Saturday, August 31, 2019

Cultural Sensitivity in Counseling Native Americans

Three of the most popular techniques in use by the counseling profession were examined in relationship to Native American culture and worldview, in order to determine the reasons for their ineffectiveness among these people groups. The results indicate that a lack of understanding and sensitivity to Native American culture and belief systems by counselors may be the major contributing factors in the failure of these methods to produce lasting change. Three alternative methods were then investigated. Together, these examinations show that cultural sensitivity and an in-depth understanding of belief systems and practices are critical in helping Native Americans heal from historical traumas and affect real transformation within the Native American community. Cultural Sensitivity in Counseling: A Perspective on Native Americans Why is it that many Native Americans fail to benefit from counseling? Why is there such an enormous â€Å"burn-out† rate among counselors who work with this people group? These questions are becoming increasingly more important in the counseling profession. There have been many studies on competencies and practices in multicultural counseling. One such study although dealing primarily with career counseling (Vespia, Fitzpatrick, Fouad, Kantamneni, & Chen, 2010), reinforced the necessity for training in developing a counselor’s competency with diverse cultures. Another study which dealt specifically with psychotherapy (Lambert, Smart, Campbell, Hawkins, Harmon, & Slade, 2006), echoes this sentiment. However, the cause of ineffectiveness may not necessarily be the incompetence of counselors, but their tendency to use inappropriate methods which fail to consider the unique cultural heritage of Native Americans. These culturally-insensitive methods can sometimes compel clients to violate basic personal values. For example, Native Americans place great emphasis on a harmonious co-existence with nature. If a counselor advocates individual responsibility for mastering the environment, he is, in fact, asking his Native American client to disregard a part of his client’s cultural belief system. Take the case of Robert Red Elk (not his real name), a White Mountain Apache, hired at a manufacturing plant in Phoenix, Arizona. Robert’s supervisor witnessed many instances where Robert’s fellow employees asked to share his lunch or complete their work assignments. Robert never refused and willingly overworked himself (to the point of exhaustion) finishing the tasks of others. Eventually, after several absences from work, Robert was referred to counseling by his supervisor. The counselor, after an initial assessment, enrolled Robert in assertiveness training. The counselor, however, failed to understand one very important aspect of Robert Red Elk’s value system: Native Americans are not individualistic. Their culture places great value on sharing and service. There are over 500 federally recognized Indian tribes in the United States. Each tribe has its own beliefs, customs and traditions. Many Native Americans have left the reservation and know very little of their tribal culture, having assimilated into White society. There are, however, many common threads running through Native American culture and philosophy, which if misunderstood can open a breach between counselor and client that can be difficult to heal. For the purposes of this paper, we will be dealing primarily with Native Americans raised and residing within traditional Indian reservation communities. These individuals have retained much of their cultural identity, as opposed to those who have moved into the cities and have become westernized into the White culture. Nearly every tribe has wide-spread personal and social issues which are threatening lives and creating broken homes and broken people. Compared with other racial and ethnic groups, Native Americans have more serious problems with mental health disorders (Olson & Wahab, 2006, p. 19-33). For example, on the Pine Ridge Reservation of the Lakota Sioux, over 50% live below the poverty level. In 2007, the suicide rate there was 3. 2 times that of Whites, between 50% and 90% were unemployed, and the death rate due o alcoholism was 7 times the national average (Diller, 2007). Counselors employ many methods in an attempt to help Native American clients heal from brokenness. This investigation will examine three popular techniques: Free association, cognitive therapy, and behavior modification. In addition, we will discuss why these methods are failing with many Native American clients. First, however, there is a need to explore the average Native American value system. The Native American Value System Silence and Talking. Native Americans believe that listening is the best way to learn. They understand that there are many â€Å"voices† to hear, not merely from other people, but from the earth, the wind, the sky, and the animal kingdom. They listen not only with their physical ears, but with their whole being in an attitude of â€Å"watch, listen and then act† (Nerburn, 2002). They believe it unwise to speak before completely formulating one’s thoughts. They understand the power of words, and so they speak carefully, choosing words judiciously. In most non-native cultures, interaction with others must be filled with words and speaking that can sometimes become argumentative. Just the opposite is true in most Native American cultures. When asked a question, there will normally be a pause before answering, because any question worthy of an answer is worth considering. When they finally do speak, it is expected that the hearer will listen. Interrupting is considered rude and a sign of ignorance. This practice of silence has a tendency to disconcert someone who is unfamiliar with it, and historically, Caucasians have viewed it as a sign of stupidity. Freedom and Honor Native American cultures value honor far above freedom. Honor is the internal guide for nearly everything they do. The focus is more on what is right, rather than what is wrong. This is one reason why Native Americans have a difficult time understanding the concept of sin. In addition, honor is something that cannot be taken away. If one loses his freedom, he still retains his honor. These views of freedom and honor are very different from those held by western peoples. In the White world, honor means paying homage to or admiring an individual’s accomplishments. To the Native American, honor means knowing and doing what is right for oneself and for one’s community. It has no relation to laws or the desire to avoid punishment. Freedom only becomes important after one has been â€Å"chained up,† either literally or by the enactment of laws and restrictions (Nerburn, 2002). All My Relations and Racism According to the New Lakota Dictionary, â€Å"Mitakuye oyasin† translates to â€Å"all my relatives† in Lakota Sioux (Ullrich, 2008, p. 37). The concept of all my relations constitutes an understanding of and honor for the sacredness of each person's individual spiritual path. It acknowledges the sacredness of all life (human, animal, plant, etc. ) and creates an awareness that strengthens not only the individual, but the entire planet. It essentially means that everything is inter-related. In the living of daily life, a ll my relations â€Å"means learning how to connect with certain constructive or creative forces, and disconnect from destructive forces† (Portman & Garrett, 2006). It’s the understanding that whatever hurts one aspect of the world hurts everything else. Rolling Thunder, the late spiritual leader of the Cherokee and Shoshone tribes, said, â€Å"Too many people don't know that when they harm the earth they harm themselves, nor do they realize that when they harm themselves they harm the earth†¦We say there's room for everyone, if we all share as brothers and sisters† (â€Å"Plowboy Interview,† 1981). This belief in the brotherhood of the human race is one reason why Native Americans abhor racism. Another reason is their suffering because of it. From the 1490's to the 1890's, Europeans and white Americans engaged in an unbroken string of genocide campaigns against the Native people of the Americas† (BigFoot & Willmon-Hague, 2008, p. 54). A study on multi-faith perspectives in family therapy made note of the following historical treatment of Native Americans: â€Å"In government and missionary programs to educate an d acculturate Indians in Christianity and Western ways, children were forcibly taken from their families to boarding schools and stripped of their cultural and spiritual heritage† (Walsh, 2010, p. 3). Consequently, Native Americans view racism as evil and most avoid retaliation, because they believe it creates a loss of honor. However, many American Indians still retain an inherent mistrust of Whites (Bryant-Davis & Ocampo, 2006, p. 16). In a study on reservation violence, it was noted that traditionally one important factor regarding Native American philosophy was â€Å"humility to those with whom one does not share beliefs; and teaching nonviolent behaviors† (Hukill, 2006, p. 249). A reintegration with traditional beliefs and practices could help stem the violence on reservations. Concept of Time Native people are not enslaved by a clock or calendar. Their concept of time is related more to the seasons, nature, relationships, and life spans. Time is a cycle as, in the sacred hoop. Time is not measured in linear fashion, having a past, present and future. Living each day as it comes is linked to the belief that one should focus more on being than becoming. This concept of time can explain why Native Americans might be late for counseling appointments by the hour or by days. Adherence to a rigid schedule is not traditionally an Indian practice. Things are done as they need doing. Time is flexible and geared to the activity at hand. Some other examples of this concept of time are: * A right time and a right place, as opposed to making every minute count. * Today is a good day, as opposed to preparing for tomorrow. Other concepts that affect how Native Americans react to traditional counseling methods include striving for anonymity, discouraging aggressiveness (such as boasting and loud behavior), the value of inaction over action, and the use of tribal healing ceremonies. Understanding Native American healing practices requires helping professionals to have knowledge of the cultural belief systems that are unique for each tribal nation†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Portman & Garrett, 2006, p. 455). Culturally Insensitive Counseling Methods Counseling methods that fail to consider culturally-relevant issues are realizing few successes with native peoples. Three of the most prominent techniques fail to take into account the Native Americanâ €™s holistic belief system and attempt to merely change behavior by changing one’s thinking. Free Association. Free association is a spontaneous, logically unconstrained and undirected association of ideas, emotions and feelings in which words or images suggest other words or images in a non-logical chain reaction. The basic concept is for the client to sort things out, and assign reasons to their feelings, with the intention of changing unhealthy ideas and emotions into a more acceptable way of living. Native American clients typically shy away from participating in this type of activity, because they see it as senseless babbling that accomplishes little and makes a person appear to have lost their mind. They much prefer being silent and listening to talking and babbling themselves into a reasonable state of mind. In addition, they are very cautious about sharing personal and family problems, and have difficulty communicating their reactions to situations. Cognitive Therapy Cognitive therapy aims to identify and correct distorted thinking patterns that lead to feelings and behavior that are troublesome, self-defeating or self-destructive. The objective is to replace distorted thinking with a balanced view that leads to more fulfilling and productive behavior. Due to the epidemic of depression, alcoholism and suicide among Native Americans, this is an admirable objective for counselors to attempt to achieve. However, for a people, who are holistically-minded, cognitive therapy considers only one facet of the whole person, and ignores the connection humans have with nature and the world. This approach disavows the unity of the person, a central core belief in Native American culture. To separate the mind from the body and spirit, and with the rest of creation, is an illogical and foreign concept to them. In addition, most Native Americans are pragmatic and tend to see life in concrete terms rather than abstract ones. Therefore, â€Å"counselors may consider working from a holistic, wellness-based framework,† so that harmony and balance can be restored (Rayle, Chee, & Sand, 2006, p. 72). Behavior Modification This approach is a treatment approach based on operant conditioning that seeks to extinguish or inhibit abnormal or maladaptive behavior by positive or negative reinforcement. As with cognitive therapy, behavior modification focuses entirely on one facet of the whole person. Native Americans are very resistant to this approach, because they do not always focus on their thinking. Historically, they have been exposed to the inconsistency of people thinking one way and behaving another way. According to Native American culture, behavior reflects belief. Attempting to change behavior from the outside and failing to deal with internal issues is viewed as a waste of energy and considered unproductive. Typically, Native Americans respond better to holistic methods that involve the whole person: body, mind and spirit. Culturally insensitive approaches to counseling can actually introduce a sense of mistrust into relationships between native clients and non-native counselors derailing attempts to help them overcome the issues that defeat them. This is one reason why Native Americans â€Å"underutilize mainstream mental health resources† (Parrish, 2006, p. 15). Culturally Supportive Approaches to Counseling As understanding and knowledge of cultural beliefs and practices grows, holistic approaches to counseling are becoming more prevalent in clinics and practices in which the majority of clients are Native American. There are several methods which are showing great promise in helping these clients. Inner Healing Prayer Because Native American culture is infused with the spiritual and encompasses a holistic view of the body, soul and spirit, the concept of listening, which is the foundation of this method, lends itself to a more culturally-relevant way of approaching the mental and emotional issues found among indigenous peoples. Native cultures are already accustomed to listening because of their practice of being attentive to the sounds of nature and the practices of oral traditions passed down through the stories of tribal elders. They understand that listening is one of the best ways to learn. The inner healing prayer can offer Native Americans a way to re-establish harmony with their body, their emotions, and their spiritual selves (Rayle, Chee & Sand, 2006, p. 77), since it begins with addressing one’s emotional hurts. â€Å"It is counselor-led and client-consented prayer intervention with the specific intent of healing and breaking the chains of past traumas† (Clinton & Ohlschlager, 2002, p. 240). When woundedness goes unresolved, it affects the whole person creating disharmony within the body, soul and spirit. Native American culture already understands this concept. The typical scenario is to give the client permission to experience what they feel, and allow their inner emotions to express themselves in a controlled, safe environment. Encouraging them to remember those painful places and the trauma that occurred there helps bring emotions to the surface where they can be explored, felt, owned, and released from the captured place within the spirit. Once accomplished, the counselor can then ask the Lord Jesus [Great Mystery] to minister His love and grace, revealing truth in whatever manner He chooses. The counselor then remains silent, encouraging the client to verbally express whatever is transpiring within them and articulate whatever truth the Lord is revealing to them. The counselor’s role is to discern whether the client is receiving truth from the Lord (according to the revealed Word of God) or error manifested from within themselves, which would constitute feelings and/or thoughts that run contrary to scripture. Once it is determined that authentic truth has been received, the counselor then asks the client what is now different about that traumatic event when they reconsider it. At this point, an entirely different perspective is usually revealed by the client. It is important when using this method, as it is with any technique, to â€Å"weave Western counseling techniques with elements of the AI [American Indian] culture, beliefs, and philosophy† (Rayle, Chee & Sand, 2006, p. 73-74) [emphasis mine]. It is well to remember, however, that many Native Americans do not believe in the â€Å"white man’s God. It is important, therefore, to use terms for deity that are culturally relevant, such as Great Mystery, Great Spirit, etc. This approach has shown great potential in overcoming issues such as depression and addiction. Spiritual Talking Talking circles, storytelling and remembering/reflecting on life is very common in Native American culture. Many indigenous children receive th eir first life lessons sitting at the feet of their elders as grandmothers and grandfathers recount tribal stories that teach the traditions of the tribe (Rybak & Decker-Fitts, 2009, p. 337). Since native people relate more to â€Å"the now,† it is very therapeutic to recall and embrace the good things in one’s present situation. Talking aloud about pleasant experiences helps clients see the good in their present circumstances and allows their spirit to â€Å"be as one† with their body-mind uniting them with the world at large. This enables them to see the big picture and brings everything into a healthy perspective. The role of the counselor in this technique is to facilitate the talking and keep the client on track, while providing a safe environment for them. Another form that spiritual talking may take is in the use of humor. Native cultures inherently understand the old cliche: Laughter is the best medicine. Encouraging clients to share comical stories and experiences can provide insight into the client’s identity and self-image. However, counselors should exercise caution in using humor. It should only be introduced â€Å"when and if the client invites it, meaning that the client trusts the counselor enough to connect on that level† (Garrett, et al. , 2005, p. 202). The Holistic Medicine Wheel or Red Path One of the most effective healing techniques and one which incorporates extensively the Native American culture is the Medicine Wheel, sometimes called the Red Path or Red Road. The Medicine Wheel is a symbol of Native America in which four colors (white, black, yellow and red) are used to represent the four directions and the four races of people (Caucasian, African, Asian and Indian), respectively. This symbol also represents the harmony and balance of the mind, body and spirit with nature. The Medicine Wheel is regarded as sacred among Native Americans, since â€Å"medicine† is a spiritual entity within their culture. The Medicine Wheel is recognized by all tribes and is a common symbol of unity. It represents healing, not only for oneself, but for the entire native community. This technique, when employed in the counseling setting, includes not only the counselor and client, but also family and friends. It can also be a good tool for use in group counseling where all participants share in a common issue. The facilitator/counselor invites all present to form a circle. The concept of the four directions and their meanings is then discussed. A good representation is: * East represents the rising sun and the spirit or inner being of man (red). * South is connected to full daylight and represents a connection with nature (yellow). * North is the home of winter and represents the mind or thoughts (white). * West is where the sun sets and is connected with the body or physical being (black). (Molina, Monteiro-Leitner, Garrett & Gladding, 2005, p. 9). The counselor then explains the concept of circles within circles. Dallas Williard’s Model of the Person is an excellent starting pattern for this concept (Clinton & Ohlschlager, 2002, p. 190). Molina, et al. explain this technique well: An inner circle represents the connection to one’s Spirit and to the Greater Spirit; an outer circle represents the importance of relationships with family members; and a community circle represents the importance of relationships with the greater community. At this point, volunteers sit behind each person in the inner circle, forming an outer circle. Finally, the remaining participants form a third circle, which lends support to the inner and outer circles. Throughout the process, life stories emerge. Counselors identify client strengths and validate their experiences, and participants offer support to one another and create â€Å"happy† endings to their stories (p. 9). This method helps clients see â€Å"how they create and remove the masks of the self† (Molina, Monteiro-Leitner, Garrett & Gladding, 2005, p. 9). The removal of masks allows the client to be open with their true feelings and to see their issues from a different perspective. A doctoral dissertation by Mark Parrish (2008) offers another well-described view of the Circle Within Circles Approach: The elements of the circle within circles includes: (1) the spirit within us including the culmination of each individual’s experiences representing the power that comes from the very essence of one’s being; (2) the family and/or clan, the relational center of the community; (3) the natural environment and all of its relationships with living beings; and (4) the spirit world which includes the other elements as well as the Creator, ancestors and other spirit helpers and guides. In essence, all life is interdependent and exists in a dynamic state of harmony and balance which maintains a continuous flow and cycling of energy which each living being contributes to the Circle of Life (p. 16). The Medicine Wheel and the Circle Within Circles â€Å"serves as a reminder that all aspects of life are important and need to be balanced† (Rybak & Decker-Fitts, 2009, p. 336). Although most individuals will still require more intensive therapy, the Medicine Wheel is a good starting point to help clients remember that they are not an island, but are connected to other individuals and to the world as a whole. Personal Reflections Understanding Native American culture, and learning their views life has caused me to reconsider my own lifestyle and my Caucasian worldview. As westerners, we are an inherently individualistic society, whereas Native Americans are more collective. The mindset and complex belief systems of indigenous people are more similar to God’s original plan for mankind than that which White society has developed. Jesus prayed to the Father for unity: that His followers would â€Å"be one, as we are. (John 17:11b, KJV). Native American culture appears to mirror His prayer more than that of Caucasians. Native Americans are more in tune with their spiritual natures than we, and were the original holistic healers. They understand the concept of man’s triune nature as set forth in 1 Thessalonians 5:23: â€Å"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Ch rist† [emphasis mine]. This concept has been a vital part of their culture for hundreds of years, whereas we are just now (within the past decade) becoming more sensitive to a holistic approach in counseling and medicine. It is very interesting that as one learns the culture and values of Native Americans, one begins to see that there are many aspects that reflect basic biblical principles. Western counseling methods, which have been imposed upon the Native Americans for many years, are very foreign to a people who already understand an important truth of God’s Word. It makes much better sense to first understand their culture and beliefs and then adapt our methods and techniques accordingly, in order to be more effective facilitators in the healing process. Not only will these historically-wounded people be set free with true inner healing, but at the same time many may come into a full knowledge of and a relationship with the true Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus healed the blind man of his physical ailments before healing him of his spiritual malady. Therefore, if we connect with Native Americans through their ways of life, love them in Christ, and keep the Holy Spirit as the center of our ministry to them, many of these forgotten people can enjoy a fullness of life that only comes through the healing power of Christ. As a Christian counselor, I will be committed to providing the Native American people with a biblically-sound, culturally-relevant approach to helping them heal the issues from which they suffer, both historically and personally. As I become more knowledgeable in their beliefs, traditions and worldview, I can foresee a time when what I am learning now will blend with that insight to produce techniques which will enable me to be a more effective counselor to the people to whom God has called me to minister. Conclusion To be effective counselors within the Native American community, it is not enough that we increase our knowledge of psychology and our skills in counseling. We need to immerse ourselves in the cultural issues pertinent to each individual client and the community which has shaped them. This comes by understanding belief systems and cultural contexts, and determining what methods can and cannot work based upon these parameters. Native American culture is centered on certain holistic viewpoints: the wholeness of the individual (body, mind and spirit), the individual’s interconnectedness with creation, and the relationship all people have with one another. Counseling such a people involves understanding and respecting values, beliefs and traditions, and tailoring our methods and techniques around restoring harmony and balance in ways which do not demand or manipulate Native Americans into ceasing to be Native American. One very good exercise for assisting in the development of counselor competency in this area is cultural auditing, which is a â€Å"systematic and practical reflective method designed to address critical elements of the multicultural competency development process† (Collins, Arthur & Wong-Wylie, 2010, p. 340-346). The 13 steps of this process lead counselors through the first to last counseling sessions by helping them reflect on key issues of culture that can help them develop competent strategies and monitor their practices â€Å"to ensure that the goals and processes of counseling are consistent with clients’ perspectives and needs† (Collins, Arthur & Wong-Wylie, 2010, p. 341). In order for greater effectiveness to be realized in counseling Native Americans (and indeed people of all cultures), mental health professionals and researchers must understand that all methods do not work with all people. Milton Erickson, one of psychotherapy’s most respected figures, who was of Native American descent, understood this very well (Thomason, 2009, p. 351). A 40-year study of multicultural counseling, completed in 2008 by Michael D’Andrea and Elizabeth Foster Heckman, discovered many inconsistencies and out-dated methods being utilized with clients of diverse cultures, and called for researchers to â€Å"expand their outcome studies to examine the impact of other types of helping services among culturally different populations† (D’Andrea & Heckman, 2008, p. 62). Their final statement summarizes beautifully what is needed for effective, long-term resolution for Native Americans: We suggest that the multicultural counseling movement is a movement of faith and hope: faith in counselors’ ability to generate new understanding of mental health from a multicultural perspective and hope that future counseling and research endeavors will be implemented to more e ffectively promote human dignity and development through people’s collective diversity (D’Andrea & Heckman, 2008, p. 362). The increase of diverse of cultures within the United States makes it imperative (a) â€Å"that therapists have the skills to work with a variety of clients from a multitude of social backgrounds (Murphy, Park & Lonsdale, 2006, p. 310); and (b) â€Å"for the counseling profession to take a proactive stance on cultural diversity† (Phiri-Alleman & Allman, 2010, p. 157). Culturally competent counseling has been addressed by the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics (ACA) and the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP). Both of these groups stress the importance of social and cultural diversity in training programs for counselors, and emphasize the need for culturally-relevant treatment planning, especially when working with Native Americans (Parrish, 2008, p. 17). The competency of multicultural counselors can best be developed by encouraging them to become knowledgeable in the beliefs, traditions and worldview of various cultures and utilize that knowledge to tailor their counseling techniques in ways that will boost the effectiveness of their practice.

