Two Hurricanes that Changed My Life Essay Example For Students

Two Hurricanes that Changed My Life Essay I grew up on Wilton Drive in downtown New Orleans. From the living room window in my parents house, I could see, across the street, the Filmore Apartments; the shape of which always reminded me of the little plastic hotels from the board-game Monopoly. From the time I was five, John and I would ride our bikes-mine was a black Mongoose; his was a chrome Pacifica- to the park around the corner from the Filmore, a small park where John pushed me on the swing and the merry-go-round. That park is where I started playing football when I was seven. John and his friends, who were 14, let me play only because my daddy forced me upon them. Daddy worked at a series of hotels, the last The Embassy Suites in the CBD, the central business district. He was tough on us, in a good way; he always pushed us to go harder and not give up. One time when I was playing basketball with him at the hoop in our front yard, I lost a game to him, and he said, â€Å"You’re gonna play me till you beat me; you’re not going inside till you beat me. † Winning took me three more games. I was worn out; it was summer, it was hot, I was sweating. The sun had drained me, but I found enough energy to win. I know my daddy was happy that I hadn’t just given up and walked inside. When Daddy told John to let me play football with him and his friends, John just nodded his head and said OK, but was he happy? Naw. Now 27, John, a department manager at Lowe’s Home Improvement on Elysian Fields, is a graduate of John F. Kennedy High in New Orleans, which no longer exists. The city tore it down after Hurricane Katrina. Both of our parents graduated from Joseph S. Clark, also in the downtown area, where they first met. We will write a custom essay on Two Hurricanes that Changed My Life specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Both my daddy and my brother played basketball in high school-my mama ran track-but I’m the first football player of the family. I get my inability to quit from my daddy and my speed from my mama. When I got to Warren Easton High in ninth grade, we had no football team because of Hurricane Katrina; enrollment was too low, and the storm had messed up a lot of the equipment. If Katrina hadn’t come, I would probably have gone to John F. Kennedy, following in my brother’s footsteps. I was familiar with that school-I even knew the hallways, because I explored them when I was waiting for John’s basketball games to start. My mama and my daddy and I always attended those games; we were John’s big support system. Before Katrina, I played one year of park football-not at the little park near my house, but one of the multiple Little League parks, this one far from my house in New Orleans East-until I broke my leg when a guy on Bunny Friend tackled me, dove head on at my leg. (Our team was the Joe Brown Spartans; even at nine, I preferred playing running back for the Spartans, not just because of the team name, but because we were better than most of the other teams. ) Three weeks after I began eighth grade at Francis W. Gregory Junior High-which is downtown, near the St. Bernard Housing Development (the projects)Katrina hit. Not just downtown, where we lived two blocks away from the London Avenue levee breech, but everywhere. Two days earlier, my mother came home at 9 from Church’s Chicken where she is the general manager, and said, â€Å"Pack your bags; we’re leaving. † She knew the weather was getting bad; I, however, wasn’t paying attention. I knew Katrina was coming-I’d lived through other storms-but I didn’t think this one would be a big deal. John and I thought we were going on a little vacation. We then went to our rooms and packed a couple bags for the weekend. The next morning we packed up the car, a 2000 Chevy Blazer. First we headed west toward Houston, but the traffic on Airline Highway was too bad, bumper to bumper. If our Blazer moved at all, it inched maybe two miles an hour. We turned around-we were still in New Orleans-and instead evacuated east to Atlanta; it took us maybe about 11 hours to get there. Once actually in Atlanta, we got lost and rode in a complete circle for about two hours until we finally found a hotel, which would soon be our residence for a couple months. .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758 , .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758 .postImageUrl , .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758 , .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758:hover , .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758:visited , .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758:active { border:0!important; } .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758:active , .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758 .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u6165e25f6585a8202860830322bd5758:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Christopher Columbus the Liar EssayDay by day we sat in the hotel room (I’d give it about three stars), crowded in front of the television, just awaiting the news. On Monday, August 29, 2005, CNN finally reported that over 85 percent of New Orleans had flooded. That same day we learned that the London Avenue levee had breeched; that was literally two blocks away from my house. We had 13 feet of water inside our home. It was destroyed. At that point, we didn’t know how long we would have to stay in Atlanta. Phone service was out, so we couldn’t check with anyone from our neighborhood. (We knew Mr. Robert, who lived next door to us, had ridden out the storm; we found out later that he had survived that he and his family had ridden out the storm at a local motel they owned, but ended up being rescued off of the roof. We stayed in a hotel for about two months until a family (the Clarks) adopted us. They paid for us to move into an apartment for six months and they furnished it. We really appreciated that, because they didn’t have that to do for us. My mama and I didn’t stay in Atlanta as long as my brother and daddy did. We left in November because her job had called her back to work. I was upset, because I had really enjoyed my new school where I had joined the basketball team and made plenty of new friends. Still when moms says it’s time to go, you have to listen to her. When we moved back to New Orleans, the only schools that were open at the time we located on the outskirts of the city in Metairie. I attended a white school, Riverdale Middle School; teacher students didn’t really accept me, though. During the one semester I spent at that school, I got suspended four times. Once that semester was over, I did not choose to return to that school. I wanted to go to McDonogh #35. My mama wasn’t having, that, though so she sent me to Warren Easton Senior High, where I spend my four years of high school. My ninth grade year I participated in the marching band, playing the cymbals. I had always enjoyed music, so the band kept me out of trouble by giving me something to do after school. My tenth grade year I was promoted to the position of drum major. That was a big accomplishment in my life, because not too many sophomores take control of a whole band of a lot of upperclassmen. Mr. Brooks gave me the task, however, and I did a pretty good job. My sophomore year was going great until October 1,2007. On the evening of October 1 my brother, along with one of his friends, came pick me up from the McDonald’s down the street from my school (where I normally waited for my ride). When I got into the car, I sensed that something was wrong, because usually John cracked jokes about me being in school all day, but I just got in the car. As we began to pull off, the car was super quiet; them, when we got to the first red light, and he asked me about my day. I explained to him that it was just a normal day, nothing special. The car got silent again, and that’s when he hit me with the news that Daddy had been found dead in the house. At first I didn’t believe him, but I realized quickly that he wouldn’t joke about such a thing. We headed to the house where we found a lot of family and friends outside. As soon as I saw my mom, she grabbed; me because she didn’t want me to go inside, because the morgue hadn’t come of the body yet. I moved her aside and went to the room where I found my daddy lying peacefully in bed where he had died in his sleep from catching a seizure. .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa , .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa .postImageUrl , .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa , .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa:hover , .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa:visited , .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa:active { border:0!important; } .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa:active , .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u41a9d4960211d60bf73aa62cf6d546aa:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: The Moment that Changed My Life Argumentative EssayHe had suffered from epilepsy, a brain disorder, since he was a child but usually somebody was around to help him when he caught them. Not this time, though. I returned to school the next morning, not telling anybody what had happened. I didn’t miss any days of school. School was my comfort zone; it kept my mind off of everything. That week we played St. Augustine in football, and I still marched the game and all, even though our team lost. I missed only that next Monday of school, October 9 the day of my father’s funeral. His death is the worst thing that ever happened to me. Its really hard being a African American male growing up without a father in New Orleans. My father never saw me play high school or college football, so every snap, I dedicate to him. ? My Emotional Hurricane The death of my father was tough on the family. I handled it pretty well; I didn’t miss any days of school except the Monday of his funeral. I held up the whole time throughout that week and because I was still social at school, nobody but my close friends knew what had happened. The day of his funeral was the only day I cried, and even then I was able to hold in my tears until the very last minute before they closed the casket. At that point I knew this would be my last time seeing my daddy’s face. After all we had been through, and the tough times we had, he had left me at the time I needed him most. I was a high school sophomore who was now lost. The death shook up our house a lot; my mother wept throughout the week, even more so the day of the funeral, but she knew she had to stay strong because she had a household to control. My mom and dad had been high school sweethearts and had been married for 20 plus years. The death of my dad not only took a toll on my mom mentally, but also took a toll on her financially, because we now had only one source of income. Being a general manager at Church’s Chicken didn’t bring in much but she always found a way to make ends meet. My brother really stepped up after the death of my daddy. He took on the role of a real big brother and the man of the house. He did what he could to help my mom out around the house and he also took care of me by keeping me with the latest shoes and clothes. My grandmother was affected the most by the passing of my father. The death of her only son was too much for her to handle, because Hurricane Katrina had struck New Orleans a couple years earlier and she had still not rebuilt her house. Losing her only son was tough for my granny (79 years old). At the time when it happened, she was just in shock hoping that she was dreaming and soon she would wake up to reality. Although we all were hoping for the same thing, we knew reality would set in and we would accept that we would see him again in heaven. Since the loss of my father, my grandmother has not been the same; she now suffers with Alzheimer’s disease, being around my grandmother is very hard for me. She sometimes mistakes me for my father, because we look so much alike. Nothing like the feeling when somebody you’re so close to forgets who you are. Other than my mother having to raise two children by herself and my grandmother developing Alzheimer’s disease, the family has held together because we realized you never know when it’s your last chance to tell you love him. Thanks to my daddy I do not give up on anything I put my mind to. On his birthday, I scored on the opening kick-off return versus Jackson State University with an 86-yard return and I knew it was all because of him I did it. I love you daddy and can’t wait until we meet again.

