How Lexus Relates to Quality Management Essay

In 1990, Lexus created a new line of luxury cars. It’s called the Lexus LS. It had such fine quality that made such a good impression at its first release. Lexus is a branch of Toyota and Toyota could afford to create another luxury car because they had such deep pockets. This article talks about the new 2013 Lexus LS that will have a price range of $83,050 to $121,750 and the reason the price is set so high is because they put in such high quality parts and technology into the car. The interior has a new ambience to it to have a welcoming sensation and the seats have been re-contoured for better comfort and support (Kenzie). The rear seats are also in top quality: they recline and include a shiatsu massage function, and a DVD entertainment system with a lap desk for the laptop. The seats measure the occupant’s body temperature to adjust the seat’s heating and cooling to compensate. The fancier the features are in a product, the more it will cost. The costs are to the manufacture and will translate to higher finished goods prices for the consumers than products with fewer features. Lexus has such high quality to their cars that it is understandable that their prices are higher than normal, economy cars. I thought this article to be interesting because it proves why Lexus cars are so much more expensive than regular economy cars. The prices of Lexus cars reflect the work and high class technology that’s put into the car.

Article Evaluation Sleep Deprivation to Aggressive Behavior

Sleep Depression, Depletion & Aggressive Behavior Article Evaluation paper Does sleep deprivation affect a person’s self-control? Does the availability of one’s self-control be affected by the lack of sleep? Nonetheless, Can sleep deprivation cause someone to display more aggressive behaviors? A group of researchers wanted to answers these three questions. The researchers produced an experiment to explore the variable of sleep deprivation & its correlation to self-control & aggressive behavior.According to the Limited Self Regulatory Model, self- regulation is more difficult when someone is fatigued or has limited energy. When energy of mental activity is low, a person’s self-control is impaired, a person is considered to be in a state of â€Å"depletion† (self-regulation failure. ) Fifty-eight participants were separated in two groups: sleep deprived (depletion group,) with no sleep for twenty-four hours prior to the experiment & non-sleep deprived (non-d epletion group) The participants were instructed to watch unpleasant footage from two films & their reactions were observed by a video camera .Participants in the sleep-deprived group were asked to show no facial expressions, where as the non-depletion condition were told to act naturally. Participants instructed to neutralize their facial expressions were less expressive than participants instructed to act naturally. With in the experiment, an aggression task was given to participants designed to measure their aggression. Participants were told they were going to play a trail game & to win the game they must push a key faster than online opponent.Prior to each trial the participants were asked to set the noise level (between 0-10, 0= no sound, 10= loudest sound), which would sound at the opponent when the participant would win. After each trail the opponent’s noise choice level was displayed on the screen as one level higher than what the participant set. As a result, partic ipants were thought to believe their opponent were more aggressive than they were, evoking aggressive behavior from the participant. Thus participants in the sleep deprived/ depletion group selected higher noise levels than non- sleep deprived/ non-depletion group.Accordingly, the data collected supported state of sleep does not affect a person self control or influence aggressive behavior. Instead, self-control & aggressive behavior is determined by the availability of person self- regulatory resources. The method in which the experiment was conducted could be re-produced, but may be time consuming. Instead of being able to conduct one task to measure the correlation of the sleep deprivation to the questioned variables, more then one task had to be executed. I believe the external validity & the internal validity of the experiment were not passable.The subjects were randomly assigned to the sleep deprived or non-sleep deprived group, however there was no obtained information about the participant’s sleep deprivation tolerance. Such a factor (sleep deprivation tolerance) can change the results of data. In addition, the experiment did not specifically measure whether participants who were kept awake for 24 hours were in fact sleepier than participants who got a full night’s rest. Among people, population, & races such a tolerance varies. Applying a generalization across the board can introduce bias to the experiment.The implication that self-control & aggressive behavior is determined by the availability of a person self- regulatory resources/ability can be applied to real life. When I am tired I feel my self-control is not as available as when I am awake. If I were one of the participants in the experiment watching the film and performing the aggression task, I would not think about the way I present my emotions till after the matter: during that time my ability to think of my emotional response & how to control my emotional response would not ha ppen/ be available to me.With this in mind, this article relates to the functions of the self – discussed about in class. The four main functions to the self (self-knowledge, self-control, self- presentation, & self-justification) determine a person’s self- regulatory resources. The ability to look inward, examine our thoughts, feelings, mood (introspection) & control our willpower, allows us to overcome a counterproductive impulse to achieve different goals.On the other hand, when we try hard to practice introspection & self-control, controlling the self in one context may cause us to indulge in another context, producing self-regulation failure. By large, the researchers of the experiment were looking into the function of the self & applying it real life. By conduction the experiment, the researchers discovered that the state of sleep does not affect a person self control or influence aggressive behavior, but that self-control & aggressive behavior is determined by t he availability of a person self- regulatory resources.

