Research and present how Aflac practices social responsibility and Paper

And present how Aflac practices social responsibility and ethics. Your should uncover how it successfully uses - Research Paper Example The key CSR practises that have enabled Aflac to often rank high among most of the sustainability index such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) amongst others include the multi-purpose recycling program for plastics, office papers among other wastes such aluminium metals (Aflac, 2012a; Forster, Loughran & Mcdonald 2009, p.129). Aflac has come to understand the crucial role played by CSR and ethical practises and conformity programs in promoting the brand of a company and this explains why it been in the Ethisphere list of socially responsible companies continually. This recognition is further attributed to the company dedication to engaging in activities that mutually benefit the communities in which the company operates and enhances is success while maintaining high ethical standards. Aflac focuses on three key areas; compassion, multiplicity and the ability to uphold its purpose, it is dedicated to looking after its own congregation and is mainly concerned with its miscel laneous work force. Consequently, individuals in the societies in which the company operates in have come to have expectations that, it assumes more responsibilities to the public, and this is based on the assumption that the company makes so much money at the expense of the public. It is believed by the management of Aflac that these expectations will continue to increase in the future as the company goes on expanding its activities all over the globe. In addition, the company has come up with environmentally friendly plans to ensure that its negative impact on the environment remains minimal. Thus, its participation in corporate social responsibility can be said to have increased the role of this company in the society by making sure that it participates in making the environment a better place in which to live. Because of this, the company has come to adopt the theory of corporate social responsibility, which is an approach it utilizes when dealing with the impact its business ac tivities have on the societies and the environment, in which it is involved. Corporate Social Responsibility Implementing Corporate Social Responsibility Corporate social responsibilities refer to the actions undertaken by a corporation in order to cater for the welfare of all its stakeholders i.e. its clients, employees and especially to the communities they operate in promoting social welfare. Recently, there has been questioning of the current statements about the advantages of corporate social responsibility and the declarations that companies make on behalf of their corporate social responsibility programs. In particular, it has been suggested that the use of corporate social responsibility for the sake of public relations raises ethical predicaments over the motivation of companies. There have also been warnings concerning the justifications that either companies employ may be dishonest or imprecise with regard to the practical substantiation obtained from small-scale qualitat ive researches undertaken in the 1980s, a period when the exercise of corporate social responsibility was growing rapidly (Brown 2011, p.78). There has been the suggestion that companies only

Museum Visit Art Study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Museum Visit Art Study - Essay Example His last beneficiary (his daughter) died in 1926 at the age of 42 prompting formation of trust for the purchase of art. By the side about the same time a different benefactor, Mary Atkins McAfee left her vast estate to the city to erect a building to be used and maintained as a fine arts museum. Trustees, three presidents of state university from Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri were initially in charge. It's particularly noted for Asian art, counting Ming dynasty furniture and Tang dynasty bowls; a 22-acre outdoor statuette garden with the leading United States collection of Henry Moore bronzes; the biggest public collection of Missouri native Thomas Benton Hart works; and one of the nation’s largest collections of America photography (Poore, 2010). It also has paintings of European origin, from baroque and Romanesque to Impressionist, together with more modern works from pop to expressionism art. The museum includes also works by Caravaggio (his St. John the Baptist at the Wild erness is a treasure in the museum), Rembrandt, Rubens, Renoir, Andy Warhol Monet, van Gogh, Willem de Kooning, Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock, and Picasso. The Rozelle Court Restaurant, put in the 15th-century courtyard style, has comprehensive dinner hours on Friday (Poore, 2010). This museum accommodates art treasures from all periods of time and art styles. At the outset, it was decided that few limits, quality excluded, would not bound the extent of the museum.   Their much familiar and popular art includes Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Olive Orchard’ which seemed to me very much interesting. Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Olive Orchard’ During the latest six 1889 months, Vincent Van Gogh did a minimum of fifteen olive trees paintings, a subject he saw both compelling and demanding. He wrote a letter to Theo, his brother, saying that he was besieged to the olive trees painting. In the letter he claimed that they were â€Å"old silver, occasionally with a more blue, sometimes bronzed, greenish, a fading white above the soil which is pink, yellow, violet tinted orange†¦.very complicated†, (Sparknotes, 2013) in his attempt to present form, in the painting van Gogh knew that color and unity in his work had intrinsic expressive powers besides its descriptive use. In one of the Olive Orchard oil painting reproduction, â€Å"Olive Trees with a Yellow Sky and Sun†, I discovered that the crunch of the olive grove had somewhat very furtive in it, and incalculably old. It is too beautiful for to be talented to imagine it or us to dare paint it. In the ‘olive orchard’, in the animated power of their gnarled and ancient forms, Van Gogh found a portrayal of the devout force he believed exist in all nature, bring about symbolism in his work (Leahy, 2013). His brushstrokes made the soil and the sky seem lively with the same rustling activity as the leaves, enthused to a shimmer of the Mediterranean wind. The use of opposin g, and diversifying elements add interest and variety in the painting. These sturdy individual dashes do not appear painted as much as drawn on the canvas with a deeply loaded brush. The

Future Trends In Wireless Sensor Networks Information Technology Essay

Future Trends In Wireless Sensor Networks Information Technology Essay With the advances in the technology of micro-electromechanical system (MEMS), developments in wireless communications and WSNs have also emerged. WSNs have become the one of the most interesting areas of research in the past few years. Here, we look into the recent advances and future trends in WSNs. WSNs are usually composed of small, low-cost devices that communicate wirelessly and have the capabilities of processing, sensing and storing. The development of WSNs was motivated by military applications such as battlefield surveillance. WSN are being used in many industrial and civilian application areas, including industrial process monitoring and control [1, 2], machine health monitoring [3], environment and habitat monitoring, healthcare applications, home automation, and traffic control [1, 4]. A WSN generally consists of a base-station (also called as gateway sometimes) that can communicate with a number of wireless sensors via a radio link. Wireless sensor nodes collect the data, compress it, and transmit it to the gateway directly or indirectly with the help of other nodes. The transmitted data is then presented to the system by the gateway connection. This paper discusses the recent advances in WSNs that enable a wide range of applications and future development in applications like underwater acoustic sensor systems; sensing based cyber-physical systems, time-critical applications, cognitive sensing and spectrum management, and security and privacy management. Rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the recent advances in WSNs. We discuss future trends in WSN in Section 3. Section 4 describes the research challenges for WSN. Finally Section 5 presents the conclusion. RECENT ADVANCES Recent advances in wireless and electronic technologies have enabled a wide range of applications of WSNs in military sensing, traffic surveillance, target tracking, environment monitoring, healthcare monitoring, and so on. Here we describe such type advances in WSN and their applications in various fields. Sensor Localization and Location-Aware Services Smart Home/Smart Office Smart home environments can provide custom behaviors for a given individual. Considerable amount of research has been devoted to this topic. The research on smart homes is now starting to make its way into the market. It takes a considerable amount of work and planning to create a smart home. There are many examples of products currently on the market which can perform individual functions that are considered to be part of a smart home. Several useful applications which take advantage of information collected by WSN are presented in [5]. Military New and emerging technologies, such as networks, support military operations by delivering critical information rapidly and dependably to the right individual or organization at the right time. This improves the efficiency of combat operations. The new technologies must be integrated quickly into a comprehensive architecture to meet the requirements of present time. Improvement in situation awareness [6] is must requirement. Other important application is detection of enemy units movements on land/sea, sensing intruders on bases, chemical/biological threats and offering logistics in urban warfare [7]. Command, control, communications, computing, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting systems are well described in [8]. Industrial Commercial Since the long time wireless transmission of data is being done in industrial applications, but recently it has gained importance. Successful use of wireless sensors in systems such as supervisory control and data acquisition has proved that these devices could effectively address the needs of industrial applications. The critical process applications of WSNs in industry are monitoring temperature, flow-level, and pressure parameters. With the rapidly increasing technological advances in wireless technology and its subsequently decreasing prices, numerous wireless applications are being developed in industry. WSN in manufacturing industries can monitor and optimize quality control. Traffic Management and Monitoring Every big city is suffering from traffic congestion around the world. A sincere effort is being made to solve the traffic congestion. Congestion can be alleviated by planning managing traffic. A real-time automatic traffic data collection must be employed for efficient