Friday, August 30, 2019

Greek Contributions to Modern Western Civilization Essay

Ancient Greek culture has influenced modern western civilization from their discoveries and traditions during their Golden Age. Their philosophies, politics and values have helped shape our every day life. Some of the most prominently displayed leaders of all time lived in Greece during the time. Their math, art science politics, architecture, drama, medicine, philosophy and values have inspired today’s everyday way of life. If it weren’t for their constant strides towards a better tomorrow, civilization today might be less advanced. A lot of their academic achievement math and science has trickled down from the generations and into western civilization today. Euclid, a mathematician, is now viewed as the most prominent mathematician of all time. He wrote a book called â€Å"The Elements† and put all of his discoveries and theories into it. A lot of the math and science that we use today was influenced by his theories and discoveries. A man named Hippocrates also solely influenced today’s medical practices. His discoveries in medicine made a long lasting imprint on today’s doctors and practices. He was an extremely trustworthy doctor. He made an oath stating that he would never give bad medicine and always strive to cure a patient, not just get paid. Today when becoming a doctor, you must take the Hippocratic oath, which was the oath that Hippocrates created. Whenever you go to see a performance now, whether you know it or not, Greek influence is involved. Greek drama and auditoriums are big influences. The three types of theaters that the Greeks had were Proscenium (like in today’s Gershwin Theater), Thrust (like in many of the concert halls seen today) and Arena (like today’s sports arenas). The architecture of these stages and of a lot of other structures are direct influences of the Greek civilization. Playwrights such as Socrates, Aeschylus and Euripides wrote plays that entertained people in Greece and all around the world still today. Playwrights wrote tragedies in which there is a main character with either a  special ability or tragic flaw. As the story progresses, the tragic flaw ruins the character (just like in today’s drama). One of the most tragic of plays are the stories of Oedipus, the King. In this, the main character’s tragic flaw is unknown even to him. It is his tragic past and how it influenced his present day life. Tragedies such as Oedipus the King have contributed to the making of today’s theater. Greece’s system of democracy was a new ideal for the time. Today, countries around the world use it. During the time of the first democracy, philosophers started to teach their thoughts and voice their opinions. This is because it was a time of turmoil. Corrupt leaders were leading Greece and people did not have much faith in democracy. At this time, philosophers gave the people things to ponder and believe in. The greatest three Greek philosophers were Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Even today, people live by some of the teachings of these philosophers and they are widely studied. Overall, many of today’s traditions, beliefs and values have been passed down from Greek civilizations. Their discoveries, traditions and strides toward perfection inspired later generations to act as they did. The individuals that invented and discovered new aspects of life and their surroundings gave way to brand new lifestyles that are used today.

