, ‘Bite me. â€Å" â€Å"Uh-huh,† Clay said, trying not to make it sound as if he thought his friend was nuts. â€Å"Well, this break-in, Nate, it's shaken us all up.† â€Å"This was before that. Oh, I don't know. Look, I think it's on the film I shot. That's why I came in to take the film to the lab. Then I found this mess, so I sent the kid to the lab with my truck, even though I'm pretty sure he's a criminal. Let's table it until he gets back with the film, okay?† Nate turned and stared at the deskful of wires and parts, as if he'd quickly floated off into his own thoughts. Clay nodded. He'd spent whole days in the same twenty-three-foot boat with the lanky scientist, and nothing more had passed between the two than the exchange of â€Å"Sandwich?† â€Å"Thanks.† When Nate was ready to tell him more, he would. In the meantime he would not press. You don't hurry a thinker, and you don't talk to him when he's thinking. It's just inconsiderate. â€Å"What are you thinking?† Clay asked. Okay, he could be inconsiderate sometimes. His giant monitor was broken, and he was traumatized. â€Å"I'm thinking that we're going to have to start over on a lot of these studies. Every piece of magnetic media in this place has been scrambled, but as far as I can tell, nothing is missing. Why would someone do that, Clay?† â€Å"Kids,† Clay said, inspecting a Nikon lens for damage. â€Å"None of my stuff is missing, and except for the monitor it seems okay.† â€Å"Right, your stuff.† â€Å"Yeah, my stuff.† â€Å"Your stuff is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, Clay. Why wouldn't kids take your stuff? No one doesn't know that Nikon equipment is expensive, and no one on the island doesn't know that underwater housings are expensive, so who would just destroy the tapes and disks and leave everything?† Clay put down the lens and stood up. â€Å"Wrong question.† â€Å"How is that the wrong question?† â€Å"The question is, who could possibly care about our research other than us, the Old Broad, and a dozen or so biologists and whale huggers in the entire world? Face it, Nate, no one gives a damn about singing whales. There's no motive. The question is, who cares?† Nate slumped in his chair. Clay was right. No one did care. People, the world, cared about the numbers of whales, so the survey guys, the whale counters, they actually collected data that people cared about. Why? Because if you knew how many whales you had, you knew how many you could or could not kill. People loved and understood and thought they could prove points and make money with the numbers. Behavior†¦ well, behavior was squishy stuff used to entertain fourth-graders on Cable in the Classroom. â€Å"We were really close, Clay,† Nate said. â€Å"There's something in the song that we're missing. But without the tapes†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Clay shrugged. â€Å"You heard one song, you heard 'em all.† Which was also true. All the males sang the same song each season. The song might change from season to season, or even evolve through the season somewhat, but in any given population of humpbacks, they were all singing the same tune. No one had figured out exactly why. â€Å"We'll get new samples.† â€Å"I'd already cleaned up the spectrographs, filtered them, analyzed them. It was all on the hard disks. That work was for specific samples.† â€Å"We'll do it again, Nate. We have time. No one is waiting. No one cares.† â€Å"You don't have to keep saying that.† â€Å"Well, it's starting to bother me, too, now,† Clay said. â€Å"Who in the hell cares whether you figure out what's going on with humpback song?† A kicked-off flip-flop flew into the room followed by the singsong Rastafarian-bruddah pomp of Kona returning, â€Å"Irie, Clay, me dready. I be bringing films and herb for the evening to welcome to Jah's mercy, mon. Peace.† Kona stood there, an envelope of negatives and contact sheet in one hand, a film can held high above his head in the other. He was looking up to it as if it held the elixir of life. â€Å"You have any idea what he said?† Nate asked. He quickly crossed the room and snatched the negatives away from Kona. â€Å"I think it's from the ‘Jabberwocky, † Clay replied. â€Å"You gave him cash to get the film processed? You can't give him cash.† â€Å"And this lonely stash can to fill with the sacred herb,† Kona said. â€Å"I'll find me papers, and we can take the ship home to Zion, mon.† â€Å"You can't give him money and an empty film can, Nate. He sees it as a religious duty to fill it up.† Nate had pulled the contact sheet out of the envelope and was examining it with a loupe. He checked it twice, counting each frame, checking the registry numbers along the edge. Frame twenty-six wasn't there. He held the plastic page of negatives up to the light, looked through the images twice and the registry numbers on the edges three times before he threw them down, checked the earlier frames that Amy had shot of the whale tail, then crossed the room and grabbed Kona by the shoulders. â€Å"Where's frame twenty-six, goddamn it? What did you do with it?† â€Å"This just like I get it, mon. I didn't do nothing.† â€Å"He's a criminal, Clay,† Nate said. Then he grabbed the phone and called the lab. All they could tell him was that the film had been processed normally and picked up from the bin in front. A machine cut the negatives before they went into the sleeves – perhaps it had snipped off the frame. They'd be happy to give Nate a fresh roll of film for his trouble. Two hours later Nate sat at the desk, holding a pen and looking at a sheet of paper. Just looking at it. The room was dark except for the desk lamp, which reached out just far enough to leave darkness in all the corners where the unknown could hide. There was a nightstand, the desk, the chair, and a single bed with a trunk set at its end, a blanket on top as a cushion. Nathan Quinn was a tall man, and his feet hung off the end of the bed. He found that if he removed the supporting trunk, he dreamed of foundering in blue-water ocean and woke up gasping. The trunk was full of books, journals, and blankets, none of which had ever been removed since he'd shipped them to the island nine years ago. A centipede the size of a Pontiac had once lived in the bottom-right corner of the trunk but had long since moved on once he realized that no one was ever going to bother him, so he could stand up on his hind hundred feet, hiss like a pissed cat, and deliver a deadly bite to a naked foot. There was a small television, a clock radio, a small kitchenette with two burners and a microwave, two full bookshelves under the window that looked out onto the compound, and a yellowed print of two of Gauguin's Tahitian girls between the windows over the bed. At one time, before the plantations had been automated, ten people probably slept in this room. In grad school at UC Santa Cruz, Nathan Quinn had lived in quarters about this same size. Progress. The paper on Nate's desk was empty, the bottle of Myers's Dark Rum beside it half empty. The door and windows were open, and Nate could hear the warm trades rattling the fronds of two tall coconut palms out front. There was a tap on the door, and Nate looked up to see Amy silhouetted in the doorway. She stepped into the light. â€Å"Nathan, can I come in?