management of rush-hour traffic. Research on this topic is considered as part of the Intelligent Transport System (ITS) research community. ITS is the application of the computers, communications, and sensor technology to surface transportation [9]. The vehicle tracking application is to locate a specific vehicle or moving object and monitor its movement. This work also describes design of WSN for vehicular monitoring. As the power source (battery) is limited, it is important that a design of sensor node is power efficient. Structural Healthcare Structures are inspected at regular time intervals, and repairing or replacing based on the time of use, rather than on their working conditions. Sensors embedded into structures enable condition-based maintenance of these assets [10]. Wireless sensing will allow assets to be inspected when the sensors indicate that there may be a problem. This will reduce the cost of maintenance and preventing harmful failure. These applications include sensors mounted on heavy duty bridges, within concrete and composite materials [11], and big buildings. Agriculture Agriculture can also be benefited by the deployment of WSN to get the information regarding soil degradation and water scarcity [12]. With help of WSNs we can check the clean water consumed in irrigation and manage it. Topology and Coverage Control Topology control is one of the fundamental problems in WSNs. It has great importance for prolong lifetime, reducing radio interference, increasing the efficiency of media access control protocols and routing protocols. It also ensures the quality of connectivity coverage and increase in the network service as well. A significant progress in research can be seen in WSNs topology control. Many topology control algorithms have been developed till date, but problems such as lack of definite and practical algorithm, lack of efficient measurement of network performance and idealness of mathematical model still exist. Several graph models used in topology control, the present hot spots and the future trends on the research of topology control are presented in [13]. Quality of Service (QoS) Provision QoS support is challenging due to severe energy and computational resource constrains of wireless sensors. Various service properties such as the delay, reliability, network lifetime, and quality of data may conflict; for example, multi-path routing can improve the reliability, however it can increase the energy consumption and delay due to duplicate transmissions. Modeling such relationships, measuring the provided quality, and providing means to control the balance is essential for QoS support. There are various research opportunities in enhancing the QoS of WSNs. One of the researches is the project described in [14] that analyzes and enhances the performance of a WSN by deploying a simple max-min fairness bandwidth allocation technique. Mobility management Mobility is one of the most important issues in next generation networks. As WSNs are becoming the next elements of the future Internet, it is crucial to study new models that also support mobility of these nodes. WSNs are applicable in variety of cases that make it difficult to produce a standard mobility scenario. Following are some cases where the mobile support is necessary [15]. Intra-WSN device movement is probably the most common scenario in WSNs architectures, where each sensor node has the ability to change from its local position at run time without losing the connectivity with the sensor router (SR). In the case of inter-WSN device movement, sensor nodes move between different sensor networks, each one with its SR responsible to configure and manage all the aggregated devices. A research project of IETF working group NEMO [16] is an example of WSN movement. Sensor network deployed in a moving bus is a real scenario of this type. It is possible to have a scenario where a sensor network can use another sensor network in order to be connected through Internet. MANEMO [17] project is also an example. Security and Privacy Concern The field that paid less attention is the privacy concern on information being collected, transmitted, and analyzed in a WSN. Such private information of concern may include payload data collected by sensors and transmitted through the network to a centralized data processing server. The location of a sensor initiating data communication, and other such context information, may also be the focus of privacy concerns. In real world applications of WSNs, effective countermeasures against the disclosure of both data and context-oriented private information are indispensable prerequisites. Privacy protection in various fields related to WSNs, such as wired and wireless networking, databases and data mining, has been extensively studied in [18]. Effective privacy-preserving techniques are needed for the unique challenges of WSN security. Biomedical/Medical The uses of WSNs in biomedical and medical are in growing phase. Biomedical wireless sensor networks (BWSNs) show the future opportunities for supporting mobility while monitoring vital body functions in hospital and home care. There is a requirement for BWSN to develop in order to cover security handling, improved signal integration and visualization. They can also be used to achieve extended mobility outside the surgery room, monitoring of several patients/persons at the same time, and further adaptations to medical experts needs for information. As the Internet usage has become popular among people, e-services for the healthcare which is commonly known as e-Health, have recently attracted significant