Globalization Argumentative Paper Essay

Is globalization good or bad in the business world today? There are good and bad sides to everything now days. It’s just weighing your options out to see what fits better. In the next couple of paragraphs we will go over what is good and what could be bad in globalization in the business world. Globalization Good The good side to globalization is all about the efficiencies and opportunities open markets create. Local producers can sell their products worldwide. This creates more business for them. Globalization has made the flow of money around the world easier. Creating more jobs around the world. (1 Premise) Globalization is great to the markets around the world. They have been able to expand their businesses. Globalization Bad The bad side to globalization is new uncertainty and risks that have risen. It has made the competition between markets intensify. (2 Premise) Companies that we enjoying this globalization are now facing unpredictable demand and business opportunities. With there being so much competition and being under constant pressure of new competitors, leaves the current companies with little to no pricing power. Another bad side of globalization is declining money flows across local and national boundaries. Conclusion Is globalization good or bad? There are many advantages and several disadvantages to globalization. But it is each individual’s personal opinion. (1 Conclusion) Globalization is good and can continue to be good for the world. Everyone is going to look at this issue in a different way. Although globalization is good in many individuals eyes, it is still bad in many others eyes. (2 Conclusion) There are many risks that come with  globalization, and so many uncertainties. This is why this will be an ongoing debate to whether globalization is benefitting us locally and nationally, or if it’s hurting the entire world. References 1. www.forbes.the-good-the-bad-the-ugly.com 2. www,geography.about.com > globalization

Benifits of introducing children to books at an early age and Reading Aloud

Educational researchers praise the practice of parents and teachers reading to children. In a book aimed at helping parents provide their children with useful learning experiences, for example, Butler and Clay (1999) asserted: â€Å"There is no substitute for reading and telling stories to children, from the very earliest days† (p. 17). Based on his review of the literature on reading to children, Teale (1991) concluded that â€Å"reading to preschool children . . .Is an activity through which children may develop interest and skill in literacy† (p. 902). And in Becoming a Nation of Readers, Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, and Wilkinson (1995) cited reading to children as â€Å"the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading† (p. 23). Moreover, a number of correlational studies have linked activities in which adults and preschool children share book reading to the children's beginning reading success in school (Hew ison & Tizard, 1990).Such unabashed praise for reading to children is intriguing because it begs for elaboration: Why is reading to young children thought to be so beneficial? What knowledge do children acquire from it? Although asserting the value of the practice of reading to children, researchers have given little attention to what children learn from it. Interactive story reading is a joint use of picture books to talk about the pictures, read the text, and discuss the story ideas.Central to this definition is the notion that the adult and child (or group of children) construct an understanding of the book together. It is because of this emphasis on the joint construction of meaning that we prefer this term over others, such as shared reading, story reading, reading aloud to children, and guided reading that have been used in the research literature to label the event of reading to children. When adults read stories to young children, they usually do more than read the words alo ud.They ask meaningful questions about the stories. To make sure children understand the story, they paraphrase or interpret as needed, and they answer the children's questions about it. From the research that has examined parent-child story reading, it is possible to explain the social nature of the event and to make deductions about what young children learn during it. The research on parents reading to children is based primarily on middle-class mothers reading to their preschool children at bedtime.Moreover, the studies are often descriptions given by highly educated mothers reflecting on their practices with their children. A seminal work of this type is the Ninio and Bruner (1998) study in which it was found that highly ritualized discussion sequences between parent and child occur during story reading, and that these sequences are the primary means through which toddlers learn to label pictures.Ninio and Bruner found that mothers interpret children's smiling, babbling, vocali zing, reaching, and pointing as either requesting or providing labels. For example, a baby reaches toward one of the pictures in the book, and the mother extends that gesture by saying the name of the picture. Moreover, if the baby vocalizes or gestures toward the picture when the mother gives a label, the mother assumes that the baby is attending to the name she gave, furthering the likelihood that she will continue to provide labels.These parentchild interchanges are orchestrated into turn-taking sessions, with parent or child initiating a communication. At about the same time that Ninio and Bruner were reporting their work, Snow (1993) began reporting her analyses of mother-child discussion during book sharing. She posited that the features of the interactions that support oral language acquisition are the very same features that promote beginning reading and writing development.She highlighted four such features: (a) semantic contingency, or the adult continuing a topic introduc ed by the child's previous statement through expansions, extensions, clarifications, or answers; (b) scaffolding, or the steps the adult takes to minimize the difficulty of the activity; (c) accountability procedures, or the way the mother demands the task be finished; and (d) the use of highly predictable contexts for language use that help the child move from the concrete here and now to the remote and abstract.Elaborations on these four features illustrate how children learn about reading through social interactions during interactive storybook reading. The use by adults of semantic contingency, or meaningfully extending a child's comment to facilitate oral language acquisition, has been well documented (Cross, 1998). Snow (1993), however, argued that when adults expand on or clarify text during storybook reading, they facilitate the development of literate behavior.For example, adults can answer children's questions about letter names and words, they can clarify story meaning, a nd they can extend children's understanding of story concepts such as what direction one reads print or where a word begins and ends. Not only is the discourse during interactive story reading expansive in nature, Snow argued, it is scaffolded. Drawing from Bruner (1998), she defined scaffolding as the â€Å"steps taken to reduce the degrees of freedom in carrying out some task, so that the child can concentrate on the difficult skill he is in the process of acquiring† (p. 170).Scaffolding occurs in oral language development. For example, although young children often say only one word for a whole sentence when they are learning to talk, parents respond by treating the word as a complete and sophisticated statement. In story reading, scaffolding might include parent reminders to the child about the name of the story, who the important characters are, or what the story problem is. The parent might point to a picture and then its printed label, hesitate to see if the child fill s in a story word or phrase, or encourage the child to help tell parts of a story.Snow also argues that parents challenge their children during reading sessions by holding them accountable for what they do to help construct the session. Snow and Ninio (2006) proposed seven tenets of literate communication from the interactions during the reading event that, although not explicitly taught, help children become literate. These tenets are (a) that a book is for reading rather than manipulating, (b) that a book controls the conversation, (c) that pictures are events, (f) that book events occur outside of real time, and (g) that books are an independent fictional world.It is clear that parents help children take over storybook-reading talk, and that this practice encourages children's later strategies for talking about and interpreting books. The descriptive research shows clearly that children experience opportunities for learning from engaging in interactive story reading with parents, and that the interactions have characteristic patterns that children imitate and that could promote literacy development.The nature of the dialogue that occurs during interactive book reading is affected by factors that include the size of the group, the competency of the participants, and the familiarity and type of the text. Yet a basic framework can be seen. When parents or teachers model, read, and talk to children about a text, they provide a structure that helps children understand and remember the story content.By promoting socially interactive story reading in which both reader and listener actively participate and cooperatively negotiate what is important and what things mean, teachers engage children in a process of learning through social interaction. It appears that, not only do children internalize the social conventions of stories when they talk with adults about them, they take away specific knowledge from hearing stories, such as the syntax, organization, and word f orms used in written language, and knowledge of its elements – words and letters themselves.Explanations of how children move into independent word reading have assumed a strong relationship among letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and reading (Ehri, 1999). Reading requires children to attend to the sounds in words and to the letters that symbolize those sounds. New evidence from interactive reading studies suggests that interactive reading may be another way to draw children's attention to print and to the ways that letters sound in words. through interactive reading, children begin to remember the story dialogues.In the process, they acquire written language structures and new vocabulary and then begin to focus on print and letter concepts. The research documents that these aspects of literacy learning can appear both at home and in the classroom. Therefore, both parents and teachers can promote young children's literacy acquisition through interactive story reading. At home, children can learn at a fairly optimal level because most parents are sensitive to their children's developing abilities in language.Parents can connect book information with their children's background experiences, and they are better attuned to the children's interests and level of understanding. At school, teachers achieve similar effects if they organize the story reading to elicit maximum participation from all students and if they repeatedly read stories. The theoretical construct posited by Vygotsky helps to explain how learning occurs. When reading to children is a social event, children's book explorations are refined through the verbal and nonverbal interactions that take place during the reading.During the reading, adults highlight and interpret the reality of the book, its written language features, vocabulary, and print forms, and the children mimic and modify the language to fit their understanding. Structured interactions enable children to add these underst andings to their current viewpoints through play with the language, questions, comments, and attempts to extend their understandings by making sense of new situations with the book language and print.From this theoretical perspective, it becomes obvious that reading to children without allowing discussion is not likely to be sufficient for developing the ability to use written language. If the goal is to teach literacy, an adult should mediate the ideas in books by keeping within bounds of children's understandings and by using an interactive story reading approach. Then, story reading becomes a way for young children to acquire knowledge about written language at new levels of understanding.Their face-to-face communication with adults provides a way for them to ask questions, comment about what makes sense, and use book language and book ideas. Although picture books provide essential picture and story line context, the language is without intonation, gestures, and pitch until an a dult reads it to the child. But, through mediation of this language, the child learns to interpret, apply, and transfer the sophisticated written language to their own oral language. Thus, literacy learning opportunities abound in interactive reading sessions.The process takes place through highly structured social interactions, interactions that involve routine joint participation sequences, in which the adults help children make connections to their own knowledge, and in which children make known their old understanding and practice their new understandings. Although this approach is easier for parents who are reading to one child, sufficient evidence now exists that teachers can read to small groups of children in a similar way, particularly in situations where teacher-group interactive language structures are fairly routinized, such as in rereading stories.Children learn about three aspects of literacy when they engage in interactive reading. First, they acquire knowledge about written language structures from the stories that they read interactively with an adult on a regular basis, and that they can talk about, act out, and use to play with story language. This suggests that teachers need to provide opportunities for children to hear and talk about stories. Second, they acquire new vocabulary from listening to stories.Children's oral language is embellished with new words and book phrases that are drawn from the book they hear read, particularly those they hear read repeatedly. Their attention to story information thereby becomes more focused and their listening comprehension improves. Finally, children learn about the form of print, that is, about how language is graphically represented, when they have opportunities to memorize texts and recite them as though they were reading. Their learning can be heightened when the print in the stories is salient, and when they hear repeated readings.Repeated reading is an activity particularly well suited for presc hool and kindergarten classrooms and will foster development of children's letter knowledge and phonological awareness, which can be connected to later word and letter recognition and to decoding. It is clear from more than a decade of research that interactive story reading is a powerful social avenue for developing language and literacy, and that it can be used as an influential literacy tool both in the home and in the school; that is, as Cochran-Smith (1984) has said, the child and adult bring to life books, and books enrich children's lives.Works Cited Anderson R. C. , Hiebert E. H. , Scott J. A. , & Wilkinson I. A. G. (1985). Becoming a nation of readers: The report of the Commission on Reading. Champaign, IL: Center for the Study of Reading; Washington, DC: National Institute of Education. Butler D. , & Clay M. (1999). Reading begins at home: Preparing children for reading before they go to school. London: Heinemann. Cochran-Smith M. (1984). The making of a reader. Norwood, N J: Ablex. Cross T. G. (1998). â€Å"Mother's speech and its association with rate of linguistic development in young children†. In N.Waterson & C. Snow (Eds. ), The development of communication. London: Wiley. Bruner J. S. (1998). â€Å"Learning how to do things with words†. In J. S. Bruner & R. A. Garton (Eds. ), Human growth and development. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. Ehri L. C. (1999). â€Å"Movement into word reading and spelling: How spelling contributes to reading†. In J. M. Mason (Ed. ), Reading and writing connections (pp. 65-82). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Hewison J. , & Tizard J. (1990). â€Å"Parental involvement and reading attainment†. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 50, 209-215.Ninio A. , & Bruner J. (1998). â€Å"The achievement and antecedents of labelling†. Journal of Child Language, 5, 1-6. Snow C. E. (1993). â€Å"Literacy and language: Relationships during the preschool years†. Harvard Educational Re view, 53, 165-189. Snow C. E. , & Ninio A. (2006). â€Å"The contracts of literacy: What children learn from learning to read books†. In W. H. Teale & E. Sulzby (Eds. ), Emergent literacy: Writing and reading (pp. 116-138). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Teale W. H. (1991). â€Å"Parents reading to their children: What we know and need to know†. Lrnguage Arts, 58, 902-912.