† She was wearing a T-shirt dress that hit her about midthigh. Nate put his hand over the paper, embarrassed that there was nothing written on it. â€Å"I was just trying to put a plan together for – † He looked past the paper to the bottle, then back at Amy. â€Å"Do you want a drink?† He picked up the bottle, looked around for a glass, then just held the bottle out to her. Amy shook her head. â€Å"Are you all right?† â€Å"I started this work when I was your age. I don't know if I have the energy to start it all over again.† â€Å"It's a lot of work. I'm really sorry this happened.† â€Å"Why? You didn't do it. I was close, Amy. There's something that I've been missing, but I was close.† â€Å"It will still be there. You know, we have the field notes from the last couple of years. I'll help you put as much of it back together as I can.† â€Å"I know you will, but Clay's right. Nobody cares. I should have gone into biochemistry or become an ecowarrior or something.† â€Å"I care.† Nate looked at her feet to avoid looking her in the eye. â€Å"I know you do. But without the recordings†¦ well – then†¦Ã¢â‚¬  He shrugged and took a sip from the rum bottle. â€Å"You can't drink, you know,† he said, now the professor, now the Ph.D., now the head researcher. â€Å"You can't do anything or have anything in your life that gets in the way of researching whales.† â€Å"Okay,† Amy said. â€Å"I just wanted to see if you were okay.† â€Å"Yeah, I'm okay.† â€Å"We'll get started putting it back together tomorrow. Good night, Nate.† She backed out the door. â€Å"Night, Amy.† Nate noticed that she wasn't wearing anything under the T-shirt dress and felt sleazy for it. He turned his attention back to his blank piece of paper, and before he could figure out why, he wrote BITE ME in big block letters and underlined it so hard that he ripped the page.

Every Text Has Its Use By Date Essay

I think the idea of every text having a use by date is incorrect and I will therefore argue against the topic. There are a few things which can help to keep texts from ever having their use by date and as a result proving my argument. For example, texts, such as Macbeth, can always be changed slightly and interpreted differently to make them interesting time and time again, for old and new audiences. Also, just because a text was written a long period of time ago doesn’t mean that it still won’t be interesting, as the events and themes in it can still be relevant to the current time and its happenings. One of the main reasons that proves that texts don’t have a use by date is the fact that an older text can involve events or ideas that are relevant to modern audiences’ daily lives. Some of the ideas explored in Macbeth are ambition, guilt, greed, cruelty, hostilities between good and evil, the rule of leader, the purpose of human existence and supernatural happenings. These all tie in with peoples every day life. For example, ambition was a major factor in Macbeth and plays an important role in practically everyone’s daily life. In Macbeth it was ambition that drove Macbeth to commit the acts that he did and in modern times business is becoming more and more competitive in today’s society so as a result ambition, and its destructive nature, becomes more of an issue. Also, the idea of hostilities between good and evil, order and disorder and the rule of a leader, which are major components of Macbeth, are relevant to the military action in the Iraq War which has affected a lot of the world. These and other ideas interest people from all time periods as some, if not all, of these ideas will affect them. Another main reason that shows a text doesn’t have a use by date is the fact that they can always be appropriated. Appropriation is when something old is turned into something new. In this case it would be taking an old text and changing it to suit a modern audience, usually by making a film version. For example, in one instance the Shakespearean text â€Å"Romeo and Juliet† was turned into a movie that used only the plot of the original text and used  the settings of modern life and a modern script which allowed the audience to relate to more to the film. This is a perfect example of the fact that a text which is hundreds of years old can still be entertaining. When a movie is appropriated it can appeal to a wider audience, as not everyone likes or understands the style of writing used to write the original text. If texts are appropriated in this way they will continue to entertain audiences and as a result, never end up having a use by date. A film version of an older text, especially a Shakespearean one, can be very effective in delivering the original to text to a wider audience. A film version makes the text easier for the audience to understand as it provides visual images to help them realize what’s actually going on and what the characters are saying, as a lot of people wouldn’t fully understand what was being said when the old English style of writing, that Shakespeare uses, is used. New interpretations also help to keep texts and their film versions interesting to new audiences and audiences that have seen it before. In Polanski’s version of Macbeth Polanski decided to add a scene, which wasn’t in the original text, into the movie. He also changed the way things happened in some of the scenes, for example, when Macbeth returns to the witches, instead of the apparitions appearing he sees completely different visions that give him warnings and predictions. Another reason to further show that texts don’t have a use by date is the point that just because a text is old doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining or interesting to modern readers. Texts such as Macbeth and many other of Shakespeare’s plays are still regarded as some of the best plays ever written even though they were written hundreds of years ago. In some cases, audiences may find these texts interesting and entertaining because they’re written in an old style of English which is no longer used. When this is the case it clearly shows that the idea of texts having a use by date as incorrect. In conclusion, I think that the points presented sufficiently prove that well written texts do not have a use by date. If a text is well written it will continue to be valued no matter how old it is. Especially due to the fact that, just because a text is old doesn’t mean it’s no longer interesting to modern audiences.