attention within both the research society and industry. Followings are several ongoing projects for healthcare using WSN: CodeBlue [19] an architecture proposed for tracking and monitoring of patients. ALARM-NET [20] a WSN built for assisted-living and residential monitoring. AMON [21] a Wireless Body Area Sensor Network System GlucoWatch G2 [22] use WSN to research wearable personal health system that will monitor and evaluate human vital signs. FUTURE TRENDS The future developments in sensor nodes must produce very powerful and cost-effective devices, so that they may be used in applications like underwater acoustic sensor systems, sensing based cyber-physical systems, time-critical applications, cognitive sensing and spectrum management, and security and privacy management. In this section we will look into all possibilities of further development in WSN applications. Cognitive Sensing Cognitive sensor networks are used for acquiring localized and situated information of the sensing environment by the deploying a large number of sensors intelligently and autonomically. Managing a large number of wireless sensors is a complex task. A significant research interest can be seen in bio-inspired sensing [23] and networking. Two well known examples of cognitive sensing are swarm intelligence and quorum sensing: Swarm intelligence is developed in artificial intelligence for studying the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems. Quorum sensing is an example of bio-inspired sensing and networking. Quorum sensing is the ability of bacteria to communicate and coordinate behavior via signaling molecules. Spectrum Management As application of low-power wireless protocols is increasing, we can envision a future in which wireless devices, such as wireless keyboards, power-point presenters, cell phone headsets, and health monitoring sensors will be ubiquitous. But the pervasiveness of these devices leads to increased interference and congestion within as well as between networks, because of overlapping physical frequencies. Cognitive radios and multi-frequency MACs are some approaches that have been developed to utilize multiple frequencies for parallel communication. A generic solution is provided by SAS [24]: a Self-Adaptive Spectrum Management middleware for WSNs, which can be easily integrated with an existing single frequency. The inherent nature of WSNs makes them deployable in a variety of circumstances. They have the potential to be everywhere, on roads, in our homes and offices, forests, battlefields, disaster struck areas, and even underwater in oceans. This paper surveys the application areas where WSNs have been deployed such as military sensing, traffic surveillance, target tracking, environment monitoring, and healthcare monitoring as summarized in Table 2. The paper also surveys the various fields where WSNs may be deployed in the near future as underwater acoustic sensor systems, sensing based cyber-physical systems, time-critical applications, cognitive sensing and spectrum management, and security and privacy management. These application areas are being researched extensively by various people across the industry and academician [7, 9, 22, 24, 28].

what we need :: essays research papers

â€Å"What we need†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Summer Olympics a venue that the world looks forward to every 4 years. Various sports that athletes train hard for day in and day out to achieve the coveted gold medal. An opportunity arises the chance for a given city; â€Å"your city† to hold the 2012 summer Olympic games. One dilemma, the city that they might pick is in dire need for psychological and physical uplifting. Is this the right opportunity to do so for the city of New York and try to give new life too much changed city after the September 11 tragedies? Is this a good choice for the Olympic games to be held in our own New York City, or is this an invitation for terrorist groups too spoil plans and moral once again? As well as add too the congestion of an already chaotic traffic system?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Many different opinions are voiced in a situation that can affect a city of 8 million people for the better or for the worse. Most of the people of New York City are very optimistic of the possible coming of the Olympic games. The pros of this proposed idea are many and very beneficial for the city as well as the people. A great benefit that comes from this event is jobs. In a time of economic decline and people loosing their jobs are the main positive things that the Olympic games will bring; Kevin Fleming said that the Olympics would probably put money in his pocket. â€Å"I think it’s great, I’m looking forward to getting a lot of work from it.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Other great aspects of the Olympics possibly being held in New York City is that the city will get the much needed â€Å"face-lift† in areas of the city that was already planned but it will just get done sooner. â€Å"Most of the things the Olympics need, the city needs anyway,† mayor Bloomberg was quoted to say. Businesses will boom and jobs will there for the willing to work. Some risks that we take will be well worth it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  People are also worried about the traffic and the gridlock that would be caused by the Olympics but New Yorkers deal with it day in and day out the whole traffic is well worth it because when it is all said and done the Olympics go down in history and â€Å"you â€Å" will be one of the lucky ones to see history in the making.