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Ateneo Entrance Exam Essay

Hazel Grace Lancaster (The Fault in Our Stars by John Green) This little line from one of my favorite books helped me start my journey of self-discovery. Before, I really did consider myself as someone very inexorability. To the world, I'm Just an average girl that nobody will ever notice. Maybe never will be noticed in an extraordinary way, but I'm determined to make my mark. But flirt things first, I had to discover myself and define who I really am. My first moment of self-discovery began, actually, when first developed my love for books.And that moment happened way, way back when I was still a young child. Nothing made me happier than going to National, Power Books or Fully Booked to go see what new storybook, magazine or novel was available. To this day going book shopping, an activity most people my age would find as agonizingly boring, is an opportunity to expand my knowledge and vocabulary. The only thing I need to improve on right now Is, admittedly, my book choices. My Dad constantly reminds me to move onto more young adult publications and cut back on the children's novels. Books are my flirt great love.Through them, I can go on fantastic adventures that become almost real in my imagination. I also relate to the characters In terms of their personalities and the things they do In the story. From the protagonist, antagonist and all the other characters in between, I can find someone or even something I can relate to in a book. My current favorite books are The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, where I have learned a great many deal of new words such as hamster, thyroidal, prototypical, narcissistic, bacchanalia and so many other terms that were once too sophisticated or me to understand until I looked them up In the dictionary.The Fault In our stars is a heartwarming and yet also heartbreaking love story of two young cancer-stricken teenagers who find their own little infinity together within their limited number of days. I'd tell you more but I would n't want to spoil the entire novel. Second in my favorites list would have to be The Book Thief by Markus Sake. Here, I saw World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust through a young girl like myself, who was unable to read and write until she was given to a foster family in Germany. Lies Impinge then later befriends Max Vandenberg, a Jewish man who hides in her family basement to escape the Nazis.Again, I will not spoil this great work and you will have to read it yourself. This book really strikes me as something that can really make us all question our humanity. As almost all of us know, the Holocaust in World War II was the most horrifying genocide in the entire world. Millions of men, women and children all executed Just because of their religion. If you ask me, Doll Hitler must have been both insane and blind. Did he not know that in World War l, approximately 96,000 Jewish soldiers fought for Germany? It pains me to think that Hitler did not remember that.The Book Thief is most definitely one of those war novels that will have you questioning mankind's humanity. As for a favorite book series, I would have to say that the How to Train Your Dragon series by British author Caressed Jewell. I admit, it's a children's books series but I really enjoy reading the 1 OFF imagination. In fact, this beloved series has been turned into two films and a TV show. But I'll tell you all about it later. Indeed, through reading books of all kinds I eave discovered things about myself I didn't even know were there. I discovered that I have a talent for writing and storytelling.And I have grown to love these two hobbies, which I hope that I can turn into a Job by becoming a writer or a Journalist when I grow up. Aside from reading, I have also experienced being in academic contests in my school where I have begun to define myself as an intellectual. One of those contests is the Essay Writing Contest the school has every year. I never really win any prizes for my composit ions but it's always so much fun to compete. Through essay writing contests, my writing ability is steadily honed and constantly improved with every essay I write.So part of my Journey of self-discovery has been accomplished through the means of books and writing. The other part is, honestly, what Vive been recently obsessing about. â€Å"Everything we know about you guys†¦ Is wrong! † – Hiccup Horrendous Haddock Ill (How to Train Your Dragon Movie) That line from an animated movie by Trademarks Animation has always been embedded in my memory. The first part of this essay focused on my love for books and how reading and writing eave helped me discover who I am in terms of what I can do in this world. This part will now focus on who I truly am as a person.How to Train Your Dragon is a 2010 animated film directed by Dean Edibles and Chris Sanders under Trademarks Animation. Its story revolves around a young Viking teenager named Hiccup (Yeah, I know. The name is pre tty unusual. ) who lives in the fictional dragon fighting island of Beer. In Beer, fighting dragons is as necessary as breathing air to live. However, Hiccup is the runt of the village and is physically unable to fight dragons and cannot vive up to his father's expectations. Incidentally, his father, Stoics the Vast, is the tribe chief.But when Hiccup creates an invention that shoots down an ultra rare dragon species known as the Night Fury and attempts to slay it, the young Viking then finds himself unable to do so. This then leads to him freeing it and establishing a forbidden friendship with the dragon, whom he names Toothless. In Hiccup world, befriending a dragon is the highest act of treason. And yet in the end, Hiccup and Toothless' amazingly strong bond enables them to change the relationship between he dragons and Vikings of Beer. Yes, it is an animated movie. But it is not strictly for kids only.I had a real moment of self-discovery and self-definition when I watched this at my best friend's recommendation. And I was immediately awestruck by the movie on so many levels. The detail on the animation was superb, the lighting was perfect, the music score was Just phenomenally beautiful. But what really touched my heart was the story. I really relate to Hiccup. He is left-handed, physically not in the best of shape, intelligent and extremely different from the rest of his peers. L, myself, am also left- ended, physically weak, mentally strong and†¦ Different.I often look at my friends and other people and I can't help but sometimes feel that I'm Just too different. I don't like all the things everyone else likes and sometimes I don't even understand current trends and stick to the things I know. Like Hiccup, I am different. And also like Hiccup, I have embraced my difference. Thanks to this film (and its TV series and sequel) I have figured out who I am as a person. Everyone discovers a new trend and they all zone. And when someone tries to change me , I steadfastly refuse to do so. I am an individual. And I am proud of it.I'm different from everyone else and that's okay. Truth be told, we're all different. We're Just scared to show the world our individualistic. That's why I try hard to stay true to myself and make sure nobody and nothing turns me into something I am not. But I also remind myself to keep an open mind and broaden my horizons. When I experience new things, it helps me discover more interesting characteristics that help define myself as a person. And that's exactly what Hiccup does. He accepts his individuality and tries to do things nobody has ever tried before.Throughout the film, TV series and sequel, Hiccup stayed true to himself and didn't allow anyone to change him. If you must know, I have recently watched How to Train Your Dragon 2 and had another great moment of realization. In the second film, Hiccup is now a young adult and is currently trying to find himself. This is exactly what I'm doing right now, e ven as I write this. I apologize if this essay may seem haphazardly constructed. I must admit, my writing style does tend to confuse some people. But that's essentially how I have defined myself as a person, through books, writing and argons.And to tell you the truth, self-discovery and defining yourself as a person never stops. As the years go by, you will have more experiences, more moments that help you realize that there's more to you than meets the eye. For me, I'm still pretty young so I still have a long way to go until I can complete my personal definition. In case some of you may not fully know me yet, allow me to tell you once again who I am. I am an individual with a love for writing, making stories, reading books, obsessed with dragons. And basically, I am different. And I am proud to be different.

Study 4 - GuideStar Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Study 4 - GuideStar - Coursework Example Its mission statement was cited as: â€Å"provides scholarships to exceptional Asian and Pacific Islander Americans (APIAs) with financial need. Our vision is that all APIAs who wish to pursue higher education have that opportunity, regardless of their ethnicity, national origin or financial means† (GuideStar, 2012, p. 1). The site would be useful to individuals, organizations and foundations in terms of the provision of accurate information needed to learn more on the organization. As indicated, the official website of the APIASF is http://www.apiasf.org/#1 which could be easily accessed. The information for the fundraising process could be accessed from the organization’s ‘Support Us’ link where there are options to donate through online or by mail. Likewise, donation at work could also be done by federal and state employees, as well as those from the private sector. Concurrently, corporations and foundations were noted for possibilities to be donors through â€Å"general operating support, direct program support and in-kind contributions of products or services† (APIASF, 2009). As such, the provisions of this information make fundraising process easy with the options given and the ways by which organizations and foundations could participate. The discussion of ethical standards and principles from this organization was contained in their alliance with FedEx, to wit: â€Å"Consistently ranked among the worlds most admired and trusted employers, FedEx inspires its more than 290,000 team members to remain "absolutely, positively" focused on safety, the highest ethical and professional standards and the needs of their customers and communities† (APIASF, 2011). In terms of disclosure of financial highlights, APIASF have included options in their official website to view the Annual Reports in pdf form. As of current time, the 2010 and 2009 annual reports are accessible. Total revenues of

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Speech Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Speech - Essay Example This is a very significant reason for which expats are crowding in Kuwait. Oil is the main source of the country’s GDP. Almost 50% of the total GDP is contributed by oil. Oil accounts for more than 90% of total revenue of the economy. Therefore expats are expected to find jobs in the oil sector. The present political situation in Kuwait can be called as a constitutional monarchy which can cause a threat for the expats. The purpose of the speech is to show the listeners that the present situation in Kuwait for the expats is not good as it was previously. The majority of the foreign workers are generally attracted by the huge potential of the oil industry in Kuwait. Apart from the oil industry other different sectors like sales, marketing, and jewelry industry is also booming and attracting many expats from different parts of the world. Different local companies and multinational companies are recruiting expats. In spite of being an attractive destination for finding jobs, recent trends are saying that numbers of expatriates are decreasing in the country. Kuwaiti Government has taken a serious initiative for reducing numbers of expats from the country. Young citizens of Kuwait are getting very good educations and increasing education qualities are positioning local people in to top level management of different organizations. Government of Kuwait has taken the initiative in a very strict manner. Current situations of expats in the country are like a horror movie. Deputy Director of General Public authority has issued a notice giving direction to the labor department that to issue of work permits for expats have to be done very selectively. In the current situation different employers are warned very seriously not to recruit marginal workers from foreign countries. It is often being noticed that different organizations in the country recruit expats for the sake of supplying them to other employers. Government of Kuwait is imposing strict ban on

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Modern Leadership Principles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Modern Leadership Principles - Essay Example These goals indeed lead the organization to the successful heights that it had every dreamt of achieving. In the process of accomplishing these tasks, there are many obstacles that need to be addressed. The environment, under which the organization puts forth its work, plays a critical role. These goals can be achieved by executing the tasks. For successful execution of these tasks, we need to have a guideline and organizations prefer to have these goals assigned as tasks to specific personnel. These personnel are the one's responsible to lead the team/group of people in successful completion of their duties. There are various definitions to describe the characteristic features of leadership. John Maxwell sums up his definition of leadership as "leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less. This moves beyond the position defining the leader, to looking at the ability of the leader to influence others - both those who would consider themselves followers, and those outside that circle. Indirectly, it also builds in leadership character, since without maintaining integrity and trustworthiness, the capability to influence will disappear (Teal.org, nd). An organization always looks forward to have experienced personnel as well as the personnel who exhibit leadership skills to take up important tasks to benefit the entire organization. Leadership quality is the most sort after characteristic that the organizations seek in the personnel. Leadership requires the personnel to guide the entire team/group to attain the goals. As an individual has their own point of view regarding the critical issues, it is very important to gain a certain level of understanding amongst various individuals. There might be various situations where in certain amount of conflicts arise due to individual point of view. Importance of leadership Leadership is a characteristic that has engulfed all the organizations in recent times. As there is a transfer of cultures, technology update and many more challenges coming up there are a huge number of tasks that need to be accomplished every moment at the right time. To accomplish these tasks at the right time, there has to be proper management as there are numerous tasks to be accomplished. These management issues are always achieved by a certain motive. This particular characteristic of the motive is known as Leadership (Justin Sturek, 2005). A quality that helps in executing the tasks and then achieving the assigned goals can be defined as Leadership. Leadership is a characteristic of knowing oneself, the capabilities and the potential of working things out when required to attain a particular state of action. It is about having a vision about the goals to be accomplished. The vision of accomplishing the tasks at a particular level of success is very essential to guide the team members in the right direction. Leadership also involves the primary feature of building trust among the colleagues. All these have to be attained by taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential. The quality of leadership in organizations can be defined in a different manner. It is usually defined as the characteristic