Promotional Aspects of Rolex Company Research Paper

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Health Ethic - Essay Example 1). In this principle, it takes into account the standardized benchmarks that must be maintained in order to secure the health welfare of patients seeking medical attention. The code basically establishes the kind of relationship shared by patients and their health providers, where the former group is considered inferior compared to superiority exhibited by medically-educated practitioners. Hence, there is a one-sided dependence in such type of association. In current times, there is a shift in the focus of health care from solely treatment provisions to health care promotion and education--there is an integrated transfer of power from health providers to consumers. Where once the medical practitioners hold the sole control on the direction of their clients’ overall care, recent developments account for a more shared responsibility between the two parties involved in health care. Bearing the illustrated changes in mind, there is a general assumption that concepts in medical et hical conduct is not absolute in every situation, including the core ethical principles that govern the medical practice. The paper conducts a case evaluation related to the requested act of withholding the full disclosure medical information by a patient towards biologic relatives, and ethical principles regulating the practitioners’ actions in the performance of such duty. Specifically, this seeks to clarify contradictions in professional limitations of practitioners and extent to which patients can exercise their ethical rights against the moral code of conduct maintained by health providers. Ethical Dilemma: A Case Point Case 1 Mrs M has been having some strange symptoms which have been diagnosed as early symptoms of multiple sclerosis. She realizes she could be unaffected by the disease for some time and so has asked her GP not to tell anyone, even her family. Mr M and their three children are also the GP's patients. The GP is torn by Mrs M's decision because she feels i t would be better if the family knew now rather than finding out later. Mrs M wants to keep this secret because "I don't want them to start treating me differently. I want to look after my family for as long as I can before they start looking after me." Ethics is a complex concept that encompasses more than the networking tenets of what is morally right and wrong. Medical ethics, as identified by Flight (2004), is a definitive set of values that guide the practice of medical practitioners, incorporating a variety of ethical theories to provide basis for conflict resolutions and updates on practical health issues in clinical and community health settings. Basic in almost all types of professional ethics is the presentation of the four core approaches in ethical performance: â€Å"autonomy (freedom to choose), nonmaleficence (do no harm), beneficence (do what is good), justice† (Ashcroft, et al., 2007, p. 4). In one way or another, these principles interact with one another to influence the procedures by which the medical practitioners perform their duties in work environment. In account with the case presented above, a couple of values seemed to be in conflict during the adherence of professional code in ethics. As listed above, autonomy is the exercise of the liberty to choose. In clinical settings, patients are given options to choose among the treatment alternatives available to them. In application, Mrs. M had reserved her right to

Close reading Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 3

Close reading - Essay Example The first stanza has also been endowed with a caesura. This part sets out the referent point of the poem. Though â€Å"My Life† has been used as the subject of the first line of the first stanza, it sets out the subject for the entire poem. â€Å"My Life† becomes the subject of the entire poem through the application of the caesura. Emily Dickinson uses personification of the â€Å"gun† to mean the poet which should otherwise been her to mean a woman can be a weapon. The poet has been kept in the corner of the room until the owner passed and carried her away. This is a clear illustration of how women are not allowed to go looking for suitors for but are meant to wait until a suitor comes along and proposes to her. It is imperative to say that even if the woman has been kept waiting for the man for a long time to come for her; she can be dangerous as she has the power. This can be seen where Dickinson uses the words a â€Å"Loaded Gun† which means that the gun is dangerous. This is the power endowed to a woman even when she keeps still and allows herself be used as a tool by men, she can defend herself. Emily Dickinson stresses the power women have by using a metaphor. The first line of the poem â€Å"My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun† is used metaphorically in this poem. This is done by comparing her life with that of a loaded gun indirectly. She uses this metaphor in order to deliver an impression to the readers, of the dangers which are presented by a loaded gun. Since it is well known that a loaded gun is very dangerous and is often used as a symbol of power and command, then she depicts the same amount of power to women. Emily Dickinson has also presented the futility of a woman’s power when she is not with a man. This is seen when the poet says that although she has been loaded, she has been waiting at the corner, this shows that there is nothing the poet could have done prior to the arrival of the husband who is presented as the

Kingdom of Heaven Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Kingdom of Heaven - Essay Example For example, if a film is set in the time of Christ, the people need to be following the customs of the Roman Empire along with wearing the correct robes. They should not be in a three piece suit and penny loafers, unless the movie has to deal with a man out of time. The third responsibility of the filmmaker is to not keep the locations to their accurate size so that the viewer seems as though they were there. The historical piece that will be used to determine the three responsibilities is Ridley Scott’s 12th Century epic, Kingdom of Heaven. Kingdom of Heaven is a film set during the Crusades about a French blacksmith named Balian, who is searching for a reason to go on after the death of his wife and children. A fabled knight, Godfrey of Ibelin, has briefly returned home after serving in thr East. Godfrey approaches Balian and let’s the blacksmith know that he himself is the blacksmith’s true father. Godfrey, then, asks Balian to join him and his troops in thei r journey to return to the Holy City of Jerusalem to help in the city’s defense. The blacksmith accepts the offer of Godfrey. Their arrival falls in between the Second and Third Crusades when Jerusalem is enjoying a period of