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Chapter 19~20

Nineteen All You Need to Know About That Intimacies, what happens between two people in private (or one person and a Sea Beast in a pasture), are not the business of anyone but the parties involved. Still, for the sake of the voyeur in us all, a tidbit or two to satisfy curiosity†¦ Molly tried, made a valiant effort in fact, but even for a woman of such fine physical conditioning, the task was too great. She did, however, manage to locate near the shed a gas-powered weed-whacker (which the late drug chefs used to clear flammables from the area) and with firm but gentle application of that rude machine, and a little coaxing, was able to bring Steve to that state the French inscrutably call â€Å"the little death.† And soon after, what at first seemed an insurmountable obstacle, the size difference, was turned to advantage, allowing Molly to join Steve in that place of peace and pleasure. How? Imagine a slow slide down a long, slippery bannister of a tongue, each taste bud a tease and tingle in just the right place, and you can understand how Molly ended up a satisfied puddle snuggled in that spot between his neck and shoulder that women so love. (Except in Steve's case, it didn't make his arm go to sleep.) Yes, there was a bit of the awkwardness that comes with the unfamiliarity and exploration of new lovers, and Theo's Volvo was soundly smashed before Steve realized that rolling around on the ground was an inappropriate way to display his enthusiasm, but a boxy Swedish automobile is a small price to pay for passion in the great scheme of things. And that is all you need to know about that. Twenty Theo Over the years, Theo had learned to forgive himself for having inappropriate thoughts at inappropriate times (imagining the widow naked at the funeral, rooting for a high death toll in Third World earthquakes, wondering whether white slavers provided in-house financing), but it worried him more than somewhat that, while hand-cuffed to a chair, waiting for his executioner, he was thinking about getting laid instead of escaping or making amends with his creator. Sure, he'd tried to get away, managing to do little more than tip the chair over and give himself a bug's-eye view of the dirt floor, but shortly after that, when the voices outside had stopped, he was overtaken with thoughts of women he'd had and women he hadn't, including an erotic mental montage of the erstwhile actress and resident Crazy Lady, Molly Michon. So it was embarrassment as much as relief that he felt when, after the sound of a weed-whacker and the crashing of metal, Molly popped her head into the shed. â€Å"Hi, Theo,† she said. â€Å"Molly, what are you doing here?† â€Å"Out for a walk.† She didn't come in, just craned her head around the corner. â€Å"You've got to get away from here, Molly. There's some very dangerous guys around here.† â€Å"Not a problem. You don't want any help then?† â€Å"Yes, go get help. But get away from here. There's guys with guns.† â€Å"I mean, you don't want me to uncuff you or anything?† â€Å"There's no time.† â€Å"There's plenty of time. Where are the keys?† â€Å"On my key ring. In the ignition of my car.† â€Å"Okay. Be right back.† And she was gone. Theo heard some pounding and what sounded like safety glass being shattered. In a second Molly was back in the doorway. She tossed the keys on the floor near his head. â€Å"Can you get to those?† â€Å"Can you unlock me?† â€Å"Uh, I'd rather not right now. But you'll be able to get to those eventually, won't you?† â€Å"Molly!† â€Å"Yes or no?† â€Å"Sure, but†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Okay. See ya, Theo. Sorry about your car.† And again she was gone. As he scrambled in the dirt to get to the keys, he was still troubled about the unwarranted wave of horniness that had overtaken him. Could it have been set off by the handcuffs? Maybe he'd been into bondage all these years and never even knew it. Although when he'd been arrested right before Sheriff Burton had blackmailed him into becoming constable, he'd spent almost two hours in handcuffs and he didn't remember it being an espe-cially erotic experience. Maybe it was the death threat. Was he turned on by the thought of being shot? Man, I am a sick individual, he thought. In ten minutes he was free of both the handcuffs and the dogging thoughts of sex and death. Molly, Joseph Leander, and the house trailer were gone, and he stood before the ruins of his Volvo with an entirely new set of questions nagging him. The roof of the station wagon was now mashed down to level with the hood, three of the four tires were blown, and on the ground, all around the car, were the tracks of what had to be a very, very large animal. There were two trails that had matted down the grass leading away from the shed and over the hill. One, obviously, was the track of a person. The other was wider than the dirt road that led into