The Blue Sword CHAPTER NINE

She felt caught as she stared at the dark Hill-king astride his red horse, caught by the sky, by the stars winking into the new-fallen darkness, by the sand and encircling Hills; they seized her and held her down. She was a figure in some story other than her own, an embroidered shape in a Hill tapestry, a representation of something that did not exist in her Homeland. Then the crowd gave a roar and surged inward; she closed her eyes. But they were patting her ankles, her legs, her back, making her human again, with human bewilderment and human luck. She began to distinguish words in the roar: they were shouting, â€Å"Harimad-sol! Laprun minta! Minta – musti! Harimad-sol!† Tsornin and Isfahel were driven together, and they stood patiently while the crowd rose and foamed around them. Isfahel turned his head and Tsornin turned his, till their flared nostrils touched briefly in a salute. Out of the corner of her eye Harry saw Corlath blot the drop of blood at his mouth with the back of his hand. The crowd fell away from its center, breaking into smaller eddies that laughed and swung each other by arms and hands and shoulders. Sungold and Fireheart edged away from each other, their riders silent and motionless. Harry could not look at Corlath. He reached out one hand toward her, perhaps to touch her, but Tsornin sidled just one step farther and Corlath's hand dropped away. Mathin appeared on Harry's far side and touched her elbow, and Harry smiled gratefully at his familiar face. Mathin did not speak to her, but turned away, and she slid off Sungold and the two of them followed him, walking slowly, permitted their due of weariness at last. Mathin stopped where two taris were already set up, and knelt down to build a fire, companionably ignoring his two pupils; and Harry was glad to lay aside the glory of laprun-minta. The headache haze and sense of displacement began to ebb as she mechanically stripped off Sungold's saddle and rubbed him down. The smell of Mathin's cooking crept to greet her and cheer her, and remind her who she was, or who she had become. She was the Daughter of the Riders. Harry ate too much that night. She ate till her stomach hurt – Mathin had kept them on strict rations during training – but she was only half aware of what she was eating. Many of the lapruni she had faced today came to her, to touch her hand and offer what seemed a sort of fealty; they materialized at the edge of the firelight, as indistinct as they had seemed to her that afternoon: they wore red robes and blue robes and brown robes and black, for none wore a sash, and their swords hung in scabbards by their sides instead of drawn against her. And they called her Harimad-sol, and laprun-minta, and their voices were hushed and reverent. Harry ate too much because it made her feel more real. As the evening progressed other taris were set up nearby: she had noticed that Mathin was using a pot larger than the one for the two of them she had seen every night for six weeks. Soon she found they were sharing their fire and supper with Innath and Faran and Forloy and Dapsim, and others of the king's Riders. They watched without comment as the lapruni came to show themselves to the Daughter of the Riders, who kept putting more food on her plate as they appeared and vanished. Once when Harry looked up she saw Mathin handing Corlath a plate. The king slouched down, cross-legged, and began to eat. Harry would have liked to ask why the lapruni were saluting her, for it seemed beyond a simple acknowledgment of the loser to the victor, but she did not ask. Mathin had taught her patience, and she had known all her life how to be stubborn. It seemed a bit unfair to complain, she thought, as it – or as I – have turned out; but couldn't I have been told a little more beforehand? She looked into the eyes of those who sought her and called her Harimad-sol, and tried to think of them as individuals, and not as robes and tunics and fallen sashes. The lapruni all went away without her having to speak to them, for they did not seem to expect her to answer them with anything but her presence. This was both restful and unnerving. One laprun was a woman. For her Harry did have a question. â€Å"What is your name?† The girl's robe was blue, and Harry suddenly recognized her as the rider on the bay mare. â€Å"Senay,† she replied. â€Å"Where is your home?† Senay turned to face northwest. â€Å"Shpardith,† she said. â€Å"It is there,† and she pointed into the blackness. â€Å"Twelve days on a fleet horse.† Harry nodded, and the girl left to return to her own fire, and others came to speak to the laprun-minta who sat with the Riders and the king. When she looked around again she realized that there were eighteen dark figures besides herself and the king; all the Riders, from wherever they had been, had returned. And Narknon reappeared, and Harry hugged her eagerly, for she felt in need of something to hug. She offered her bits of meat, which Narknon graciously accepted, although she attempted to nose through Harry's plate herself, to make sure Harry wasn't keeping back any of the best bits for herself. Harry slept dreamlessly, her hand on the hilt of her sword; when she awoke and found this so, she stared at her hand as if it did not belong to her. She crept out of the tari and looked around. The sky was light; yet most of the taris still had bodies in them, and there were more blanket-swathed figures motionless around banked or burned-out fires. Mathin's lips moved as he rebuilt their fire. She turned to look behind her. Corlath was gone; there was only a small ripple in the sand where he had lain, or it might be only the wind. Mathin handed her a cup of malak. It was reheated from last night, and bitter. Harry shrugged into her stiff grimy surcoat, hoping there would be bathing sometime today, and thinking wistfully of the little valley behind her, and its green pool. Her split sash lay beside her, where she had stuffed it through the tari's open flap the night before. She picked it up and, after a moment's thought, wrapped it around her waist again, tucking torn edges underneath till it would stay fixed. She did not do it very well, and she thought of asking Mathin for help, but chose not to. After the wildness of the night before, this morning everyone went quietly about the business of packing up and returning, it seemed, to where they had come from. A few lingered: Harry and several of the Riders, for many of them had vanished with Corlath, and perhaps a dozen riders she did not recognize, and a few of the lapruni. She looked for Senay hopefully, but did not see her. The wind whispered over the bare land. But for the black hollows of dead fires, there was nothing to show that several hundred people had spent the last three days here. Mathin turned Windrider east, east where the City lay just beyond one of the enigmatic rockfaces before them. Tsornin fell into step beside Windrider; Viki came along behind them, still grumbling to himself; and the others, some thirty riders, strung out behind them. Harry peered over her shoulder several times, watching the procession winding behind her, till she caught Mathin's expression of restrained amusement when he glanced over at her. After that she looked only straight ahead. Narknon padded softly among them all. There was another big hunting-cat with them, a handsome spotted-mahogany male an inch or two taller than Narknon; but she scorned him. Tsornin strode out like a yearling having his first sight of the world beyond his paddock. Harry tried to keep her back straight and her legs quiet. Yesterday she had been glad of her perfectly fitted saddle, for it gave her suppleness and security; today she was glad of it because it told her where her legs were supposed to be even when they felt like blocks of wood. Her shoulder hurt, and her head felt woolly, and her right wrist was as weak as water, and she had a great purple bruise on her left calf. My horse is ignoring me, Harry thought. Or maybe he's trying to cheer me up. She had gone over him with great care the evening before, and again this morning, and applied salve to the few small scrapes he had collected. He had no suspicious swellings, no lameness, and his eyes were bright and his step buoyant. He made her feel woollier. â€Å"Are you trying to cheer me up?† she said to his mane, and he cocked a merry ear at her and strutted. They had just begun to step upward off the plain into the Hills when they rounded another abrupt shoulder of rock like the one she and Mathin had passed for her first view of the laprun fields; and here was a wide highway mounting steeply to massive gates not far away. There lay the City. They passed through the gates, borne beneath an arch two horse-lengths thick, their horses' hooves echoing hollowly. There was a cold grey smell, as if of caves, although the gates had stood for a thousand years. They walked down a broad avenue where six horsemen might walk abreast. It was stone-paved, laid out in huge flat cobbles, some grey or white or red-veined black; it had edges of earth where slender grey trees grew. Behind them were stone walkways where children played; and beyond them were stone houses and shops and stables and warehouses; stone flower-pots stood in doorways and on window ledges. The green-and-blue parrots Harry had seen in the traveling camp were perched on many shoulders, and some of them joined, gay and noisy, in the children's games. Often with a flirt of wings one would carry off the stone counter or mark a group of children was using, while the children shrieked at them, and occasionally threw pebbles at them, but only very small ones. â€Å"Is there no wood?† said Harry. â€Å"Nothing but stone?† She looked up at the roof and walls and gables mounting up the hillside behind the gates, tiers of stone, multi-colored stone, no shingles or slats or carved wooden cornices, or shutters or window frames. â€Å"There is wood here,† said Mathin, â€Å"but there is more stone.† Innath rode up on Harry's other side. â€Å"Mathin cannot see the strangeness of this place,† he said; â€Å"his village is just as stony as the City, only smaller. Where I come from we cut down trees and plane them smooth and slot them together, our houses and barns are warm and weathered, and do not last forever and haunt you with the ghosts of a thousand years.† â€Å"We use wood,† said Mathin. Innath made a dismissive gesture. â€Å"The grand receiving-rooms here have wooden paneling – you'll see some of them at the castle – and parlors, where people really live, often have wooden screens as ornaments.† â€Å"There are wooden chairs and tables and cupboards,† said Mathin. â€Å"There are more stone chairs and tables and cupboards,† said Innath. â€Å"They don't often rearrange the furniture here.† Harry looked around. She saw doors so well hung on their hinges that they were opened and closed by a child's touch, yet made of stone slabs so heavy she wondered how they had been wrestled into their places to begin with. Free-standing walls, she saw, were often as wide as the reach of her two arms; yet often too the inner wall facing on a courtyard encircled by tall houses was so fine and delicate, cut into filigree work so complex, it looked as though it must tremble in the lightest breeze; as if one might roll it up like a bolt of silk and store it on a shelf. â€Å"To be either a stonemason or a carpenter is to be respected,† Mathin said. â€Å"The best of them are greatly honored.† â€Å"Hear the horse-breaker,† said Innath. Mathin smiled. The children began calling: â€Å"The lapruni are here! And the Riders – and the laprun-minta!† â€Å"Harimad-sol,† Innath called to them, and Harry blushed. â€Å"Harimad-sol,† agreed the children; and people came out from the houses and down the narrower ways off the wide central way to look. Harry tried to look around her without catching anyone's eye, but many of the onlookers sought hers; and when one succeeded, he – or she – would touch right wrist to forehead and then hold the flat empty palm out toward her. â€Å"Harimad-sol,† she heard, and eagerly they added, â€Å"Damalur-sol.† The children danced in front of Tsornin's feet to make her look at them, and clapped their hands; and she smiled and waved shyly at them, and Tsornin was very careful with his hooves. They rode on. At first the Hills rose up behind the low buildings, but as they went farther in, the buildings grew taller and taller and seemed part of the Hills themselves; and the trees that lined the way grew larger, till the shade of them could be felt as one passed beneath. Then another gate rose up before them, the wall around it running into the flanks of the mountains as if wall and gate had been formed with the mountains at the beginning of time. They went through this gate too, and entered a wide flat courtyard of polished stone. This stone was mirror-white, and it blazed up fiercely in the morning sunlight, and Harry felt as if she had emerged from underground. She blinked. Before her stood Corlath's castle; no one had to explain to her what this huge stone edifice must be. She tipped her head back to see the sharp points of the turrets, brilliant as diamonds. It was itself a mountain, proudly peaked, seated among its brothers; its faces glittered dangerously. The shadows it threw were abrupt and absolute; one wall reflected white, another black. The central mass was taller than the Hill crests here; the road they had climbed had reached near the summit of the dark Hills, and like an island in the crater lake of an extinct volcano, the castle stood in its stone yard that shone as bright as water in the sun. Harry sighed. Men of the horse were approaching them in the swift but unhurried way she remembered from the days on the desert in the traveling camp; and she felt a sudden sharp stab of memory, as if that were a time many years past, and the present were sad and weary. She slipped down from Tsornin's back and he suffered himself to be led away when one of the brown men spoke to him gently by name and laid a hand in front of his withers. Narknon sat down neatly at Harry's feet; Harry could feel her tail twitching at her ankles. Those who had ridden with her began now to go purposefully in their own individual directions. Mathin said to her, ‘†It is here I am to leave you. Perhaps it may be permitted that we ride against each other again and you may practice your skills upon me, Daughter of the Riders.