peace between the Muslims and the Christians. This peace was all thanks to the Christian monarch King Baldwin IV, his second-in-command Tiberius, and the Muslim potentate Saladin. Unfortunately, the peace does last since violent agitators set out to increase their power. Saladin had to bow down to the pressure Godfey and his men stayed o give their allegiance to the king and his community of diversity. The knights, as well as Balian, use their skills as warriors to build a lasting peace. Orlando Bloom (Balian) is one of the main stars of the film along with Liam Neeson (Godfrey), Edward Norton (Baldwin IV), and Jeremy Iron (Tiberias). In Kingdom of Heaven, I noticed that the overall peace between the Muslims and Christians seemed to show the lack of reli giousness. Rather, the situational tension amongst the Christians and the Muslims seem to be more like a backdrop, than a major part of the story. The story is set between the Second and Third Crusades. However, the action and fighting as warriors is more prevalent than the religious aspects of the Crusade that should be more available. King Baldwin IV was a monarch who wanted to convey peace and diversity amongst the religious factions that want to control the Holy City of Jerusalem. Thus, the filmmaker seemed to use the facts of the time period as more of a symbol for the setting, than as the setting itself. The fighting may have been more gruesome for a film that should be more focused upon Baldwin’s Kingdom of Heaven, then the relationships of a lone person. The relationships should be more about the groups trying to vie for power in Jerusalem, than that of a single man. This story portrays single man being effective in the war to maintain the peace and diversity througho ut the city of Jerusalem during the reign of Baldwin IV. However, the portrayal should be how Baldwin could bring about the change in the ancient fight of the Muslims and the Christians, not how a French blacksmith becomes a knight to help defend the ancient, Holy City from the agitators that wish to overthrow Baldwin IV and claim power for themselves. I feel the overall responsibility of keeping the accuracy of the facts was a little massacred instead of being kept intact by the screenwriters or even portrayed effectively by

Sample Question and Answer in an Interview Essay Example for Free

Sample Question and Answer in an Interview Essay 1. Tell me about yourself.  Since this is often the opening question in an interview, be extra careful that you don’t run off at the mouth. Keep your answer to a minute or two at most. Cover four topics: early years, education, work history, and recent career experience. Emphasize this last subject. Remember that this is likely to be a warm-up question. Don’t waste your best points on it. 2. What do you know about our organization? You should be able to discuss products or services, revenues, reputation, image, goals, problems, management style, people, history and philosophy. see more:muet speaking question But don’t act as if you know everything about the place. Let your answer show that you have taken the time to do some research, but don’t overwhelm the interviewer, and make it clear that you wish to learn more. You might start your answer in this manner: â€Å"In my job search, I’ve investigated a number of companies. Yours is one of the few that interests me, for these reasons†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Give your answer a positive tone. Don’t say, â€Å"Well, everyone tells me that you’re in all sorts of trouble, and that’s why I’m here†, even if that is why you’re there. 3. Why do you want to work for us? The deadliest answer you can give is â€Å"Because I like people. † What else would you like-animals? Here, and throughout the interview, a good answer comes from having done your homework so that you can speak in terms of the company’s needs. You might say that your research has shown that the company is doing things you would like to be involved with, and that it’s doing them in ways that greatly interest you. For example, if the organization is known for strong management, your answer should mention that fact and show that you would like to be a part of that team. If the company places a great deal of emphasis on research and development, emphasize the fact that you want to create new things and that you know this is a place in which such activity is encouraged. If the organization stresses financial controls, your answer should mention a reverence for numbers. If you feel that you have to concoct an answer to this question – if, for example, the company stresses research, and you feel that you should mention it even though it really doesn’t interest you- then you probably should not be taking that interview, because you probably shouldn’t be considering a job with that organization. Your homework should include learning enough about the company to avoid approaching places where you wouldn’t be able -or wouldn’t want- to function. Since most of us are poor liars, it’s difficult to con anyone in an interview. But even if you should succeed at it, your prize is a job you don’t really want. 4. What can you do for us that someone else can’t? Here you have every right, and perhaps an obligation, to toot your own horn and be a bit egotistical. Talk about your record of getting things done, and mention specifics from your resume or list of career accomplishments. Say that your skills and interests, combined with this history of getting results, make you valuable. Mention your ability to set priorities, identify problems, and use your experience and energy to solve them. 5. What do you find most attractive about this position? What seems least attractive about it? List three or four attractive factors of the job, and mention a single, minor, unattractive item. 6. Why should we hire you? Create your answer by thinking in terms of your ability, your experience, and your energy. (See question 4. ) 7. What do you look for in a job? Keep your answer oriented to opportunities at this organization. Talk about your desire to perform and be recognized for your contributions. Make your answer oriented toward opportunity rather than personal security. 8. Please give me your definition of [the position for which you are being interviewed]. Keep your answer brief and task oriented. Think in terms of responsibilities and accountability. Make sure that you really do understand what the position involves before you attempt an answer. If you are not certain, ask the interviewer; he / she may answer the question for you. 9. How long would it take you to make a meaningful contribution to our firm? Be realistic. Say that, while you would expect to meet pressing demands and pull your own weight from the first day, it might take six months to a year before you could expect to know the organization and its needs well enough to make a major contribution. 