the ranch. Theo dug into the Volvo for his gun and cell phone, having no idea what to do with either of them. There was no one to call – and certainly no one he wanted to shoot. Except maybe Sheriff John Burton. He searched the area, found Joseph Leander's gun, and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans. The keys were still in the red four-wheeler, and after a minute of measuring the ethics of â€Å"borrowing† the truck against having been kid-napped, handcuffed, and almost killed, he climbed into the truck and took off across the pasture, following the double trail. Gabe Gabe and the rancher stood over the pulverized remains of the Holstein, waving flies away from their faces, while Skinner crouched a few yards away, his ears back, growling at the mess. The rancher pushed his Stetson back on his head and shuddered. â€Å"My people have been running dairy and beef cattle on this land for sixty years, and I ain't never heard or seen anything like it, Gabe.† His name was Jim Beer. He was fifty-five, going on seventy, leathery from too much sun and stress, and there was a note of the sad lonely under everything he said. He was tall and thin, but stood with the broken-backed slouch of a beaten man. His wife had left him years ago, driving off in her Mercedes to live in San Francisco and taking with her a note worth half the value of Jim Beer's thousand acres. His only son, who was to have taken the ranch over, was twenty-eight now and was busy getting thrown out of colleges and into rehabs all over the country. He lived alone in a fourteen-room house that rattled with emptiness and seemed to suck up the laughter of the ranch hands, who Jim fed in his enormous kitchen every morning. Jim was the last of his breed, and he would forever trace the beginning of his downfall to an affair he'd had with the witch who once lived in Theo's cabin at the edge of the ranch. Cursed he was, or so he believed. If the witch hadn't run off ten years ago with the owner of the general store, he would have been sure the mutilated cattle was her doing. Gabe shook his head. â€Å"I have no idea, Jim. I can take some samples and have some test run, but I don't even know what we are looking at here.† â€Å"You think it was kids? Vandals?† â€Å"Kids tip cows over, Jim. These look like they've been dropped from thirty thousand feet.† Gabe knew what appeared to have happened, but he wasn't willing to admit it. There wasn't a creature alive that could have done this. There had to be another explanation. â€Å"So you're saying aliens?† â€Å"No, I am definitely not saying aliens. I'm not saying aliens.† â€Å"Something was here. Look at the tracks. Satanic cult?† â€Å"Damn it, Jim, unless you want to be on the cover of Crackpot Weekly, don't talk that way. I can't tell you what did this, but I can tell you what didn't. This was not aliens, or Satanists, or Bigfoot on a binge. I can take some samples and run some tests and then maybe, maybe, I can tell you what did this, but in the meantime, you should call the state ag guys and get them out here.† â€Å"I can't do that, Gabe.† â€Å"Why not?† â€Å"I can't have strangers running around on my land. I don't want this gettin' out. That's why I called you.† â€Å"What's that?† Gabe held up a finger to hold his place in the conversation, then looked to the hills: the sound of an engine. In a second a red four-wheel-drive pickup appeared on the hill headed toward them. â€Å"You'd better go,† Jim Beer said. â€Å"Why?† â€Å"You'd just better. Nobody's supposed to be on this side of the ranch but me. You need to go.† â€Å"This is your land?† â€Å"Let's jump in your truck, son. We need to go.† Gabe squinted to get a better look at the truck, then waved. â€Å"That's Theo Crowe,† he said. â€Å"What's he doing in that thing?† â€Å"Oh shit,† Jim Beer said. Theo pulled the truck up next to Gabe's, skidded to a stop, and crawled out. To Gabe, the constable looked pissed off, but he couldn't be sure, having never seen the expression on Theo before. â€Å"Afternoon, Gabe, Jim.† Jim Beer looked at his boots. â€Å"Constable.† Gabe noticed that Theo had two pistols stuck in his jeans and was half-covered with dust. â€Å"Hi, Theo. Nice truck. Jim called me out to take a look†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I know what that is,† Theo said, tossing his head toward the mashed cow. â€Å"At least I think I do.† He strode up to Jim Beer, who seemed to be trying to sink into a hole in his own chest. â€Å"Jim, you got a crank lab back there turning out enough product to hype all of Los Angeles. You wanna tell me about it?† The life seemed to drain out of Jim Beer and he fell to the ground in a splay-legged sit. Gabe caught his arm to keep him from cracking his tailbone. Beer didn't look up. â€Å"My wife took a note for half the ranch when she left. She called it in. Where else was I going to get three million dollars?† Gabe looked from Jim to Theo as if to say, â€Å"What the hell?