† He smiled. â€Å"We will meet again at the king's table, here in the City.† Harry looked up toward the castle when Mathin left her, feeling a little forlorn; and it was Corlath himself who walked to meet her. She swallowed rather hard, and blessed the sunburn that would prevent her fierce blush from showing as clearly as it would on an Outlander's pale skin. â€Å"We meet again, Harimad-sol,† Corlath said. There was a tiny scab at one corner of his mouth; he looked down at her with a cold dignity, she thought; he is the master of this place, and what am I? Even Daughter of the Riders could not comfort her as Corlath stood before her with his castle shining savagely behind him. But then he spoiled the effect – or perhaps the effect was all in Harry's eyes to begin with – by saying, â€Å"So that's where the thrice-blasted cat disappeared to. I should have guessed it.† He did not look very majestic while glaring at a cat; so Harry said crossly, â€Å"I wish I knew what was going on.† Corlath looked at her thoughtfully, and Narknon, with customary feline charm, stood up and went to twine herself around Corlath's legs. Corlath's face softened and he rubbed her ears. Harry could hear her purr; she could almost feel it through the soles of her boots on the white stone. Narknon was a champion purrer. â€Å"And don't tell me that no one knows what is going on and that it is for the gods to decide, either.† Corlath's face wavered and then broke into a smile, although whether at Harry or the big cat, Harry didn't know. â€Å"Very well,† he said. â€Å"I won't. I will tell you that you are the First of the laprun trials, laprun-minta, which you already know, and as such the most important of the lapruni, the untried.† Corlath's hand lay motionless on Narknon's head. â€Å"The army marches, to do what it can, in less than a fortnight's time. You and the best of the lapruni will ride with us.† Narknon bumped Corlath's hand violently and the fingers stirred and began scratching again. In a lighter tone Corlath continued, â€Å"In other years that the laprun trials are held, there is a week's celebration at their end, and a great many songs are sung, and lies about one's own prowess told, and all the minta of past years claim that their year was the best, and much wine and beer is drunk, and it is all very cheerful. This year we have not the time, and many of those who would be part of it are far away, and those who are here are busy, and the work they do is melancholy.† He paused as if hoping she would say something, or at least raise her eyes from Narknon's sleepy face and look at him; but when she did finally look up, he immediately squinted up at the sky. â€Å"But tonight there will be a feast in your honor. You are not the least of those who have been laprun Firsts. There are many who will come tonight merely to look at you.† Harry stopped smiling at the cat. â€Å"Oh,† she said. â€Å"Come. I will show you where you will stay till we leave the City.† She followed him across the smooth courtyard and around one wing of the castle; as they rounded the tip, set back from the edge and guarded by the castle's great bulk was a wall that at first seemed low; but it was fully ten feet high as they approached. It curved back on itself as if it protected something within that was very precious. In the wall was a door, the height of a tall man. Corlath opened it, and looked around for her. She stepped in first, Narknon crowding at her heels, with the odd feeling that he was watching her anxiously for her reaction. It was very beautiful. Here the courtyard was not stone, but green grass, and a stream ran through it from one end to the other, with a fountain at the center, and a stone horse reared in the midst of the falling spray. On either side of the stream was a path of paving-stones, grey and blue, that went all the way around the fountain. There were curved stone seats on either side of the fountain, with the stream running between them. Beyond all this was what Harry thought of instantly as a palace, for all its diminutive size; it was no bigger than the gateman's cottage on her father's – now Richard's – estate, back Home. But this cottage had slender peaked towers at each of its five corners, and a cupola at the center of the slanting roof, with a delicate fence surrounding it. But for the cupola, it was only one story high, and the windows were tall and thin. The walls and roof were a mosaic of thousands of small flat blue stones, with colors from aquamarine to turquoise to sapphire, but Harry had no idea what these stones might be, for they were opaque, and yet they gleamed like mother of pearl. She sighed, and then to her horror she felt her eyes filling with tears; so she ran forward. It seemed as though even her leather riding-boots made no sound on the stone here, and she plunged her hands into the water of the fountain, and put her face under the spray. The coldness of it quieted her, and the drops danced around her. Narknon climbed up on one of the benches and lay down. Corlath followed them through the door in the wall and then went on to the little mosaic palace. There was no door in the arched entrance. Harry stepped slowly inside. Here the stream had slipped around behind and entered by some back way, for in the center of the front room was another fountain, and the stream ran in under the rear wall; but here the stone horse stood on all four legs and bowed his head to drink from the pool at his feet. There were tapestries on the walls, and rugs and cushions on the floor, and one low table, and that was all. Corlath opened the stone door beside the place where the stream came under the wall. She looked in. The stream entered over a tiny falls of three stone steps under the far wall, to run under the near wall and out to the fountain in the front room. The water tinkled as it fell. The floor of this room was thick with carpets, and against the wall opposite the stream was the long bolster-like object she had learned to recognize in the traveling camp as the Hill idea of a bed, although she had entertained higher hopes of the furnishings of the City. There were pillow-sized cushions at one end, and body-sized rugs folded up at the other end. She went back into the bigger room and looked around again. There was another door between two long blue-and-green tapestries. She walked over to it and opened it, wondering if she would find a dragon breathing fire from a heap of diamonds, or merely a bottomless chasm lined with blue stones, but instead it was only a bit more of the grassy courtyard, and a few steps away was a door in the wall surrounding this magic place into what she thought vaguely must be the castle itself. She closed the door and turned back; Corlath was dangling his fingers in the pool just in front of the horse's stone nose. He looked as if he were thinking very hard about something. Harry leaned back against the door behind her and stared at him, wondering what he was looking at, and waited for him to remember her. He looked up finally, and met her eyes. She didn't think she flinched. â€Å"Do you like it?† he said. She nodded, not quite sure of her voice. â€Å"It has been a long time since this place sheltered anyone,† he said; she wanted to ask how it came to be here at all, who had built it so lovingly and why; but she didn't. Corlath left her there. He walked out past the fountain of the rearing horse, and at the door where they had first entered he paused and turned back toward her. She had followed him from the small jeweled cottage, and stood next to the low bench where Narknon lay at her ease. But he said nothing, and turned away again, and closed the door behind him. She went to the little back room with the bolster and took off her surcoat. Her hands met her torn sash; her fingers curled around it and then she pulled it off in her two hands and tossed the pieces away from her. They fluttered to the floor. She lay down by degrees, leaving the lower half of her left leg h anging over the edge of the bolster, where the bruise need not come in contact with anything, and carefully arranged her sore shoulder. A young woman woke her, but she was dressed as the men of the household were dressed, in a long sashless white robe, and had the same mark they did on her forehead. â€Å"The banquet will begin soon,† said the girl, and bowed; and Harry nodded and sat up stiffly, and yawned, and contemplated her bruises, which seemed to be spreading. She unfolded herself, and weaved to her feet. She put on her blue robe but left the sash lying, and followed the girl out of the mosaic palace and through the castle door into an antechamber. She looked to the left and saw a room with tables, high tables, and real chairs: not chairs like the ones she had known at Home, but still chairs, with legs and backs, and some with armrests. The girl guided her to the right and into an immense bathroom, with the bath itself sunk into the floor, the size of a millpond, and s teaming. The girl helped her out of her clothes, and Harry sat for a moment at the edge of the lake and dabbled her tired feet in it. Her attendant hissed with sympathy over the bruises. Once she was fairly in and wet all over, two more young women appeared, and one of them presented her with a cake of white soap. The third young woman unbound her wet hair – now that it was wet, it smelled terribly of horse – and started rubbing shampoo into it. The shampoo smelled like flowers. She thought, I bet Corlath's shampoo doesn't smell like flowers. She would rather have climbed out of her own clothes – in spite of the aches and pains – and washed her own hair. The young woman who had given her the soap washed her back with a scratchy sponge, and Harry repressed the urge to giggle; she hadn't had anyone wash her back for her since she was five years old. She was clean at last and wrapped in towels, and sat quite patiently while the young woman who had washed her hair now tried to work the tangles out of it. It was long and thick and hadn't been combed properly smooth for weeks. Better her than me, Harry thought cheerfully; there are advantages to servants, perhaps; and this girl is very gentle †¦ Harry caught herself dozing. I'm going to be less than a success at my own banquet if I can't even stay awake, she thought. I suppose the last six weeks are all catching up with me now, and Mathin's grey dust. She tumbled off her stool at last, the towels removed, and a heavy white shift dropped over her head. They put velvet slippers on her feet and a red robe around her shoulders, and twisted a gold cord around her hair but let it hang down behind her so she had to flick the end of it aside when she sat down. At Home, one never wore one's hair loose when one was no longer a child; at night it was braided, during the day it was tied up. Harry shook her hair; it felt funny. These last weeks she had tied and pinned it fiercely under her helmet, where it couldn't get caught in anything, like the branch of a tree, or Mathin's sword, or under her own saddle. The young woman who had awakened her had rubbed salve into her shoulder and leg before they dressed her, and Harry found that she could move more freely, and the weight of the robe didn't bow her down, nor the sleek surface of the shift rub her like sandpaper. The three girls ushered her across the anteroom to the room with the chairs, and they all three bowed, and looked shyly at her with smiles hovering in their eyes, so she grinned at them and flapped the edges of her clean scarlet robe at them, and they smiled happily and left. Harry sat down tentatively in one of the queer crook-legged chairs, and leaned back luxuriously. Rugs and cushions and stools can be very comfortable, but they are inevitably backless, and it was apparently not done to lean against a tent wall; no one else did it, at least, so she hadn't tried. The shift billowed around her as she shrugged farther into the chair: No sash, she thought. There was a long hall she could see through an open door; and after a few minutes Mathin appeared through another door at the far end of it and came toward her. In his hand was a bit of maroon cloth; and when he came through the door, the air that swept in with him smelled of flowers. Harry smiled. â€Å"Well met, Daughter of the Riders,† said Mathin, and unrolled what he had in his hand. It was her old sash, washed clean. The smile left Harry's face, and when Mathin held the sash out to her, still in its two pieces, as if he would tuck it around her waist, she backed up a step. He stopped, surprised, and looked at her face, white under the tan. â€Å"I think,† he said slowly, â€Å"that you do not understand.† He held his arms out to his sides, and the hand indicated a line on his own dark green sash. â€Å"Look here.† Harry looked and saw a similar tear, but carefully mended, with tiny exact stitches of yellow thread. â€Å"All the Riders wear them so. Many of us won the slash at the hand of the king after being First at the laprun trials – as I did, many years ago. It was Corlath's father gave me this cut. Two or three of us have won them at other times. Any one lucky enough to have a sash cut off by a sol or sola will wear the mended sash ever after.