485 Forensic Law Midterm Exam

The most important fact that makes forensic evidence circumstantial is because science cannot be clearly defined by law. The legal system have created standards and written legal rules regarding the admissibility of forensic evidence. When forensic evidence that is presented in court is rarely unaccompanied by an expert witness to provide the court room with a professional explanation backing the reliability of the forensic process used to collect the relevant evidence. This is one the major obstacles in the modern courtroom. Expert witnesses are intended to provide the court with a detailed description of the forensic evidence being presented and how that evidence was analyzed through the use of forensic science. This makes an expert witness’s testimony a testimony to probability and circumstance, rather than actual fact. Consequently, the forensic evidence that is presented is ruled as circumstantial. The primary reason that science cannot be clearly defined by law is the rate of change and new theory that occurs regularly in science. There have been numerous cases where scientific evidence is found to be incorrect or inconclusive when it is admitted into evidence. This is a major concern for the courtroom as false convictions are detrimental to the integrity of the judicial system. Admissible forensic evidence is most always considered circumstantial so that there must be other forms of evidence to support the conclusion made from the forensic evidence to make a ruling. 2. Explain ways in which an opposing attorney can challenge an expert’s testimony in court. The primary goal of an attorney during cross examination is to destroy the credibility of a witness’s testimony. Expert witnesses are held to a different standard during trial and are considered professional witnesses as they speak on the behalf of a professional opinion and understanding of the information being presented; rather than the account or an experience. Regardless of who they witness is, it is important the Federal Rules of Evidence are upheld during cross examination. There are multiple rules against the presentation of past history of witness and attack of their personal character. That being said, an attorney may reference background and qualifications of an expert witness disprove the creditably of the witness as a professional in the field they are giving testimony to. An attorney may do this by researching the expert or the field that they practice and present them question that may cause they to refute their previous testimony or have no answer to a question. Causing an expert witness to look confused or untruthful on the stand shows the jury that jury that their testimony may not be credible or the judge has the authority to dismiss the witness completely. Another approach that is commonly executed during cross examination by an attorney is challenging of the validity and probativity of the expert witnesses testimony. Attorneys may focus on the limitations of the testimony and attempt to show the jury that the testimony is insignificant and inconclusive to show any benefit in proving or disproving any evidence or a fact at trial. An attorney may also challenge the purpose of the testimony. If the attorney can ask questions that show the testimony is insignificant and is not being used to prove or disprove evidence. Then the attorney may be able to have the judge dismiss the testimony. 3. Explain exactly what makes a witness an expert witness and provide an example of a specific forensic science expert witness. Also, explain what scientific expert opinion is and what is required before a court will allow this type of special testimony. An expert witness is considered an expert according to their credentials in the professional field that they are testifying in accordance with. Expert witnesses are used by attorneys to give professional opinion and explanation of information that the common individual would otherwise have no understanding of. Searching the web I discovered SEAK a website devoted to compiling information on expert witness. All of the expert witnesses listed on the site have been previously used in cases to provide testimony to specific evidence that is within the parameters of their expertise and professional credentials. Jill Kessler Miller is a great example of a specific expert witness. Jill resides in Southern California and is an expert in forensic science and dogs. She has testified in nine trials over the past four years. She has had over twenty-five years of experience with training dogs. She has a college degree in English and a graduate certification in Animal Policy Advocacy. The site also lists the multiple specific topics she gives testimony to. This is a great example of an expert witness because she lists are her professional credentials and specific fields that she will testify about in court. Dog bites and veterinary forensics are her direct links to forensic evidence. An expert witness’s expertise, training and special knowledge of a subject allows them to be give opinion is court. There is an exception to the rule against witnesses presenting anything but fact. Regardless, an expert witness’s opinion must be unbiased and bases solely on their special knowledge, train, and expertise in the field. The opposing attorney also has the right to confrontation to this opinion. 4. Explain in general how forensic evidence and analysis of this evidence can aid investigators in determining what took place at a crime scene. How would this information be helpful to an investigation? There are multiple different disciplines of forensic evidence and each different of discipline of forensic evidence can assist investigators to analysis specific evidence to identify its significance in the investigation. When a crime occurs an investigator arrive at the scene of the crime there first set it collect and document all the evidence found at the scene of the crime that looks like it make be out of place or help draw connections to the culprits of the crime. If hair, fibers, fingerprints, tire tracks, bite marks, etc. are found at a crime scene those materials or makes are correct and examined through the use of forensic evidence. The goal of forensic evidence is to analysis the materials collected and draw connections through science to link specific individuals or objects to the crime scene by matching the scientific components. This information is helpful to an investigator because it can provide time estimates of when the crime occurred, if the crime occurred at the location, who may be involved, what may have been used to commit the crime, etc. , but overall what caused the crime to occur. 5. Identify ten separate areas of forensic science that would commonly be utilized at a crime scene investigation and give a brief explanation of each. Hair analysis is the examination of human or animal hair. Forensic science is able to distinguish the difference between the two. Depending on the sample and if the follicle is still attached, science can recover DNA from the hair. Difference can also be made between what area of the body hair originated from. Fiber analysis is the examination of man-made fibers. Forensic science is able to identify through different processes the origination object a fiber may have come from and also may be able to identify what action cause the final location of the fiber. Fiber location can be a good indicator of a struggle or specific actions during a crime. Tread analysis is the examination of treads or tire marks. Upon discovery treads or tire marks are photographed and sometimes casted for examination. These photographs or casts are analyzed to determine the type of vehicle the treads could have come from. Ballistic analysis is the examination or firearms and ammunition. When cases involve firearms and ammunition, ballistic science is used to identify the characteristics of the ammunition discovered and link it to the type of firearm or exact firearm through the identification or rifling in the barrel or the firearm. Glass analysis is the examination of glass. Forensic science can examine glass to identify its refractive characteristics or composition to connect it to other samples of glass collected. There are numerous types of glass and forensic science is able to assist in identifying and matching samples. Paint analysis is the examination of paint samples. Forensic science is used to link paint samples recovered and link those samples to a source of origin. Paint analysis is common to link vehicles and weapons to a crime. Soil analysis is the examination or soil particles. Forensic science can identify even minute traces of soil particles and identify its characteristics, possibly origin. Footprint analysis examines the foot or shoe impressions. Forensic science can indicate through photographs or castings the size of foot, if it is human or animal in origin, if the speed of the individual, type of shoe the individual was wearing. Fingerprint analysis examines human fingerprints. Each individual person has different fingerprints and forensic science can examine one fingerprint and link it to a specific individual. Blood spatter analysis is the examination of blood and how it arrived at its discovered location. Forensic science can analysis blood spatter to indicate the origin of the blood and what may have taken place in what direction and matter to cause the specific patterns of blood discovered. 6. What can a forensic scientist/expert ascertain from hair samples located at a crime scene or on a victim? What would the expert be able to testify to upon analysis of these samples? Hair evidence is commonly discovered at the crime scene because both humans and animal are always shedding hair. The important job or hair forensic analysis is to discover the origins of the sample collected. If a hair sample still have a follicle attach it is possible for a forensic scientist is acquire a DNA pattern from the hair. The characteristics of a hair sample will also indicated the type of hair and location of the body where the hair would have originated from. Examination of the hair root can indicate whether the hair was removed through force or naturally shed by the body. At trial the expert may testify to the all the characteristics able that are possible to discover through a hair sample. Also, an expert may testify to the location of hair and how the characteristics of the hair sample may indicate a certain type of behavior for that hair to be found in the location it was. For example, if a male pubic hair is found in the location or a female genital area then that may be an indication of sexually deviancy. All of this testimony would be circumstantial and only a presentation of possible reasoning for hair characteristics and location. 7. How was fiber evidence utilized to convict Wayne Williams in the Atlanta Child Killing murders? Williams was convicted using seven different fiber and hair associations to the victim Jimmy Ray Payne. Payne was found in a river, but his cloths still retained fibers that were left on the body from his contact with Williams. The medical examiner was able to recover these fibers and sent them in for forensic testing. Through forensic testing it was found that two different fiber strands were consistent with the characteristics of Williams’ bed spread and bedroom carpet. Other fibers retrieved from Payne were consistent with William’s car. Other fibers where connected to various fibers throughout Williams’ home. Once the fibers were from Payne were linked to Williams, the FBI examined the fiber evidence from eleven other victims and through consistencies between all the fibers that were collected where able to link Williams is some way to all twelve murders through the fibers evidence. 8. How can certain marks located on a bullet be analyzed and used to help determine the exact gun from which the bullet was fired? Each individual firearm is created baring its own rifling. Rifling is the groves located within the barrel of a gun that assist the bullet to spin while exiting the gun and pierce through the air without wavering or tumbling. The rifling of the gun leaves distinct marks on the bullets that allow the bullet to be traces the specific rifling of the gun that shot the bullet. If there is no gun present to be directly compared to the bullet, rifling can also being used to identify the specific caliber or mark of the firearm used to fire the bullet. 9. How could glass or paint evidence be used to help solve a hit-and-run motor vehicle accident? What would the forensic expert be able to testify to when comparing glass or paint located at the scene in order to trace paint or glass evidence located on a suspect’s vehicle? Paint and glass evidence can be crucial in linking suspects and vehicles used in hit-and-run crimes. In most hit and run cases, when a vehicle strikes an individual or object traces of paint and glass may be transferred from the vehicle to the individual or object that was struck. Paint evidence is limited to the size or the sample and amount of paint transferred during contact. If the paint characteristics are identified, then those characteristics can be used to link the sample to the type or paint and color. If paint and color can be found and glass samples are left at the scene of a hit and run it is likely that the type of vehicle can be identified. Different types make, models, and types of vehicles utilize different types of glass in the construction of the vehicle. Glass forensic evidence can use glass sample taken from the scene to identify the type of glass and compare it to other samples to indicate possible origins of the sample. An expert witness cannot directly implicate a suspect in a crime by the glass or paint evidence from the scene of the crime and sample taken from the suspect vehicle. However, the expert witness can testify that the samples from the suspect’s car and the evidence collected from the scene have the sample characteristics. Also, an expert may be able to show that the damage or striations found at the scene could indicate that the car’s damage could have been directly caused by striking the individual or object involved in the hit-and-run.

Questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 5

Questions - Essay Example Some families, who are immigrants, move several times throughout the year as their parents follow migrant worker travel schedules and these schools are not prepared for students in these circumstances; often failing to provide adequate opportunity for the student to meet passing criteria. Many complete high schools are undocumented citizens with few choices but to resume work in labor similar to their parents. Providing a path to education and employment, was the goals of the Dream Act that was placed before congress in 2011, failing to get the Senate vote. This act had provisions for higher education and citizenship status and college availability for those immigrants who have been in the United States throughout school with no citizenship. Lack of citizenship greatly increases college tuition, which is another factor that works against promoting higher education of immigrants. Cultural lag creates a social problem within society as one portion of society becomes further advanced or in a more beneficial position and other portions do not, such as the case in immigration. Less educated workers in an ethnic group, often receiving public government benefits and unable to find work contribute to society as a whole. Deblassie, A. (1996). Education Of Hispanic Youth: A Cultural Lag - Research and Read Books, Journals, Articles at Questia Online Library. Questia - The Online Library of Books and Journals. Retrieved from http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5000343563 Immigration and Public Education. (2011). The United Church of Christ | No Matter Who You Are Or Where You Are On Lifes Journey, Youre Welcome Here. Retrieved from

David Bowie and Gender Performance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

David Bowie and Gender Performance - Essay Example He, in the words of Philip Auslander, can sing â€Å"in many voices and from many subject positions without identifying clearly with any of them† (Auslander 106). By not tying up gender too closely to identity, Bowie is able to demonstrate the degree to which gender is comprised of actions and choices rather than states of being, per se. In David Bowie’s music video â€Å"Life on Mars,† Bowie demonstrates and adroit understanding of the relationship between action and gender, putting on and taking off gender as it suits his lyrics and his messaging. David Bowie, more than almost any performer before him, communicated with all the senses available to him: his image was just as important as his sounds. He thus developed images of himself that aided him in delivering messages for his music. For this reason, one of the most prominent examples of Bowie’s deconstruction of music relate to his physical appearance. Our society tends to conflate physical appearance with identity: in race politics, for instance, identity is often a visible feature, and our society goes out of its way to display other identifying marks as openly as possible, with everything from gender based dress code to â€Å"hanky-codes† which use handkerchiefs to indicate sexual preferences. The fact is, however, that physical appearance, while informing identity, is not the same thing, especially where gender is concerned. Physical identity relates to gender solely in the â€Å"choices† (Butler 903) that are made: the choice to apply this product to one’s face, or the choice to wear a particular style of dress. David Bowie’s music video for â€Å"Life on Mars† plays off of this idea of choice through conscious contrasting of different gendered performances. Bowie appears against a white background, wearing extensive face-make up, â€Å"womanizing† his face through making aesthetic choices associated with femininity. He brings the p erformance over the top, applying blue eye liner, pink lipstick, and dark, thick mascara. However, when the camera pans out, it is apparent Bowie chooses to wear a suit, complete with a tie – one of the overriding symbols of patriarchal control of our society, and one of the few styles of dress that, even in the era in which he was performing, was still relatively confined to male use. He thus deconstructs gender into presentation choices by presenting both masculinity and femininity on one body, and embracing what each entails easily with the flick of a camera and a change in focus. Bowie uses this divergence to great effect when combined with the lyrics. â€Å"Life on Mars† consists of a series of surreal images that flash one after the other, including â€Å"cavemen† and â€Å"lawmen† attacking the wrong person (Bowie). He thus plays his female persona’s criticism against the ridiculousness of patriarchal control while at the same time referenci ng that patriarchal control’s influence over the character, through masculine clothing on the presumably female character. By referencing the brutality associated with masculine violence from the perspective of a woman – a gender that he chooses to portray rather than is assigned by sex, Bowie is able to demonstrate how such violence is not natural but rather a choice made as a way of defining and participating in particular gendered groupings. There are few artists in the world who have been as willing as David Bowie to

Political Parties and the Electoral Process Research Paper

Political Parties and the Electoral Process - Research Paper Example On the other hand, the republicans are adherent to conservative philosophy. Republicans hold that it is not the sole responsibility to care for every citizen even if it is charged with the responsibility of regulating and overseeing morality. Republicans believe on individual responsibility and minimal or no government interference on how people live their lives. Second, the republicans vehemently oppose the idea of abortion, which they perceive as murdering the fetus. On the other hand, the Democrats support abortion right, arguing that women should have the right to make preferred choices over what to do with their own bodies. Therefore, the republicans and the Democrats are pro-life and pro-choice respectively (Harrison, 2013). Third, republicans follow unilateralism ideology and believe that the United States should apply martial force without any help from other nations in case of security threat emergence. On the other hand, democrats believe that the united states need to work with strong alliances when acting in the international scene. Fourth, republicans accentuate power decentralization to states whereas democrats emphasize on high federalization. The democrats strongly believe that the federal government should have more power (Harrison, 2013). Despite the fact that third parties have been ever-present in the electoral process of the United States, they have never been successful at presidential elections. Third parties failure can be attributed to the fact that America’s two major parties (Democratic and Republican parties) have profound influence in the political system of the country. A two-party system has been the country’s political norm and most voters are accustomed to the two party system making third parties peripheral at the presidential level in the electoral process (Herrnson & Green, 2002). Third parties have therefore remained unfamiliar concept to voters

Native Remains Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Native Remains - Essay Example Bush, Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act† (Townsend and Nicholas 596 ), also known as NAGPRA. It is a federal law of the USA. Its purpose is to return the remains, artifacts, and all Native Americans’ sacred objects to Indian tribes. NAGPRA gives â€Å"Native American tribes the legal authority to reclaim artifacts from federally funded museums, colleges, and all types of institutions. What happens to the artifacts is then up to the tribe† (â€Å"Who should own Native American artifacts?†). As a rule, there are advantages as well as disadvantages of NAGPRA. The main achievement of NAGPRA is that it â€Å"resulted in immediate repatriation of the remains of many tribes’ ancestors† (Townsend and Nicholas 596). According to Riffe’s video, there is a belief that the spirit â€Å"does not abandon the body after the death†. It means that without proper burial ceremony the soul of a person will not be able to move on. â€Å"It can harm or be harmed by the living† (Riffe). Hundreds of Indian remains have been taken home and their descendants have fulfilled their duties. One of the most striking stories is the history of Cheyenne. Defenseless people were not only killed. They were â€Å"decapitated and their heads shipped back to Washington as freight† (Townsend and Nicholas 596). It was a real violation of all human rights. It resulted in a lot of sufferings for the relatives of the murdered Native Americans, who by 1990 have almost lost their hope to assure that their ancestors will find their resting places. The biggest problem was to find all parts of the body, because according to the Indian rules, only the whole body can be buried. Also, sacred artifacts, which were once made by their ancestors, were given back to Native Americans. Such objects are important, sometimes even indispensable, for different kinds of rites or rituals. But the process of returning is not as simple as it may seem. NAGPRA

Strategic leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Strategic leadership - Essay Example e analysis of the practical facts, and  thorough  testing of the theories presented, which provides a  realistic  situation on the ground; thus preventing the  development  of products that may not be well received by customers as earlier perceived. Through creative thinking, it  was envisioned  that the Exact Online software would be  crucial  to the operations of the business. Since it  was perceived  to be a  feasible  idea and an innovative product, market research  was not conducted  to determine the customer’s requirements and views. Thus, a  decision  was drawn  without sound argumentation of the facts present, and no  justification  was made  to verify if the idea could work. According to de Wit and Meyer (2010), the  manager  uses his intuition based on his experience in the industry. This intuition gave the bigger picture of how the  product  would have an impact on business, and consequently, the profit margins of the company. The board bought the idea and made a conclusion without having a  rigorous  analysis, which increased the  speed  of implementation of the  idea  and its  subsequent  production. However, the decision for the  product production  did not have  feasible  impact, because it did not  capture  what the customer wanted, thus the  lukewarm  attitude towards the product. Prior analysis of the product would have had a different outcome on the performance of the Exact Online software in the market. This is one of the points of tension, since market research and subsequent analysis would have brought out the  market  expectations of the product. Consequently, an appropriate  decision  would  have been drawn  based on these facts and arguments and not solely on intuition. Intuition only focuses on the qualitative  information  such as the presumed impact of the product and the  eventual  profits the company would make. This show that intuition can lead to new, innovative product, which if not  well  research on can lead to negative

Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden - Essay Example Shin Dong-hyuk has undergone these horrors, which has made him unprepared to live in the contemporary world, finding it difficult to adjust to a totally different environment with freedom. Being psychologically free refers to freedom from attachment and from identifying with anything. In addition, psychological freedom also refers to when an individual is a being, rather than a knowing or a doing. Because of his experiences in prison camp 14, which have resulted in classical symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and Stockholm syndrome, Shin has been unable to gain psychological freedom. Shin Dong-hyuk was born in a North Korean prison camp and lived under harsh and inhuman conditions for the first twenty-four years of his life. This was a period material, physical, and emotional deprivation for Shin, who underwent physical abuse and torture before making a successful escape from the prison camp (Harden 12). However, he escaped with scars consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder, such as flashbacks, nightmares, and panic attacks, which have denied him psychological freedom. Although he has received treatment for his posttraumatic stress disorder, he still finds himself in the grip of anger and fear, while he does not want to be alone with his thoughts for a long time because they trouble him (Harden 14). Shin has been unable to attain psychological freedom because of his trauma’s fundamental psychological effect, which is the shattering of his innocence. His experiences in prison camp 14 have led him to lose faith in any meaning, predictability, and safety in the world or any safe place that he can retreat to, including his family, which reinforces his feeling of isolation (Harden 167). His body or mind did not process his traumatic experiences at the prison camp, unlike other experiences. This is most likely due to their shocking and overwhelming

US History 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

US History 2 - Essay Example It is important to note that the anti-federalists argued that the proposed constitution posed several challenges to the government. In this respect, they argued that the proposed constitution would encourage the issue of corruption to the government. Corruption was viewed as a major social vice that would threaten the development of several sectors in government, including the developmental sector, economic, social as well as political sectors among others2. The anti federalists also advocated for a weaker federal government as opposed to stronger state legislatures. This is because most of them argued that a stronger government would most likely infringe on the liberties that Americans had fought for and won in the Revolutionary War. In regards to this, it is important to note that the anti federalists viewed liberty as the specific rights of the people that the government had to respect, protect and encourage. They maintained that the government had to observe, respect as well as protect the Bill of Rights in order to protect that

The Three major Categories of Motives Essay Example for Free

The Three major Categories of Motives Essay MOTIVES Motives can be define as a distressful feeling experienced by a person or animal that is ended by performing a behaviour that the organism believes will or might end the feeling.   According to encyclopaedia britannica it is defined as those forces acting either on or within a person to initiate behaviour. (Encyclopaedia Britannica) Motives are often categorize into Primary (basic), Secondary (learned) and Stimulus Primary Motives include hunger, thirst, sex, avoidance of pain. It’s unlearned motives and common to both animals and human. It is related to homeostasis which is basically entails maintenance of normal (steady) physiologic body state.   Primary motive acts to maintain homeostasis. Example of primary motives is the feeling of hunger which is also known as need for food. Secondary motive; are learned motives. They varied from one animal to the other and person to person. Example of secondary motives includes curiosity, ambition, competition, aggression, interest, Attitudes, Achievement and Power motivation. It’s usually acquired as part of socialization process. Study also indicates that individuals have the ability to learn new motives. The motives can be acquired by the following technique; classical, instrumental, and observational learning. Stimulus motives are innate but they involve motives to increase rather than decrease stimulation. People and lower animals need stimulation and activity. They also require exploration and manipulation. Example of stimulus motives can occur when someone is walking under a mango tree and a ripe mango fell on his head. The distressful feeling he might experience would be pain on the head as a result of the impact from the mango. This can subsequently motivate him to take analgesic when he gets home.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Reference John, Philip, Smith. (2006).   Motives. Immediate cause of Behavior. Alternative Psycological Textbook. Retrieved July 12, 2008. From http://members.aol.com/psychquery.