10. How long would you stay with us? Say that you are interested in a career with the organization, but admit that you would have to continue to feel challenged to remain with any organization. Think in terms of, â€Å"As long as we both feel achievement-oriented. † 11.  Your resume suggests that you may be over-qualified or too experienced for this position. What’s Your opinion? Emphasize your interest in establishing a long-term association with the organization, and say that you assume that if you perform well in his job, new opportunities will open up for you. Mention that a strong company needs a strong staff. Observe that experienced executives are always at a premium. Suggest that since you are so well qualified, the employer will get a fast return on his investment. Say that a growing, energetic company can never have too much talent. 12. What is your management style?  You should know enough about the company’s style to know that your management style will complement it. Possible styles include: task oriented (I’ll enjoy problem-solving identifying what’s wrong, choosing a solution and implementing it†), results-oriented (â€Å"Every management decision I make is determined by how it will affect the bottom line†), or even paternalistic (â€Å"I’m committed to taking care of my subordinates and pointing them in the right direction†). A participative style is currently quite popular: an open-door method of managing in which you get things done by motivating people and delegating responsibility. As you consider this question, think about whether your style will let you work happily and effectively within the organization. 13. Are you a good manager? Can you give me some examples? Do you feel that you have top managerial potential? Keep your answer achievement and ask-oriented. Rely on example to buttress your argument. Stress your experience and your energy. 14. What do you look for when You hire people? Think in terms of skills, initiative, and the adaptability to be able to work comfortably and effectively with others. Mention that you like to hire people who appear capable of moving up in the organization. 15. Have you ever had to fire people? What were the reasons, and how did you handle the situation? Admit that the situation was not easy, but say that it worked out well, both for the company and, you think, for the individ ual. Show that, like anyone else, you don’t enjoy unpleasant tasks but that you can resolve them efficiently and -in the case of firing someone- humanely. 16. What do you think is the most difficult thing about being a manager or executive? Mention planning, execution, and cost-control. The most difficult task is to motivate and manage employees to get something planned and completed on time and within the budget. 17. What important trends do you see in our industry? Be prepared with two or three trends that illustrate how well you understand your industry. You might consider technological challenges or opportunities, economic conditions, or even regulatory demands as you collect your thoughts about the direction in which your business is heading. 18. Why are you leaving (did you leave) your present (last) job? Be brief, to the point, and as honest as you can without hurting yourself. Refer back to the planning phase of your job search. where you considered this topic as you set your reference statements. If you were laid off in an across-the-board cutback, say so; otherwise, indicate that the move was your decision, the result of your action. Do not mention personality conflicts. The interviewer may spend some time probing you on this issue, particularly if it is clear that you were terminated. The â€Å"We agreed to disagree† approach may be useful. Remember hat your references are likely to be checked, so don’t concoct a story for an interview. 19. How do you feel about leaving all your benefits to find a new job? Mention that you are concerned, naturally, but not panicked. You are willing to accept some risk to find the right job for yourself. Don’t suggest that security might interest you more than getting the job done successfully. 20. In your current (last) position, what features do (did) you like the most? The least? Be careful and be positive. Describe more features that you liked than disliked. Don’t cite personality problems. If you make your last job sound terrible, an interviewer may wonder why you remained there until now. 21. What do you think of your boss?

Pacific Rim (2013) Summary and Analysis

Pacific Rim (2013) Summary and Analysis In selecting a film, and subsequently the company behind it for an interrogation of industry workings, a more recent film would be the obvious choice for a justification in the relevance of research. However with a production process spanning seven years and no precursor or existing franchise to support it, Pacific Rim (2013), as a singular film with no preexisting fan base, would make a logical case study in analysing how corporate influence has affected the film’s box office success. In addition, having already been released for over a year, the results and after effects of the film can be analysed thoroughly without the initial fan attraction or hype associated with newly released films. The film itself is directed by Oscar nominee Guillermo del Toro. His summer blockbuster Pacific Rim is a movie of the science fiction Kaiju and fantasy action genre in which giant robots known as ‘Jaegers’ battle the invading monsters known as ‘Kaiju’ in a â€Å"go big or go extinct† fight for mankind’s survival. Starting production in February 2006, Pacific Rim eventually began filming on the 14th November 2011 under Warner Bros Pictures in association with Legendary Pictures and was then distributed by Warner Bros Pictures, a subsidiary of Time Warner. These two studios are generally well known for their collaboration work as a result pf films such as Batman Begins (2005) and Inception (2010). To truly assess how a film is affected by the influence of a well known and financially sufficient company such as Time Warner, a consideration of the metric that measures the success of all, if not most films would be beneficial to the research question at hand. While it has been taken into consideration that some films, such as Fight Club (1999), can become cult hits even after being deemed as a box office failure, the metric used in measuring the success of films are box office sales. In scrutinizing the film as a media text from an economic point of view, Pacific Rim’s basic purpose is to create economic wealth from the creative and narrative elements within the media text. Therefore by investigating box office sales and the consequences of a film’s success, this research question will allow for a scholarly understanding of how organisations influence films to create economic wealth and whether this affects a corporate company’s decision to create or add to the creative and artistic universe of a film through