Monday, August 26, 2019

Justice System Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Justice System - Essay Example In other words treating victims with the dignity they deserve while letting them continue to enjoy their fundamental human rights. The same applies to victims who are very vulnerable to vindication and are constantly in the risk of being treated harshly and with rejection due to the damages their crimes inflict on victims and to the society at large. There is a need for a balance between offenders' rights and victims' rights. The justice system has in some cases been accused of leaning too much on the side of the victims therefore denying the victim the right to be treated as not guilty until proven guilty before a fair and public trial in a court of law. Any justice system must be structured to meet the needs of both offenders and victims (Fowles, T 2006 P. 72). A right is a duty or responsibility entitled to an individual (Roberts, 2006 P. 115). Rights of victims enable them to get necessary support from the justice system. Usually the justice system is comprised of agencies such as the police, courts, probation officers, lawyers, prosecutors, and the government ministry concerned. Rights can be defined as responsibilities or duties of an offender or a victim (Fowles, 2006. P.57). It can be argued that victim's and offender's rights are related but in an inverse manner. According to (Samuel Walker 1980. P. 36,) the following are some of the theories put forward in relation to criminal justice and victim's/offender's rights. Restorative justice theory. Proponents of restorative theory argue that a victim can be restored to his/her former condition. It therefore suggests that the fact that victims have undergone crime experience does not mean that they will forever remain haunted by their experiences. This theory advocates for a justice system whereby victims can undergo restoration and therefore help them cope with the effects of the crime. It advocates for punishment of offenders though it opposes imprisonment. Restitution and community services are the commonest types of penalties advocated for by restorative theorists. It is aimed at re-socialising offenders. In view of striking a balance between offender's rights and victim's rights, restorative justice can be of much help for it seeks to up hold both the victim's and offender's rights while benefiting the society but there are those opposed to it terming it as too lenient. Retributive justice theory. Popularly known as the 'eye for an eye' method, it assumes that a victim has a right to 'hit back'. This justice system calls for punishments such as capital punishment, and in some parts of the world, amputation. In view of human rights advocates, a retributive justice system is considered unfair to the offender in that it does not accord a second chance for reforming. It can also cause emotional trauma to victims or their heirs and family especially in cases where they feel guilty and feel they caused the death of the offender. Transformative justice theory. A justice system founded on this theory will try to discourage animosity between the victim or the heirs and the

Sunday, August 25, 2019

About drinking Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

About drinking - Article Example The habit of drinking influences the way youth thinks about different aspects of life. Drinking also influences the youth’s perception of norms and values and the concept of good and bad. Excessive drinking becomes a habit of young adults when there is no one to stop them. Excessive drinking makes such adults cross the boundaries of ethics and moral. Drinking also creates a number of risks for the health of people. â€Å"Too much alcohol can lead to serious problems† (Zelman, 2005). Some of the widely observed risks are related to think abilities, liver’s functions, and hormonal changes. Drinking adversely affects the decision-making abilities of a young adult. Excessive drinking makes adults forget their moral and ethics. â€Å"Alcohol can activate a gene that has been linked to depression and other mental issues† (James, 2008). Excessive drinking not only create problems for the drinkers but also for the people whom they live with. Youth tends to be influenced easily by doing or watching any such thing, which inspires them. There are a number of causes of the rise of drinking habit in youth. Some of the major causes include influence caused by parents who are also habitual drinkers, escapism, problems in love life, and appreciation of the peers. â€Å"One of the common reasons why teenagers drink is because they have watched their parents rely on the bottle† (Lad, n.d.). When children grow up watching their parents drink, they also go for it because the behavior of parents puts a considerable effect on the minds of the children. â€Å"One of the causes of teenage drinking is that it soon becomes an addiction without youngsters realizing the negative effects† (Lad, n.d.). Many young people drink in order to escape from the hardships of life, such as, poor performance in school and college, problems in love life, and getting out of depression. Social influence is another major factor behind increase in the use of alcoholic

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Health information research project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Health information research project - Essay Example The policy is that this information needs to be conveyed to the patient before the physician releases the medical information to the authorities maintaining the computer databases. This is because the patient’s informed permission needs to be obtained for treatment (Wilson 2009). For obtaining this, the patient has the right to get the complete information about where their records are being stored. Further, they have the right to know the persons and organizations that have access to their computerized medical databases (O’Caroll et al ed 2003). 3. The AMA’s policy is that the procedures for eradicating the computerized database of inaccurate data need to be established (www.ama-assn.org).This information of purging of inaccurate data needs to be notified to the patient before the purging of data and after the completion of purging. This policy has been adopted to give the patient a chance to get a printed copy of the computerized information before it is lost completely .Further they have the right to know that their records have been eradicated forever from the computer. 4. The AMA’S policy on confidentiality of computers is that the computerized database should be online to the computer terminal only when authorized computer programs that require the computerized data are being used (www.ama-assn.org). External individuals and organizations should not be provided online access to this data. Security measures like password protection, encoding of information etc are required to control unauthorized access to the medical data according to AMA’s policy. This is to prevent the unauthorized access by any external agent to a patient’s confidential medical data. The legal basis for this is the right of privacy derived from constitution (Wilson, 2009). 5. According to AMA’s policy, when a computer service bureau erases medical data, the bureau needs to verify in writing to the

Friday, August 23, 2019

Business, its's context and stakeholders Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Business, its's context and stakeholders - Essay Example The overall growth of continental tourism was double the global average. As foreign tourists enjoyed the increasing number of African states, locals began exploring the beauty of neighboring nations. This booming industry is sure to lead to further economic growth in the region even if the increasing level of consumption of resources and the pressure it puts on the natural environment appear as obstacles. The good news is that these obstacles can be dealt with. Furthermore, the expansion of the African tourism industry makes way for greater understanding between the peoples of the world. The African tourism sector is a large scale enterprise involving an enormous number of stakeholders. In the year 2005, the sector provided 3,877,200 jobs directly and an incredible total of 10,647,000 jobs indirectly. The total travel and tourist revenues expected to be generated in 2005 were $73.6 billion of Gross Domestic Product. In particular, Kenya and Mozambique have seen the most rapid growth in tourist activity in recent years. In 2004 the number of visitors to Kenya increased by twenty six percent and the Kenyan government declared in 2005 that the country has earned more from tourism at this time than ever before. In Mozambique – very popular among South African tourists – tourist activity rose by an impressive thirty seven percent. In North Africa, Egypt experienced a six percent increase, Morocco a five percent increase, and Tunisia an eight percent increase. Things did not go as well for the tourism industry between the years 2002 and 2003. Revenues were massively reduced by terrorism and the wars on terror that began in the year 2001. The tourist hotspots of East Africa, namely Kenya and Tanzania, suffered a number of bomb attacks also. All the same, the African tourism industry is on the rebound. The secretary-general of UN’s World Tourism Organization

Thursday, August 22, 2019

The force you exert Essay Example for Free

The force you exert Essay The target of this investigation is to find out how the force you exert on pulling back a rubber band, which will in turn catapult an empty margarine tub, affect the distance which the margarine tub will travel. We will not be changing any of the other factors of the experiment, only the force and extension of the rubber band, for that is the variable which we are investigating. Prediction I predict that the more force you exert, the further the margarine tub will travel, however, I think that the force and distance relationship will not increase evenly, instead it would first increase rapidly, then the increase will be less significant, and then rise slightly. Scientific reason for prediction Rubber is not a material which obeys Hookes law and its extension doesnt increase uniformly. Some elastic materials are intended to absorb energy. The greater the force that is applied, more the rubber band is extended. The force in the rubber band is stored as potential energy which is reverted into kinetic energy once I have let go of it, this energy is transferred into the margarine tub as kinetic energy and therefore it moves. A stretched or compressed elastic band is capable of doing work when released. As the rubber band is released, the force that it exerts diminishes with distance. Equipment   Rubber band   Chair/stool   Rulers   An empty margarine tub   A newton meter that goes up to 10N Procedure   Loop the rubber band around the front legs of a chair. Place a margarine tub at the centre of it.   Place 2 metre rulers in a row from the position of the margarine tub. Hook a newton metre on to the centre of the rubber band and pull it back in accordance with the required force.   Release newton metre.   Measure and record the distance travelled by the tub.   Repeat for the other forces. Diagram Fig. 1 Front view of apparatus. Fig. 2 Side view of apparatus Fair test We made sure that it was a fair test by the following conditions: All tests were carried out on the same surface to minimise variations in friction, etc. All tests were carried out with the same rubber band; elasticity, energy storage potential, etc, may be different in various rubber bands.   Use the same margarine tub for all tests or the mass, size and shape may vary.   Always place the tub in the same position at the start of each experiment.   Make sure that the newton meter is always hooked at the centre of the rubber band to avoid directional change of the tub after catapulting.   Always newton meter around the same amount of rubber, eg, if the rubber band is looped around the stool, hook it around both lengths: 2 Table to show increase in distances From the average points, the graph shows a generally straight line of increase. As the force exerted increases, so does the distance which the margarine tub travels. On average, the increase from each previous (i. e. one less newton) experiment is 18. 77cm although there is a rather large difference in the range between experiments. The range of the largest increase and the smallest is 21. 4cm; the smallest increase being 7N to 8N, which was only 7cm and the largest was from 5N to 6N; which was 28. 4cm. However, ignoring any anomalies, you can see that the increase in differences between distances are normally larger in the second half of the experiments with the larger forces, than the in the first half with the smaller forces. One thing I noticed was the relationship between the distance travelled and the force exerted, there seemed to be a strong pattern forming; the distance of a certain force multiplied by 3 is more or less equal to the distanced travelled by the margarine tub at a force that is twice the size of the primary force. See Table 3. Force (N) Distance (cm) 1.Table. 3 The results show a strong relationship between each other, when the force doubles, the distance trebles. I also noticed that the relationship worked very well for the first few values but not so fittingly for the later half (larger forces). This fits well with the Force/Extension law of rubber; if the pattern had occurs throughout the results then it would mean the relationship between force and extension could be plotted as a straight line, but that is not the case. It was especially apparent with the largest results we had gained for each experiment; the line of best fit was a curved line. It does not fit my prediction because I had predicted that the increase of distance would get bigger for the larger forces, but then again, our range of forces wasnt exactly that large either. Rubber is a polymeric substance and does not obey Hookes law, force and extension of rubber is not a straight line and therefore the force that it exerts on the margarine tub does not increase evenly; force diminishes with distance and it remains elastic until it breaks. The energy stored as a material is deformed is represented by the area between the curve and extension axis. See Graph 2. Graph. 2 Graph showing the amount of energy stored in proportion to extension. Energy is never used up and in this case, it is transferred into the margarine tub, which in turn uses this energy to drive its movement. In the law about the conservation of momentum, the resultant force is based on the initial forces of the two bodies, so my results suggest that the more force I exert on pulling back the rubber band, the faster it recoils and therefore increasing its momentum, which in turn gives transfers it onto the stationary margarine tub. My predictions Evaluation I think that my results are reliable because I had repeated each experiment three times and had gotten more or less similar results and it is probably accurate seeing as it fits into a pattern and the results show up as a relatively straight line. Also, we did not move the rulers during the experiment nor the newton meter. There were anomalous results however, possibly caused by collision with dirt on the floor or an off centre impact with the tub; which may result in a change of direction or a different path of projection being taken. If I was to do this experiment again, I would change the following things:   The surface on which we were working; we were working in a rather crowded environment and the floor was not clean so there was lots of friction and this could have affected the results.   The release mechanism; I think that the way we released the rubber band could have been improved, rather than letting the whole newton meter go, we could just have a detachable part for the device could have dragged across the floor and lengthened time of impact. I would mark out the centre of the tub so that I got it exactly centre each time rather than just estimating. I would mark out the centre of the rubber bad so that I got it exactly centre each time rather than just estimating. In addition to this set of experiments, I would also like to measure the speed of the retraction of the elastic band and the extension of it so that I can incorporate it into some of the other rules of physics and see if it fits with my analysis. If I had those results I could introduce momentum into the analysis as well. I could also test out some larger forces to see if the pattern mentioned in Graph 1 actually applies in this case. The results I had attained did not quite show that pattern but it could have just been a small section of a bigger whole. To measure the speed of the retraction, I would measure the distance of the extension and time the lapse between release of the rubber band and the impact with the tub and divide the distance by the time. See Fig. 4. Fig. 4 Measuring extension.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Sects Cults and Catholic Church Essay Example for Free

Sects Cults and Catholic Church Essay The Seventh Day Adventists A sect is a religious group with controversial beliefs, they are groups that break away from a main group/religion and form their own set of beliefs, which differ from the teachings of their parent group. Sects also reject the authority of their parent group. The Seventh Day Adventists is an example of a group that broke away from their parent religions of Millerite Movement and Christianity, to become a sect. New York was the home of the 1840s Millerite movement; Millerites were followers of he teachings of William Miller who prophesied the second coming of Jesus Christ to Earth on the 22nd October 1844. When Jesus did not appear on this day the Millerites dissolved, however from the ashes of one movement came the next as the Seventh Day Adventists arose from the disbanded Millerites. The Seventh Day Adventist Church was officially founded in 1863 and the four founding fgures were Joseph Bates, James White, Ellen G. White and J. N. Andrews. The Church quickly became popular and began to spread worldwide, reaching the shores of New Zealand in the 1880s only shortly after its official establishment back in the States. Today the Seventh Day Adventist Church boasts over 16 million members globally and is the twelfth largest religious body in the world.