New building †Tools and Wiring Essay Example for Free

New building – Tools and Wiring Essay Now that we understand the codes and standards needed to create this building, it’s time to put stuff in it. Our task at hand is to start wiring the building for a new computer science and electrical engineering labs. This building will have a lot of devices that need to be connected to the school campus network and we will need a lot of tools to do it. First off I think since our building is going to be connected to a lot of students I believe that our best choice of cabling to connect to the building will be fiber-optics. This way the students and professors can access whatever they need as fast as possible from any location on campus. On the inside to save money I would run cat5e cables to each individual device. Running fiber-optics to each computer in the computer labs would take a lot of work since fiber is so hard to handle. This will allow them to do all kinds of test involving the network while not being too budget heavy. Depending on how many floors we have in the building we will need at least one telecommunication room. This is where we will house our skeletal frame that holds our servers and networking equipment. We will run the horizontal cables to all of the room wall plates. We will leave the patch cables to the person in charge of the room arrangements. If there are multiple floors in the building we will install backbone cables through the risers so we can have another telecommunication room for the other floors. Depending on where the plenum is for the floor we will run the horizontal cables under the floor or on top of the false ceiling. If the plenum is over the false ceiling we will need to install a ladder rack and cable trays. We will need a lot of tools to install this network. First off we will need connectors and crimpers so we can connect the cat5 cables to the devices on both sides. Then after we crimp the cables we will have to test the cables  with the wire map testers to make sure that all the wires are connected correctly. We will also need a tone and probe so we can figure out where each cable is going, there’s a chance we will forget which cable is which and that is why we will need this. When the installation is done we will need at least one laptop to connect to the wall jacks so we can test to see if the connection is live in every room the from there we need to find out how many devices will be connected in each room so we can create a rack for them. After the racks are connected to the wall jacks and once they arrange the devices around the room wecan come back and set up the patch cords to the computers and then the building will be completely wired to the school campuses network. References Handout NT1310 Physical Networking Unit 4 Key Concepts: Cabling and Cabling Systems Textbook- Cabling: the complete guide to Copper and Fiber-Optic Networking 4th Edition by Andrew Olivero / Bill Woodward

The Importance of Shareholder Wealth Maximization in Business

The Importance of Shareholder Wealth Maximization in Business In modern finance, it is proven that shareholder wealth maximization is the superior goal of a firm and shareholders are the residual claimants; therefore maximizing shareholder returns usually implies that firms must also satisfy stakeholders such as customers, employees, suppliers, local communities and the environment first (Courses Work, Corporate Finance Module, Leeds Metropolitan University). Also, Michael C.Jensen argued that a firms value can not be maximized if the management board or shareholders ignores the interest of its stakeholders (Michael C.Jensen, 2001). Thus, I agree with the argument that the main goal of a firm is to maximize shareholder wealth but it does not mean that management should disregard stakeholders. To begin with, it is necessary to understand what is shareholder wealth and why maximizing shareholder wealth is superior objective? According to Glen Arnold (Corporate Financial Management, 4th, P. 13), maximizing shareholder wealth is defined as maximizing purchasing power as well as the flow of dividends to shareholders through time and it is a long-term perspective. In addition, a very important point to explain why shareholder wealth maximization is superior objective is that shareholders are the real owners of the firm, of course, they desire the companys operation will create their returns as much as possible; therefore, management board should make investment and financing decisions with the target of maximizing long-term sharholder wealth. This assumption is made mainly on practical grounds, but there are respectalble theoretical justifications too (Corporate Financial Management, 4th, P. 7). Thus, with practical reason, shareholder wealth maximization is a precise and clear decision as well as a suitable and operationally feasible goal. Also, shareholder wealth is represented by the market price of a firms common stock (Contemporary Financial Management, R. Charles Moyer, Jame R. McGuigan, William J.Kretlow, P.5) and stock prices illustrate clearly about the magnitude, timing and risk connected with profits that stockholders hope to get in future, so management should drive the stock price as high as possible. Furthermore, the greater the risk associated with receiving a future benefit, the lower the value investors place on that benefit (Contemporary Financial Management, R. Charles Moyer, Jame R. McGuigan, William J.Kretlow, P.5). Thus, maximizing the present value of expected future returns to the owners is also the true target for the firm in term of reaching shareholder wealth maximization and the returns will be represented in forms such as takings of common stock sales as well as healthy periodic dividends. Besides that, it is also important to realize that the goal of maximizing shareholder wealth has some advantages. Fistly, it explicitly considers the time value of money and risk factors of the benefits expected to receive to the owners. In other words, the elements of timing and risk must be considered by managers as they make an important financial decision, for example capital expenditures. Secondly, if a firm has a decision that can make the market price inceasing, it is a good decision. On in other hand, if it does not achieve the effective result, this should not be taken (at least not voluntarily). Finally, maximizing shareholder wealth is an impersonal aim. If stockholders oppose the companys policies, they can sell their shares freely and invest their fund in others, however, it is noticeable that the shares should be under more favorable terms than are available under any other stratergy. Also, investors will be possible to sell their shares with the best price if they have consumption pattern as well as risk preference which is not accommodated by the investment, financing and dividend decisions of that firm. They also can purchase shares in firms that closely meet the investors needs. For all above reasons, the shareholder wealth maximization is the superior objective in financial management. However, in term of theoretical reasons, many studies and financial books have proven that shareholder wealth rests on companies which are willing to build long-term relationships with stakeholders. So, focusing on the interests of stakeholders is the most important objective of the company to maximize shareholder wealth. Also, Michael C.Jensen stated that A firm cannot maximize value if it ignores the interests of its stakeholders (European Financial Management, Vol. 7, No.3, 2001, P. 298) Firstly, customers can be seen as the top of hierarchy of stakeholders. They are one of the most important factor and greatest challenge to primacy of shareholder interests. It is undebatable that no company can create great wealth for its shareholders without a stable and growing revenue base, which can be only reached by having very satisfied and loyal customers (Marakon Associates, 1993). So, a company wants to have an increasingly growing number of customers who are willing to pay money to have its products and services, it forces to meet the their satisfaction of product quality, reasonable prices, and good services. In other words, the product or service must be meet or exceeds expectations and is acquired at a price no higher than its perceived value. Also, the grown in sales by creating value for customers will maximize the firms stock price in the form of efficient and courteous service, adequate stocks of merchandise (Financial Management 12th, 2008, Eugene F.Brigham and Michael C.Ehrhardt, P.10). Therefore, the more volume of products distributed, the more shareholder value increased because of a vast profits after selling products and services. Secondly, employees also are of vital important in stakeholder objectives of the shareholders. They are the primary workforce and the potential source of significant competitive advantage which can create the superior value directly. According to Marakon Associates, 1993, pursuing the objective of maximizing value for shareholders also maximizes the economic interests of all employees over time, even when maganement is forced to downsize the company. Thus, they will be faithful and devote all their skills and talent if companys management board appreciates their crucial role as well as give the best policies for employees including paying fair wages, maintaining fair hiring practices and safe working conditions, supporting education. In other word, the keys to company success is that it must be the motivation for staffs to devote the cream of them (Financial Management 12th, 2008, Eugene F.Brigham and Michael C.Ehrhardt, P.10). Conversely, if the company does not give its mind to improving the employees lives and spirits, they will not try their best to produce quality products, resulting in failure in satisfying customers. Consequently, the amount of cash flow is poor, therefore, poor stockholder returns is indisputable. Furthermore, one factor which will generate unforeseeably great value of a firm is the interests of society as a whole. When businesses take a long-term view, the interests of the owners and society often coincide. (Timothy J. Gallagher and Josehp D. Andrew, Financial Management: Pricnciple and Practice, fouth edition, publishied by Freeload Press, 2007, P.11). Thus, it is absolutely indisputable that social responsibility with local communities and the environment in which the company operating are become an important consideration for the boards of companies, especially large companies, such as the source of supplies, for expamle rubber, wood, paper from managed forests as well as protecting the consumers and following the local business legislation. Therefore, the more a firm contributes social interests, the more value of trademark it generates. Another important factor which affect directly to the companys business activity is suppliers. Suppliers and supply chain management are both crucial to developing and implementing strategies that generate the hightest long-term cash flow Marakon Associates, 1993. It is clearly acknowledged that suppliers will be stable and reliable partners if the managment board has a fair, reasonable treat to them. This is shown in implementing all provisions of contracts as well as pay the bills on time. Furthermore, if a firm depends mostly on imported materials, it is necessary for it to have a sustainable vendor in order to keep its operation stably. On in other hand, the positive relation between a company and suppliers wiil be cause great damage if it always attempts to get very cheap prices, even below market levels as well as detaining payments as much as possible. Consequently, the company will receive poor quality materials in term of cheap prices and suppliers will stop supplying if they see companys fraudulent actions such as postpone payments in many times or the firms financial resource is limited To illustrate for the important role of stakeholders, the case of Vedan Vietnam (the company of Vedan Group, Taiwan) is one typical example for these arguements. During the operating period from 1991 to 2008 in Vietnam, Vedan has illegal discharged of 43,000m3 untreated waste water into Thi Vai river per month on avarage. The pollution has been spread to the area along 12 kilometres of the Thi Vai River, as well as 2,082 hectares of agricultural land in the three provinces of Dong Nai, Ba Ria Vung Tau and Ho Chi Minh City. In addition, respiratory diseases and interstinal sickness were also increasingly common among local people. This inhuman action resulted huge losses to the farmers who living depend on fishing, breeding aquatic creatures and building dams. And as stated in the news: Vedan Pollution Kills River Creatures: Can Gio Farmers to Sue (http://www.saigon-gpdaily.com.vn, October 23th, 2008) the company had to pay a compensation of VND1.8 billion (US$ 92,300 at todays exchange rate) to the farmers by the end of 2008. But the pollution continued, killing more of the farmers shrimps and fish and leading them to the brink of bankruptcy. Farmers in Thuan An have piled up bank debts of hundreds of millions of dong. It cannot be denied that the companys activities destroyed the human ecology in which it operating and seriously effective for living of the locals. Consequencly, during the two first quarters of this year, Vedan has been facing a boycott the companys products of customers and supermarket system such as Big C, Coop Mart. As a result, according to the news on thanhniennews.com (Boycott fear forces river polluter payout,   8/13/2010) the Vedan Vietnam General Director Yang Kun Hsiang asserted that they would pay 50 percent of the compensation for HCMC and Ba Ria-Vung Tau within a week after signing an agreement with the local authorities, and the other 50 percent will be paid in early next year with the total of VND30 billion to Dong Nai; VND10 billion to Ba Ria-Vung Tau and HCMC was VND16 billion. Considedring all arguments put forward, I have finally arrived at the conclusion that the goal of maximizing shareholder wealth is the superior objective in financial maganement of a firm. Still, I strong emphasize that the firm will create shareholder wealth as much as posibble if it realizes the importance of the interests of all their constituent group or stakeholders and satifies them, not just considers to the interets of stockholders.