sequels, prequels or other narrative media texts. In order to critically analyse and examine film industry structures, procedures and mechanisms, the appropriate methodology of media industry research must be employed. Therefore selecting a methodology that studies the development and delivery of the chosen media text; Pacific Rim, would be beneficial in understanding why procedures and practices are used within the company behind it; Time Warner. An organisational analysis of Time Warner and the roles and functions of each creative subsidiary company within Time Warner would be a suitable research methodology to employ, however organisational analysis’ are generally limited to one organisation and the mapping the departments within, applying this to a conglomerate and viewing each company within it as a department may be using an organisational analysis on a larger scale than it should be used in. None the less, the employment of an organisational analysis would be the logical research methodology to be applied to this research report. As stated by Long and Wall in Media studies: texts, production, context, the first subsection of an organisational analysis to be taken into consideration is the mapping of divisions or departments such as the production and marketing behind Pacific Rim. The second branch to be considered when making an organisational analysis is the working practices such as distribution and exhibition in cinemas. In a primary analysis of the production procedures behind Pacific Rim through organisational analysis, it is suggested that the film is the result of a practice known as vertical integration; vertical integration is the process where a media conglomerate owns several companies from the different stages of production all the way to distribution. Fitzgerald (2012) details the growth of Time Warner and its subsidiaries and it can be seen that Pacific Rim is created and filmed by Warner Brothers Pictures with other supporting studios, Warner Brothers Pictures is a studio owned by Time Warner, which is a large multi-national media conglomerate. Upon further investigation into Fitzgerald’s Corporations and Cultural Industries: Time Warner (2006), the relationship and roles between the different divisions that compile Time Warner can be seen. Time Warner is also the parent company of WaterTower Music, which provided the OST (Original Soundtrack) for Pacific Rim. The films’ beh ind the scenes content and interviews with the cast and director were then promoted on Cinemax, an American cable and satellite channel owned by HBO (Home Box Office), which is also a subsidiary of Time Warner. Further research also shows Pacific Rim to be the product of media synergy. Media synergy is the coming together of two or more elements in a media conglomerate to promote a product across several types of media. Similarly, media convergence, as suggested by Jenkins (2009), is the increase in connections between media platforms and technologies. The convergence of media can also be seen in the viral marketing produced prior to the launch of the film. Convergence took the form of virtual propaganda posters and robot blueprints [Appendix A] advertised across the internet, additionally, links to a â€Å"build your own Jaeger† flash game on the official Pacific Rim website is another example of media convergence. Moreover, a console videogame and soundtrack were released alongside the movie on July 12th and June 18th respectively to help promote the movie, both of which were created by subsidiaries of Time Warner. This media synergy and convergence created by Time Warner advertises the media text; Pacific Rim across all of its creative enterprises such as WaterTower Music and HBO. However it can also be said that Pacific Rim is not a product of vertical integration as the parent company, Time Warner, does not own or monopolise all the stages of distribution, even if it does have a large hand in the production of its movies. Cinema companies today such as Vue and Cineworld are owned independently of the studios that create the films. It is this reason that vertical integration no longer truly exists in the film industry as it did in the golden age of Hollywood where the then called Warner Brothers monopolised the industry along with the other studios of the â€Å"Big Six† in an oligopoly as argued by Thomson in The whole equation: a history of Hollywood (2006). An initial study of how a film’s production process is supported or undermined by corporate backing would suggest several advantageous points in publicity; including a worldwide scale of theatrical release, worldwide advertising and large financial support from the company that produced and distributed Pacific Rim: Time Warner. While specifically not distributed by Time Warner, but a subsidiary known as Warner Brother Pictures, Pacific Rim still benefited from Time Warner through its other subsidiaries as stated in Fitzgerald’s Corporations and Cultural Industries: Time Warner (2006). A more in depth investigation into box office figures via an online secondary source, Boxofficemojo.com [Appendix B] illustrates the box office sales for the weekend opening July 12th-14th. As seen on the webpage, it is reasonable to assume the large amount of theatres screening the movie contributed to the amount of gross profit made for that opening weekend. However, in applying a theoretical analysis of power, and more importantly economic power to the research question, it can be said that Time Warner, being an economic institution with commercial enterprises across all forms of media has the influence to have Pacific Rim screened in many cinemas. (Flew, 2007) However this leads to the question of why other films, as listed on Box Office Mojo, such as Djà ºpià ° (The Deep), that released on the same opening weekend as Pacific Rim did not use or hire more cinemas and theatres to screen their film. Upon further research into the companies that produced The Deep on website IMDb [Appendix C], it can be seen that The Deep is produced and distributed by media companies much smaller than Time Warner and Warner Brothers Pictures. AGM Factory, BlueEye productions and Filmhuset Produksjoner are all minor and independent companies that have less power in persuading mainstream cinema companies into screening their product. However in consideration of their film itself, there is a strong likelihood that it may have been a conscious decision made by the film makers, producers and distributors of The Deep as their target audience may be smaller in size and are viewers of the niche genre, making it more logical to screen at a limited number of theatres. This notion of larger companies wielding more influence with cinemas is reinforced by the fact that the top three positions for weekend gross and amount of cinemas screening on the Box Office Mojo chart were held by three major studios: Disney, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. [Appendix