† â€Å"I'll explain later, Gabe. I have something I have to show you anyway.† Theo pushed Jim Beer's Stetson back so he could see the rancher's face. â€Å"So Burton gave you the money so he could use your land for the lab.† â€Å"Sheriff Burton?† Gabe asked, totally confused now. â€Å"Shut up, Gabe,† Theo snapped. â€Å"Not all of the money. Payments. Hell, what could I do? My grandfather started this ranch. I couldn't sell off half of it.† â€Å"So you went into drug dealing?† â€Å"I ain't never even seen this lab you're talking about. Neither have my hands. That part of the ranch is off-limits. Burton said he had you in the cabin to keep anyone from coming in the back gate. I just run my cattle and mind my own business. I never even asked Burton what he was doing out there.† â€Å"There million dollars! What the hell did you think he was doing? Raising rabbits?† Jim Beer didn't answer, he just stared at the ground between his legs. Gabe held his shoulder to steady him and looked to Theo. â€Å"Maybe finish this later, Theo?† Theo turned and walked in a tight circle, waving his hands in the air as if chasing away annoying spirits. â€Å"You okay?† Gabe asked. â€Å"What the fuck do I do now? What do I do? What am I supposed to do?† â€Å"Calm down?† Gabe ventured. â€Å"Fuck that! I got murders, drug manufacturing, some fucking giant animal of some kind, a whole town that's gone nuts, my car is mashed, and I have a crush on a crazy woman – I don't have the training for this! No one has the fucking training for this!† â€Å"So calming down isn't an option right now?† Gabe said. â€Å"I understand.† Theo interrupted his anxiety Tilt-A-Whirl and wheeled on Gabe. â€Å"And I haven't smoked any pot in a week, Gabe.† â€Å"Congratulations.† â€Å"It's made me insane. It's ruined my life.† â€Å"Come on, Theo, you never had a life.† Gabe immediately realized that perhaps he had chosen the wrong tack in consoling his friend. â€Å"Yeah, there's that.† Theo strode to the red truck and punched the fender. â€Å"Ouch! Goddamn it!† He turned to Gabe again. â€Å"And I think I just broke my hand.† â€Å"Mad cow disease worries me,† Jim Beer said from his stupor of defeat. â€Å"Shut up, Jim,† Gabe said. â€Å"Theo has a gun.† â€Å"Guns!† Theo shouted. â€Å"I stand corrected,† said Gabe. â€Å"You mentioned a giant animal?† Theo massaged his temples as if trying to squeeze out a coherent thought. After a few minutes, he walked to where Jim Beer was sitting and kneeled down in front of him. â€Å"Jim, I need you to pull it together for a second.† The rancher looked at Theo. Tears had traced the creases in his cheeks. â€Å"Jim, this never happened, okay? You haven't seen me and you haven't heard anything from this side of the ranch, okay? If Burton calls you, everything is standard operating procedure. You know nothing, you understand?† â€Å"No, I don't understand. Am I going to jail?† â€Å"I don't know that, Jim, but I do know that Burton finding out about this will only make it worse for every one. I need some time to figure some things out. If you help, I'll do my best to protect you, I promise.† â€Å"Okay.† Beer nodded. â€Å"I'll do what you say.† â€Å"Good, take Gabe's truck home. We'll pick it up in an hour or so.† Skinner watched all this with heightened interest, tentatively wagging his tail between Theo's tirades, hoping in his heart of hearts that he would get a ride in that big red truck. Even dogs harbor secret agendas. â€Å"Theo, these can't be real,† Gabe said, running his hand over a footprint nearly three feet across. â€Å"This is some sort of hoax. Although the depth of the claw impressions and the scuffing would indicate that whoever did this really knows something about how animals move.† Theo was fairly calm now, as if he had settled into the whole unreality of the situation. â€Å"And they know something about crushing a Volvo too. They're real, Gabe. I've seen a track like this before.† â€Å"Where?† â€Å"By the creek, the night the fuel truck blew up. I didn't want to believe it then either.† Gabe looked up from the track. â€Å"That's the night I had the mass exodus with my rats.† â€Å"Yep.† â€Å"There's no way, Theo. That couldn't be what happened. A creature that could leave tracks like this would dwarf a T. Rex. There hasn't been anything this size on the planet for sixty million years.† â€Å"Not anything we know about. Look, Gabe, I followed the trail through the grass to the mutilated cows. I thought that was where they went, but evidently that's where they just came from.† â€Å"They? You think there's more than one?† â€Å"So you accept that this thing is real?† â€Å"No, Theo. I'm just asking what you think.† â€Å"I think that this thing was with Molly Michon.† Gabe laughed. â€Å"Theo, I think the withdrawal has you addled.† â€Å"I'm not joking. Molly was here right after I heard my car getting crunched. She gave me the keys to the handcuffs. When I came out, she was gone, and so were Joseph Leander and whoever he came here to see.