Cell and Voice Over Internet Protocol Research :: essays research papers

Cell and Voice Over Internet Protocol Research Our contract is coming up for renewal from Nextel our current provider of cellular service, and SBC our local and long distance landline service. I will research three cellular service and Voice over the Internet Protocol providers (VoIP). By looking at three of each will give a good idea of what is out there and what trends of services to expect. For cellular, I will choose a phone to increase our work force productivity that cannot be done with our current type of phone, and find a plan that can meet our changing needs. For VoIP, pricing plans and equipment included. Finally I will give my conclusion on which companies to go with and why. Cellphone Providers Cingular phone   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  BlackBerry 7100g Features: Built-in Speakerphone, Bluetooth capable, Polyphonic speaker and downloadable ring tones, Downloadable games and graphics, Blackberry handheld software, and Quad-band world phone operates on 850/1900 and 900/1800 MHz GSM/GPRS networks (http://onlinestorez.cingular.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phones/cell-phones.jsp?source=INC230056&_requestid=50674). Clingular plans Nation 1000 FamilyTalk w/Rollover – 79.99 first two lines, 14.99 per additional line this package comes with 1000 anytime minutes, nights and weekend is unlimited, mobile to mobile is unlimited. Nation 1500 FamilyTalk w/Rollover – 99.99 first two lines, 14.99 per additional line this package comes with 1500 anytime minutes, nights and weekend is unlimited, mobile to mobile is unlimited (http://onlinestorez.cingular.com/cell-phone-service/wireless-phone-plans/cell-phone-plans.jsp). Nextel phone BlackBerry 7520 features: Walkie-Talkie Services, Speakerphone, Color display (65K colors), Group Connect Walkie-Talkie, Multimedia Messaging Service, Direct Talk - The Off-Network Walkie-Talkie, Web and Email Capable, Ring Tones, Applications & Games, Adheres to Military 810F Spec (http://nextelonline.nextel.com/NASApp/onlinestore/en/Action/DisplayPhones). Nextel Phone Plan Nextel National 1000 has 1000 monthly minutes for 55.99, the night and weekend minutes are unlimited direct connect is included. (http://nextelonline.nextel.com/NASApp/onlinestore/en/Action/DisplayPlans) TMobile phone The BlackBerry 7100t is the first of its kind--a full-featured mobile phone that delivers the power of BlackBerry e-mail. This is one sweet little phone, loaded with all of the cool features you want, like integrated Bluetooth ® connectivity, speakerphone, and downloadable ringtones. Moreover, surf the Web the way it was meant to be with an ultra-large, high-resolution color screen (http://www.tmobile.com/products/overview.asp?phoneid=246167&class=pda). T- Mobile phone plans The FamilyTime plan is 69.99 a month with 1000 whenever minutes, and the weeknight and weekends are unlimited (http://www.t-mobile.com/plans/FamilyTimeRatePlanDetails.asp). Voice over the Internet Protocol What is VoIP/Internet Voice?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  VoIP allows you to make telephone calls using a computer network, over a data network like the Internet. VoIP converts the voice signal from your telephone into a digital signal that travels over the internet then converts it back at the other end so you can speak to anyone with a regular phone number.

Netherlands :: essays research papers

The Netherlands   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Netherlands, officially Kingdom of the Netherlands, is a constitutional monarchy located in Northwest Europe. The Netherlands Antilles is part of the state and consists of islands in the Caribbean. The Netherlands is often called Holland after a historic region, part of the present day nation. The country is bounded on the North and West by the North Sea, on the East by Germany, and on the South by Belgium. Land is scarce in the Netherlands and is fully exploited. The natural landscapes have been altered over the centuries. The average January temperature is 35 degrees F and the mean July temperature is 63 degrees F. The Netherlands was considered to be lacking in natural resources. Salt is produced and in the 1950’s and 60’s, great natural gas reserves were discovered in Groningen Province. The Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries of the world. The Dutch make up the great majority of the nation’s inhabitants. They are mostly descended from the Franks, Frisians, and Saxons. According to a 1994 estimate, the Netherlands had a population of 15,401,000, an increase of about 17.9% over the 1971 census total. The overall population was about 961 persons per sq. mile. The nation is heavily urbanized; about 27% of the people live in cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants, and another 62% inhabit smaller cities and towns. The largest cities are, the capital, Amsterdam; one of the worlds leading seaports, Rotterdam; the nation’s administrative center, The Hague; and a manufacturing hub, Utretch. The official language of the Netherlands is Dutch, which is spoken throughout the country. Roman Catholics constitute about 33% and Protestants about 25% of the Dutch population. From the time of the reformation the 16th century, the Netherlands has ha d a high level of basic education and comparatively high literacy rates.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Netherlands has played a major role in the European economy for many centuries. Since the 16th century, shipping, fishing, trade, and banking have been leading sectors of the Dutch economy. A diversified manufacturing base was created as employment in agriculture fell and the country became a major energy exporter as large deposits of natural gas were discovered. Most firms are privately owned even though the government distributes about 40% of the Dutch national income. From 1965 to 1980, the gross domestic product of the Netherlands grew at an average yearly rate of 3.8%, about equal to that of neighboring countries of continental Europe.

Unmasking Monsters of Meaning in the ‘Narrative Complexity’ of Supernat

The subjects of this study, The X-Files (Carter, 1993-2002) and Supernatural (Kripke, 2005-), can be seen as innovative pioneers of ‘Narrative Complexity’ and of the ‘monster-of-the-week’ concept. The X-Files stars FBI agents, Mulder and Scully, as they take charge in investigating the X files (cases that occur through unknown phenomena). Mulder, the believer, and Scully, the sceptic, face corrupt government officials, monstrous mutants and phenomena that cannot be explained. The episodic and formulaic series allow Mulder and Scully to face phenomena after phenomena while being spliced with a greater ‘mytharc’ concerning government corruption and of the alien colonisation of earth. Supernatural stars Dean and Sam Winchester, brothers in arms, who also, within formulaic and self-contained episodes, hunt monsters and creatures of folklore, urban legend and myth. Supernatural features arcs every season that take Dean and Sam searching for their los t father, preventing a demon apocalypse and do battle with Satan and God’s Angels. American television has, since its very first broadcast, twisted and changed to cater towards its ever-growing and ever-changing audience (Mittel, 2007, p.162-163). Narratives, structure styles, special effects, characters and themes have developed and changed, been tested and tried. Mittel identifies the three notable structures of the television: the anthology, the serial and the series (2007, p. 163). For this study, we are more interested in the serial and the series for its crossover in narrative complexity. Mittel states that ‘narrative television offers ongoing storyworlds, presenting specific opportunities and limitations for creating compelling narratives’ (2007, p.163). The ‘episodic series’ is bro... ...d Everyday Life in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In: M. Hammond and L, Mazdon, eds. 2005. The Contemporary Television Series. Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press, pp.159-182. Hodges, L., 2008. Mainstreaming Marginality: Genre, Hybridity, and Postmodernism in The X-Files. In: J. P. Tellote, ed. 2008. The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader. Kentucky: Kentucky University Press, pp.231-246. Mittel, J., 2007. Film and Television Narrative. In: D. Herman, ed. 2007. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.156-171. Mittell, J., 2006. Narrative Complexity in Contemporary American Television. The Velvet Light Trap, 58(32), pp.29-40 Nixon, N., 1998. Making Monsters, or Serializing Killers. In: R. Martin and E, Savoy, eds. 1998. American Gothic: New Interventions in a National Narrative. Iowa: Iowa University Press, pp.217-236.

Interviewing a Criminal Justice Professional

For the past twenty-four years, Deputy Karen J. Miller has work for the Harris County Sherriff’s Department. She worked on the beat for her first six months, than the rest of her career years at the Harris County Sherriff’s Community Store Front. The store front is a place where the deputies provide a safe environment for those who live, work or commute within the precincts.For the last three years, Deputy Miller’s job title has been â€Å"Media Liaison† officer. The role of a police liaison officer is to promote trust and understanding by assisting the community, police and media through the process of reducing and preventing crimes and maintaining community partnerships. She also strives to divert people from entering the criminal justice system. Deputy Miller is responsible for making consistent, periodic contact with assigned groups to stay informed about community concerns and unresolved issues.Her goal is to provide accurate information in a timely m anner utilizing technology to improve communication between the office of the sheriff’s department, the media and the public. Deputy Miller’s daily activity entails sending emails, writing releases and reports to the local area paper (Northeast News). In Deputy Miller’s district reports, she gives information such as mug shots (if permitted), description about the incident, names of the people involved, the location, time and date.Deputy Miller thinks that new technologies, such as the internet are a good tool for law enforcement and the criminal justice system because more avenues have opened up because of the internet. Deputy Miller came from a descent family, but growing up; she was always getting into trouble in school. Her parents had to place her in a catholic school in the fifth grade because of fighting. During her years at the catholic school, Deputy Miller convinced her parents that she was able to behave herself, so they put her back in the public sch ool (Barbara Jordan). She attended Barbara Jordan from the tenth thru the twelfth grade were she graduated.Deputy Miller attended Texas Southern University majoring in Criminal Justice. A friend had informed her about a job posting for the sheriff’s department. She applied and was given the job as a deputy sheriff. After learning from friends about her boyfriend being busted on the news for drugs, she knew being in this profession, she had to pick and choose who she hung around. In other words, change out friends; you have to keep yourself clean; not having a criminal record. They also do not want someone with a lot of debts. Deputy Miller had to pull her weapon, but never used deadly force.In her career, Deputy Miller has seen deputies killed. The effect of seeing her comrades killed sets her back. Deputy Miller stated, â€Å"Being a deputy, you build a close relationship with your partner. You are depending on that person with your life; to have your back†. Deputy Mi ller and her peers motto is what to eat, stay dry and GO HOME. Being in the law enforcement profession, ethics is the core value on the job and off the job. Ethics in the field of law enforcement is very important and significant because ethics is used in this field every day. Law enforcement officers encounter difficult decisions that will involve ethical thinking.They will have to deal with different ethnicities, languages, religions and will have to use ethical thinking to deal with them. The officer will come into contact with a variety of people from different cultures. Situations will also occur often in which morals and ethics need to be taken into consideration. Deputy Miller has also witness corruption in her career. One time, she was ordered to return a patrol car for a DNA check. Turned out, a deputy that used the patrol car before her had forced intercourse with a female in exchange for not writing her a ticket in the back seat of that vehicle.Without leadership and ethi cs, we would not have trustworthy officers on the street. Officers take an oath to protect and serve the people, not to go out and commit a crime against them. Deputy Miller’s career choice had some affect on her family. Her first marriage ended in divorce because her husband could not cope with her chosen profession. Her two daughters’ ages eight and twelve supports her, but do not want to follow in her footsteps. She is now married to her best friend, who is also a deputy, who loves and understands her career and her position. She is planning on retiring, but not for another six to eight years.What Deputy Miller love the most about being a media liaison is working alone and not answering to anyone; the least is â€Å"being misquoted†. Afterthoughts In interviewing Deputy Miller, I learned that a â€Å"media liaison officer† has to work in a high pressure environment while maintaining composure. The officer has to be self-directed, detail-oriented, and a ble to multi-task under time constraints. The officer is also required to have strong analytical, organizational, and communication skills. I also learned that being in this line of profession, may cause a strain in your personal life.It is important to have an understanding partner that can swallow their disappointment when the officer is absent from family functions. In this profession, you will miss important occasions and holidays such as anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas’†¦etc. To put it nicely, criminals do not take the holidays off, neither do those that protects us. What I like the most about Deputy Miller’s career title is the interactions with the media and the community. She gets to write stories from the police point of view so that the public can read about what’s going on in their community.Some offices will even be present at a homeowner’s association meeting, asking a lot of questions and taking detail notes to find out about the co mmunity concerns, crime or quality-of-life issues in the neighborhood. I was very surprised to find out that Deputy Miller never had to use deadly force out of her twenty-four years as a deputy sheriff. A very small percentage of officers have used deadly force. Upbringing has a profound impact on the level of tolerance you have for bad behavior. If you had strict parents, than your tolerance for bad behavior is low. If your arents are liberal, your tolerance is probably much higher. Having a strong sense of morals and ethics can guide you for a lifetime. Being a law enforcement officer, family life, morals, ethics, and culture mold an individual’s ability to make a decision to use deadly force along with having confidence.References Deputy Karen J. Miller (personal interview), (Jan. 29,2010). Liaison Officer Job Description: http://www. ehow. com/facts_5559182_liaison-officer-job-description. html Your Personal Deadly force Policy: Operations & Tactics at Office. com, http:/ /www. officer. com/article/article. jsp? siteSection=3&id=32241.