D] These larger Hollywood studios are therefore able to screen their films in even more theatres as a result of their economic power i.e. influence and wealth (Flew, 2007). Theatres also have a higher likelihood to screen these Hollywood films as they generally have large budgets and run advertising campaigns that ensure the awareness of the general public, which would also result in an increased income for the cinemas and theatres that host these films. The end result of Pacific Rim’s box office run was a success, however upon further analysis of the process as opposed to simply interpreting the results, Pacific Rim was actually deemed as a domestic flop in the western hemisphere. Upon release on 12th July, Pacific Rim itself had a disappointing start in western markets and was dubbed by the Gaurdian Film Blog’s Charles Gant as â€Å"the latest film that is struggling to engage audiences†. However there was speculation in the industry about the high possibility of success in international markets for Pacific Rim, one account being made on website Variety by Michael Sullivan who stated that â€Å"Pacific Rim’s hopes for salvation now lie with international auds.† Sullivan makes this suggestion as international audiences are more familiar with the Kaiju genre and are therefore more likely to go and see the movie. Del Toro’s Pacific Rim can be seen as a western approach on the â€Å"Kaiju† genre, the Kaiju genre being native to the Japanese film industry. This similarity can be seen as it shares conventions such as â€Å"strange monsters† (the direct translation of â€Å"Kaiju†) attacking major metropolitan cities as seen in Japanese classics such as Godzilla (1954) (1954). Therefore it can be argued that Pacific Rim’s Iconography and structure may be recognisable and well established to audiences who are aware of Kaiju genre conventions, making it more appealing. This is reinforced by the oversees box office release of Pacific Rim in Chinese and South Korean markets, proving Gant’s guess of Pacific Rim’s â€Å"salvation† with international audiences. The international release boosted its income significantly, effectively saving it from box office failure. Appendix E, also from Box Office Mojo, details Pacific Rim’s worldwide success, with a total gross of four hundred million US dollars, also noteworthy is the fact that three quarters of that lifetime gross derives from â€Å"foreign† marketplaces. It is then reasonable to argue that Pacific Rim’s box office success was saved by its release in international markets. An investigation of how a large corporate company can be detrimental to a film’s box office success is not obvious, however a case study analysed by Long and Wall (2012) on the film Cowboys and Aliens describes the film as playing out like something more akin to a â€Å"†¦business deal than a motion picture.† Therefore in the context where corporate companies have too much of a heavy hand in the artistic and creative elements of film production, it can become â€Å"noisy, grotesque and unappealing†, Cowboys and Aliens is summarised as the best movie â€Å"a posse of major Hollywood players could come up with.† For that reason, it can be argued that the financial benefits provided by a conglomerate can have a positive effect on a film’s box office success. However any infringement on the creative and narrative elements of a film would be detrimental. Furthermore, Pacific Rim’s narrative and creative choices have had no regulatory issues, being approved and classified as a 12A film by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC); reasons for this were stated in the â€Å"BBFC insight† section of the website. The BBFC states that â€Å"moderate violence is allowed† in a 12A film but not in explicit detail and that there â€Å"should be no emphasis on injuries or blood†. The Insight publication also reveals that Pacific Rim abides by these rules and that â€Å"we see some blood† however deaths are only implied as â€Å"neither the injuries nor deaths are shown with any detail.† Overall, the film is â€Å"rated 12A for frequent moderate violence and one use of strong language.† This makes it suitable for a much wider audience than films of a higher classification. To that end, narrative decisions made during the script writing process therefore allowed Pacific Rim to maximise its bo x office success and profits by having a lower rating. A flaw in the narrative and creative aspects of the film was its genre, the kaiju genre is not well known to western audiences and while the creative minds were allowed to flourish without restraint, the end result did hinder the overall box office success. On the other hand, another case study such as Cowboys and Aliens is at the other end of the spectrum in terms of heavy corporate and business influence, to the point where it was described as playing out â€Å"like a business deal more than a motion picture.† (Long Wall 2012) Therefore with case studies of major conglomerates having been studied at each end of the spectrum, the next step in continuing a study of how a multinational media conglomerate’s organisational structure effects box office would be to select a film to use as a case study that has a box office record that isn’t affected by external factors such as being part of a business deal or being hindered by an unfamiliar genre. A better selection of case study films to represent the effectiveness of conglomerates on box office successes would truly answer the research question at hand. However to summarise based on current findings, it can be argued that not all corporately produced blockbusters are successful; this was demonstrated in the box office results for Pacific Rim found on BoxOfficeMojo.com, where the motion picture’s box office performance in domestic markets waned, only to be saved with its release in foreign markets such as China, Japan and South Korea where the ‘Kaiju’ genre, typically associated with Godzilla (1954) (1954), is well received. On this notion, it can be counter argued again from a theoretical perspective, that the wealth and influence wielded by Time Warner allowed Pacific Rim to be released in international markets, effectively saving the film’s box office run. The research results from the organisational analysis show that corporate backing does not always create box office successes, however the benefits of being produced by such an organisation allows for a synergy, and convergence, of all companies within that conglomerate to provide all the necessary components for the media text to succeed. The roles and functions of each division cooperate effectively towards a common goal in the marketing and production aspects of creative commodities such as Pacific Rim. While this specific case study, Pacific Rim, does not fare particularly well at domestic box offices, it does prove that the object of study, Time Warner, has ability to create successes.