† Harry, faintly in the back of her mind, heard Beth saying: â€Å"They come in those long robes they always wear – over their faces too, so you can't see if they're smiling or frowning; and some of them with those funny patched sashes around their waists.† Mathin said: â€Å"I will teach you to mend yours; you must do it yourself, as you clean your own sword and pay your own homage.† He looked at her slyly and added: â€Å"All those sashes you lopped off their owners you may be sure will be saved and mended; and the cuts will be bragged of, given by the damalur-sol whose prowess was first seen when she was First at the laprun trials.† Harry suffered Mathin to put the maroon sash around her waist again. He did not tuck it together, as she had, so that the slash did not show; instead it went in front, proudly – Harry gritted her teeth – and was fixed by a long golden pin. Then she silently followed him down the corridor. There were pillars reaching up three stories to meet the arched ceilings; the floors were laid out in great squares, two strides' length, but within each black-and-white border were scenes drawn in tiny mosaic tiles. Harry tried to look at them as she walked over them, and saw a great many horses, and some swords, and some sunrises and sunsets over Hills and deserts. She had her eyes so busily on the floor that when Mathin stopped she ran into him. They stood under one of the three-story arches the pillars made, but on either side of them the spaces between the tall columns were filled in, and tapestries hung on these walls, and they stood in the doorway to an immense room. It too was three stories high, and a chandelier was let down from the ceiling on a chain that seemed hundreds of feet long. Mathin and she went down six steps, across a dozen strides of floor, and up nine steps to a vast square dais; around three sides of the square was a white-laid table. At the one edge of this dais where there was no table were three more steps up to a long rectangular table on a smaller dais; and around this table sat Corlath and seventeen Riders. There were two empty seats at Corlath's right. Chairs, Harry thought happily. Chairs seem quite commonplace in the City, even if they don't understand beds. They sat, and the men and women of the household brought food, and they ate. Harry cast a sharp eye over those bearing the dishes; it seemed that those of the household here in the City were about equally divided, men and women. Harry turned impulsively to Mathin and said, quietly so that Corlath would not hear, â€Å"Why were there no women of the household with us in the traveling camp?† Mathin smiled at his leg of fowl. â€Å"Because there were so few women riding with us.† Corlath said, â€Å"There will be some to go with us in ten days' time, if you wish it; for even an army on its way to war needs some tending.† Harry said stiffly, â€Å"If this wish of mine is not a foolish one, it would please me to see women of the household come with us.† Corlath nodded gravely; and Harry thought of that first banquet she had attended, still dizzy and frightened from her ride across the desert, bumping on Corlath's saddlebow. She was still dizzy and frightened, she thought sadly, and touched the gold pin in her sash; it was cold to her fingers.. There was talk over the food of the laprun trials just past and of how so-and-so's son had ridden well or poorly; all the Riders had been watching the trials with an attention made more acute by the nearness of the Northerners. Mathin mentioned that a young woman named Senay had done well; a place should be offered to her when the army was ready to march. The kysin had ranked her high, and so she was still in the City, hoping for such a summons. â€Å"Where is her home?† Corlath asked. Mathin frowned, trying to remember. â€Å"Shpardith,† Harry said. â€Å"Shpardith?† Mathin said, surprised. â€Å"She must be old Nandam's daughter. He always said she'd grow into a soldier. Good for her.† â€Å"Mathin's growing into a billitu, do you think?† said Innath, and a ripple of laughter went around the table. Harry turned to look at Mathin, and thought he was looking even more stolid than usual. â€Å"I choose only the best,† said Mathin firmly, and everyone laughed again. A billitu is a lady-lover. Harry smiled involuntarily. No one mentioned the brilliant performance of the youngster on the big chestnut Tsornin who had had the luck to carry off the honors, and Harry began to relax as the meal progressed, although, she thought, staring into her goblet, the wine was probably helping. All was cleared away at last, and then came a pause so measured and expectant that Harry knew before she saw the man bearing the leather sack that they would bring out the Water of Seeing. This time she could understand when the Riders spoke of what they saw: war was in almost everyone's eyes, war with the Northerners, who were led by someone who was more than a man, whose sword flickered with a light that was the color of madness, and terror filled the heart of anyone who rode against him. Faran laughed shortly and without mirth and said that what he saw was no use to anybody; Hantil saw his own folk riding grimly toward the City bearing a message he did not know. Hantil came from a village in the mountains that were the northern border of Damar. â€Å"I do not like it,† said Hantil; â€Å"I have never seen my father look so stern.† Innath sighed over his Sight. â€Å"I see the Lake of Dreams,† he said, â€Å"as if it is early spring, for the trees are in bud. The Riders ride along its edge, but our number is only fifteen.† Mathin tipped a swallow of the Water into his mouth, and stared into the distance; and it was as though he were turned to stone, a statue in the stone City; but his face broke into a sweat, and the drops rolled from his forehead. Then he moved, became human again, but the sweat still ran. His voice was rough when he spoke: â€Å"I am on fire. I know no more.† As soon as Harry's hands closed around the neck of the flask, a picture swam before her; in the brown leather of the bag, among the fine tooling, there was another image placed there by no leather worker. She saw Tsornin standing on the desert, and his rider carried a white flag, or a bit of white cloth tied to the end of a stick. â€Å"What do you see?† asked Corlath gently, and she told him. She could not see the rider's face, for there was a white cloth pulled over nose and chin; but she shivered at the thought of seeing her own face so eerily: and worse yet, what if it were not her face? Tsornin broke into a canter and then a gallop, and Harry saw what he approached: the eastern gate of the General Mundy. Then the picture faded, and she was looking at the curiously tooled leather of the Water bag again. She raised it to her lips. Something like an explosion occurred in her head as she tasted the Water. She shuddered with the shock. Her right arm was numb to the shoulder, and it was her left hand's grasp on the neck of the bag that prevented her from dropping it. Then she felt another shock like the first, and realized that Tsornin was between her legs, and he screamed with rage and fear. The sky seemed to be black, and there were shouts and shrieks all around her, and they echoed as in a high-walled valley. One more of those shocks and she would be out of the saddle. She felt it poised to fall on her – and her vision cleared, and there was the table again. She looked at her right hand; it was still there. She looked up. â€Å"I don't – I don't know exactly what I saw. I think I was in a battle and – I seemed to be losing.† She smiled weakly. Her right arm was still not working properly, and Corlath lifted the bag out of her left hand. He took a sip in his turn; and Harry, watching, saw his eyes change color till they were as yellow as they had been the first time she had seen him in the Residency's courtyard. Then he closed them, and she saw the muscles in his face and neck and the backs of his hands tense till she thought they would burst through the skin; and then it was all over, and he opened his eyes, and they were brown. They moved to meet hers, and she thought she saw something of his vision still lingering there, and it was something like her own. â€Å"I have seen our enemy's face,† Corlath said calmly. â€Å"It is not pretty.† Then the man came to carry the Water away, and the wine was brought back, and the shadows were chased away for a little. The Riders began looking expectantly toward Corlath, but this was a happier expectancy than that which had predicted the Meeldtar, and Harry caught the eagerness herself, though she knew not what it was for, and looked around for clues. They had eaten their meal alone in the vast hall, and their few voices ran up into the ceiling like live things with wills of their own. But after the Water bag had been taken away, people had begun to appear around the small dais where the king and his Riders sat; they entered from all directions and settled on cushions or chairs. Some of them mounted the lower dais and sat around the great table that surrounded the Riders. More of the folk of the household appeared, some bearing trays and some low tables, and set out more food, or passed it among the increasing audience. There was a murmur of talk, low but excited. Harry rubbed her fingers up and down the length of the gold pin in her sash till it was no longer cold. One of the men brought Corlath his sword, and he stood up and slung the belt of it around him. Harry wondered sourly how many years it took to learn to sling oneself into a sword as easily as yawn; and then wondered if she wanted to spend so many years that way. Or if she would have the choice. She had not liked waking up to find herself clutching her sword hilt as a child might clutch a favorite toy. Perhaps it was as well to have to think of shoulder and waist, belt and buckle. Another man came in, carrying another sword. Corlath took this one too, and held the scabbard in his left hand, letting the belt dangle; and he pulled it free and waved it, gleaming, under the light of the candles in the great chandelier. There was a blue stone set in its hilt, and it glared defiantly in the light. This was a shorter lighter sword than Corlath's, but the suppleness of it, and the way it hung, waiting, in the air, gave it a look of infinite age, and sentience, as if it looked out at those who looked at it. â€Å"This is Gonturan,† said Corlath, and a murmur of assent and of recognition went around the hall; the Riders were silent. â€Å"She is the greatest treasure of my family. For a few years in his youth each son has carried her; but she was not meant for a man's hands, and legend has it that she will betray the man who dares bear her after his twentieth year. This is the Lady Aerin's sword; and it has been many a long year since there has been a woman to carry it.† Harry was staring at the blade, and barely heard Corlath's words; she was watching a flame-haired woman riding in a forest that seemed to grow against the flat of the shining sword; in her hand was another sword, and the hilt sparkled blue. All the other Riders were standing up, and Corlath reached down and seized her wrist. â€Å"Stand up, disi,† he said. â€Å"I'm about to make you a Rider.† She stood, dazed. A disi was a silly child. There was another who rode with the woman who carried the Blue Sword; he rode a few paces behind her. â€Å"A Rider?† Harry said. â€Å"A Rider,† Corlath replied firmly. She dragged her eyes away from the winking sword edge and looked at him. Another man of the household set a small flat pot of yellow salve at Corlath's right hand. The king dipped the fingers of that hand in it, then drew them to smear the ointment across his palm. He had shifted Gonturan to his left hand; now he seized the blade near the tip with his right, and gave it a quick twist. â€Å"Damn,† he said, as the blood welled between his fingers and dripped to the floor. He picked up a napkin and squeezed it. â€Å"Take my sword, Harimad-sol,† he said, â€Å"and do the same – but not so enthusiastically. I think, though, that Katuchim has not the sense of humor that Gonturan does, so do not fear him.† She dipped her fingers in the salve, and touched them gently to her palm; reached out and, as awkwardly as if she had never learned one lesson from Mathin, dragged Corlath's sword from its scabbard. It was so long she had to brace the hilt against the table to get a reasonable angle on the edge. She closed her fingers around it, thought about something else, and felt the skin of her palm just part. She opened her hand, and three drops of blood only sprang from the thinnest of red lines across her skin. â€Å"Well done!† said Mathin over her shoulder, and the Riders cheered; and the whole hall picked it up, shouting. Corlath grinned down at her, and she could not help smiling back. â€Å"There have been more graceful kings and Riders since the world began, but we'll do,† said Corlath to her, quietly, below the roar around them. â€Å"Take your sword, and mind you treat her well. You will have Aerin's shade to answer to, else.† Harry's fingers closed round the blue hilt and she knew at once that she would handle this sword very well indeed – or it would handle her. For a moment she found herself wishing that she had been carrying Gonturan the day of the trials, and at this a slow sly smile spread across her face. She raised her eyes to Corlath's face – he had taken his own sword back and sheathed it, and one of the Riders was tying the napkin around the wounded hand and saying something sardonic; but Corlath only laughed, and turned back to watch her. Such was the slow sly smile he offered her in return that she rather thought he knew just what she was thinking. â€Å"Damalur-sol!† the people cried. â€Å"Damalur-sol!†