Free Essays on Jane Austen Uses Of Irony In Pride And Prejudice

The first sentence of the novel Pride and Prejudice opens with an ironic statement about marriage, â€Å"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife† (1). A man with a fortune does not need a wife nearly so much as a woman is greatly in need of a wealthy husband. The entire novel is really an explanation of how women and men pursue each other prior to marriage. Jane Austen uses a variety of verbal, dramatic, situational and irony through the novel. The novel is full of verbal irony, especially coming from Elizabeth and Mr. Bennet. Verbal irony is saying one thing, but meaning the complete opposite. Although Mr. Bennet is basically a sensible man, he behaves strangely because of his sarcasm with his wife. Trapped in a bad marriage, he makes life endurable for himself by assuming a pose of an ironic passive spectator of life, who has long ago abandoned his roles as a husband and a father. He amuses himself by pestering his foolish wife or making insensitive remarks about his daughters. Mr. Bennet cruelly mocks his wife silliness and is shown to be sarcastic, and cynical with comments as â€Å"†¦you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party† (2). He laughs at her total obsession with finding suitable husbands for her five daughters. Elizabeth is to some extent similar to her father’s cynicism. At the second ball, not only did Elizabeth declined Darcy request to da nce with her, but mocked him with a comment like â€Å"Mr. Darcy is all politeness† (17). Another is â€Å"I am perfectly convinced by it that Mr. Darcy has no defect† when Darcy and Elizabeth joust with one another in Chapter11 (39). Her speeches crackle with irony that is filled with pep and display vibrant humor. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something that the character doesn’t, which is seen through Elizabeth and Darcy. In chapter 4, ... Free Essays on Jane Austen Uses Of Irony In Pride And Prejudice Free Essays on Jane Austen Uses Of Irony In Pride And Prejudice The first sentence of the novel Pride and Prejudice opens with an ironic statement about marriage, â€Å"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife† (1). A man with a fortune does not need a wife nearly so much as a woman is greatly in need of a wealthy husband. The entire novel is really an explanation of how women and men pursue each other prior to marriage. Jane Austen uses a variety of verbal, dramatic, situational and irony through the novel. The novel is full of verbal irony, especially coming from Elizabeth and Mr. Bennet. Verbal irony is saying one thing, but meaning the complete opposite. Although Mr. Bennet is basically a sensible man, he behaves strangely because of his sarcasm with his wife. Trapped in a bad marriage, he makes life endurable for himself by assuming a pose of an ironic passive spectator of life, who has long ago abandoned his roles as a husband and a father. He amuses himself by pestering his foolish wife or making insensitive remarks about his daughters. Mr. Bennet cruelly mocks his wife silliness and is shown to be sarcastic, and cynical with comments as â€Å"†¦you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party† (2). He laughs at her total obsession with finding suitable husbands for her five daughters. Elizabeth is to some extent similar to her father’s cynicism. At the second ball, not only did Elizabeth declined Darcy request to da nce with her, but mocked him with a comment like â€Å"Mr. Darcy is all politeness† (17). Another is â€Å"I am perfectly convinced by it that Mr. Darcy has no defect† when Darcy and Elizabeth joust with one another in Chapter11 (39). Her speeches crackle with irony that is filled with pep and display vibrant humor. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something that the character doesn’t, which is seen through Elizabeth and Darcy. In chapter 4, ...

A Brief History of the Microscope

A Brief History of the Microscope During that historic period known as the Renaissance, after the dark Middle Ages, there occurred the inventions of printing, gunpowder and the mariners compass, followed by the discovery of America. Equally remarkable was the invention of the light microscope: an instrument that enables the human eye, by means of a lens or combinations of lenses, to observe enlarged images of tiny objects. It made visible the fascinating details of worlds within worlds. Invention of Glass Lenses Long before, in the hazy unrecorded past, someone picked up a piece of transparent crystal thicker in the middle than at the edges, looked through it, and discovered that it made things look larger. Someone also found that such a crystal would focus the suns rays and set fire to a piece of parchment or cloth. Magnifiers and burning glasses or magnifying glasses are mentioned in the writings of Seneca and Pliny the Elder, Roman philosophers during the first century A. D., but apparently they were not used much until the invention of spectacles, toward the end of the 13th century. They were named lenses because they are shaped like the seeds of a lentil. The earliest simple microscope was merely a tube with a plate for the object at one end and, at the other, a lens which gave a magnification less than ten diameters ten times the actual size. These excited general wonder when used to view fleas or tiny creeping things and so were dubbed flea glasses. Birth of the Light Microscope About 1590, two Dutch spectacle makers, Zaccharias Janssen and his son Hans, while experimenting with several lenses in a tube, discovered that nearby objects appeared greatly enlarged. That was the forerunner of the compound microscope and of the telescope. In 1609, Galileo, father of modern physics and astronomy, heard of these early experiments, worked out the principles of lenses, and made a much better instrument with a focusing device. Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) The father of microscopy, Anton van Leeuwenhoek of Holland, started as an apprentice in a dry goods store where magnifying glasses were used to count the threads in cloth. He taught himself new methods for grinding and polishing tiny lenses of great curvature which gave magnifications up to 270 diameters, the finest known at that time. These led to the building of his microscopes and the biological discoveries for which he is famous. He was the first to see and describe bacteria, yeast plants, the teeming life in a drop of water, and the circulation of blood corpuscles in capillaries. During a long life, he used his lenses to make pioneer studies on an extraordinary variety of things, both living and non-living and reported his findings in over a hundred letters to the Royal Society of England and the French Academy. Robert Hooke Robert Hooke, the English father of microscopy, re-confirmed Anton van Leeuwenhoeks discoveries of the existence of tiny living organisms in a drop of water. Hooke made a copy of Leeuwenhoeks light microscope and then improved upon his design. Charles A. Spencer Later, few major improvements were made until the middle of the 19th century. Then several European countries began to manufacture fine optical equipment but none finer than the marvelous instruments built by the American, Charles A. Spencer, and the industry he founded. Present day instruments, changed but little, give magnifications up to 1250 diameters with ordinary light and up to 5000 with blue light. Beyond the Light Microscope A light microscope, even one with perfect lenses and perfect illumination, simply cannot be used to distinguish objects that are smaller than half the wavelength of light. White light has an average wavelength of 0.55 micrometers, half of which is 0.275 micrometers. (One micrometer is a thousandth of a millimeter, and there are about 25,000 micrometers to an inch. Micrometers are also called microns.) Any two lines that are closer together than 0.275 micrometers will be seen as a single line, and any object with a diameter smaller than 0.275 micrometers will be invisible or, at best, show up as a blur. To see tiny particles under a microscope, scientists must bypass light altogether and use a different sort of illumination, one with a shorter wavelength. The Electron Microscope The introduction of the electron microscope in the 1930s filled the bill. Co-invented by Germans, Max Knoll, and Ernst Ruska in 1931, Ernst Ruska was awarded half of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1986 for his invention. (The other half of the Nobel Prize was divided between Heinrich Rohrer and Gerd Binnig for the STM.) In this kind of microscope, electrons are speeded up in a vacuum until their wavelength is extremely short, only one hundred-thousandth that of white light. Beams of these fast-moving electrons are focused on a cell sample and are absorbed or scattered by the cells parts so as to form an image on an electron-sensitive photographic plate. Power of the Electron Microscope If pushed to the limit, electron microscopes can make it possible to view objects as small as the diameter of an atom. Most electron microscopes used to study biological material can see down to about 10 angstromsan incredible feat, for although this does not make atoms visible, it does allow researchers to distinguish individual molecules of biological importance. In effect, it can magnify objects up to 1 million times. Nevertheless, all electron microscopes suffer from a serious drawback. Since no living specimen can survive under their high vacuum, they cannot show the ever-changing movements that characterize a living cell. Light Microscope Vs Electron Microscope Using an instrument the size of his palm, Anton van Leeuwenhoek was able to study the movements of one-celled organisms. Modern descendants of van Leeuwenhoeks light microscope can be over 6 feet tall, but they continue to be indispensable to cell biologists because, unlike electron microscopes, light microscopes enable the user to see living cells in action. The primary challenge for light microscopists since van Leeuwenhoeks time has been to enhance the contrast between pale cells and their paler surroundings so that cell structures and movement can be seen more easily. To do this they have devised ingenious strategies involving video cameras, polarized light, digitizing computers, and other techniques that are yielding vast improvements, in contrast, fueling a renaissance in light microscopy.

Services Marketing of Ritz Carlton Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Services Marketing of Ritz Carlton - Assignment Example The standards of service offered are measured by the client or the customer’s experience. A customer or a client will look at a place where he is treated like a king of his time with all the attention from an unknown person accepting all his needs as his own and making the customer feel comfortable at the alien location. The important barriers to service are: Service is invisible that can only be felt. Service is providing experience irrespective of geography, culture, ethnicity, and traditions. Service is a global phenomenon but service providers vary with location. Thus each location has its own way of rendering the service according to the existing lifestyles of that region. Service includes effective communication irrespective of the region that creates another concern when dealing with people of a different horizon. Service providers need to adopt different pricing to brand themselves to target unique customers of different earning potential. Ambiance: A neat and tidy surrounding with pleasant fragrance creates a relaxing and welcoming ambiance in a service area whether in room, restaurant or at the lobby. A timely updating of the changing dynamic ambiance preferences will provide the repeated customer a chance to enjoy his stay Providing a new touch of experience with respect to taste, tradition, and ethnicity: A customer needs a unique experience with respect to ambiance either resembling the nativity or addressing a theme that exits a specific group.  