† â€Å"So what do you think happened to them?† â€Å"The same thing that happened to those cows. Or something like it. The same thing that I think happened to the Plotznik kid. The last time anyone saw him was at the Fly Rod Trailer Court. That's where Molly lives.† Gabe stood and looked around at the pattern of tracks. â€Å"You haven't been into town today, have you, Theo?† â€Å"No, I've been busy.† â€Å"Les from the hardware store is missing. They found his truck behind the Head of the Slug, but there's no sign of him.† â€Å"We've got to go to Molly's, Gabe.† â€Å"We? Theo, I'm a biologist, not a cop. I say we try and track whatever this is. Skinner's a pretty good tracker. I'd bet we find an explanation that doesn't involve some sort of giant creature.† â€Å"I'm not a cop anymore either. And what if we track this thing and you're wrong, Gabe? Do you want to meet up with whatever did that to my car? Those cows?† â€Å"Well, yes, I do.† â€Å"We can do that later. It shouldn't be too hard. Whatever it is, it's pulling a house trailer.† â€Å"What?† â€Å"There was a trailer here when Leander took me into the shed. When I came out, it was gone.† Gabe checked his watch. â€Å"Have you eaten today? I'm not questioning you, but maybe you're having a hypoglycemic reaction or something. Let's go get some dinner and when your head clears, we can go by Molly Michon's.† â€Å"Right, I'm hallucinating from a bad case of the munchies.† Gabe grabbed his shoulder. â€Å"Theo, please. I have a date.† Theo nodded. â€Å"Molly's first. Then I'll go to dinner.† â€Å"Deal,† Gabe said, still staring at the tracks. â€Å"I want to come back here with some casting materials. Even if this is a hoax, I want a record of it.† Theo started for the truck and pulled up when he heard the sound of a cell phone ringing inside the shed. He walked into the shed, located the cell phone, and looked at the display for the number that was ringing in. It was Burton's private number. He drew his .357 Magnum and blew the phone into a thousand pieces. He walked out of the shed to find Gabe hiding behind the fender of the red truck and Skinner cowering in the bed. â€Å"What in the hell do you mean, you have a date?†

Lack Of Interested In Sports Essay

Many of my schoolmates are not interested in sports. I had carried out a survey on the reasons for their lack of interest. The reasons that causes students not to be interested in sports comes from themselves, parents and facilities. Firstly, the attitude of students for sports was wasting their time. They feel that time is money, so they use their time to study. They think that studying is important than sports and study ensures their future. This causes them to have lack of time for sports. Parents are also the reason why students lack of interest in sports. Parents emphasize on their child’s academic performance only. So, they sign up tuition classes such as English tuition class, Chemistry tuition class and so on for their children to improve their children’s academic performance. The last reason that I learnt from survey is facilities. Some students are interested in sports but there are insufficient sports equipment for them. The sport equipments like basketball, football, and so on are not enough for those students. Besides, the poor condition of field and courts in schools cause students to dislike sports because the field will become muddy when it is raining. These are a few suggestions which can be adopt to overcome the above issues. First and foremost, the school authorities should emphasize the importance of sports in school. The students must know that sports keep their bodies as fit as a fiddle. Besides, dialogue sessions should be conducted with parents to inform them the vital role of sport in helping to create a well-rounded student. As we know, sport is essential for health. As the saying goes, â€Å"Prevention is better than cure†. Therefore, we should always exercise to prevent us from diseases. Moreover, the sport facilities in school must be improved too. Nowadays, our school lack of sports equipments for students to use during physical  education. This causes them to lose interest in sports but put all their effort in their academic performances. School authorities should employ qualified trainers to improve the students’ skills in sports. A good trainer may further increase the students’ curiosity in sports. Students can learn many essential values through sports. Furthermore, more competitions in sports should be organized in our school too. For example, badminton and basketball matches can be held in schools for those who are interested in the games. Plus, those who excel in competitions should be rewarded with attractive prizes to encourage them. I hope the authorities can consider the suggestions that I had stated. I believe that the above ways can help the school attain their goal of creating interest and encouraging student participation in sports. Reported by, Joanne