Core Professional Competencies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Core Professional Competencies - Essay Example The artifact shows that the teacher has not only engaged in classroom activity, but he has also used it to teach them about their responsibilities while in the classroom. The artifact also fulfills another requirement of CPC 6, which is to teach the students regarding appropriate school and overall social behavior. By making the children right rules, the teacher teaches them what the rules are, their importance while making them understand them well. It also serves as an effective strategy for reducing misbehaviors in the classroom as the artifact shows that the teacher also makes all the children sign on the rules, which means that the children would remember that they have promised to abide by the rules. Moreover, it would also make them feel that they were themselves responsible for bringing them in the first place, hence, the would not resent rules. By involving all of the children, the teacher also involves the naughty kids in the activity, which makes them feel responsible. All in all, the artifact not only involves all children in a healthy discussion and activity, it also teaches them about their responsibilities and rights while in the classroom. A good teacher not only provides centralized attention to his classroom, he also provides individual attention to students who are in need of it. CPC 7 requires the teacher to develop individualized education plans for his students. Moreover, he also helps in closing the gap between the students with learning problems and behavioral issues. The artifact is an wonderful implementation of CPC 7, it is a touch math exercise program. This program has been used for a student of grade 2 who has dyspraxia. The child has problems in holding and gripping her pencil and writing her letter on line. She problems in basic computations and is not able to recall basic math functions such as addition and subtraction. The artifact shows that the teacher is fully aware of the weakness of her students and