Ebola Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Ebola - Essay Example The disease again struck in West Africa in March 2014 and had been the most lethal outbreak of the disease where cases of death outnumbered all of its previous outbreaks combined (World Health Organization). The host of Ebola virus is not yet known. The first patient who contracted the virus was believed to have been infected through a contact with an infected animal such as apes, monkeys or fruit bat. Among humans, the virus can be transmitted through direct contact with blood or body fluids (urine, sweat, saliva, feces, breast milk, semen) with person who has the Ebola virus. The virus can also be transmitted to another person through the medium of objects such as using needles and syringes that was contaminated by the virus or through primates and fruit bats (since the first patient was known to be infected by a primate or fruit bat). Ebola is not airborne or it cannot be transmitted through the air. Once a person has contracted Ebola, the following symptoms may appear – â€Å"fever, muscle pain, weakness, fatigue, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal (stomach) pain, unexplained hemorrhage (bleeding or bruising)† (Center for Disease and control Prevention). These symptoms may appear between 2 to 21 days after a person has been exposed to the virus. There is no FDA approved vaccine for Ebola yet. Ebola is treated as the symptoms and complications appear. Experimental vaccines are now being developed to arrest the disease but are not yet fully tested for their effectiveness (Center for Disease and control Prevention). At present, health care professionals administer the following interventions to increase the probability of survival of Ebola patients: One of the unorthodox treatment of Ebola is the infusion of body fluids of a person who recovered from Ebola believing that the antibodies in that person will help the immunity of the infected person to fight the

A Taste of Honey Shelagh Delaney Essay Example for Free

A Taste of Honey Shelagh Delaney Essay In A Taste of Honey Shelagh Delaney presents Jo as a young woman looking for security and love. Compare the relationships she has with Helen, her boyfriend and Geoff. To what extent does she find security and love with each? Shelagh Delaney the writer of the play A Taste of Honey was born on November 25th 1939 in Salford, England. It was in school when she saw her first play, an amateur performance of Shakespeares Othello. She was only twelve at the time, and the play made a great impression on her. When she was seventeen, she began writing A Taste of Honey as a novel but later realised that it would be better as a play so it was first performed in 1958, accepted by Joan Littlewood, a famous director of the Political Theatre who strongly believed that plays should be about ordinary people. A Taste of Honey is mainly about a young working class girl who refuses to conform to her dreary surroundings and way of life. When the play was introduced, it was rare to find any of the situations portrayed in any other plays as the circumstances of each of the characters in the play were polemic and unaccepted by a neglectful society. Keeping up the appearances was an important factor in life, and at the time public disgrace was a horrendous situation to be involved in., so it almost became a day to day struggle to keep others satisfied with a suitable personal image that no one had the right to question. People were often very prejudiced about things like origin and race, sexual inclination, promiscuity and sex before marriage. To be involved in any of those things was a serious act for concern from the family and members of the community. At the time people were very religious and strict with regards to homosexuality, promiscuity and sex before marriage, in households from the 20th century, there was rarely a laid back mentality when these situations happened in the conventional life of an ordinary person. It was very common for a youngster to be involved in any of the above, as the senior members relied on their traditional customs and philosophies and took a lot of care in their every move. Ironically this play doesnt seem very concerned with all the issues that emerge from that society, and makes it a much more rebellious and interesting play to watch. However interesting it was, not everyone agreed with the content of the play, as some reviewers confessed that this was the first play they had seen with a coloured person and a homosexual man. Jo is a 15-year old girl who seems to have been unfortunate in life due to the circumstances that we see her in at the start of the play. By the way of life she leads, we learn that she is not happy or satisfied with herself or with her only relative, her mother. She displays inappropriate behaviour for a teenager of her time, I dont owe you a thing. By saying this we learn that she has little respect for Helen and is very distant from her, she also sounds angry and frustrated because she knows she deserves much more and also because Helen has not been a proper mother to her in any way. Something else, which we are able to see from Jos lifestyle, is that she is frequently exposed by her mother, to different men coming in and out of Helens life. The best example is Peter, a close friend of Helens. This is evidently an unsuitable environment for a teenage girl, and clearly shows that Helen is not very concerned about the image she is creating in Jos mind. We can conclude that Helen is not only being a terrible example for daughter Jo, but also is offering no security in the sense of stable relationships that can benefit Jo in a good way. Helen doesnt stand firm in front of Jo and by inviting men into her house, she is loosing all sense of respect for herself and most importantly, for her daughter. Its almost like Helen and Jo are friends who take boyfriends in for intimate relationships. At the start of the play we learn that Helen has a strong drinking problem, drink, drink, drink, thats all youre fit for. You make me sick. Jo is directly affected by it, as she has to co-exist with this habit in Helens life. We know that she clearly dislikes it and mentions how her mother isnt good for anything else apart from drinking. This can represent the way Jo feels, since the time she started to realise her mothers neglectful treat you make me sick, Jos frustration has become so great that she has started to hate her mother for being such a bad parent. By mentioning thats all youre fit for Jo tells us that Helen has been a total failure in every aspect of motherhood and wasnt able to demonstrate even the smallest sign of care and affection for daughter Jo. Perhaps Helen thought that alcohol could help ease the pain of not being able to be a good parent and offer love and security to Jo. But once again we see that Helen makes the wrong choice and maybe unconsciously might not realise how much this is also affecting Jo. This drinking problem is once again an appalling example that Helen is transmitting to Jo, as she might think its acceptable to drink in order to ease the pain and attempt to sort out problems under a more relaxed but less rational approach. Some readers may think that at the point of Helens response to Jos comments about drinking, she is completely under the dominion of alcohol, and responds in a cynical way, Dont just stand there shivering; have some of this if youre so cold. My reaction to this answer was of utter amazement as I am unable to believe the extent of Helens brutality and stupidity. She has just been told by Jo how much she dislikes the habit and still persists on acting irresponsibly and offering an intoxicating drink to her underage daughter. She should have been a little more considerate and thought of a more reasonable solution to Jos request. This once again leads us to believe that Helen is offering Jo no security, or protection in any way. Unexpectedly Jo enquires about her father just as her mother is getting ready to marry peter. As she is not pleased with what her mother responds, she declares her as a liar You liar look at me. This response was obviously generated from the way Helen answered Jos question, which evidently wasnt tactful or sensitive. Until this point we learn that Jo is unaware of who her father is, and this sort of conversation appears to be a serious issue between mother and daughter. Jo seems to feel resentment towards her mother, by the way she says you liar. By hiding this important piece of information to Jo, I believe that Helen has disrespected her daughter in various aspects. Jo as being the product of an intimate relationship between Helen and the man in question is in her full right to demand respect and to know who her progenitor was. This reveals quite a lot about Helens personality, as she demonstrates cowardice at the single thought of facing her daughter and telling her the truth about her origin. When Jo says look at me, it becomes clear to us, that she has to prove or disprove her mothers honesty with a single glance at her eyes. Jo is not entirely sure of this answer and proves to us that she does not trust her mother in her honesty and actions. Helen and Jo keep an uncharacteristic relationship; because its not one of mother and daughter love neither a friendly one. They just dont seem to be able to understand each other as such and therefore have lost all mutual respect and affection, simply because Helen is far too selfish to give up her way of life to ultimately benefit her daughter and herself. Its like theyve swapped roles, Helen being the daughter and Jo being the mother, one more responsible and conscious than the other. Jo acts like an adult in many ways, as she shows a clear disapproval upon her surroundings and her mothers drinking habits, she certainly feels uncomfortable at the men coming in and out of Helens life. Youve emptied more bottles down your throat in the last few weeks than I would have thought possible. If you dont watch it, youll end up an old down-out boozer knocking back the meths Jo is warning Helen that if she isnt careful with her habits, she will be alcoholic and drinking illicit beverages meths. Jo sounds like shes disturbed by her mothers future and has a precautious tone in her voice that makes her sound like a worried mother or wife. At the start of the play, when we meet Helen and Jo, their relationship seems very weak, and doesnt seem to get any better as the play proceeds; because of this I can predict that as they dont dedicate sufficient time and effort to form stronger bonds they will not be able to progress and comprehend their individual needs and circumstances. Anyway, its your life, ruin it your own way Helen makes this very strong remark that suggests a very careless thought with regards to Jos future. She uses a common tactic that allows her to show a dignified attitude, by offering Jo sufficient freedom to ruin her future and hold her responsible for her actions, consequently saving herself from her daughters blame and pain of failing. This shows how careless she is at offering support in Jos plans ambitions and dreams. In a way this is a very sad thing to do, because not only does Jo lack financial stability, but also love and emotional security. On the other hand Jo is conscious of her mothers intentions with regards to a good life for her. Ruining my life. After all, youve had plenty of practice this blame on Helens performance as mother is quite serious and is good at describing their relationship in general. This allegation is also good to prove the fact that Helen has offered no security or love to Jo. However making matters worse Helen accepts this accusation and unconsciously hurts Jo to a deeper extent saying yes, give praise where praise is due, I always say pessimistically she responds with no hint of shame at what she has created in Jo, because of her neglectful behaviour. I dont think that during the play their relationship gets to evolve in a positive or a negative way; however Helen may start to look at Jo as a woman rather than a girl due to the consequence of her relationship with boy and her pregnancy. In act 1 scene 2 Helen leaves her daughter Jo to go and get married to Peter, which in some way helps Jos emotional state, as it is supposedly the end of a most hated cohabitation, and the start of a new independent life. I believe that this action taken by Helen was by far the best thing she has done to benefit Jo, perhaps unconsciously but for the benefit of both sides. Helen has been a bad mother because she has never been able to offer Jo pure and unconditional love, instead she has made Jos existence imperfect and complicated without a reasonable purpose. I am not trying to justify un-motherly conduct, but she probably was never prepared to facet he responsibilities of a parent. It was completely inappropriate form Helen to allow men and alcohol form a barrier between herself and daughter Jo. Nearer to the conclusion of the play Helen returns to Jo, not to rectify her mistakes but only to make matters worse for poor Jo and her baby, I feel that she came back in a mood of pity and not love for a future single mother. However she may see herself reflected on Jo, and may feel is her duty to come to aid her. I feel great sympathy for Jo at the end of the play, because it seems to me that her life is a cycle that repeats itself over and over again. She is lonely even though she is due to have a baby and has her mother with her. Sadly Helen is still an alcoholic, and is penniless just as Jo is, which will unmistakeably make the baby suffer because of the circumstances. I also feel that since Jo and Helen have avoided resolving their differences and issues, their relationship will carry on deteriorating to a greater extent, until they will not be able to interact any longer as a team or family. Boy holds a fairly important role in the play, as Shelagh Delaney may have used him in order to represent a race and a whole group of people at the time. He is a twenty year old sailor that manages to infiltrate Jos heart and lighten up her life to a certain extent, for a short period of time. The reason why Shelagh Delaney doe not provide boy with a name, is because he ends up leaving her and breaking all his made promises, of returning and marrying her. His role in the play is of a young adult who meets Jo and eventually becomes her boyfriend. He also becomes the father of her baby, even though he is not aware of this. The relationship boy has with Jo is completely different to the ones she experiences with all the other characters, this one is of love and mutual understanding. I love youbecause you are daft. I believe that the most important factor with regards to Jos feelings and other characters is that perhaps it is the first time she falls in love with someone, and is answered back in the same way. Even though buy offers love to Jo, he certainly doesnt offer much security. This is because he enjoys having fun wherever he goes and is not able to make a promise and keep it. youre the first girl who Ive met who really doesnt care this quote shows that he is someone whos had many relationships in the past, analyses different behaviours, and therefore has gained experience in the subject. I reckon that Shelagh Delaney wants to make the audience judgemental towards boy because of the way his relationship ends with Jo, and leaving to never come back. In my opinion boy only used Jo to sleep with and never really felt anything special for her, this truly shows the type f person he is. The audience may find that he is genuine and honest about his feelings but then turns out to be insincere and false, however what really damages his image to a higher extent is how he took advantage of Jos naivety and innocence. Geoff is another important character in the play, as Shelagh Delaney may have chosen him to represent the fears, hopes and dreams of a secluded group of people, who were judged by their sexual inclination. He is false a person who provides Jo with a strong friendship and some security that perhaps she took for granted. Geoff is someone who lacks self-confidence and is in desperate search for acceptance security and companionship, he wants Jo to look at him as a man with defects and expects from her as much as she receives from him. They have a peculiar relationship as Jo refers to him as a big sister or a womanly figure in the house, you are just like an old woman really. You just unfold your bed, kiss me goodnight and sing me to sleep. This kind of remark may have resulted embarrassing for him as he is a male and much older than Jo. Shelagh Delaney is very effective at revealing Geoff qualities, by telling us the large amounts of efforts he puts into Jos house and the way that he takes care of her, someones got to look after you. You cant look after yourself. You would not expect this type of behaviour from a stranger and man in a male dominating society. Another good way the reader can see the qualities in Geoff is by comparing him to Helen, who is the total opposite of her and has taken better care of Jo in a short period of time than she has. From analysing Jos and Geoff relationship we can learn that during the time they spend living together they have both been happy and able to co-exist with each other, which is something Helen and Jo were never able to achieve. However there was always this barrier between Jo and Geoff, generated by their different attitudes towards life and other issues that revolved around their respective characters. While Geoff was optimistic, Jo was fairly negative and resembled Helens personality to some extent. This factor never really allowed them to enjoy their relationship and their time together to the maximum. I think it would be best if you left this place Geoff I dont think its doing you any good being here with me all the time this tells us that Jo is being honest with him and knows about his need to experience a womans desire to prove whether his inclination towards a men is real. To some degree Jo is a little bit arrogant as she declares that she can be self-sufficient and doesnt need from Geoff to carry on living a normal life. Nobody asked you to stay here. You moved in on me, remember? If you dont like it you can get out, cant get Geoff is a maternal figure to Jo as he is making a great effort to help her out with the preparation for the coming of the baby; something Helen would be more appropriate at doing. I thought you changed. Motherhood is supposed to come natural to women he explain this which such patience and care that almost sounds like he has passed through motherhood himself. This maternal figure is very rare and distinctive in the play as he is the only in the play who offers this sort of care and guidance, despite him being a man. Geoff is nothing like Helen simply because they do not share any qualities or even defects. The only way in which he may resemble Helens behaviour is at the end of his role, when he decides to leave Jo and not rebel against Helens prejudices and power to throw him out of Jos and the babys life. just as Helen did, he ends up deserting Jo, and not thinking of the possible emotional crisis she may start to go through. At the end of the play Jo is left standing by herself lonely without anyones help and support to hep undergo the conceiving of her baby, and the rest of her life she may still have to live. The mood is quite bleak, grim and dull at this point most of the relationships between the characters have broken up. Helen has been thrown out of Peters house and longer is she able to enjoy financial stability or Peters company as a husband. I believe none of the relationships in the play were really meant to work just as much as Geoff and Jo would have never been able to coexist considering their different circumstances. Shelagh Delaney may have chosen the title A Taste of Honey because in a way all of the characters in the play find a hint of happiness for a short while, and then just as it came it quickly diminishes and becomes difficult once again. I believe that Shelagh Delaney was correct in choosing this title for the play because it is indeed a sequence of events that resemble the ups and downs in life and the way one can taste something good but then its taken away. Its never really a constant patch of happiness throughout, but a constant struggle to keep going as much as possible.