Juvenile Delinquency Theories Case Study

Juvenile Delinquency Theories Case Study For many years now the real causes of juvenile delinquency have attracted the attention of many people. What causes juvenile delinquency is a major aspect of sociological and criminological studies. By understanding what really causes the delinquency, the community will reduce the continuity of the act by implementing prevention strategies. There are several criminological theories that are used to define and assist in understanding the causes of the offending act. Some of the juvenile delinquency contributors that has attracted the attention of many researchers are family environment, peer influence, parenting styles, community structure and school environment. There are several juvenile crimes that have occurred in the U.S. for example the juvenile crime perpetrated by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold that left the residence of Littleton town, Colorado terrified and the murder committed by Menendez brothers against their parents just to mention but a few. The paper will focus on the juvenile crime committed by the Menendez brothers as the case under study. First, an overview of the case shall be considered before turning into delinquency/criminological theories to explain what might have led the two to kill their parents in relation to juvenile delinquency. Much attention shall be focused on the strength and weaknesses of the chosen theory. Finally, an alternative theory that could be used to analyze the case will be reviewed. Overview of the Menendez brothers’ juvenile crime Erik Menendez conspired with his brother Joseph Menendez to kill their parents. Erik shot Kitty and Jose Lyle Menendez using a 12-gauge shotgun. First the first trail fail to convict the two brothers, the jury in the retrial found them guilty on the two accounts: the first-degree murder and the conspiracy to carry out murder. But what could have led the two brothers to kill their parents? Both Erik and Lyle were brought up in Princeton, New Jersey where they attended Princeton Day School. Lyle went further to attend Princeton University. In 1987 when their family relocated to California Erik enrolled at the Calabasas High School while Lyle was under disciplinary probation because of poor grades. Lyle later dropped out of school after he was faced with plagiarism allegations. This clearly shows that he was under some form of stress. Jose and Kitty were murdered on 20th August 1989 in their home. Their neighbors said that they heard firecrackers sound on the fateful night. Jose was shot in the head while Kitty was shot while trying to escape after being awakened by the gun shoots beyond recognition. To make the crime appear as a mob related one, both of them were shot around the kneecap. The two brothers then left and later dumped the shotgun along the way before heading to a movie theater. Upon returning home at around 11 pm in the night Lyle called 911 claiming that somebody had killed their parents. Although, the police considered them as suspects, there was no evidence linking them to the crime. This was until the wife of a therapist that the two boys used to visit unearthed a recording that had incriminating evidence. The brothers had opened up to the therapist by telling him that they were experiencing suicidal tendencies due to their guilty conscience and the thoughts of having killed their own parents. Analysis In order to understand the reason(s) behind such a cold-blooded murder, we need to consider the available facts. Erik told the jury that they decided to kill their parents because they thought that their parents were going to kill them. Erik said that his father had been sexually molesting him since he was a child and had insisted on him staying home a few days of the week despite Erik having being enrolled to a college. Lyle, the elder brother, had also been molested but his father had stopped when he was eight years old. Lyle was threatening to expose their father if he did not stop molesting Erik. This confrontation made the two boys think that their parents were plotting to kill them. One of the many theories that can be used to explain this scenario is the deterrence theory. It puts forward the idea that juveniles commit crime because they choose to. Their actions are based on calculated risks and benefits. In the Menendez case, the two brothers did not kill their parents accidentally. They had the whole murder planned as evidenced by prior purchase of the shotguns. They also knew their parents room well enough to aim for a head shot despite the fact that only the TV was on. However, the real question is why did they choose to kill their parents instead of reporting to the police or any other relevant authority? There are several answers that can answer that question. They had fear. They feared their parents especially their father who had dominated and controlled their lives since childhood. Their father was also very strict when it came to tennis and Erik hated being under constant pressure to play better. He feared failing his father by performing poorly in the tennis court. Lyle, on the other hand, feared that if he did not do something to stop his father from molesting his younger brother, the sexual abuse would continue well into their adulthood and would impact negatively on Erik in school as it had done to him. Additionally, he also feared what people would say when such news was revealed to the public. Their family name would be tainted. It was these fears combined that led them to make a choice- a choice to kill their parents. This was the only method that would act as a solution for each of the brother’s fears. This is because it would eliminate their abusive and strict father without the public ever knowing the real reason behin d the brutal elimination. The decision to arrive at this choice may also have been greatly influenced by the fact that the brothers held the belief that their parents were going to kill them. It was only fair to kill the parents before they killed them. However, from the prosecution’s point of view, the brothers did not murder their parents so as to end years of sexual molestation and strict parenting. The court claimed that their sole motive for the murder was the large and attractive inheritance left behind by the parents. Their family owned a $14 million estate. This accusation was based on the fact that barely six months after the murder, Erik bought himself a Rolex, a Jeep, a house and some clothes which were far too expensive given his age of 22. In his defense, Erik said that he had feelings of regret and remorse whenever he spent their parents’ money knowing that he was the one who had committed the murder. According to the brothers, the benefit of getting rid of their molesting parents was greater than the risk of a lifelong prison sentence. This reinforces the deterrence theory which suggests that when the benefits of committing a crime outweigh the risks, juvenile delinquency increases. It is not possible to analyze the entire case by using only one theory. Another possible theory that could explain the juvenile behavior exhibited by the brothers is Sheldon’s somatype theory. This theory explains that our individual body shapes and structures can contribute greatly to our criminal tendencies. He suggests that mesomorphs, or muscular, strong and firm people are more aggressive and assertive when it comes to reacting to situations in life. Their bodies allow them to commit crimes much easier than their larger counterparts, the endomorphs. This theory is useful in this case study since Erik was a fairly good tennis player. That means that his body bore athletic features making him a mesomorph. His physical appearance may have contributed in the murder in that he considered himself fit to handle a shotgun and he was ready to fight back should there be any resistance from the parents. Another theory that might help shed some light on this murder is Lombroso’s atavism theory which suggests that some children are born with criminal traits inherited from their parents. Erik’s father exhibited criminal tendencies with his sexual abuse. It is only fair to assume that Erik and Lyle got their delinquent behavior from their father. References Juvenile Delinquency Theories. Retrieved from http://juvenilejustice190.blogspot.com/2012/10/oncea-criminal-always-criminal-this-is.html Menendez Brothers on Trial: Erik Testifies He Feared Parents. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/law/12/10/court.archive.menendez5/index.html?_s=PM:US Menendez brothers trial hinges on tape: Two rich young men who shot their parents have gained supporters as their bizarre story unfolded. Now the two juries must decide, reports Phil Reeves. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/menendez-brothers-trial-hinges-on-tape-two-rich-young-men-who-shot-their-parents-have-gained-supporters-as-their-bizarre-story-unfolded-now-the-two-juries-must-decide-reports-phil-reeves-1505930.html

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Explication of Ogichidag by Jim Northrup Essay -- Explication Essays P

Ogichidag I was born in war, WW Two. Listened as the old men told stories of getting gassed in the trenches, WW One. Saw my uncles come back from Guadalcanal, North Africa and the battle of the Bulge. Memorized war stories my cousins told of Korea. Felt the fear in their voices. Finally it was my turn, my brothers too. Joined the marines in the time for the Cuban Missile Crisis Heard the crack of rifles in the rice paddies south of Da Nang. Watched my friends die there then tasted the bitterness of the only war America ever lost My son is now a warrior. Will I listen to his war stories or cry to his open grave. This is the poem that Jim Northrup wrote about war. I am going to Explicate the poem and examine the message that he is trying to express and th...

Monday, August 19, 2019

Shakespeares Macbeth - The Character Flaw :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Character Flaw of Macbeth Everyone who is mortal has at least one flaw. Some flaws are more serious than others. For example, some people have addictions to gambling, while other people can not remember to put milk away after they use it. After a while though, a person's flaws come back to haunt them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The tragedy MacBeth is no exception to this rule. In it, many of the characters die. The reason is that they have a flaw that eventually leads to their downfall. Not every character is deserving of his fate though. Some characters have a minor flaw that should not lead to their death. Others, however, have a major flaw that eventually leads to their death.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   MacBeth kills the first Thane of Cawdor for trying to lead a revolution against England. His fatal flaw was that he was, according to Ross, "a disloyal traitor". The thane of Cawdor was greedy and wanted the throne of England for himself. As a result, he was murdered. His murder was not really disheartening, though, because the Thane of Cawdor deserved his fate. He was leading a battle in which many lost their lives for the sake of greed, and deserved to die because of his flaw. Duncan was the King of England, and was murdered by MacBeth. He was murdered because in order for MacBeth to fulfill his plan and become king, Duncan would have to die. Duncan's fatal flaw was that he was too trusting. For example, he thought that none of his friends could really be enemies. If Duncan was more careful about his safety at MacBeth's castle, he may have had a chance to survive. However, Duncan's flaw was not something so horrible that he should die beca use of it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Most people need to trust each other more, and just because one person did, he should not have to die for it. MacBeth's former best friend, Banquo, was also killed by MacBeth. Banquo was killed because he knew too much about the murder of Duncan. That was not his fatal flaw, though. Banquo's fatal flaw was that, although he knew that MacBeth killed Duncan, he really did not do anything about it.   Banquo had many opportunities to tell someone such as MacDuff

Sunday, August 18, 2019

Depleted Uranium Ethics Of the Silver Bullet :: Argumentative Persuasive Weapon Papers

Depleted Uranium Ethics Of the Silver Bullet I. INTRODUCTION/ABSTRACT: â€Å"All the soldiers there were wearing NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical warfare) protective clothing. We said: ‘What’s going on here?’ And their answer was: ‘Didn’t you know? This ammunition is a bit dodgy.’† – Tim Pubrick, Gulf War veteran, British Royal Army tank commander.6 Depleted uranium (DU) ammunition is a very recent advancement in military weapons use. Due to its effectiveness against piercing armor, DU ammunition has recently become a popular item among NATO armies and will most likely become a mainstream form of conventional ammunition among many other armies of the world. However, massive amounts of circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that the use of DU ammunition has known to cause dramatic side effects, such as health problems, stillborn babies, toxic and poisonous land, water supplies, and residential territories. Hence an important question arises, is it ethical to use DU ammunition on the battlefield? II. WHAT IS DEPLETED URANIUM (DU)? Before we can analyze the ethical use of DU ammunition, it is important to first establish the technology behind DU and DU weapons. Uranium is one of the heaviest elements found in nature and is emits alpha, beta, and gamma particles. It is 1.7 times denser than lead.12 The half-life of U238 (DU is 99% U238) is 4.5 billion years!13 Uranium byproducts(such as Thorium (Th232)) have even longer half-lives, making uranium an element that gets more radioactive during its own decay process.5 Natural uranium is 99.274% U238, 0.720% U235, and 0.0055% U234.14a Uranium is enriched when its contents of U235 reaches 3.2-3.6% (since U235 is fissible). Weapon-grade uranium is +90% U235.14a What is depleted uranium? We start out with natural uranium and extract enriched uranium for nuclear fuel and weaponry. The leftover from the extraction process is something very similar to natural uranium, known as â€Å"depleted uranium†. The only difference is that DU has 0.202% of U235 and 0.0008% of U234.14a How much DU do we currently have? As of June 1998, we have around 57,800 huge steel cylinders of DU or 496,000 metric tons. 14b Storage of DU is very complicated and problematic since corrosion of DU storage cylinders often occurs over relatively short periods of time.15 III. MODERN APPLICATIONS OF DU: The applications of DU are quite extensive. DU is very low cost and is readily available. DU can be used as a commercial aircraft counterweight. A Boeing 747 needs 1,500 kg of DU.