Answer and summarize Management HR Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Answer and summarize Management HR - Essay Example This alignment is to align HR function with business strategy, understand the various aspects of the business and familiarizing with the challenges encountered by leaders so that the various issues can be tackled from both employees and the leader’s perspective. A strategic partner determines the business strategy and oversees the implementation of such strategies. It is imperative to involve key executive leaders and to develop a good team rapport while coming up with HR policy guidelines and strategies, which are very crucial in guiding the organization. In business, the customer is usually the primary concern. To satisfy the customer, the HR head should ensure that the employees are made to feel at home. When employees are happy, customers are also happy. While there may be a success in some organizations with regard to human resource management, in others it remains very elusive. HR is more about understanding the needs of the business and acting with these needs at heart. There should always be contact with the rest of the company to ensure ease of doing business. From a team standpoint, specialization coupled with hard work, enthusiasm, consistency and diligence are of core importance. Strategic partnership with an inclination towards the people element put people first, with the key being retention and development. Long-term forecast is usually desirable, and the agility of the company can make it reap handsome returns faster. Synchronized teamwork is necessary especially in light of changing functions that may occasioned by downsizing. The employees are greatly helped by assisting them in ranking growing responsibilities. An open door policy style of management is attractive. The manager leaves the door â€Å"open† to foster transparency and frankness with employees of the company. In order to encourage performance, the company motivates employees by paying or rewarding