Literary Allusions in Eliots The Hollow Men :: Eliot The Hollow Men Essays

Literary Allusions in Eliot's The Hollow Men      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Scholars have long endeavored to identify the sources of various images in T. S. Eliot's work, so densely layered with literary allusions. As Eliot himself noted in his essay "Philip Massinger" (1920),    One of the surest of tests is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.    In Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men," several sources have been posited for the "hollow men . . . the stuffed men / leaning together . . . filled with straw" (lines 1-2). B. C. Southam notes three: that the "hollow . . . stuffed men" are reminiscent of the effigies burned in celebration of Guy Fawkes Day; that "according to Valerie Eliot, the poet had in mind the marionette in Stravinsky's Petrouchka"; and finally, that the "straw-stuffed effigies are associated with harvest rituals celebrating the death of the fertility god or Fisher King."(n1)    In 1963, some years before Southam's summary, John Vickery had proffered an interpretation similar to the third point mentioned. He noted that "the opening lines of `The Hollow Men' with their image of straw-filled creatures, recalls The Golden Bough's account of the straw-man who represents the dead spirit of fertility that revives in the spring when the apple trees begin to blossom."(n2) Whereas Eliot may well have had any or all of these ideas in mind, I suggest that there is yet another connection to be made, namely between Eliot's "hollow . . . stuffed men" and the Roman ritual of the Argei.    In 1922, a few years before Eliot wrote "The Hollow Men," W. Warde Fowler described the particulars of this ritual, which was to him a "fascinating puzzle" and "the first curiosity that enticed" him "into the study of Roman religion," in his book Roman Religious Experience.(n3) The rite according to Fowler occurs    each year on the ides of May, which is in my view rather magical than religious, though the ancients themselves looked upon it as a kind of purification, [namely] the casting into the Tiber from the Pons Sublicius of twenty-four or twenty-seven straw puppets by the Vestal Virgins in the presence of the magistrates and pontifices. Recently an attempt has been made by Wissowa to prove that this strange ceremony was not primitive, but simply a case of substitution of puppets for real human victims as late as the age of the Punic wars.

Themes in the Merchant of Venice

The Cyclical Nature of Hatred and Vengeance By Darina Gaievska Love and hatred, happiness and misery, excitement and lethargy – all of these emotions are inherited to the human nature. Hatred fits in among one of the strongest human feelings; it is a seed that engenders vengeance. In the Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice, these two inextricably bound terms are portrayed unequivocally. There are three main reasons why hatred was such a focal ingredient to the play: the Anti-Semitism, the unacceptability of usury and the personal altercations between the focal charactersFirst and foremost, the tensions between the play’s protagonist and antagonist take place primarily due to the cultural notion of Anti-Semitism. In spite of Venice being the multicultural and hence multi-religious trade city, the discrimination of the Jewish people was yet apprehensible. Throughout The Merchant of Venice Antonio keeps referring to Shylock as â€Å"The Jew†, a term th at was so derogatory at the time. Although there isn’t much use of direct anti-Semitic slurs, the enmity towards the subculture still lurked in the passages of the play.When Shylock slyly alluded to Jacob from Genesis, justifying his practice of usury, Antonio responded dismissively, saying that â€Å"the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose†. By calling Shylock â€Å"the devil† due to Shylock’s faith. In the merchant’s eyes, Jews were traitors, who deceived the Christ. Although Shylock shows his awareness of the Christian religion, Antonio does not respect him more; arguing that in spite of the knowledge he possesses â€Å"The Jew† is nevertheless a disbeliever.The second reason due to which hatred skulks throughout the play is the un-acceptance of usury. During the Elizabethan era, Jews were not allowed to have any mercantile business, making usury, the practice of lending money on interest, the only source of profit to them. Antonio p roves his negative attitude towards usury by lending money with no interest. Shylock, on the other hand, feels indignant of Antonio’s actions: â€Å"He lends out money gratis and brings down The rate of usance here with us in Venice. Their different views on lending nurture the characters’ animosity and foreshadow the conflict that arises later in the play. Last but not least, hatred is presented in a play in both the ambiguous way and the personal one. It is quite clear that the great tensions between â€Å"The Jew† and the Merchant are the focal point of the entire plot. Antonio’s disrespectful actions towards Shylock are incited by his anti-Semitic ideology. Needless to say, those actions are the main reason for Shylocks hatred, so strong and unceasing, towards his offender.It almost seems that if Antonio was inflicting his enemy’s vengeance knowingly, continuing to practice his disrespectful behavior. Shylock justifies his thirst for revenge i n act three: â€Å"The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction†. â€Å"The Jew† argues that if Christians (specifically Antonio) treat him as if he were â€Å"a dog† hence showing that they are hypocritical when contradicting the concept of mercy, which is so deeply enshrined in their religion.He blames the Christians for â€Å"teaching† him cruelty, and even promises to excel his masters. To sum up, the recurring hatred is a cycle that comes out of the culture’s prejudices. It is one of the main themes in the play. Hatred and animosity, caused by the anti-Semitism, unacceptability of usury and disrespect, are the inciters of the conflict between Shylock and Antonio. Without them, the play would be dull and boring, because emotions are the ones to spice up the play, making the interaction between characters more fervid.