Chapter 26 The Second Task

â€Å"You said you'd already worked out that egg clue!† said Hermione indignantly. â€Å"Keep your voice down!† said Harry crossly. â€Å"I just need to – sort of fine-tune it, all right?† He, Ron, and Hermione were sitting at the very back of the Charms class with a table to themselves. They were supposed to be practicing the opposite of the Summoning Charm today – the Banishing Charm. Owing to the potential for nasty accidents when objects kept flying across the room. Professor Flitwick had given each student a stack of cushions on which to practice, the theory being that these wouldn't hurt anyone if they went off target. It was a good theory, but it wasn't working very well. Neville's aim was so poor that he kept accidentally sending much heavier things flying across the room – Professor Flitwick, for instance. â€Å"Just forget the egg for a minute, all right?† Harry hissed as Professor Flitwick went whizzing resignedly past them, landing on top of a large cabinet. â€Å"I'm trying to tell you about Snape and Moody†¦.† This class was an ideal cover for a private conversation, as everyone was having far too much fun to pay them any attention. Harry had been recounting his adventures of the previous night in whispered installments for the last half hour. â€Å"Snape said Moody's searched his office as well?† Ron whispered, his eyes alight with interest as he Banished a cushion with a sweep of his wand (it soared into the air and knocked Parvati's hat off). â€Å"What†¦d'you reckon Moody's here to keep an eye on Snape as well as Karkaroff?† â€Å"Well, I dunno if that's what Dumbledore asked him to do, but he's definitely doing it,† said Harry, waving his wand without paying much attention, so that his cushion did an odd sort of belly flop off the desk. â€Å"Moody said Dumbledore only lets Snape stay here because he's giving him a second chance or something†¦.† â€Å"What?† said Ron, his eyes widening, his next cushion spinning high into the air, ricocheting off the chandelier, and dropping heavily onto Flitwick's desk. â€Å"Harry†¦maybe Moody thinks Snape put your name in the Goblet of Fire!† â€Å"Oh Ron,† said Hermione, shaking her head sceptically, â€Å"we thought Snape was trying to kill Harry before, and it turned out he was saving Harry's life, remember?† She Banished a cushion and it flew across the room and landed in the box they were all supposed to be aiming at. Harry looked at Hermione, thinking†¦it was true that Snape had saved his life once, but the odd thing was, Snape definitely loathed him, just as he'd loathed Harry's father when they had been at school together. Snape loved taking points from Harry, and had certainly never missed an opportunity to give him punishments, or even to suggest that he should be suspended from the school. â€Å"I don't care what Moody says,† Hermione went on. â€Å"Dumbledore's not stupid. He was right to trust Hagrid and Professor Lupin, even though loads of people wouldn't have given them jobs, so why shouldn't he be right about Snape, even if Snape is a bit -â€Å" â€Å"- evil,† said Ron promptly. â€Å"Come on, Hermione, why are all these Dark wizard catchers searching his office, then?† â€Å"Why has Mr. Crouch been pretending to be ill?† said Hermione, ignoring Ron. â€Å"Its a bit funny, isn't it, that he cant manage to come to the Yule Ball, but he can get up here in the middle of the night when he wants to?† â€Å"You just don't like Crouch because of that elf, Winky,† said Ron, sending a cushion soaring into the window. â€Å"You just want to think Snape's up to something,† said Hermione, sending her cushion zooming neatly into the box. â€Å"I just want to know what Snape did with his first chance, if he's on his second one,† said Harry grimly, and his cushion, to his very great surprise, flew straight across the room and landed neatly on top of Hermione's. Obedient to Sirius's wish of hearing about anything odd at Hogwarts, Harry sent him a letter by brown owl that night, explaining all about Mr. Crouch breaking into Snape's office, and Moody and Snape's conversation. Then Harry turned his attention in earnest to the most urgent problem facing him: how to survive underwater for an hour on the twenty-fourth of February. Ron quite liked the idea of using the Summoning Charm again – Harry had explained about Aqua-Lungs, and Ron couldn't see why Harry shouldn't Summon one from the nearest Muggle town. Hermione squashed this plan by pointing out that, in the unlikely event that Harry managed to learn how to operate an Aqua-Lung within the set limit of an hour, he was sure to be disqualified for breaking the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy – it was too much to hope that no Muggles would spot an Aqua-Lung zooming across the countryside to Hogwarts. â€Å"Of course, the ideal solution would be for you to Transfigure yourself into a submarine or something,† Hermione said. â€Å"If only we'd done human Transfiguration already! But I don't think we start that until sixth year, and it can go badly wrong if you don't know what you're doing†¦.† â€Å"Yeah, I don't fancy walking around with a periscope sticking out of my head,† said Harry. â€Å"I s'pose I could always attack someone in front of Moody; he might do it for me†¦.† â€Å"I don't think he'd let you choose what you wanted to be turned into, though,† said Hermione seriously. â€Å"No, I think your best chance is some sort of charm.† So Harry, thinking that he would soon have had enough of the library to last him a lifetime, buried himself once more among the dusty volumes, looking for any spell that might enable a human to survive without oxygen. However, though he, Ron, and Hermione searched through their lunchtimes, evenings, and whole weekends – though Harry asked Professor McGonagall for a note of permission to use the Restricted Section, and even asked the irritable, vulture-like librarian. Madam Pince, for help – they found nothing whatsoever that would enable Harry to spend an hour underwater and live to tell the tale. Familiar flutterings of panic were starting to disturb Harry now, and he was finding it difficult to concentrate in class again. The lake, which Harry had always taken for granted as just another feature of the grounds, drew his eyes whenever he was near a classroom window, a great, iron-gray mass of chilly water, whose dark and icy depths were starting to seem as distant as the moon. Just as it had before he faced the Horntail, time was slipping away as though somebody had bewitched the clocks to go extra-fast. There was a week to go before February the twenty-fourth (there was still time)†¦there were five days to go (he was bound to find something soon)†¦three days to go (please let me find something†¦please)†¦ With two days left. Harry started to go off food again. The only good thing about breakfast on Monday was the return of the brown owl he had sent to Sirius. He pulled off the parchment, unrolled it, and saw the shortest letter Sirius had ever written to him. Send date of next Hogsmeade weekend by return owl. Harry turned the parchment over and looked at the back, hoping to see something else, but it was blank. â€Å"Weekend after next,† whispered Hermione, who had read the note over Harry's shoulder. â€Å"Here – take my quill and send this owl back straight away.† Harry scribbled the dates down on the back of Sirius's letter, tied it onto the brown owl's leg, and watched it take flight again. What had he expected? Advice on how to survive underwater? He had been so intent on telling Sirius all about Snape and Moody he had completely forgotten to mention the egg's clue. â€Å"What's he want to know about the next Hogsmeade weekend for?† said Ron. â€Å"Dunno,† said Harry dully. The momentary happiness that had flared inside him at the sight of the owl had died. â€Å"Come on†¦Care of Magical Creatures.† Whether Hagrid was trying to make up for the Blast-Ended Skrewts, or because there were now only two skrewts left, or because he was trying to prove he could do anything that Professor Grubbly-Plank could. Harry didnt know, but Hagrid had been continuing her lessons on unicorns ever since he'd returned to work. It turned out that Hagrid knew quite as much about unicorns as he did about monsters, though it was clear that he found their lack of poisonous fangs disappointing. Today he had managed to capture two unicorn foals. Unlike full-grown unicorns, they were pure gold. Parvati and Lavender went into transports of delight at the sight of them, and even Pansy Parkinson had to work hard to conceal how much she liked them. â€Å"Easier ter spot than the adults,† Hagrid told the class. â€Å"They turn silver when they're abou' two years old, an' they grow horns at aroun four. Don' go pure white till they're full grown, 'round about seven. They're a bit more trustin' when they're babies†¦don' mind boys so much†¦.C'mon, move in a bit, yeh can pat 'em if yeh want†¦give 'em a few o' these sugar lumps†¦. â€Å"You okay. Harry?† Hagrid muttered, moving aside slightly, while most of the others swarmed around the baby unicorns. â€Å"Yeah,† said Harry. â€Å"Jus' nervous, eh?† said Hagrid. â€Å"Bit,† said Harry. â€Å"Harry,† said Hagrid, clapping a massive hand on his shoulder, so that Harry's knees buckled under its weight, â€Å"I'd've bin worried before I saw yeh take on tha Horntail, but I know now yeh can do anythin' yeh set yer mind ter. I'm not worried at all. Yeh're goin ter be fine. Got yer clue worked out, haven' yeh?† Harry nodded, but even as he did so, an insane urge to confess that he didn't have any idea how to survive at the bottom of the lake for an hour came over him. He looked up at Hagrid – perhaps he had to go into the lake sometimes, to deal with the creatures in it? He looked after everything else on the grounds, after all – â€Å"Yeh're goin' ter win,† Hagrid growled, patting Harry's shoulder again, so that Harry actually felt himself sink a couple of inches into the soft ground. â€Å"I know it. I can feel it. Yeh're goin' ter win, Harry.† Harry just couldn't bring himself to wipe the happy, confident smile off Hagrid's face. Pretending he was interested in the young unicorns, he forced a smile in return, and moved forward to pat them with the others. By the evening before the second task. Harry felt as though he were trapped in a nightmare. He was fully aware that even if, by some miracle, he managed to find a suitable spell, he'd have a real job mastering it overnight. How could he have let this happen? Why hadn't he got to work on the egg's clue sooner? Why had he ever let his mind wander in class – what if a teacher had once mentioned how to breathe underwater? He sat with Hermione and Ron in the library as the sun set outside, tearing feverishly through page after page of spells, hidden from one another by the massive piles of books on the desk in front of each of them. Harry's heart gave a huge leap every time he saw the word â€Å"water† on a page, but more often than not it was merely â€Å"Take two pints of water, half a pound of shredded mandrake leaves, and a newt†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I don't reckon it can be done,† said Ron's voice flatly from the other side of the table. â€Å"There's nothing. Nothing. Closest was that thing to dry up puddles and ponds, that Drought Charm, but that was nowhere near powerful enough to drain the lake.† â€Å"There must be something,† Hermione muttered, moving a candle closer to her. Her eyes were so tired she was poring over the tiny print of Olde and Forgotten Bewitchments and Charmes with her nose about an inch from the page. â€Å"They'd never have set a task that was undoable.† â€Å"They have,† said Ron. â€Å"Harry, just go down to the lake tomorrow, right, stick your head in, yell at the merpeople to give back whatever they've nicked, and see if they chuck it out. Best you can do, mate.† â€Å"There's a way of doing it!† Hermione said crossly. â€Å"There just has to be!† She seemed to be taking the library's lack of useful information on the subject as a personal insult; it had never failed her before. â€Å"I know what I should have done,† said Harry, resting, face-down, on Saucy Tricks for Tricky Sorts. â€Å"I should've learned to be an Animagus like Sirius.† An Animagus was a wizard who could transform into an animal. â€Å"Yeah, you could've turned into a goldfish any time you wanted!