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Reflection Summary Essay

Collaborate with your Learning Team to discuss the previous week’s objectives. Discuss what you learned, what could be applicable to your workplace or personal life, and how your knowledge has increased as a result of what you experienced through the learning activities in the previous week. Submit your team summary of the discussion in a 1-2 page Microsoft  ® Word document. General Questions – General General Questions Management Theory and Practice All Weeks, Assignments, Discussion Questions + Final Exam Refrain from plagiarizing as the consequences can be extreme. During your college life, you will likely write a lot of papers. Be certain you do not plagiarize the work of others. Your professors are pros at recognizing plagiarized work, so be sure to write your papers on your own. This file MGT 230 Week 3 Reflection Summary contains review of works during the last 3 weeks Collaborate with your Learning Team to discuss the previous week’s objectives. Discuss what you learned, what could be applicable to your workplace or personal life, and how your knowledge has increased as a result of what you experienced through the learning activities in the previous week. Submit your team summary of the discussion in a 1-2 page Microsoft  ® Word  document. General Questions – General General Questions Management Theory and Practice All Weeks, Assignments, Discussion Questions + Final Exam Refrain from plagiarizing as the consequences can be extreme. During your college life, you will likely write a lot of papers. Be certain you do not plagiarize the work of others. Your professors are pros at recognizing plagiarized work, so be sure to write your papers on your o†¦ To download this material Click this link – https://bitly.com/1oJNhBq Refrain from plagiarizing as the consequences can be extreme. During your college life, you will likely write a lot of papers. Be certain you do not plagiarize the work of others. Your professors are pros at recognizing plagiarized work, so be sure to write your papers on your own. General Questions – General General Questions Management Theory and Practice All Weeks, Assignments, Discussion Questions + Final Exam

Friday, August 16, 2019

Mission readiness

Proper gear accountability can range from the most important pieces of gear such as my rifle all the way to my Several. The units and individual soldier to whom this gear Is Issued are held accountable for maintaining them. Losing a piece of gear could have repercussions ranging from payment for lost property to legal action. Losing or not keeping up with your gear and equipment results to you not being mission ready.That is the last thing you want to happen to you or your unit. Especially, when you are a part of something important as GRAFF. The purpose of the GRAFF is to have units who are able to quickly deploy and execute decisive-action operations in support of combat operations and in some cases provide humanitarian assistance. If my unit was miraculously called up to deploy anywhere I would've been the one to hold the whole operation up. Most likely I would stay behind and have someone who has their tuff together take my spot.I have to stay in that mindset that we can be anywh ere at a moment notice. That was bad on my part that I let myself get so careless when it come to my equipment. Before I went home that day I should've checked for all of my PIP because that's exactly what I would do down range. I have to start getting Into the battle rhythm now of checking my equipment every time I take It out Into the field, range, or for something simply as a detail.