Printing Press Consequences

The Consequences of a Forgotten Invention There have been people who have influenced every person in the world yet a seldom few know their contributions let alone their names. Of these people was a man named Johannes Gutenberg; the man who invented the printing press. The printing press is one of those inventions that most people take for granted and do not realize their importance. Without the press we would still be handwriting every single copy of any book every written and so the question is what were the main consequences of the printing press? That is, what happened as a result of the invention of the printing press?The answer is that it marked the transition from script to printing and it allowed the mass production of information, which in turn allowed ideas to spread quicker. The ability to have a mass production of information has transformed almost all aspects life and all fields of study. Two of these topics include religion and geography and exploration. This essay will first explain the importance of the transition from script to printing and then will go on to explain the impact the press had on literature and geography and exploration in order to elaborate on the latter consequence listed above.Perhaps the absolutely most important thing about the invention of the printing press is that it marked the transition from script to printing. As seen in Document A, whilst comparing the two images, the effect of Gutenberg’s invention is very clear. In the top visual, which shows the dictation method, it can be seen that the process is very lengthy and tiring. Also, only a few books are visible. Whereas, in the bottom visual, which shows the printing method, there are many papers in sight and the process seems to be a lot less time-consuming.From this it can be concluded that printing is a lot more efficient method of producing books and no longer required laborious hours of writing manuscripts. This conclusion can be supported by the next documen t: Document B. By looking at the maps it becomes apparent that the people back then also had similar opinions about the printing press as, with-in thirty years, the number of printing presses in Europe more than quintupled. In 1471, there were about a dozen presses but by the end of the century, there were upwards of 65 in the continent. However, Document C represents a contradicting opinion.This source claims that people still liked hand-written documents over those that were printed. This was bound to happen because, even like today, hand-made items are always considered more precious but the more practical solution will always prevail, which, in this case, was the printing press. In the subsequent paragraphs, the consequences of this transition on various aspects of life will be explained. ‘Gutenberg’s invention probably contributed more to destroying Christian concord and inflaming religious warfare than any of the so-called arts of war ever did. These twenty-four w ords written by Elizabeth Eisenstein in her book, ‘Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe,’ (Document E) perfectly describe the consequence of the printing press on religion. Around the same time as the birth of the printing press, a desire for reformation in the Church was also arising amongst the people. According to history, Martin Luther lit the fire of desire by posting his 95 Theses on a Church door. However, what is not being taken into account is that Luther’s ideas spread quickly solely because of the printing press, as John Man explains in Document D.Had his ideas not spread all over Europe with-in a month, reform would have come much later or perhaps never. Similar to Luther’s 95 Theses, the Polyglot Bible, which allowed ordinary people to understand the Bible as it was written in nine different languages, would not have spread around Europe so rapidly if it were not for the press. Both, the Polyglot Bible (Document G) and Luther’s 95 Theses (Document D), fueled the Protestant reform but would not have even close to as big of an impact if it were not for the printing press.The map in Document F verifies this statement because it shows how quickly Protestant ideas spread around Europe. In merely 60 years, Europe went from being completely Catholic to roughly half Protestant and half Catholic. This in itself further emphasizes how mass production of information allows ideas to be spread faster and therefore demonstrates the one of the consequences of the printing press. Along with the religious turmoil came times of great exploration. Partially credited to Renaissance ideals, Europeans began to explore the world. Perhaps the most famous explorer of all is Christopher Columbus.In 1492, he did indeed sail the ocean blue to discover the Americas. After Columbus, came other great sailors from various other European nations who explored other parts of the world. Believe it or not, the printing press served a great purp ose in exploration too. Columbus sent a letter to the King of Spain, which talked about the New World. According to Document H, this letter was translated and published over and over again and with-in a year it reached places as far as Antwerp. In the succeeding years Europeans embarked upon a great number of voyages.This indicates that Columbus’ letter was likely to have sparked curiosity or even jealously into the hearts of other Europeans and so they to began to explore the world. There was an obvious correlation between exploration and maps. As seen in Document I, the more people that explored, the more accurate the maps were became. The relationship goes the other way too. The more accurate the maps were, the better the explorer can judge where they were, which then allowed them to have a better sense of direction. The printing press played a huge role in the publication of maps.With the press, maps now looked the same, unlike before when they were drawn by hand, which a llowed for inconsistencies amongst copies of the same work. Once again, this highlights both consequences stated above: the press allowed the mass production of information and marked the transition script to printing. In conclusion, it can be clearly seen that the printing press revolutionized the world on a countless number of levels. It transformed the way people communicated and the way information was dispersed. The transition from script to print was huge because the press was far more efficient for publishing any kind of information.As a result, there could now be a mass production of information. It was made obvious, through the examples given, how mass production fueled the Protestant Reformation and perhaps even sparked the age of exploration. Taking all this information into account there is no doubt that the consequences of the printing press were that it marked the transition from script to printing and it allowed the mass production of information, which in turn allowe d ideas and information to spread over a large distance in a short period of time.

Introduction to Green Architecture and Design

Introduction to Green Architecture and Design Green architecture, or green design, is an approach to building that minimizes the harmful effects of construction projects on human health and the environment. The green architect or designer attempts to safeguard air, water, and earth by choosing eco-friendly building materials and construction practices. Building a greener home is a choice- at least it is in most communities. Typically, buildings are designed to meet building code requirements, the  American Institute of Architects (AIA) has reminded us, whereas green building design challenges designers to go beyond the codes to improve overall building performance and minimize life-cycle environmental impact and cost. Until local, state, and federal public officials are persuaded to legislate green processes and standards- just like building and fire prevention practices have been codified- much of what we call green building practices is up to the individual property owner. When the property owner is the U.S. General Services Administration, results can be as unexpected as the complex built in 2013 for the U.S. Coast Guard. Common Characteristics of a Green Building The highest goal of green architecture is to be fully sustainable. Simply put, people do green things in order to achieve sustainability. Some architecture, like Glenn Murcutts 1984 Magney House, has been an experiment in green design for years. While most green buildings do not have all of the following features, green architecture and design may include: Ventilation systems designed for efficient heating and coolingEnergy-efficient lighting and appliances (e.g., ENERGY STAR ® products)Water-saving plumbing fixturesLandscaping with native vegetation and planned to maximize passive solar energyMinimal harm to the natural habitatAlternative renewable energy power sources such as solar power or wind powerNon-synthetic, non-toxic materials used inside and outLocally-obtained woods and stone, eliminating long-haul transportationResponsibly-harvested woodsAdaptive reuse of older buildingsUse of recycled architectural salvageEfficient use of spaceOptimal location on the land, maximizing sunlight, winds, and natural shelteringRainwater harvesting and greywater reuse You dont need a green roof to be a green building, although Italian architect Renzo Piano not only created a green roof but also specified recycled blue jeans as insulation in his design of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. You dont need a vertical garden or green wall to have a green building, yet French architect Jean Nouvel has successfully experimented with the concept in his design for One Central Park residential building in Sydney, Australia. Construction processes are a huge aspect of green building. Great Britain transformed a brownfield into the site of the London 2012 summer Olympic Games with a plan for how contractors would build the Olympic village- dredging waterways, strict sourcing of building materials, recycling concrete, and using rail and water to deliver materials were just some of their 12 green ideas. The processes were implemented by the host country and overseen by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the ultimate authority for requiring Olympic-sized sustainable development. LEED, the Green Verification LEED is an acronym meaning Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Since 1993, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has been promoting green design. In 2000, they created a rating system that builders, developers, and architects can adhere to and then apply for certification. Projects pursuing LEED certification earn points across several categories, including energy use and air quality, explains USGBC. Based on the number of points achieved, a project then earns one of four LEED rating levels: Certified, Silver, Gold or Platinum. The certification comes with a fee, but it can be adapted and applied to any building, from homes to corporate headquarters. LEED certification is a choice and not a requirement by the government, although it may be a requirement in any private contract. Students who enter their projects in the Solar Decathlon are judged by a rating system as well. Performance is part of being green. Whole Building Design The National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) argues that sustainability has to be part of the whole design process, from the very start of the project. They devote an entire website to the WBDG- Whole Building Design Guide. Design objectives are interrelated, where designing for sustainability is just one aspect. A truly successful project is one where project goals are identified early on, they write, and where the interdependencies of all building systems are coordinated concurrently from the planning and programming phase. Green architectural design should not be an add-on. It should be the way of doing the business of creating a built environment. NIBS suggests that the interrelationships of these design objectives must be understood, evaluated, and appropriately applied - accessibility; aesthetics; cost-effectiveness; functional or operational (the functional and physical requirements of a project); historic preservation; productivity (comfort and health of the occupants); security and safety; and sustainability. The Challenge Climate change will not destroy the Earth. The planet will go on for millions of years, long after human life has expired. Climate change, however, can destroy the species of life on Earth that cannot adapt fast enough to new conditions. The building trades have collectively recognized its role in contributing to the greenhouse gases put into the atmosphere. For example, the manufacturing of cement, the basic ingredient in concrete, is reportedly one of the largest global contributors to carbon dioxide emissions. From poor designs to construction materials, the industry is challenged to change its ways. Architect Edward Mazria has taken the lead to transform the building industry from a major polluter to an agent of change. He has suspended his own architectural practice to concentrate on the nonprofit organization he established in 2002. The goal set for Architecture 2030 is simply this: All new buildings, developments, and major renovations shall be carbon-neutral by 2030. One architect who has taken the challenge is Richard Hawkes and Hawkes Architecture in Kent, United Kingdom. Hawkes experimental home, Crossway Zero Carbon Home, is one of the first zero carbon houses built in the UK. The house uses a timbrel vault design and generates its own electricity through solar energy. Looking to a Sustainable Future Green design has many related names and concepts associated with it, besides sustainable development. Some people emphasize the ecology and have adopted names like eco-design, eco-friendly architecture, and even arcology. Eco-tourism is a 21st-century trend, even if eco house designs might appear to be a bit non-traditional. Others take their cue from the environmental movement, arguably begun by Rachel Carsons 1962 book Silent Spring- earth-friendly architecture, environmental architecture, natural architecture, and even organic architecture have aspects of green architecture. Biomimicry is a term used by architects who use nature as a guide to green design. For example, the Expo 2000 Venezuelan Pavilion has petal-like awnings that can be adjusted to control the internal environment- just as a flower may do. Mimetic architecture has long been an imitator of its surroundings. A building can look beautiful and even be constructed from very expensive materials, but not be green. Likewise, a building can be very green but visually unappealing. How do we get good architecture? How do we move toward what Roman architect Vitruvius suggested to be the three rules of architecture- to be well-built, useful by serving a purpose, and beautiful to look at? Sources Gissen, David (ed.) National Building Museum. Big and Green: Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002.How LEED Works. U.S. Green Building Council.Huseynov, Emir Fikret oglu. Planning of Sustainable Cities in View of Green Architecture. Procedia Engineering 21 (2011): 534–42. Print.Masood, Osama Ahmed Ibrahim, Mohamed Ibrahim Abd Al-Hady, and Ahmed Khamies Mohamed Ali. Applying the Principles of Green Architecture for Saving Energy in Buildings. Energy Procedia 115 (2017): 369–82. Print.Ragheb, Amany, Hisham El-Shimy, and Ghada Ragheb. Green Architecture: A Concept of Sustainability. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 216 (2016): 778–87. Print.Shaviv, Edna. Passive and Low Energy Architecture (Plea) Vs Green Architecture (Leed). 25th Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture. 2008. Design Objectives.  Whole Building Design Guide.Wines, James and Philip Jodidio. Green Architecture. Taschen, 2008.