† said Ron. â€Å"Or a frog,† yawned Harry. He was exhausted. â€Å"It takes years to become an Animagus, and then you have to register yourself and everything,† said Hermione vaguely, now squinting down the index of Weird Wizarding Dilemmas and Their Solutions. â€Å"Professor McGonagall told us, remember†¦you've got to register yourself with the Improper Use of Magic Office†¦what animal you become, and your markings, so you can't abuse it†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"†¦Hermione, I was joking,† said Harry wearily. â€Å"I know I haven't got a chance of turning into a frog by tomorrow morning†¦.† â€Å"Oh this is no use,† Hermione said, snapping shut Weird Wizarding Dilemmas. â€Å"Who on earth wants to make their nose hair grow into ringlets?† â€Å"I wouldn't mind,† said Fred Weasley's voice. â€Å"Be a talking point, wouldn't it?† Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked up. Fred and George had just emerged from behind some bookshelves. â€Å"What're you two doing here?† Ron asked. â€Å"Looking for you,† said George. â€Å"McGonagall wants you, Ron. And you, Hermione.† â€Å"Why?† said Hermione, looking surprised. â€Å"Dunno†¦she was looking a bit grim, though,† said Fred. â€Å"We're supposed to take you down to her office,† said George. Ron and Hermione stared at Harry, who felt his stomach drop. Was Professor McGonagall about to tell Ron and Hermione off? Perhaps she'd noticed how much they were helping him, when he ought to be working out how to do the task alone? â€Å"We'll meet you back in the common room,† Hermione told Harry as she got up to go with Ron – both of them looked very anxious. â€Å"Bring as many of these books as you can, okay?† â€Å"Right,† said Harry uneasily. By eight o'clock. Madam Pince had extinguished all the lamps and came to chivvy Harry out of the library. Staggering under the weight of as many books as he could carry, Harry returned to the Gryffindor common room, pulled a table into a corner, and continued to search. There was nothing in Madcap Magic for Wacky Warlocks†¦nothing in A Guide to Medieval Sorcery†¦not one mention of underwater exploits in An Anthology of Eighteenth-Century Charms, or in Dreadful Denizens of the Deep, or Powers You Never Knew You Had and What to Do with Them Now You've Wised Up. Crookshanks crawled into Harry's lap and curled up, purring deeply. The common room emptied slowly around Harry. People kept wishing him luck for the next morning in cheery, confident voices like Hagrid's, all of them apparently convinced that he was about to pull off another stunning performance like the one he had managed in the first task. Harry couldn't answer them, he just nodded, feeling as though there were a golfball stuck in his throat. By ten to midnight, he was alone in the room with Crookshanks. He had searched all the remaining books, and Ron and Hermione had not come back. It's over, he told himself. You can't do it. You'll just have to go down to the lake in the morning and tell the judges†¦. He imagined himself explaining that he couldn't do the task. He pictured Bagman's look of round-eyed surprise, Karkaroffs satisfied, yellow-toothed smile. He could almost hear Fleur Delacour saying â€Å"I knew it†¦'e is too young, ‘e is only a little boy.† He saw Malfoy flashing his POTTER STINKS badge at the front of the crowd, saw Hagrid's crestfallen, disbelieving face†¦. Forgetting that Crookshanks was on his lap. Harry stood up very suddenly; Crookshanks hissed angrily as he landed on the floor, gave Harry a disgusted look, and stalked away with his bottlebrush tail in the air, but Harry was already hurrying up the spiral staircase to his dormitory†¦.He would grab the Invisibility Cloak and go back to the library, he'd stay there all night if he had to†¦. â€Å"Lumos,† Harry whispered fifteen minutes later as he opened the library door. Wand tip alight, he crept along the bookshelves, pulling down more books – books of hexes and charms, books on merpeople and water monsters, books on famous witches and wizards, on magical inventions, on anything at all that might include one passing reference to underwater survival. He carried them over to a table, then set to work, searching them by the narrow beam of his wand, occasionally checking his watch†¦. One in the morning†¦two in the morning†¦the only way he could keep going was to tell himself, over and over again, next book†¦in the next one†¦the next one†¦ The mermaid in the painting in the prefects' bathroom was laughing. Harry was bobbing like a cork in bubbly water next to her rock, while she held his Firebolt over his head. â€Å"Come and get it!† she giggled maliciously. â€Å"Come on, jump!† â€Å"I can't,† Harry panted, snatching at the Firebolt, and struggling not to sink. â€Å"Give it to me!† But she just poked him painfully in the side with the end of the broomstick, laughing at him. â€Å"That hurts – get off – ouch -â€Å" â€Å"Harry Potter must wake up, sir!† â€Å"Stop poking me -â€Å" â€Å"Dobby must poke Harry Potter, sir, he must wake up!† Harry opened his eyes. He was still in the library; the Invisibility Cloak had slipped off his head as he'd slept, and the side of his face was stuck to the pages of Where There's a Wand, There's a Way. He sat up, straightening his glasses, blinking in the bright daylight. â€Å"Harry Potter needs to hurry!† squeaked Dobby. â€Å"The second task starts in ten minutes, and Harry Potter -â€Å" â€Å"Ten minutes?† Harry croaked. â€Å"Ten – ten minutes?† He looked down at his watch. Dobby was right. It was twenty past nine. A large, dead weight seemed to fall through Harry's chest into his stomach. â€Å"Hurry, Harry Potter!† squeaked Dobby, plucking at Harry's sleeve. â€Å"You is supposed to be down by the lake with the other champions, sir!† â€Å"It's too late, Dobby,† Harry said hopelessly. â€Å"I'm not doing the task, I don't know how -â€Å" â€Å"Harry Potter will do the task!† squeaked the elf. â€Å"Dobby knew Harry had not found the right book, so Dobby did it for him!† â€Å"What?† said Harry. â€Å"But you don't know what the second task is -â€Å" â€Å"Dobby knows, sir! Harry Potter has to go into the lake and find his Wheezy -â€Å" â€Å"Find my what?† â€Å"- and take his Wheezy back from the merpeople!† â€Å"What's a Wheezy?† â€Å"Your Wheezy, sir, your Wheezy-Wheezy who is giving Dobby his sweater!† Dobby plucked at the shrunken maroon sweater he was now wearing over his shorts. â€Å"What?† Harry gasped. â€Å"They've got†¦they've got Ron?† â€Å"The thing Harry Potter will miss most, sir!† squeaked Dobby. â€Å"‘But past an hour-‘† â€Å"- ‘the prospect's black,'† Harry recited, staring, horror-struck, at the elf. â€Å"‘Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.' Dobby – what've I got to do?† â€Å"You has to eat this, sir!† squeaked the elf, and he put his hand in the pocket of his shorts and drew out a ball of what looked like slimy, grayish-green rat tails. â€Å"Right before you go into the lake, sir – gillyweed!† â€Å"What's it do?† said Harry, staring at the gillyweed. â€Å"It will make Harry Potter breathe underwater, sir!† â€Å"Dobby,† said Harry frantically, â€Å"listen – are you sure about this?† He couldn't quite forget that the last time Dobby had tried to â€Å"help† him, he had ended up with no bones in his right arm. â€Å"Dobby is quite sure, sir!† said the elf earnestly. â€Å"Dobby hears things, sir, he is a house-elf, he goes all over the castle as he lights the fires and mops the floors. Dobby heard Professor McGonagall and Professor Moody in the staffroom, talking about the next task†¦.Dobby cannot let Harry Potter lose his Wheezy!† Harry's doubts vanished. Jumping to his feet he pulled off the Invisibility Cloak, stuffed it into his bag, grabbed the gillyweed, and put it into his pocket, then tore out of the library with Dobby at his heels. â€Å"Dobby is supposed to be in the kitchens, sir!† Dobby squealed as they burst into the corridor. â€Å"Dobby will be missed – good luck, Harry Potter, sir, good luck!† â€Å"See you later, Dobby!† Harry shouted, and he sprinted along the corridor and down the stairs, three at a time. The entrance hall contained a few last-minute stragglers, all leaving the Great Hall after breakfast and heading through the double oak doors to watch the second task. They stared as Harry flashed past, sending Colin and Dennis Creevey flying as he leapt down the stone steps and out onto the bright, chilly grounds. As he pounded down the lawn he saw that the seats that had encircled the dragons' enclosure in November were now ranged along the opposite bank, rising in stands that were packed to the bursting point and reflected in the lake below. The excited babble of the crowd echoed strangely across the water as Harry ran flat-out around the other side of the lake toward the judges, who were sitting at another gold-draped table at the water's edge. Cedric, Fleur, and Krum were beside the judges' table, watching Harry sprint toward them. â€Å"I'm†¦here†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Harry panted, skidding to a halt in the mud and accidentally splattering Fleur's robes. â€Å"Where have you been?† said a bossy, disapproving voice. â€Å"The task's about to start!† Harry looked around. Percy Weasley was sitting at the judges' table – Mr. Crouch had failed to turn up again. â€Å"Now, now, Percy!† said Ludo Bagman, who was looking intensely relieved to see Harry. â€Å"Let him catch his breath!† Dumbledore smiled at Harry, but Karkaroff and Madame Maxime didn't look at all pleased to see him†¦.It was obvious from the looks on their faces that they had thought he wasn't going to turn up. Harry bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath; he had a stitch in his side that felt as though he had a knife between his ribs, but there was no time to get rid of it; Ludo Bagman was now moving among the champions, spacing them along the bank at intervals of ten feet. Harry was on the very end of the line, next to Krum, who was wearing swimming trunks and was holding his wand ready. â€Å"All right. Harry?† Bagman whispered as he moved Harry a few feet farther away from Krum. â€Å"Know what you're going to do?† â€Å"Yeah,† Harry panted, massaging his ribs. Bagman gave Harry's shoulder a quick squeeze and returned to the judges' table; he pointed his wand at his throat as he had done at the World Cup, said, â€Å"Sonorus!† and his voice boomed out across the dark water toward the stands. â€Å"Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three, then. One†¦two†¦three!† The whistle echoed shrilly in the cold, still air; the stands erupted with cheers and applause; without looking to see what the other champions were doing, Harry pulled off his shoes and socks, pulled the handful of gillyweed out of his pocket, stuffed it into his mouth, and waded out into the lake. It was so cold he felt the skin on his legs searing as though this were fire, not icy water. His sodden robes weighed him down as he walked in deeper; now the water was over his knees, and his rapidly numbing feet were slipping over silt and flat, slimy stones. He was chewing the gillyweed as hard and fast as he could; it felt unpleasantly slimy and rubbery, like octopus tentacles. Waist-deep in the freezing water he stopped, swallowed, and waited for something to happen. He could hear laughter in the crowd and knew he must look stupid, walking into the lake without showing any sign of magical power. The part of him that was still dry was covered in goose pimples; half immersed in the icy water, a cruel breeze lifting his hair, Harry started to shiver violently. He avoided looking at the stands; the laughter was becoming louder, and there were catcalls and jeering from the Slytherins†¦. Then, quite suddenly, Harry felt as though an invisible pillow had been pressed over his mouth and nose. He tried to draw breath, but it made his head spin; his lungs were empty, and he suddenly felt a piercing pain on either side of his neck – Harry clapped his hands around his throat and felt two large slits just below his ears, flapping in the cold air†¦.He had gills. Without pausing to think, he did the only thing that made sense – he flung himself forward into the water. The first gulp of icy lake water felt like the breath of life. His head had stopped spinning; he took another great gulp of water and felt it pass smoothly through his gills, sending oxygen back to his brain. He stretched out his hands in front of him and stared at them. They looked green and ghostly under the water, and they had become webbed. He twisted around and looked at his bare feet – they had become elongated and the toes were webbed too: It looked as though he had sprouted flippers. The water didn't feel icy anymore either†¦on the contrary, he felt pleasantly cool and very light†¦.Harry struck out once more, marveling at how far and fast his flipper-like feet propelled him through the vater, and noticing how clearly he could see, and how he no longer seemed to need to blink. He had soon swum so far into the lake that he could no longer see the bottom. He flipped over and dived into its depths. Silence pressed upon his ears as he soared over a strange, dark, foggy landscape. He could only see ten feet around him, so that as he sped throuugh the water new scenes seemed to loom suddenly out of the incoming darkness: forests of rippling, tangled black weed, wide plains of mud littered with dull, glimmering stones. He swam deeper and deeper, out toward the middle of the lake, his eyes wide, staring through the eerily gray-lit water around him to the shadow beyond, where the water became opaque. Small fish flickered past him like silver darts. Once or twice he thought he saw something larger moving ahead of him, but when he got nearer, he discovered it to be nothing but a large, blackened log, or a dense clump of weed. There was no sign of any of the other champions, merpeople, Ron – nor, thankfully, the giant squid. Light green weed stretched ahead of him as far as he could see, two feet deep, like a meadow of very overgrown grass. Harry was staring unblinkingly ahead of him, trying to discern shapes through the gloom†¦and then, without warning, something grabbed hold of his ankle. Harry twisted his body around and saw a grindylow, a small, horned water demon, poking out of the weed, its long fingers clutched tightly around Harry's leg, its pointed fangs bared – Harry stuck his webbed hand quickly inside his robes and fumbled for his wand. By the time he had grasped it, two more grindylows had risen out of the weed, had seized handfuls of Harry's robes, and were attempting to drag him down. â€Å"Relashio!