Animals of Wonderland

TITLE: | The Animals of Wonderland: Tenniel as Carroll's Reader| SOURCE: | Criticism 45 no4 383-415 Fall 2003| The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://wsupress. wayne. edu/ ROSE LOVELL-SMITH WHEN JOHN TENNIEL was providing 42 illustrations for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1864 he was in his mid-forties, an established illustrator and a Punch cartoonist.At that time C. L. Dodgson and Lewis Carroll were equally unknown as authors, for adults or children. Tenniel, on the other hand, already had a professional understanding of the visual codes and illustrative techniques of his day, and already had an audience–an adult rather than a child audience–who would expect from him a certain level of technical proficiency, humor, and social nous.Tenniel's illustrations should therefore interest us today not just for their remarkable and continuing success as a felicitous adjunct to Carroll's text, but also as the first–arguably, the best–Victorian reading or interpretation of Carroll's text. After all, as a reader Tenniel enjoyed considerable advantages, including his personal position and experience, his access to the author's own illustrations to the manuscript version of the story, and access to the author himself.In his study of illustration in children's literature, Words about Pictures, Perry Nodelman has argued that â€Å"the pictures in a sequence act as schemata for each other†Ã¢â‚¬â€œthat is, all the expectations, understanding, and information we bring to reading an illustrated book, and all the information we accumulate as our reading proceeds, â€Å"becomes a schema for each new page of words and each new picture as we continue throughout a book. (FN1) If this is so, all Tenniel's choices relating to subject matter, size, position, and style of i llustration must come to operate, as we proceed through Alice in Wonderland, as a kind of guide to reading Carroll's text. An examination of Tenniel's opening sequence of illustrations as they appeared on the page in the 1866 edition of Alice in Wonderland(FN2) will therefore begin to reveal Tenniel's preoccupations, the kind of interpretation of Carroll's text he is nterested in making. As William Empson pointed out in 1935, two aspects of Alice are traditional in children's stories: the idea of characters of unusual size (miniatures and giants) and the idea of the talking beast. (FN3) Tenniel's opening drawing, the White Rabbit at the head of chapter 1, draws on both these traditions. The rabbit occupies a point between animal and human, simultaneously both these things and neither of them, an implication hardly made so firmly by Carroll's text.The rabbitness of the rabbit is emphasized by the meadow setting, the absence of trousers, and the careful attention paid to anatomy and p roportion. But the rabbit is slightly distorted towards the human by his upright posture, his clothing and accessories, his pose, and his human eye and hand. Less obviously, Tenniel also extends Carroll's text by offering information about the size of the rabbit. From the grass and dandelion clock (a visual joke) in the background the reader grasps the rabbit as rather larger than normal bunny size: about the size of a toddler or small child, perhaps.As this illustration was invented by Tenniel (Carroll's headpiece illustration shows Alice, her sister, and the book), the contrast is clear between Carroll, whose picture draws attention to the frame of the story, to the affectionate relationship of sisters, and thereby to Alice's membership of the human family, and Tenniel, who selects a traditional story idea that shifts the focus another way, toward a mediation between different kinds familiar from those many forms of art in which animal behavior is used to represent human behavior. In further illustrations, Tenniel offers more images suggestive of unusual relative size. The second picture, page 8, shows Alice too large to go through the little door. On page 10 she holds the bottle labeled â€Å"DRINK ME† which will shrink her; on page 15 she is growing taller, with the text elongated to match. Then comes page 18, where the frame and larger size suggest that here is an important picture. In it the human/animal rabbit and the idea of Alice's unusual size occur together.Alice looks gigantic in relation to the hallway, and the White Rabbit, normal size for the hallway (it appears) but perhaps (in that case) outsize for a rabbit, is much reduced from the importance he assumed in the first illustration and is shown fleeing from her terrifying figure. The pool of tears illustration on page 26 also relates to these themes. Here a fully clad human, Alice, is depicted much the same size as the unclothed mouse with which she swims.Note, too, that in the text, Alic e frightens the mouse away as she had previously frightened the rabbit, although this time it is by talking about her pet, her cat Dinah. The reader who ponders this opening sequence of illustrations might reflect that Alice would also be frightened of Dinah if she met her while still mouse-sized. The schemata, then, direct the reader towards a cluster of ideas in which animal fears and anxieties about survival are connected with images of lesser or greater relative size. FN4) Tenniel appears to have arrived at this interpretation independently: while he does frequently follow Carroll's designs closely in the subject and overall approach to an illustration (Michael Hancher provides some useful opportunities to make comparisons),(FN5) of the pictures just discussed only the one of Alice growing taller at the head of chapter 2 very much resembles a parallel drawing in Carroll's manuscript.Moreover, when Tenniel does follow Carroll in choice of subject he usually makes significant chan ges in treatment: Tenniel's Alice, for instance, having slipped into the pool of tears, is very much more alarmed than Carroll's Alice. (FN6) Edward Hodnett, who reviewed Tenniel's work for the Alice books picture by picture, makes rather slighting remarks about several of the designs in this opening sequence: those on pages 8 and 10 are â€Å"too matter-of-fact to be necessary,† the â€Å"elongated Alice stands merely looking round-eyed,† and the second vignette of Alice swimming with the mouse â€Å"makes the first superfluous. (FN7) Hodnett seems to me to have missed the point. These designs are in my view extremely consistent in seeking and developing a particular nexus of ideas. Despite the evident connection between many Tenniel illustrations and Carroll's own illustrations, then, this is clearly Tenniel's own interpretation. But if this is so, what is to be made of it?My thesis in this paper is that through his animal drawings, Tenniel offers a visual angle on the text of Alice in Wonderland that evokes the life sciences, natural history, and Darwinian ideas about evolution, ideas closely related by Tenniel to Alice's size changes, and to how these affect the animals she meets. (FN8) As I will show, this is partly a matter of Tenniel's â€Å"drawing out† an underlying field of reference in Carroll's text. I will also argue, however, that when Tenniel's approach to his animal subjects is compared to that in earlier and contemporary illustrated natural istory books, the viewer is conscious of resemblances which indicate that Tenniel's pictures are best situated and read in that context. The effect of the initial sequence described above, for instance, is that as chapter 3 unfolds Alice's encounters with various different creatures, the illustrations begin to re-create Alice itself as a kind of zany natural history for children. Our post-Freudian view of Alice in Wonderland tends to be of a private, heavily encoded, inward exploration or adventure.But Tenniel's reading, I would argue, offers us an outward-looking text, a public adventure, a jocular reflection on the natural history craze, on reading about natural history, and on Darwin's controversial new theory of natural selection. I will return to Tenniel as reader later, but in order to establish that this interpretation is no mere add-on but a genuine response to the text, I must first deal with science, natural history, and evolutionary ideas as themes that Carroll himself originates.Interest in contemporary ideas about the animal kingdom is signaled early on in Alice in Wonderland, in chapter 2, when Alice finds that the well-known children's recitation piece â€Å"How doth the little busy bee† has been mysteriously ousted from her mind by new verses that celebrate a predator, the crocodile. Carroll's parody of Isaac Watts's pious poem for children(FN9) thereby establishes his book's reference to a newer, more scientific view of nature–appro aching a controversially Darwinist view.It does this by mocking and displacing the worldview often called natural theology. According to natural theology, a set of convictions much touted in children's reading, God's existence can be deduced from the wondrous design of his creation. The universe is benign and meaningful, a book of signs (like the industrious bee) of God's benevolent and educative intentions just waiting to be read by humans. Carroll's crocodile, all tooth and claw, signifies other things: amorality, the struggle for existence, predation of the weaker by the stronger.Readers of Alice in Wonderland are also likely to notice that the animal characters do not behave or talk much like animals in traditional fairy tales or fables. They are neither helpers nor donors nor monsters nor prophetic truth-tellers, the main narrative functions of animals in traditional fairy tales,(FN10) but nor are they the exemplary figures illustrative of human fallibilities and moralities fam iliar from fables. They do not teach lessons about kindness to animals, as animals in children's stories often did, and they do not much resemble the creatures in nursery rhymes or jingles or Edward Lear's nonsensical poems either.Instead, they talk, chopping logic, competing with Alice and each other, and often mentioning things â€Å"natural† animals might be imagined to talk about, like fear, death, and being eaten. I think Denis Crutch is also roughly right when he points out that there is in Alice a hierarchy of animals equivalent to the Victorian class system but also suggesting a competitive model of nature: the white rabbit, caterpillar, and March Hare seem to be gentlemen, frog and fish are footmen, Bill the lizard is bullied by everybody, hedgehogs and flamingos are made use of, and the dormouse and the guinea pigs are victimized by larger animals and by humans. FN11) William Empson's 1935 essay notes how Carroll's ideas and manuscript illustrations associate evolut ionary theories with Alice in Wonderland. (FN12) This is a crucial point and, I believe, the best explanation for the presence of so many animals in Wonderland. It was after all Carroll who put a dodo, best known for being extinct, into the text,(FN13) and Carroll who first included an ape, that key symbol of evolutionary debate, in his drawing of the motley crowd of beasts in the pool of tears.But Carroll's evolutionary reference is much more extensive than Empson found it, for a Darwinist view of life as competitive struggle is also promoted by Alice, who–apparently unconsciously, as if she really cannot help it–repeatedly reminds us that in life one must either eat or be eaten. Alice will keep talking about Dinah to the little creatures she meets who are the natural victims of cats (26-27), she has to admit to the pigeon that she herself has eaten eggs (73), and in the Mock Turtle scene she has to check herself rather than reveal that she has eaten lobster and whiti ng (148, 152).The Mock Turtle, of course, is a very creature of the table, while Dinah the predator, the aboveground cat, has a place maintained for her in Wonderland by the Cheshire Cat, a friendly but slightly sinister appearing and disappearing cat whose most significant body part is his grinning, tooth-filled mouth (he grins like the crocodile, as Nina Auerbach has noted). (FN14) The â€Å"little bright-eyed terrier† of which the aboveground Alice is so fond (27) also has other-selves in Wonderland, Fury in the Mouse's Tale, the puppy in chapter 4.Moreover, the Mouse's Tale–the next poem in the book after the crocodile poem–talks about predation as if it were a legal process. The reader should therefore take the hint and connect the animal â€Å"eat or be eaten† motif elsewhere in the story with the trial scene in the last stage of the book. Carroll has the White Rabbit make this association of ideas when he mutters â€Å"The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws!Oh my fur and whiskers! She'll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! † (41). This is one of those moments when Alice reveals its ferocious undercurrent. The White Rabbit here anticipates legal execution as simultaneous with the process of being prepared for table: that is, these â€Å"civilized† human behaviors are proffered by Carroll as analogous to predation by a â€Å"natural† enemy, ferrets.Alice herself, by kicking Bill the Lizard up the chimney (an incident memorably illustrated by Tenniel in a very funny picture) and by looking on approvingly while the guinea pigs are so unkindly treated in court, inverts the theme of kindness to animals established in more orthodox children's literature like Maria Edgeworth's tale of â€Å"Simple Susan,† where a girl's pet lamb is saved from the slaughterer's knife. FN15) In Alice in Wonderland there is humorous delight in the misappropriation of the creatures in the croquet scene, and the re are many other versions of a cruel carnival in the book: for instance, Alice imagines herself being set to watch a mousehole by her own cat. She also resents â€Å"being ordered about by mice and rabbits† (46)–a phrase that suggests the â€Å"world upside down† of carnival but which might also be taken as summing up the new evolutionary predicament of humanity.Fallen down the rabbit hole from her lordly position at the top of the Great Chain of Being, Alice instead finds herself, through a series of size changes, continually being repositioned in the food chain. The importance of the theme of predation, â€Å"the motif of eating and being eaten,† is such that it has attracted a number of commentaries. It is fully described by Margaret Boe Birns in â€Å"Solving the Mad Hatter's Riddle† and by Nina Auerbach in â€Å"Alice and Wonderland: A Curious Child. (FN16) Birns remarks in opening her essay that â€Å"Most of the creatures in Wonderland ar e relentless carnivores, and they eat creatures who, save for some outer physical differences, are very like themselves, united, in fact, by a common ‘humanity. ‘† Birns therefore even cites a crocodile-eating fish as a case of â€Å"cannibalism,†(FN17) quoting in support of this idea Alice's â€Å"Nurse! Do let's pretend that I'm a hungry hyaena and you're a bone! (Looking-Glass, 8). She also remarks that Wonderland contains creatures whose only degree of self-definition is expressing a desire to be eaten or drunk, and offers other comments on scenes in Through the Looking-Glass where, as she puts it, â€Å"food can become human, human beings can become food. â€Å"(FN18) I do not always find â€Å"cannibal† readings supported by the parts of the text in question.Auerbach also makes claims about cannibalism, but a little differently, referring the idea of â€Å"eat or be eaten† back to Alice, her â€Å"subtly cannibalistic hunger,†(F N19) the â€Å"unconscious cannibalism involved in the very fact of eating and the desire to eat. â€Å"(FN20) Auerbach associates this interpretation with Dodgson's own attitude to food. But textual support for the quality Auerbach calls Alice's cannibalism seems lacking. Alice does not really eye the other animals in her pool of tears with â€Å"a strange hunger† as Auerbach suggests,(FN21) nor do the Hatter and the Duchess â€Å"sing savage songs about eating† as Auerbach claims. FN22) To describe a panther eating an owl as cannibalism, Auerbach(FN23) must assume (like Birns) that the creatures in Alice are definitely to be read as humans in fur and feathers. My argument is that they need not be so read: the point might be their and Alice's animal nature. Nor does the food at Queen Alice's dinner party at the end of Through the Looking-Glass â€Å"begin to eat the guests†(FN24) as Auerbach claims, although food does misbehave in Looking-Glass and the Puddin g might have this in mind (Looking-Glass, 206).Overall, however, in my view the preoccupation of Alice in Wonderland with creatures eating other creatures is much better accounted for by the â€Å"more sinister and Darwinian aspects of nature†(FN25) which Auerbach and Birns(FN26) also recognize as a part of the Alice books. I now return to my main argument, that Tenniel's illustrations pick up on but also extend this Darwinist and natural history field of reference in Carroll's text.As already noted, Tenniel's drawings of animals do not stylistically suggest a â€Å"children's fairy tale†(FN27) but rather produce Alice as a kind of natural history by resembling those in the plentiful and lavishly illustrated popular natural histories of the day (see figs. 1 and 2). My argument therefore differs from Michael Hancher's, which emphasizes social and satirical contexts by comparing pictures of various Wonderland and Looking-Glass creatures to those in Tenniel's and others' Punch cartoons. FN28) While Hancher establishes the relationship with Punch as an important one, however, the most convincing animal resemblances he reproduces from Alice in Wonderland (I am not here concerned with Through the Looking-Glass) amount to only two pictures, the Cheshire Cat in a tree resembling the â€Å"Up a Tree† cartoon of a raccoon,(FN29) and the ape on page 35 of Alice resembling the ape in â€Å"Bomba's Big Brother,†(FN30) Tenniel's frog footman and fish footman are Grandvillian figures with animal heads but human bodies, and also evidently suggest social commentary.But they stand apart from the argument I am presenting here because no effort is made by Tenniel to present them as animals. The satiric side of Tenniel's animal illustrations in Alice, hinted at by echoes of Punch, is never very dominant, then, and should not be seen as precluding another field of reference in natural history reading.The scope, persistence, eccentricity, and variety of t he natural history craze–or rather, series of crazes–that swept Britain between 1820 and 1870 are described for the general reader by Lynn Barber in The Heyday of Natural History and by others in more specialized publications, and need not be redescribed here. (FN31) The importance of illustration in contemporary natural history publishing, however, is central to my argument and must be touched on briefly.Even in the midcentury climate of Victorian self-improvement and self-education, the volume of this well-established branch of publishing is impressive: the standard of illustration in popular periodicals and books was high, and sales were also impressively high in Victorian terms. Rev. John George Wood, according to his son and biographer Theodore Wood, a pioneer in writing natural history in nontechnical language, had reasonable sales for his one-volume The Illustrated Natural History in 1851 and very good sales for Common Objects of the Sea Shore in 1857.But when R outledge brought out his lavishly illustrated Common Objects of the Country in 1858 it sold 100,000 copies within a week of publication, and the first edition was followed by many others, a figure worth comparing with Darwin's more modest first-edition sell-out of 1,250 copies–or, indeed, with Dickens's sales of Bleak House (1852), which were 35,000 in the first two years.The result of Wood's success was a much grander publishing venture by Routledge, Wain and Routledge, a three-volume The Illustrated Natural History with new drawings including some by Joseph Wolf: volume 1 (1859) was on mammals, volume 2 (1862) on birds–the frontispiece is reproduced in figure 2–and volume 3 (1863) on reptiles, fish, and mollusks. FN32) Wood's astonishingly prolific career as a popularizer, however, of which I have described only a tiny fraction (he was dashing off such productions as Anecdotes of Animal Life, Every Boy's Book, and Feathered Friends in this decade as well), is in line with much other more or less theologically inclined and intellectually respectable natural history publishing in the 1850s and 1860s, often by clergymen.Children were important consumers of such books and periodicals and sometimes are obviously their main market, and a number of fictional works, such as Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies (1863) and Margaret Gatty's Parables from Nature, of which the first four series appeared between 1855 and 1864 (that is, in the decade prior to Carroll's publication of Alice in Wonderland), capitalize on the contemporary conviction that natural history was a subject especially appropriate for children. (FN33)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Tenniel connects his Alice and natural history illustration by a number of stylistic allusions.He borrows the conventional techniques of realism, such as the cross-hatching and fine lines used to suggest light, shade, and solidity of form in the Mock Turtle's shell and flippers, or the crabs' and lobster's claws. Accu racy in proportion and a high level of anatomical detail are equally important. As can be seen by comparing figures 1 and 2, too, the grouping of subjects may also be suggestive–a point first noted by Narda Schwartz, who also drew attention to the resemblance between the etching of the dodo in Wood's three-volume natural history and Tenniel's