A Dirty Job Chapter 2

After that, it was a memory out of a sleepwalk, scenes filmed from a zombie’s eye socket, as he ambled undead through explanations, accusations, preparations, and ceremony. â€Å"It’s called a cerebral thromboembolism,† the doctor had said. â€Å"A blood clot forms in the legs or pelvis during labor, then moves to the brain, cutting off the blood supply. It’s very rare, but it happens. There was nothing we could do. Even if the crash team had been able to revive her, she’d have had massive brain damage. There was no pain. She probably just felt sleepy and passed.† Charlie whispered to keep from screaming, â€Å"The man in mint green! He did something to her. He injected her with something. He was there and he knew that she was dying. I saw him when I brought her CD back.† They showed him the security tapes – the nurse, the doctor, the hospital’s administrators and lawyers – they all watched the black-and-white images of him leaving Rachel’s room, of the empty hallway, of his returning to her room. No tall black man dressed in mint green. They didn’t even find the CD. Sleep deprivation, they said. Hallucination brought on by exhaustion. Trauma. They gave him drugs to sleep, drugs for anxiety, drugs for depression, and they sent him home with his baby daughter. Charlie’s older sister, Jane, held baby Sophie as they spoke over Rachel and buried her on the second day. He didn’t remember picking out a casket or making arrangements. It was more of the somnambulant dream: his in-laws moving to and fro in black, like tottering specters, spouting the inadequate clichs of condolence: We’re so sorry. She was so young. What a tragedy. If there’s anything we can do†¦ Rachel’s father and mother held him, their heads pressed together in the apex of a tripod. The slate floor in the funeral-home foyer spotted with their tears. Every time Charlie felt the shoulders of the older man heave with a sob, he felt his own heart break again. Saul took Charlie’s face in his hands and said, â€Å"You can’t imagine, because I can’t imagine.† But Charlie could imagine, because he was a Beta Male, and imagination was his curse; and he could imagine because he had lost Rachel and now he had a daughter, that tiny stranger sleeping in his sister’s arms. He could imagine the man in mint green taking her. Charlie looked at the tear-spotted floor and said, â€Å"That’s why most funeral homes are carpeted. Someone could slip.† â€Å"Poor boy,† said Rachel’s mother. â€Å"We’ll sit shivah with you, of course.† Charlie made his way across the room to his sister, Jane, who wore a man’s double-breasted suit in charcoal pinstripe gabardine, that along with her severe eighties pop-star hairstyle and the infant in the pink blanket that she held, made her appear not so much androgynous as confused. Charlie thought the suit actually looked better on her than it did on him, but she should have asked him for permission to wear it nonetheless. â€Å"I can’t do this,† he said. He let himself fall forward until the receded peninsula of dark hair touched her gelled Flock of Seagulls platinum flip. It seemed like the best posture for sharing grief, this forehead lean, and it reminded him of standing drunkenly at a urinal and falling forward until his head hit the wall. Despair. â€Å"You’re doing fine,† Jane said. â€Å"Nobody’s good at this.† â€Å"What the fuck’s a shivah?† â€Å"I think it’s that Hindu god with all the arms.† â€Å"That can’t be right. The Goldsteins are going to sit on it with me.† â€Å"Didn’t Rachel teach you anything about being Jewish?† â€Å"I wasn’t paying attention. I thought we had time.† Jane adjusted baby Sophie into a half-back, one-armed carry and put her free hand on the back of Charlie’s neck. â€Å"You’ll be okay, kid.† Seven,† said Mrs. Goldstein. â€Å"Shivah means ‘seven.’ We used to sit for seven days, grieving for the dead, praying. That’s Orthodox, now most people just sit for three.† They sat shivah in Charlie and Rachel’s apartment that overlooked the cable-car line at the corner of Mason and Vallejo Streets. The building was a four-story brick Edwardian (architecturally, not quite the grand courtesan couture of the Victorians, but enough tarty trim and trash to toss off a sailor down a side street) built after the earthquake and fire of 1906 had leveled the whole area of what was now North Beach, Russian Hill, and Chinatown. Charlie and Jane had inherited the building, along with the thrift shop that occupied the ground floor, when their father died four years before. Charlie got the business, the large, double apartment they’d grown up in, and the upkeep on the old building, while Jane got half the rental income and one of the apartments on the top floor with a Bay Bridge view. At the instruction of Mrs. Goldstein, all the mirrors in the house were draped with black fabric and a large candle was placed on the coffee table in the center of the living room. They were supposed to sit on low benches or cushions, neither of which Charlie had in the house, so, for the first time since Rachel’s death, he went downstairs into the thrift shop looking for something they could use. The back stairs descended from a pantry behind the kitchen into the stockroom, where Charlie kept his office among boxes of merchandise waiting to be sorted, priced, and placed in the store. The shop was dark except for the light that filtered in the front window from the streetlights out on Mason Street. Charlie stood there at the foot of the stairs, his hand on the light switch, just staring. Amid the shelves of knickknacks and books, the piles of old radios, the racks of clothes, all of them dark, just lumpy shapes in the dark, he could see objects glowing a dull red, nearly pulsing, like beating hearts. A sweater in the racks, a porcelain figure of a frog in a curio case, out by the front window an old Coca-Cola tray, a pair of shoes – all glowing red. Charlie flipped the switch, fluorescent tubes fired to life across the ceiling, flickering at first, and the shop lit up. The red glow disappeared. â€Å"Okaaaaaaay,† he said to himself, calmly, like everything was just fine now. He flipped off the lights. Glowing red stuff. On the counter, close to where he stood, there was a brass business-card holder cast in the shape of a whooping crane, glowing dull red. He took a second to study it, just to make sure there wasn’t some red light source from outside refracting around the room and making him uneasy for no reason. He stepped into the dark shop, took a closer look, got an angle on the brass cranes. Nope, the brass was definitely pulsing red. He turned and ran back up the steps as fast as he could. He nearly ran over Jane, who stood in the kitchen, rocking Sophie gently in her arms, talking baby talk under her breath. â€Å"What?† Jane said. â€Å"I know you have some big cushions down in the shop somewhere.† â€Å"I can’t,† Charlie said. â€Å"I’m on drugs.† He backed against the refrigerator, like he was holding it hostage. â€Å"I’ll go get them. Here, hold the baby.† â€Å"I can’t, I’m on drugs. I’m hallucinating.† Jane cradled the baby in the crook of her right arm and put a free arm around her younger brother. â€Å"Charlie, you are on antidepressants and antianxiety drugs, not acid. Look around this apartment, there’s not a person here that’s not on something.† Charlie looked through the kitchen pass-through: women in black, most of them middle-aged or older, shaking their heads, men looking stoic, standing around the perimeter of the living room, each holding a stout tumbler of liquor and staring into space. â€Å"See, they’re all fucked up.† â€Å"What about Mom?† Charlie nodded to their mother, who stood out among the other gray-haired women in black because she was draped in silver Navaho jewelry and was so darkly tanned that she appeared to be melting into her old-fashioned when she took a sip. â€Å"Especially Mom,† Jane said. â€Å"I’ll go look for something to sit shivah on. I don’t know why you can’t just use the couches. Now take your daughter.† â€Å"I can’t. I can’t be trusted with her.† â€Å"Take her, bitch!† Jane barked in Charlie’s ear – sort of a whisper bark. It had long ago been determined who was the Alpha Male between them and it was not Charlie. She handed off the baby and cut to the stairs. â€Å"Jane,† Charlie called after her. â€Å"Look around before you turn on the lights. See if you see anything weird, okay?† â€Å"Right. Weird.† She left him standing there in the kitchen, studying his daughter, thinking that her head might be a little oblong, but despite that, she looked a little like Rachel. â€Å"Your mommy loved Aunt Jane,† he said. â€Å"They used to gang up on me in Risk – and Monopoly – and arguments – and cooking.† He slid down the fridge door, sat splayed-legged on the floor, and buried his face in Sophie’s blanket. In the dark, Jane barked her shin on a wooden box full of old telephones. â€Å"Well, this is just stupid,† she said to herself, and flipped on the lights. Nothing weird. Then, because Charlie was many things, but one of them was not crazy, she turned off the lights again, just to be sure that she hadn’t missed something. â€Å"Right. Weird.† There was nothing weird about the store except that she was standing there in the dark rubbing her shin. But then, right before she turned on the light again, she saw someone peering in the front window, making a cup around his eyes to see through the reflection of the streetlights. A homeless guy or drunken tourist, she thought. She moved through the dark shop, between columns of comic books stacked on the floor, to a spot behind a rack of jackets where she could get a clear view of the window, which was filled with cheap cameras, vases, belt buckles, and all manner of objects that Charlie had judged worthy of interest, but obviously not worthy of a smash-and-grab. The guy looked tall, and not homeless, nicely dressed, but all in a single light color, she thought it might be yellow, but it was hard to tell under the streetlights. Could be light green. â€Å"We’re closed,† Jane said, loud enough to be heard through the glass. The man outside peered around the shop, but couldn’t spot her. He stepped back from the window and she could see that he was, indeed, tall. Very tall. The streetlight caught the line of his cheek as he turned. He was also very thin and very black. â€Å"I was looking for the owner,† the tall man said. â€Å"I have something I need to show him.