Exam 4 chapter Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Exam 4 chapter - Essay Example In contrast only the broad outline is provided within which a variety of course content could be accommodated. The teachers play the role of a mentor to students. Instead of spoon-feeding all concepts and course content they give a fair degree of liberty for students to find their own individualized style of learning. They prompt students to find equilibrium in the interaction between the organism and the environment. There is no standardized evaluation of learning. Moreover, the process involves experimentation and learning through experience rather through concepts. Pragmatism also rejects Metaphysical Absolutes and Metaphysical Dualisms. Pragmatism is a relevant philosophy of schooling even today. The prevalent system of education does not mould students into well-rounded and socially-conscious individuals. The emphasis is too much on grades and individual excellence. Being part of the current education system I can clearly see what Pragmatism offers. Under Pragmatist education student co-operation is given more importance compared to student competition. This is not the case in the current system where there is severe competition to get good grades. Perhaps, the current system can be modified to include educational goals and methods outlined under Pragmatism. This chapter is useful reference for students and educators alike. Just as students are exposed a system of education quite different to theirs, it also helps educators to rethink the objectives of curriculum and methods employed to achieve the same. The lack of standard grading system can be problematic for contemporary educators. The ability of a student to handle ad hoc problems as posed by the teacher is loosely evaluated for learning outcomes. It is this aspect of Pragmatism which makes it incompatible with the present mindset of teachers and parents. Today teachers and parents want students to excel in tests, irrespective of understanding how it translates into social and

Why was there a considerable delay to the introduction of universal Essay

Why was there a considerable delay to the introduction of universal suffrage in France - Essay Example This section will provide detailed description about the Napoleon laws that promoted women subordination, the French political attitude towards women’s rights to vote, civil rights activists’ involvement, the role of the fight for power in the delay, and eventually, the change in French law that allowed women to vote and contend for official positions (Ringen, 2009; Reynolds, 2002). Women may have been subordinated in France before, but the Napoleon’s Civil Code of 1804 reinforced this subordination. Even after their rights were expressed in previous years, this law meant that they would still not be allowed to vote. This went on until 1890s when women’s rights activists became stronger in advocating for the women’s rights. This was when the stained political minds were heard (Boxer, 1982; Reynolds, 2002). This section will describe in detail how the above factors led to the

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

Economic - Essay Example This article was about the slight drop in China’s passenger vehicle sales in February. 2. Introduction Economics is very essential because it affects our life everyday. As a worker and a consumer, we will have to make economic decisions like how to spend our income. Sometimes, the cost of all the goods and services that we need and want to buy is greater than our income. So, we have to analyze the situation and choose among our choices carefully. We make decisions about learning, working, earning and spending. And we can make all these decisions more effectively if we have better understanding of economics. A good way to start understanding economics is by examining how markets work and who participates in them. All these market participants come into the marketplace because they specific goals to satisfy. They have to pursue their self-interests; buyers maximize their incomes while suppliers maximize their profits. These maximizing behaviors are the driving force of market ec onomies. But it is not just about the buyers and the sellers; governments can also affect the individual choices or influence the marketplace in terms of taxes. This paper will try to figure out how markets, specifically the auto markets, work and examine the factors that may affect the decisions of the participants in the auto market. Economic concepts like demand, supply, price and tax will be the primary tool that will be utilized in this paper. 3. Analysis A. Market The term market simply refers to a place or situation where an economic exchange occurs – where a buyer and a seller interact (Schiller 2006, 47). It exists wherever and whenever an exchange takes place. The exchange of money or resources with goods and services is the market transaction. And in every market transaction, there must a buyer and a seller. The buyer represents the demand side because they demand goods and services in exchange with their money while the seller represents the supply side as they wi ll supply goods and services in exchange for the money. In this paper, the market to be examined is the auto market in China and its participants – the buyers of cars and the sellers or the auto makers like General Motors Co, Ford, Toyota and Mazda and the government. B. Demand â€Å"The Chinese lunar new year also bolstered demand for big-ticket items, but the following months could be challenging for automakers† (usa.chinadaily.com 2011, 2). For us to understand such statement, we should have the basic idea of what demand is. Schiller (2006, 48) defined demand as the buyers' willingness and ability to buy specific quantities of a good at alternative prices in a given period of time. It is inversely related to price. This means that the quantity of a good demanded in a given period of time increases as its price falls. This relationship is also referred to as the Law of Demand. In one of our articles, there was a recorded increase in demand for cars between December a nd January brought about by the tax incentives imposed by the government. Tax like sales tax affects the quantity of goods and services that consumers may demand. As it is an addition to the actual price of a good, the higher the tax imposed on the good the lesser quantity of that good the consumers will demand. For this purpose, Table 1 shows the effect of 10 per cent tax imposed on different prices of car. Price of

Africa Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Africa - Article Example In order to loot the wealth of Africa, politicians encouraged the internal wars in Africa. As a result of that no economic developments or infrastructure development took place in Africa. Even though globalization brought huge opportunities to the poor countries, because of internal agitation and poor infrastructure facilities, Africa failed to exploit it. African people knew only to fight irrespective of the age differences. In other words, wars were in their blood at the time of birth itself. Africa needs to learn from these mistakes and concentrate more on the development aspect of the continent rather than the military and political aspects. For the time being, internal wars were stopped up to certain extent and the killing of innocent people is only a rare incident now in Africa. It should be noted that more than seven million people were killed in the recent past in Africa due to internal wars. Countries like Angola, Congo, Sudan etc where internal wars were severe in the past, killing incidents are reported rarely now. Now, it is time to concentrate more on the rebuilding processes of Africa. The comfortable signs of peace are visible everywhere in Africa at present. The presence of foreign military armies to ensure peace is not necessary in Africa at present. African people realised the mistakes they committed in the past and they are slowly constructing a normal life as that of the people in the external world. They realised that wars are not answers to any of their basic problems and peace is necessary to solve all of their basic problems. It should be noted that peace processes are now developing internally even though it was developed because of the external pressure in the past. Moreover, African countries, which were engaged in fierce battle earlier, started to help each other in the peace building process now. Majority of the internal wars in Africa were caused by the external forces in order to