dodo. FN34) Also significant is the way Tenniel's design showing the creatures recently emerged from the pool of tears includes a rather furry-haired Alice among, and on a level with, the beasts and birds. Carroll's own pictures for the pool of tears sequence have the quite different effect of separating Alice from the animal world, a point 1 will return to. Another Tenniel habit that suggests natural history illustration is his provision of sketchy but realistic and appropriate backgrounds.Here Tenniel's viewpoint sometimes miniaturizes the reader, setting the viewpoint low and thus letting us in on the ground level of a woodland world magnified for our information (compare figs. 3 and 4). When Alice stands on tiptoe to peep over the edge of a mushroom, when she carries the pig baby in the woods or talks to the Cheshire Cat, Tenniel uses a typical natural history technique, placing a familiar woodland flower–a foxglove–in the background in such away as to remind the reader of Alice's size at that time.Similarly, Tenniel makes use of the difference between vignettes for simple or single subjects, and framed illustrations, including full-page illustrations, for larger-scale and more important and complex subjects, in a way that very closely resembles a similar distinction in natural history illustration–popular natural histories like Wood's tend to use large, framed illustrations to make generalized statements, showing, for instance, a group of different kinds of rodent, while vignettes present an individual of one species.And above all, although Tenniel certainly endows his creatures with perso nality and facial expressions, his animals, unlike his humans, are never grotesques. In fact, nineteenth-century natural history illustration also delights in endowing the most solidly â€Å"realistic† creatures with near-human personality or expressiveness, a quality that Tenniel builds on to good effect, for instance, in his depiction of the lawyer-parrots, which remind one of Edward Lear's magnificent macaws (see figs. 5, 6, and 7).Thus while Tenniel's animal portraits reflect the Victorians' pleasure in their expanding knowledge of the variety of creatures in the world, they also faithfully reproduce the contemporary assimilation of this variety to familiar human social types, a sleight of hand of which Audubon, for example, is a master: his Great Blue Heron manages also to subtly suggest a sly old gentleman, probably shortsighted, and with side-whiskers. In the visual world inhabited by Tenniel, then, the differing works of Audubon and Grandville (the latter could depict a heron as a priest merely by giving the bird spectacles) slide together.Where few of Tenniel's successors have been able to resist the temptation to turn the animals in Alice in Wonderland into cartoon or humorous creations, though, it is Tenniel's triumph that he drew his creatures straight, or almost straight: the Times review of Alice in Wonderland (December 26, 1865) particularly noted for praise Tenniel's â€Å"truthfulness †¦ in the delineation of animal forms. â€Å"(FN35) It was, indeed, his skill in drawing animals that first established his reputation as an illustrator, when he provided illustrations for Rev. Thomas James's Aesop's Fables in 1848. FN36)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Can sources for Tenniel's remarkable animal drawings be more precisely identified? An early biographer of Tenniel records his acknowledgment that he liked to spend time observing the animals at the Zoo. (FN37) However, comparisons between pictures reveal that in addition Tenniel almost certainly con sulted scientific illustrations or recalled them for his Alice in Wonderland drawings. For example, in the mid-eighteenth century George Edwards produced a hand-colored engraving of a dodo which, he wrote, he had copied from a painting of a live dodo brought from Mauritius to Holland.The original painting was acquired by Sir Hans Sloane, passed on to Edwards, and given by him to the British Museum. (FN38) In 1847 C. A. Marlborough painted a picture of a dodo, which is now in the Ashmolean Museum (it was reproduced on the cover of the magazine Oxford Today in 1999). And in 1862 the second volume of J. G. Wood's The Illustrated Natural History includes a picture of a dodo. (FN39) Compare all these with Tenniel's dodo (figs. 8, 9, 10, and 11): they surely either have a common ancestor or are copies one from the other. The dodo is a special case in that Tenniel could hardly have studied one at the London zoo.But I wish to put forward a claim that Wood's 1851 one-volume and, later, expan ded three-volume Illustrated Natural History were very probably familiar to Carroll and the small Liddells and also to Tenniel, not only because Wood's dodo illustration is a possible source for Tenniel's but because these volumes also display smiling crocodiles, baby eagles in their nest, and the lory,(FN40) as well as illustrations of numerous more familiar animals that appear in the words and/or pictures of Alice, including the edible crab, the lobster, the frog, the dormouse, guinea pigs, flamingos, varieties of fancy pigeon, and so forth.Given the compendious nature of Wood's works, this is hardly surprising, of course. But Wood must be favored as the source of animal drawings most probably known to Tenniel for the further reason that Wood illustrations often quite strongly resemble Tenniel illustrations, as readers may judge by comparing figures 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16, to the toucan, eagle, and crab from Alice (see fig. 1) and the lobster and dormouse (see Alice in Wonderland, 157 and 97). (FN41)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  No matter how good Tenniel's famous visual memory, he is unlikely to have drawn such a menagerie without some research.Hancher noted the strong resemblance between a Bewick hedgehog (from the General History of Quadrupeds, 1790, often reprinted) and the evasive croquet-ball hedgehog at Alice's feet on page 121. (FN42) Bewick's hedgehog, however, had already been recycled by William Harvey for Wood's one-volume Illustrated Natural History where Tenniel is equally likely to have seen and remembered it: all three hedgehogs have the same dragging rear foot (see figs. 17, 18, and 19). This is another case, like that of the dodo, where scientific natural history illustrations have been copied, recopied, or reworked for reprinting.A similar argument could be presented about the large number of depictions of sinuous flamingos that Tenniel might have consulted. The volume of contemporary natural history publishing for children and adults, the evident cont emporary interest in illustrations of animals, and the resemblance between Tenniel's and contemporary natural history drawings have important implications: the resemblance indicates that Tenniel is here creating the context within which he wants his pictures to be read.He shows us that he saw (and wanted the viewer to be able to see) Carroll's animals as â€Å"real† animals, like those that were the objects of current scientific study and theories, at least as much as he saw them as Grandville or Punch-type instruments of social satire, or fairy-tale or fable talking beasts. (FN43)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In line with his scientific interpretation, then, Tenniel in illustrating Alice in Wonderland intensifies Carroll's reference to Darwin's theory of evolution by carrying out his own visual editing of the Carroll illustrations in the manuscript.Tenniel makes the ape appear in two consecutive illustrations: in the second, it stares thoughtfully into the eyes of the reader–appea ring to claim kinship. Tenniel includes among the creatures in these illustrations on pages 29 and 35 a fancy pigeon, perhaps a fantail or a pouter, which should in my view be taken as a direct reference to Darwin's argument from the selective breeding of fancy pigeon varieties in chapter 1 of The Origin of Species. FN44) A visual detail that Tenniel introduced into the book, the glass dome in the background to the royal garden scene on page 117, looks like the dome at the old Surrey Zoological Gardens(FN45) and therefore constitutes another reference to the study of animals. And as already noted, Tenniel does not reproduce Carroll's rather lonely image of Alice abandoned by the animals, which would have had the effect of separating her human figure from the animal ones and thus emphasizing Alice's difference from them.Instead, Tenniel provides two images of Alice among, and almost of, the animal world, developing a radical implication of Carroll's text of which Carroll himself was possibly unaware. On the other hand, Carroll's interest in predation, in the motif of â€Å"eat or be eaten,† is not one on which Tenniel expands. No doubt it would have been thought too frightening for children: one must recall the care taken by Carroll over the positioning of the Jabberwocky illustration in Through the Looking-Glass. FN46) But while Carroll's text here develops emphatically–albeit peripherally–some ideas that Tenniel could only leave aside, Tenniel's recognition of the importance of such themes is strongly demonstrated by the puppy picture. This illustration is a particularly large one, dominating the page (55) on which it appears. It is framed, and therefore gives an impression of completion and independent significance, very different from that given by the more common vignette with its intimate and fluid relationship to the text.These things make it probable that the puppy scene and its illustration were especially important in Tenniel's re ading of Alice in Wonderland. Yet commentaries on Alice in Wonderland tend to ignore the puppy scene, perhaps because critics are often most interested by Carroll's verbal nonsense, and the puppy is speechless. Indeed, Denis Crutch disapproves of the puppy as â€Å"an intruder from the ‘real' world† and Goldthwaite takes up this point, commenting that the puppy was Carroll's â€Å"most glaring aesthetic mistake in †¦Alice†Ã¢â‚¬â€œneither seems to have noticed that the hedgehogs and flamingos are also not talking beasts. (FN47) Another reader of Tenniel's illustrations, Isabelle Nieres, takes a similar line, remarking that â€Å"the full-page illustration is perhaps placing too much emphasis on Alice's encounter with the puppy. â€Å"(FN48) But what Tenniel's puppy illustration encapsulates, in my view, is the theme of the importance of relative size. Here is Alice's fearful moment of uncertainty about whether she is meeting a predator or a pet. As reader a nd Alice will discover, the puppy only wants to play.But Alice is â€Å"terribly frightened all the time at the thought it might be hungry, in which case it would be very likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing† (54), and Tenniel's illustration with the thistle in the foreground towering over the tiny Alice, like many of his memorable illustrations, primarily signifies her anxiety. Later, too, Tenniel's choice of the lobster as the subject of a drawing is a visual reminder of the transformation of animals into meat: it brings the viewer uncomfortably close to recognition of kinship with the devoured, so human is the lobster and so warily is his eye fixed on the viewer's.The lobster is another illustration that Hodnett found an inexplicable presence in the text: the song in the text â€Å"provides insufficient excuse for an illustration,† he remarks. (FN49) My analysis of Tenniel's composite verbal/visual Alice in Wonderland is very different. Possibly going we ll beyond Carroll's conscious intentions, Tenniel offers a Wonderland that concurs with the evolutionist view of creation by showing animals and humans as a continuum within which the stronger or larger prey upon the smaller or weaker.The implication–one many readers of Darwin were most reluctant to accept–is that if animals are semihuman, humans may conversely be nothing but evolved animals. Alice's extraordinary size changes–in which Tenniel is so interested–therefore play a significant role in this new world, for as I already pointed out, it is through her series of size changes that Alice finds herself continually being repositioned in the food chain.Wonderland is truly the place of reversals: its theme of a world upside down is traditional, as Ronald Reichertz has reminded us in an illuminating study that positions Alice in Wonderland in relation to earlier children's reading. (FN50) Size changes can represent the topsy-turvy, of course. But while Al ice has some recognizably Jack-in-Giant-land experiences–like struggling to climb up the leg of a table–and some Tom Thumb experiences–like hiding behind a thistle–what is so weird or Wonderlandish about her story is not her sudden growth spurts but that she transforms rapidly from the small to the large and vice versa. FN51) Alice's body changes at times suggest being outsize and aggressive–for example, when she is trapped in the White Rabbit's house and terrifies the little creatures outside, or when she is accused of being an egg-stealing serpent or predator by the pigeon. But she is undersized and therefore vulnerable when she slips into the pool of tears or when she meets the puppy. (FN52) The size changes connect back to â€Å"eat or be eaten† where the dangers of large and small size, a theme especially horrifying to children, is a traditional one, found in tales of giants and ogres, Hop-o' my Thumb or Mally Whuppie. FN53) But as we h ave seen, the Tenniel/Carroll Alice in Wonderland links forward to ideas of predator and prey, eat or be eaten, and the â€Å"animal† nature of humanity, all recently given new urgency by Darwin. A contemporary illustration worth pondering that deals with these important ideas (it appeared at almost exactly the time of the publication of Alice in Wonderland) is the cover of Hardwicke's Science-Gossip: A Monthly Medium of Interchange & Gossip for Students and Lovers of Nature (January 1866).This cover represents (see fig. 20) the scientific technology that interested Carroll, as well as, more sentimentally, the small creatures and plants of woodland and seashore that are a part of the â€Å"natural history† background. These subjects, however, make a mere frame to the central illustration, both grisly and amusing, which is a depiction of the chain of predation, eat or be eaten, in action. One could hardly ask for a more succinct visual summary of this important element in the contemporary contexts of Alice.Recognition of this theme will, as well as accounting for lobster and puppy illustrations, also account for the otherwise somewhat puzzling centrality of Dinah and the Cheshire Cat in Carroll's text. Nina Auerbach quotes Florence Becker Lennon's insight that the Cheshire Cat is â€Å"Dinah's dream-self,† and certainly one or the other is more or less ever-where in Wonderland. (FN54) I think the reason for this must be that this familiar household pet best emphasizes the paradoxical difference between being large, in which state the cat is a delightful little furry companion, and being small, in which state the cat might kill you and eat you.In the Darwinian world, size can be the key to survival. And yet, Carroll selected a smiling crocodile to stand for the new view of creation. The cruelty of the Darwinian world is, in his view, somehow inseparable from delight. To suggest a context for this unexpected but quintessentially nineteenth-ce ntury state of mind,(FN55) a comparison may be made here between Carroll's poetic vision of his particular predator and Henry de la Beche's 1830 cartoon of life in A More Ancient Dorset; or, Durior Antiquior (see fig. 1). De la Beche was English despite his name, and was the first director of the British Geological Survey. According to Stephen Jay Gould, who includes it in his preface to The Book of Life, de la Beche's spirited cartoon, simultaneously grim and humorous, was â€Å"reproduced endlessly (in both legitimate and pirated editions)† and is an important model, becoming â€Å"the canonical figure of ancient life at the inception of this genre. â€Å"(FN56) In short, this is the first dinosaur picture.Victorian paintings of nature (showing a similar pleasure to Carroll's in his crocodile) do tend to center on hunting and predation–see The Stag at Bay–and de la Beche's influential image, Gould explains, became a thoroughly conventional depiction of prehi story, first, in showing a pond unnaturally crowded with wildlife (rather like Carroll's pool of tears), and second, in depicting virtually every creature in it as â€Å"either a feaster or a meal†(FN57)–something one may also feel about Carroll's characters.Particularly striking is the gusto, the pleasurably half-horrified enjoyment of bloody prehistory, in de la Beche's cartoon, which in my view is very comparable to the enjoyment of the image of the devouring crocodile in Lewis's brilliant little parody. A slightly unpleasant gusto also animates Alice in Wonderland, a book that fairly crackles with energy although the energy has always been rather hard to account for.While on the official levels of his consciousness Carroll â€Å"stood apart from the theological storms of the time,†(FN58) is it possible that the news of evolution through natural selection was, on another level of his mind, good news to him as to many other Victorians, coming as a kind of ment al liberation? Humanity might well have found crushing, at times, the requirements of moral responsibility and constant self-improvement imposed by mid-Victorian ideals of Christian duty.Alice, for one, young as she is, has already thoroughly internalized many rules of conduct, and Alice's creator, equipped as he was with what Donald Rackin has called a â€Å"rage for standards and order,†(FN59) revels in the oversetting of order (as well as disowning this oversetting thoroughly when Alice awakens from her dream). The exhilaration of an amoral anti-society in Alice in Wonderland may be, therefore, in part the exhilaration of a Darwinist dream, of selfishness without restraint.As we all know, Alice's route out of Wonderland is to grow out of it. In closing this essay a final suggestion may be made about Carroll and his self-depiction in Wonderland. If the book is full of expressions of anxiety about relative size–and the dangers of largeness and smallness–this ma y not merely be because a new theory of evolution by natural selection had enlivened this ancient theme. Possibly Carroll had adapted this theory as a private way of symbolizing for himself the anxieties and dangers of his relationship withAlice and the other Liddell children. In Morton N. Cohen's biography Lewis Carroll, a table numbers the occurrences of guilty self-reproach and resolves to amend in Carroll's diaries and shows how these peaked at the time of his deepest involvement with the Liddell family. (FN60) Is it possible that Carroll, far from suffering a repressed interest in little girls, consciously acknowledged and wrestled in private prayer with his own impossible desires?It seems to become ever more difficult, rather than easier, to read this aspect of Carroll's life. In a recent Times Literary Supplement (February 8, 2002), Karoline Leach argues that Carroll's friendships with children were emphasized in his nephew Stuart Collingwood's biography to distract attention from the potentially more scandalous fact of the older Carroll's friendships with mature women.A letter in response by Jenny Woolf, on February 15, points out that Carroll's sisters continued to recognize Carroll's women friends, so obviously perceived these friendships as chaste, but reminds us of the possibility that Dodgson may have cultivated girl children as friends because of their innocence, because they were sexually â€Å"safe† to him, rather than because they were dangerously enticing.A response to this position, of course, would be that the assiduity with which Carroll cultivated friendships with small girls seems out of proportion to such a purpose. Whatever the truth of these matters, it appears to me that Carroll, distressed by the emotional battles documented in his diary, might well have developd a set of imaginative scenarios in which a little girl's growing up or down is reversible according to her own desire: this offers one kind of explanation of some of the more mysterious events of Wonderland.The dangerous but exhilarating aspects of Carroll's relationship with his little friends seems to fit neatly into a â€Å"tooth and claw† model of society, too, for each party to such a friendship, although acting in innocence and affection, has a kind of reserve capacity to destroy, to switch from pet to predator. Carroll might even have dramatized himself as a beast in a Darwinian world in relation to these little girls who are never the right size for him.At times he is only the pet–a romping, anxious-to-please, but oversized puppy. But there are other times when he might fear becoming the predator, a crocodile whose welcoming smile masks the potential to devour. And conversely, of course, Carroll's beloved little friends had the monstrous capacity to destroy him, morally and socially, if he should ever overstep the boundaries of decency and trust.Tenniel, presumably unaware of any secret underside to Carroll's life, was anyw ay debarred by Victorian regard for children as viewers from depicting the savage underside of Alice. But by referring the reader outward to current controversies and current interests in the natural sciences, he has succeeded wonderfully in rendering in art both Carroll's, and his own, grasp of the importance of a new worldview, and of the explosive anxiety and exhilaration to which it gave birth. ADDED MATERIAL ROSE LOVELL-SMITH