† â€Å"There’s been a death in the family,† Jane said. â€Å"We’ll be closed for the week. Can you come back in a week?† The tall man nodded, looking up and down the street as he did. He rocked on one foot like he was about to bolt, but kept stopping himself, like a sprinter straining against the starting blocks. Jane didn’t move. There were always people out on the street, and it wasn’t even late yet, but this guy was too anxious for the situation. â€Å"Look, if you need to get something appraised – â€Å" â€Å"No,† he cut her off. â€Å"No. Just tell him she’s, no – tell him to look for a package in the mail. I’m not sure when.† Jane smiled to herself. This guy had something – a brooch, a coin, a book – something that he thought was worth some money, maybe something he’d found in his grandmother’s closet. She’d seen it a dozen times. They acted like they’ve found the lost city of Eldorado – they’d come in with it tucked in their coats, or wrapped in a thousand layers of tissue paper and tape. (The more tape, generally, the more worthless the item would turn out to be – there was an equation there somewhere.) Nine times out of ten it was crap. She’d watched her father try to finesse their ego and gently lower the owners into disappointment, convince them that the sentimental value made it priceless, and that he, a lowly secondhand-store owner, couldn’t presume to put a value on it. Charlie, on the other hand, would just tell them that he didn’t know about brooches, or coins, or whatever they had and let someone else bear the b ad news. â€Å"Okay, I’ll tell him,† Jane said from her cover behind the coats. With that, the tall man was away, taking great praying-mantis strides up the street and out of view. Jane shrugged, went back and turned on the lights, then proceeded to search for cushions among the piles. It was a big store, taking up nearly the whole bottom floor of the building, and not particularly well organized, as each system that Charlie adopted seemed to collapse after a few weeks under its own weight, and the result was not so much a patchwork of organizational systems, but a garden of mismatched piles. Lily, the maroon-haired Goth girl who worked for Charlie three afternoons a week, said that the fact that they ever found anything at all was proof of the chaos theory at work, then she would walk away muttering and go out in the alley to smoke clove cigarettes and stare into the Abyss. (Although Charlie noted that the Abyss looked an awful lot like a Dumpster.) It took Jane ten minutes to navigate the aisles and find three cushions that looked wide enough and thick enough that they might work for sitting shivah, and when she returned to Charlie’s apartment she found her brother curled into the fetal position around baby Sophie, asleep on the kitchen floor. The other mourners had completely forgotten about him. â€Å"Hey, doofus.† She nudged his shoulder with her toe and he rolled onto his back, the baby still in his arms. â€Å"These okay?† â€Å"Did you see anything glowing?† Jane dropped the stack of cushions on the floor. â€Å"What?† â€Å"Glowing red. Did you see things in the shop glowing, like pulsating red?† â€Å"No. Did you?† â€Å"Kind of.† â€Å"Give ’em up.† â€Å"What?† â€Å"The drugs. Hand them over. They’re obviously much better than you led me to believe.† â€Å"But you said they were just antianxiety.† â€Å"Give up the drugs. I’ll watch the kid while you shivah.† â€Å"You can’t watch my daughter if you’re on drugs.† â€Å"Fine. Surrender the crumb snatcher and go sit.† Charlie handed the baby up to Jane. â€Å"You have to keep Mom out of the way, too.† â€Å"Oh no, not without drugs.† â€Å"They’re in the medicine cabinet in the master bath. Bottom shelf.† He was sitting on the floor now, rubbing his forehead as if to stretch the skin out over his pain. She kneed him in the shoulder. â€Å"Hey, kid, I’m sorry, you know that, right? Goes without saying, right?† â€Å"Yeah.† A weak smile. She held the baby up by her face, then looked down in adoration, Mother of Jesus style. â€Å"What do you think? I should get one of these, huh?† â€Å"You can borrow mine whenever you need to.† â€Å"Nah, I should get my own. I already feel bad about borrowing your wife.† â€Å"Jane!† â€Å"Kidding! Jeez. You’re such a wuss sometimes. Go sit shivah. Go. Go. Go.† Charlie gathered the cushions and went to the living room to grieve with his in-laws, nervous because the only prayer he knew was â€Å"Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,† and he wasn’t sure that was going to cut it for three full days. Jane forgot to mention the tall guy from the shop. A Dirty Job Chapter 2 After that, it was a memory out of a sleepwalk, scenes filmed from a zombie’s eye socket, as he ambled undead through explanations, accusations, preparations, and ceremony. â€Å"It’s called a cerebral thromboembolism,† the doctor had said. â€Å"A blood clot forms in the legs or pelvis during labor, then moves to the brain, cutting off the blood supply. It’s very rare, but it happens. There was nothing we could do. Even if the crash team had been able to revive her, she’d have had massive brain damage. There was no pain. She probably just felt sleepy and passed.† Charlie whispered to keep from screaming, â€Å"The man in mint green! He did something to her. He injected her with something. He was there and he knew that she was dying. I saw him when I brought her CD back.† They showed him the security tapes – the nurse, the doctor, the hospital’s administrators and lawyers – they all watched the black-and-white images of him leaving Rachel’s room, of the empty hallway, of his returning to her room. No tall black man dressed in mint green. They didn’t even find the CD. Sleep deprivation, they said. Hallucination brought on by exhaustion. Trauma. They gave him drugs to sleep, drugs for anxiety, drugs for depression, and they sent him home with his baby daughter. Charlie’s older sister, Jane, held baby Sophie as they spoke over Rachel and buried her on the second day. He didn’t remember picking out a casket or making arrangements. It was more of the somnambulant dream: his in-laws moving to and fro in black, like tottering specters, spouting the inadequate clichs of condolence: We’re so sorry. She was so young. What a tragedy. If there’s anything we can do†¦ Rachel’s father and mother held him, their heads pressed together in the apex of a tripod. The slate floor in the funeral-home foyer spotted with their tears. Every time Charlie felt the shoulders of the older man heave with a sob, he felt his own heart break again. Saul took Charlie’s face in his hands and said, â€Å"You can’t imagine, because I can’t imagine.† But Charlie could imagine, because he was a Beta Male, and imagination was his curse; and he could imagine because he had lost Rachel and now he had a daughter, that tiny stranger sleeping in his sister’s arms. He could imagine the man in mint green taking her. Charlie looked at the tear-spotted floor and said, â€Å"That’s why most funeral homes are carpeted. Someone could slip.† â€Å"Poor boy,† said Rachel’s mother. â€Å"We’ll sit shivah with you, of course.† Charlie made his way across the room to his sister, Jane, who wore a man’s double-breasted suit in charcoal pinstripe gabardine, that along with her severe eighties pop-star hairstyle and the infant in the pink blanket that she held, made her appear not so much androgynous as confused. Charlie thought the suit actually looked better on her than it did on him, but she should have asked him for permission to wear it nonetheless. â€Å"I can’t do this,† he said. He let himself fall forward until the receded peninsula of dark hair touched her gelled Flock of Seagulls platinum flip. It seemed like the best posture for sharing grief, this forehead lean, and it reminded him of standing drunkenly at a urinal and falling forward until his head hit the wall. Despair. â€Å"You’re doing fine,† Jane said. â€Å"Nobody’s good at this.† â€Å"What the fuck’s a shivah?† â€Å"I think it’s that Hindu god with all the arms.† â€Å"That can’t be right. The Goldsteins are going to sit on it with me.† â€Å"Didn’t Rachel teach you anything about being Jewish?† â€Å"I wasn’t paying attention. I thought we had time.† Jane adjusted baby Sophie into a half-back, one-armed carry and put her free hand on the back of Charlie’s neck. â€Å"You’ll be okay, kid.† Seven,† said Mrs. Goldstein. â€Å"Shivah means ‘seven.’ We used to sit for seven days, grieving for the dead, praying. That’s Orthodox, now most people just sit for three.