The Purpose of Mother Night :: Mother Night Essays

The   Purpose of   Mother Night      Ã‚  Ã‚   Over   the years,   such world-renowned   authors as   Mark Twain and   J. D. Salinger have   shown readers how literature reflects the era in which   it is written. Another author who has  Ã‚   also   made  Ã‚   significant   contributions  Ã‚   to   American literature   is   Kurt   Vonnegut,   author   of   such well-known novels as Slaughterhouse 5 and Cat's Cradle.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Vonnegut was born on November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana   ("Kurt Vonnegut,   Jr."). Vonnegut   attended Cornell University in 1940 where he   wrote for the Cornell Daily Sun ("Chronology"). In   1943, Vonnegut joined   the United States Infantry. He fought   in World War II for   the 106th Infantry Division until 1945 when he   was captured by the Germans and shipped to a   work camp in Dresden. It was   here in the city of   Dresden   where   Vonnegut   witnessed the American/British firebombing   that  Ã‚   killed   an   estimated  Ã‚   135,000   people. "[Vonnegut] tried for   many years to put into   words what he had   experienced during   that horrific   event...It took   him more  Ã‚  Ã‚   than  Ã‚  Ã‚   twenty  Ã‚  Ã‚   years,  Ã‚  Ã‚   however,  Ã‚  Ã‚   to  Ã‚   produce Slaughterhouse Five" ("Vonnegut in WWII").      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Slaughterhouse Five is Vonnegut's   most famous work. In this book, Vonnegut fictionally   recreates his experience in Dresden. However this book   wasn't published until 1969, and he had published several works   before this. His first book, Player Piano,   was published in 1952;   and his third, Mother Night,   was published   in 1961   ("Chronology"). Even   though Slaughterhouse Five   was Vonnegut's only   novel to re-create his experience   in Dresden, a   strong anti-war theme   can be found in his   earlier literature as well. A   fine example of one of his works that fits this description is Mother Night. The novel takes place in an   open jail in Old Jerusalem. The protagonist introduces himself by saying, "My name is Howard W.   Campbell, Jr.   I am   an   American   by birth,   a Nazi   by reputation, and a nationless person by inclination, The year in   which I   write this   book [is]   1961" (Vo nnegut   17). In first-person  Ã‚   narration   Campbell  Ã‚   accounts   stories   from before, during and post World War II. The reader learns that Campbell lived in Germany   before the war entertaining Nazis as a playwright.   He and his wife Helga   had no intention of leaving Germany once war became a threat. Campbell tells the reader that in 1938 he   was recruited as an American special agent who was to pose as a Nazi propagandist during the war. The   reader   learns   that   this   is   the   reason Campbell is currently behind   bars in; he is   to be tried by   Israel for severe war crimes of spreading propaganda. The Purpose of Mother Night :: Mother Night Essays The   Purpose of   Mother Night      Ã‚  Ã‚   Over   the years,   such world-renowned   authors as   Mark Twain and   J. D. Salinger have   shown readers how literature reflects the era in which   it is written. Another author who has  Ã‚   also   made  Ã‚   significant   contributions  Ã‚   to   American literature   is   Kurt   Vonnegut,   author   of   such well-known novels as Slaughterhouse 5 and Cat's Cradle.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Vonnegut was born on November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana   ("Kurt Vonnegut,   Jr."). Vonnegut   attended Cornell University in 1940 where he   wrote for the Cornell Daily Sun ("Chronology"). In   1943, Vonnegut joined   the United States Infantry. He fought   in World War II for   the 106th Infantry Division until 1945 when he   was captured by the Germans and shipped to a   work camp in Dresden. It was   here in the city of   Dresden   where   Vonnegut   witnessed the American/British firebombing   that  Ã‚   killed   an   estimated  Ã‚   135,000   people. "[Vonnegut] tried for   many years to put into   words what he had   experienced during   that horrific   event...It took   him more  Ã‚  Ã‚   than  Ã‚  Ã‚   twenty  Ã‚  Ã‚   years,  Ã‚  Ã‚   however,  Ã‚  Ã‚   to  Ã‚   produce Slaughterhouse Five" ("Vonnegut in WWII").      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Slaughterhouse Five is Vonnegut's   most famous work. In this book, Vonnegut fictionally   recreates his experience in Dresden. However this book   wasn't published until 1969, and he had published several works   before this. His first book, Player Piano,   was published in 1952;   and his third, Mother Night,   was published   in 1961   ("Chronology"). Even   though Slaughterhouse Five   was Vonnegut's only   novel to re-create his experience   in Dresden, a   strong anti-war theme   can be found in his   earlier literature as well. A   fine example of one of his works that fits this description is Mother Night. The novel takes place in an   open jail in Old Jerusalem. The protagonist introduces himself by saying, "My name is Howard W.   Campbell, Jr.   I am   an   American   by birth,   a Nazi   by reputation, and a nationless person by inclination, The year in   which I   write this   book [is]   1961" (Vo nnegut   17). In first-person  Ã‚   narration   Campbell  Ã‚   accounts   stories   from before, during and post World War II. The reader learns that Campbell lived in Germany   before the war entertaining Nazis as a playwright.   He and his wife Helga   had no intention of leaving Germany once war became a threat. Campbell tells the reader that in 1938 he   was recruited as an American special agent who was to pose as a Nazi propagandist during the war. The   reader   learns   that   this   is   the   reason Campbell is currently behind   bars in; he is   to be tried by   Israel for severe war crimes of spreading propaganda.