Let’s analyze the gaming console industry Essay Example for Free

Let’s analyze the gaming console industry Essay We can define two types of supplier: the hardware supplier and the software supplier. The hardware suppliers providing the elements needed to build the consoles have a low bargaining power because there have very low switching costs and there are a lot of them. On the other hand, the software suppliers (developers) have a high bargaining power because they choose and set the conditions to work with each console. Entry Barriers Entry barriers are high because of high RD costs and the high capital investment needed to start a business in the console industry. Internal Rivalry There is high internal rivalry among competitors because the core player market is growing slowly, competitors have high exit barriers and the products developed turn obsoletes in less than 5 years due to the fast progress of technology. The players in the industry are: Sony, XBOX and Nintendo. Buyer Power The bargaining power of buyers is high because there are many options with very low switching costs. Substitutes Low substitute power because they are not very similar (like TV or other entertainment device) and don’t fulfill the same exact purpose. Sony has few competitors due to high barriers-to-entry and startup costs but buyers and suppliers (game developers) have high bargaining power and low switching costs. Sony should target a new market as Nintendo did. We could call this market the casual players market. In order to get in this new segment, Sony will have to develop a more interactive way of using their console without dropping the numerous features to avoid losing their core player market share. The key of success for Sony is to adapt a new technology such as Nintendo did with Wii that will enable the company to target a broader market and not only the males from 16-36 years old. The advantage of entering those two markets with one console is that Sony will enter a bigger market with bigger returns and consequently bigger economies of scales. Also, entering the casual player market is important for the company to avoid falling behind its competitors in both markets since this new segment will enhance the brand exposure and recognition. The risk associated to this option is to turn this high performing console in a low performing console (as Nintendo did) and lose the core players customers that are very important to Sony financial stability and growth. A big challenge for this new console will be to cut costs in order to make it more accessible to customers, since the casual players market will definitely be â€Å"guided† by price. Vis-a-vis the Five Forces, if Sony were to pursue this option, the company will be competing in the core player market and on the casual player market. On the casual player market the substitutes will have more power. Sony will compete with other activities such as watching TV, watching a movie and others living room activities. The main â€Å"purpose† of this market is entertainment in general while the core player market is about playing video games. Update: Sony and Microsoft had already implemented advanced interactive technologies. Nowadays, Microsoft has the most advanced software and hardware that don’t need controllers anymore, just your body.

The Importance Of Moral Philosophy

The Importance Of Moral Philosophy Moral philosophy is very important to the success of an individual. Rational knowledge has two components. These components are material and formal. Formal knowledge is not object oriented, and is based on reason. Formal knowledge is logic, or the laws of thought. Material knowledge is object oriented, and has two components. These two components are natural and moral. Natural law is physics. It determines what is the case, and how things behave in nature. On the other hand, moral law determines what things ought to be. Morality is something humans think about, and is not based on physiological factors. Now that we have a little background of knowledge and moral law, let me tell you why you should lead a moral life. Even though morality is not imposed upon you, it is about humanity. And, while it may not seem fair, in reality, morality is judged by humans. So, if you are immoral, other people will be the ones that notice that you are immoral, and that can hurt personal relationships. One way that I have succeeded throughout my career is by knowing and being friends with a lot of people. The practical side of life is based on interpersonal relationships. Whether it be social or business, communicating with people is the only way to get things done. There is no way that you can go through life in todays society without getting along with people. If people think that you are immoral, than they will not respect you, or be willing to work with you. Again, it may seem like it is not fair because you know that no one is one hundred percent moral, and if someone doesnt respect you because you are immoral, than they are hypocritical. But, when it comes to moral issues, the reality of the world is that people are hypocritical. They feel it is okay for them to do it, but not okay for anyone else. Think about it, how many times have you said, I cant believe that he did that; hes a jerk. Knowing the entire time that you have done the same thing. You may say, Who cares! Im here to tell you that one day you might care. Let me give you and example. After I completed a business venture that made me over one million dollars, I learned that the only reason I received the job was because the man I was competing against had cheated on his wife. Well, the company offering the job decided that they couldnt trust this man because of his immoral activity. So, to answer your question, I care. And for that matter, I bet if you were involved in this situation, you would care. Now I want to tell you an obvious reason why you should care. This may be so obvious that you overlooked it. Many of our nations laws are based on moral issues. For instance, you cant hurt another human; you cant steal from another human; and you cant kill another human being. Now, you may say, I already know this! But, if everybody knew this, would we need jails? Let me ask you a question. How successful can you be in jail? My point with this question is to get you to realize that you cant be successful in jail. Nobody grows up saying that they cant wait to go to jail because they know that it is the place to be. Nobody says that if they could just get in jail they know that they could be the best prisoner, and could have the biggest cell. This may be taking immorality to an extreme, but it happens. An immoral life could send a person to jail. I can tell you some of the consequences of an immoral life, but I cant make you be moral. Morality is not imposed upon you by society. Morality is self imposed; it is something in us, and defines what constitutes a human being. I am sure that many of you have participated in team sports. Now even if you have a good game, maybe you scored all of the points, and the team won. But, at the end of the game you cheated. Well, everyone that knows you cheated now labels you a cheater. So, in the future, when it is time to play the next game no one wants you on their team. They think that you will give the team a bad name because you cheated before. Again, you might say, Who cares? All I can tell you is that if you cant play because no one wants you on their team, then you sure cant win or be successful. So since morality, whether it is fair or not is judged by those around you, you will be better off in the end if you lead a moral life. Kant says, The moral worth depends, therefore, not on the realization of the object of the action, but merely on the principle of volition according to which, without regard to any objects of the faculty of desire, the action has been done(Kant, p.13). What this great philosopher was saying, is that you cant always go for the instant reward when you are going to do something. Sometimes you have to bypass the selfish inclination and not cheat or do things that are immoral. Yes, you may not win this game, but at least you can play tomorrow and maybe win then. Moral law is universal. It is not created by anyone, it just exists. Also, moral law is a priori, or in other words, it exists before empirical law. Moral philosophy is very valuable to everyones life. Morals are proper for everyone, and since they are based on metaphysics, and metaphysics transcends differences, they are also cross cultural. Moral law has helped me be successful in everything that I do. Being a 65 year old man, I have seen a lot. I know the value of moral philosophy. Moral philosophy has helped me be successful in every thing that I have done. You may ask, How has it helped you be successful? Well, I have told you a couple of aspects of moral philosophy, and all of these aspects have helped me keep things in perspective. Financial success will come with morality, but if it doesnt, then you will still be better off because you have led a moral life. There have been times in my life when I have succumb to selfish inclination, and the results were immediately good. But ultimately, if I had been labeled as an immoral person, and was not able to do certain things because people didnt like me, than I definitely wouldnt have been the one invited to give this talk to you. By the way, I am getting paid an awful lot of money for this talk. So there is another way that morality has helped me. Happiness is not a grounding for morality, because some immoral people are happy. But, morality can lead to ultimate happiness and greater success in whatever you attempt to do in life.