† They sat shivah in Charlie and Rachel’s apartment that overlooked the cable-car line at the corner of Mason and Vallejo Streets. The building was a four-story brick Edwardian (architecturally, not quite the grand courtesan couture of the Victorians, but enough tarty trim and trash to toss off a sailor down a side street) built after the earthquake and fire of 1906 had leveled the whole area of what was now North Beach, Russian Hill, and Chinatown. Charlie and Jane had inherited the building, along with the thrift shop that occupied the ground floor, when their father died four years before. Charlie got the business, the large, double apartment they’d grown up in, and the upkeep on the old building, while Jane got half the rental income and one of the apartments on the top floor with a Bay Bridge view. At the instruction of Mrs. Goldstein, all the mirrors in the house were draped with black fabric and a large candle was placed on the coffee table in the center of the living room. They were supposed to sit on low benches or cushions, neither of which Charlie had in the house, so, for the first time since Rachel’s death, he went downstairs into the thrift shop looking for something they could use. The back stairs descended from a pantry behind the kitchen into the stockroom, where Charlie kept his office among boxes of merchandise waiting to be sorted, priced, and placed in the store. The shop was dark except for the light that filtered in the front window from the streetlights out on Mason Street. Charlie stood there at the foot of the stairs, his hand on the light switch, just staring. Amid the shelves of knickknacks and books, the piles of old radios, the racks of clothes, all of them dark, just lumpy shapes in the dark, he could see objects glowing a dull red, nearly pulsing, like beating hearts. A sweater in the racks, a porcelain figure of a frog in a curio case, out by the front window an old Coca-Cola tray, a pair of shoes – all glowing red. Charlie flipped the switch, fluorescent tubes fired to life across the ceiling, flickering at first, and the shop lit up. The red glow disappeared. â€Å"Okaaaaaaay,† he said to himself, calmly, like everything was just fine now. He flipped off the lights. Glowing red stuff. On the counter, close to where he stood, there was a brass business-card holder cast in the shape of a whooping crane, glowing dull red. He took a second to study it, just to make sure there wasn’t some red light source from outside refracting around the room and making him uneasy for no reason. He stepped into the dark shop, took a closer look, got an angle on the brass cranes. Nope, the brass was definitely pulsing red. He turned and ran back up the steps as fast as he could. He nearly ran over Jane, who stood in the kitchen, rocking Sophie gently in her arms, talking baby talk under her breath. â€Å"What?† Jane said. â€Å"I know you have some big cushions down in the shop somewhere.† â€Å"I can’t,† Charlie said. â€Å"I’m on drugs.† He backed against the refrigerator, like he was holding it hostage. â€Å"I’ll go get them. Here, hold the baby.† â€Å"I can’t, I’m on drugs. I’m hallucinating.† Jane cradled the baby in the crook of her right arm and put a free arm around her younger brother. â€Å"Charlie, you are on antidepressants and antianxiety drugs, not acid. Look around this apartment, there’s not a person here that’s not on something.† Charlie looked through the kitchen pass-through: women in black, most of them middle-aged or older, shaking their heads, men looking stoic, standing around the perimeter of the living room, each holding a stout tumbler of liquor and staring into space. â€Å"See, they’re all fucked up.† â€Å"What about Mom?† Charlie nodded to their mother, who stood out among the other gray-haired women in black because she was draped in silver Navaho jewelry and was so darkly tanned that she appeared to be melting into her old-fashioned when she took a sip. â€Å"Especially Mom,† Jane said. â€Å"I’ll go look for something to sit shivah on. I don’t know why you can’t just use the couches. Now take your daughter.† â€Å"I can’t. I can’t be trusted with her.† â€Å"Take her, bitch!† Jane barked in Charlie’s ear – sort of a whisper bark. It had long ago been determined who was the Alpha Male between them and it was not Charlie. She handed off the baby and cut to the stairs. â€Å"Jane,† Charlie called after her. â€Å"Look around before you turn on the lights. See if you see anything weird, okay?† â€Å"Right. Weird.† She left him standing there in the kitchen, studying his daughter, thinking that her head might be a little oblong, but despite that, she looked a little like Rachel. â€Å"Your mommy loved Aunt Jane,† he said. â€Å"They used to gang up on me in Risk – and Monopoly – and arguments – and cooking.† He slid down the fridge door, sat splayed-legged on the floor, and buried his face in Sophie’s blanket. In the dark, Jane barked her shin on a wooden box full of old telephones. â€Å"Well, this is just stupid,† she said to herself, and flipped on the lights. Nothing weird. Then, because Charlie was many things, but one of them was not crazy, she turned off the lights again, just to be sure that she hadn’t missed something. â€Å"Right. Weird.† There was nothing weird about the store except that she was standing there in the dark rubbing her shin. But then, right before she turned on the light again, she saw someone peering in the front window, making a cup around his eyes to see through the reflection of the streetlights. A homeless guy or drunken tourist, she thought. She moved through the dark shop, between columns of comic books stacked on the floor, to a spot behind a rack of jackets where she could get a clear view of the window, which was filled with cheap cameras, vases, belt buckles, and all manner of objects that Charlie had judged worthy of interest, but obviously not worthy of a smash-and-grab. The guy looked tall, and not homeless, nicely dressed, but all in a single light color, she thought it might be yellow, but it was hard to tell under the streetlights. Could be light green. â€Å"We’re closed,† Jane said, loud enough to be heard through the glass. The man outside peered around the shop, but couldn’t spot her. He stepped back from the window and she could see that he was, indeed, tall. Very tall. The streetlight caught the line of his cheek as he turned. He was also very thin and very black. â€Å"I was looking for the owner,† the tall man said. â€Å"I have something I need to show him.† â€Å"There’s been a death in the family,† Jane said. â€Å"We’ll be closed for the week. Can you come back in a week?† The tall man nodded, looking up and down the street as he did. He rocked on one foot like he was about to bolt, but kept stopping himself, like a sprinter straining against the starting blocks. Jane didn’t move. There were always people out on the street, and it wasn’t even late yet, but this guy was too anxious for the situation. â€Å"Look, if you need to get something appraised – â€Å" â€Å"No,† he cut her off. â€Å"No. Just tell him she’s, no – tell him to look for a package in the mail. I’m not sure when.† Jane smiled to herself. This guy had something – a brooch, a coin, a book – something that he thought was worth some money, maybe something he’d found in his grandmother’s closet. She’d seen it a dozen times. They acted like they’ve found the lost city of Eldorado – they’d come in with it tucked in their coats, or wrapped in a thousand layers of tissue paper and tape. (The more tape, generally, the more worthless the item would turn out to be – there was an equation there somewhere.) Nine times out of ten it was crap. She’d watched her father try to finesse their ego and gently lower the owners into disappointment, convince them that the sentimental value made it priceless, and that he, a lowly secondhand-store owner, couldn’t presume to put a value on it. Charlie, on the other hand, would just tell them that he didn’t know about brooches, or coins, or whatever they had and let someone else bear the b ad news. â€Å"Okay, I’ll tell him,† Jane said from her cover behind the coats. With that, the tall man was away, taking great praying-mantis strides up the street and out of view. Jane shrugged, went back and turned on the lights, then proceeded to search for cushions among the piles. It was a big store, taking up nearly the whole bottom floor of the building, and not particularly well organized, as each system that Charlie adopted seemed to collapse after a few weeks under its own weight, and the result was not so much a patchwork of organizational systems, but a garden of mismatched piles. Lily, the maroon-haired Goth girl who worked for Charlie three afternoons a week, said that the fact that they ever found anything at all was proof of the chaos theory at work, then she would walk away muttering and go out in the alley to smoke clove cigarettes and stare into the Abyss. (Although Charlie noted that the Abyss looked an awful lot like a Dumpster.) It took Jane ten minutes to navigate the aisles and find three cushions that looked wide enough and thick enough that they might work for sitting shivah, and when she returned to Charlie’s apartment she found her brother curled into the fetal position around baby Sophie, asleep on the kitchen floor. The other mourners had completely forgotten about him. â€Å"Hey, doofus.† She nudged his shoulder with her toe and he rolled onto his back, the baby still in his arms. â€Å"These okay?† â€Å"Did you see anything glowing?† Jane dropped the stack of cushions on the floor. â€Å"What?† â€Å"Glowing red. Did you see things in the shop glowing, like pulsating red?† â€Å"No. Did you?† â€Å"Kind of.† â€Å"Give ’em up.† â€Å"What?† â€Å"The drugs. Hand them over. They’re obviously much better than you led me to believe.† â€Å"But you said they were just antianxiety.† â€Å"Give up the drugs. I’ll watch the kid while you shivah.† â€Å"You can’t watch my daughter if you’re on drugs.† â€Å"Fine. Surrender the crumb snatcher and go sit.† Charlie handed the baby up to Jane. â€Å"You have to keep Mom out of the way, too.† â€Å"Oh no, not without drugs.† â€Å"They’re in the medicine cabinet in the master bath. Bottom shelf.† He was sitting on the floor now, rubbing his forehead as if to stretch the skin out over his pain. She kneed him in the shoulder. â€Å"Hey, kid, I’m sorry, you know that, right? Goes without saying, right?† â€Å"Yeah.† A weak smile. She held the baby up by her face, then looked down in adoration, Mother of Jesus style. â€Å"What do you think? I should get one of these, huh?† â€Å"You can borrow mine whenever you need to.† â€Å"Nah, I should get my own. I already feel bad about borrowing your wife.† â€Å"Jane!† â€Å"Kidding! Jeez. You’re such a wuss sometimes. Go sit shivah. Go. Go. Go.† Charlie gathered the cushions and went to the living room to grieve with his in-laws, nervous because the only prayer he knew was â€Å"Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,† and he wasn’t sure that was going to cut it for three full days. Jane forgot to mention the tall guy from the shop.