† Harry shouted, except that no sound came out†¦.A large bubble issued from his mouth, and his wand, instead of sending sparks at the grindylows, pelted them with what seemed to be a jet of boiling water, for where it struck them, angry red patches appeared on their green skin. Harry pulled his ankle out of the grindylows grip and swam, as fast as he could, occasionally sending more jets of hot water over his shoulder at random; every now and then he felt one of the grindylows snatch at his foot again, and he kicked out, hard; finally, he felt his foot connect with a horned skull, and looking back, saw the dazed grindylow floating away, cross-eyed, while its fellows shook their fists at Harry and sank back into the weed. Harry slowed down a little, slipped his wand back inside his robes, and looked around, listening again. He turned full circle in the water, the silence pressing harder than ever against his eardrums. He knew he must be even deeper in the lake now, but nothing was moving but the rippling weed. â€Å"How are you getting on?† Harry thought he was having a heart attack. He whipped around and saw Moaning Myrtle floating hazily in front of him, gazing at him through her thick, pearly glasses. â€Å"Myrtle!† Harry tried to shout – but once again, nothing came out of his mouth but a very large bubble. Moaning Myrtle actually giggled. â€Å"You want to try over there!† she said, pointing. â€Å"I won't come with you†¦.I don't like them much, they always chase me when I get too close†¦.† Harry gave her the thumbs-up to show his thanks and set off once more, careful to swim a bit higher over the weed to avoid any more grindylows that might be lurking there. He swam on for what felt like at least twenty minutes. He was passing over vast expanses of black mud now, which swirled murkily as he disturbed the water. Then, at long last, he heard a snatch of haunting mersong. â€Å"An hour long you'll have to look, And to recover what we took†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Harry swam faster and soon saw a large rock emerge out of the muddy water ahead. It had paintings of merpeople on it; they were carrying spears and chasing what looked like the giant squid. Harry swam on past the rock, following the mersong. â€Å"†¦your time's half gone, so tarry not Lest what you seek stays here to rot†¦.† A cluster of crude stone dwellings stained with algae loomed suddenly out of the gloom on all sides. Here and there at the dark windows, Harry saw faces†¦faces that bore no resemblance at all to the painting of the mermaid in the prefects' bathroom†¦. The merpeople had grayish skin and long, wild, dark green hair. Their eyes were yellow, as were their broken teeth, and they wore thick ropes of pebbles around their necks. They leered at Harry as he swam past; one or two of them emerged from their caves to watch him better, their powerful, silver fish tails beating the water, spears clutched in their hands. Harry sped on, staring around, and soon the dwellings became more numerous; there were gardens of weed around some of them, and he even saw a pet grindylow tied to a stake outside one door. Merpeople were emerging on all sides now, watching him eagerly, pointing at his webbed hands and gills, talking behind their hands to one another. Harry sped around a corner and a very strange sight met his eyes. A whole crowd of merpeople was floating in front of the houses that lined what looked like a mer-version of a village square. A choir of merpeople was singing in the middle, calling the champions toward them, and behind them rose a crude sort of statue; a gigantic merperson hewn from a boulder. Four people were bound tightly to the tail of the stone merperson. Ron was tied between Hermione and Cho Chang. There was also a girl who looked no older than eight, whose clouds of silvery hair made Harry feel sure that she was Fleur Delacour's sister. All four of them appeared to be in a very deep sleep. Their heads were lolling onto their shoulders, and fine streams of bubbles kept issuing from their mouths. Harry sped toward the hostages, half expecting the merpeople to lower their spears and charge at him, but they did nothing. The ropes of weed tying the hostages to the statue were thick, slimy, and very strong. For a fleeting second he thought of the knife Sirius had bought him for Christmas – locked in his trunk in the castle a quarter of a mile away, no use to him whatsoever. He looked around. Many of the merpeople surrounding them were carrying spears. He swam swiftly toward a seven-foot-tall merman with a long green beard and a choker of shark fangs and tried to mime a request to borrow the spear. The merman laughed and shook his head. â€Å"We do not help,† he said in a harsh, croaky voice. â€Å"Come ON!† Harry said fiercely (but only bubbles issued from his mouth), and he tried to pull the spear away from the merman, but the merman yanked it back, still shaking his head and laughing. Harry swirled around, staring about. Something sharp†¦anything†¦ There were rocks littering the lake bottom. He dived and snatched up a particularly jagged one and returned to the statue. He began to hack at the ropes binding Ron, and after several minutes' hard work, they broke apart. Ron floated, unconscious, a few inches above the lake bottom, drifting a little in the ebb of the water. Harry looked around. There was no sign of any of the other champions. What were they playing at? Why didn't they hurry up? He turned back to Hermione, raised the jagged rock, and began to hack at her bindings too – At once, several pairs of strong gray hands seized him. Half a dozen mermen were pulling him away from Hermione, shaking their green-haired heads, and laughing. â€Å"You take your own hostage,† one of them said to him. â€Å"Leave the others†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"No way!† said Harry furiously – but only two large bubbles came out. Your task is to retrieve your own friend†¦leave the others†¦Ã¢â‚¬  She's my friend too!† Harry yelled, gesturing toward Hermione, an enormous silver bubble emerging soundlessly from his lips. â€Å"And I don't want them to die either!† Cho's head was on Hermione's shoulder; the small silver-haired girl was ghostly green and pale. Harry struggled to fight off the mermen, but they laughed harder than ever, holding him back. Harry looked wildly around. Where were the other champions? Would he have time to take Ron to the surface and come back down for Hermione and the others? Would he be able to find them again? He looked down at his watch to see how much time was left – it had stopped working. But then the merpeople around him pointed excitedly over his head. Harry looked up and saw Cedric swimming toward them. There was an enormous bubble around his head, which made his features look oddly wide and stretched. â€Å"Got lost!† he mouthed, looking panic-stricken. â€Å"Fleur and Krum're coming now!† Feeling enormously relieved, Harry watched Cedric pull a knife out of his pocket and cut Cho free. He pulled her upward and out of sight. Harry looked around, waiting. Where were Fleur and Krum? Time was getting short, and according to the song, the hostages would be lost after an hour†¦. The merpeople started screeching animatedly. Those holding Harry loosened their grip, staring behind them. Harry turned and saw something monstrous cutting through the water toward them: a human body in swimming trunks with the head of a shark†¦.It was Krum. He appeared to have transfigured himself – but badly. The shark-man swam straight to Hermione and began snapping and biting at her ropes; the trouble was that Krum's new teeth were positioned very awkwardly for biting anything smaller than a dolphin, and Harry was quite sure that if Krum wasn't careful, he was going to rip Hermione in half. Darting forward. Harry hit Krum hard on the shoulder and held up the jagged stone. Krum seized it and began to cut Hermione free. Within seconds, he had done it; he grabbed Hermione around the waist, and without a backward glance, began to rise rapidly with her toward the surface. Now what? Harry thought desperately. If he could be sure that Fleur was coming†¦.But still no sign. There was nothing to be done except†¦ He snatched up the stone, which Krum had dropped, but the mermen now closed in around Ron and the little girl, shaking their heads at him. Harry pulled out his wand. â€Å"Get out of the way!† Only bubbles flew out of his mouth, but he had the distinct impression that the mermen had understood him, because they suddenly stopped laughing. Their yellowish eyes were fixed upon Harry's wand, and they looked scared. There might be a lot more of them than there were of him, but Harry could tell, by the looks on their faces, that they knew no more magic than the giant squid did. â€Å"You've got until three!† Harry shouted; a great stream of bubbles burst from him, but he held up three fingers to make sure they got the message. â€Å"One†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (he put down a finger) â€Å"two†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (he put down a second one) – They scattered. Harry darted forward and began to hack at the ropes binding the small girl to the statue, and at last she was free. He seized the little girl around the waist, grabbed the neck of Ron's robes, and kicked off from the bottom. It was very slow work. He could no longer use his webbed hands to propel himself forward; he worked his flippers furiously, but Ron and Fleur's sister were like potato-filled sacks dragging him back down†¦.He fixed his eyes skyward, though he knew he must still be very deep, the water above him was so dark†¦. Merpeople were rising with him. He could see them swirling around him with ease, watching him struggle through the water†¦.Would they pull him back down to the depths when the time was up? Did they perhaps eat humans? Harry's legs were seizing up with the effort to keep swimming; his shoulders were aching horribly with the effort of dragging Ron and the girl†¦ He was drawing breath with extreme difficulty. He could feel pain on the sides of his neck again†¦he was becoming very aware of how wet the water was in his mouth†¦yet the darkness was definitely thinning now†¦he could see daylight above him†¦. He kicked hard with his flippers and discovered that they were nothing more than feet†¦water was flooding through his mouth into his lungs†¦he was starting to feel dizzy, but he knew light and air were only ten feet above him†¦he had to get there†¦he had to†¦ Harry kicked his legs so hard and fast it felt as though his muscles were screaming in protest; his very brain felt waterlogged, he couldn't breathe, he needed oxygen, he had to keep going, he could not stop – And then he felt his head break the surface of the lake; wonderful, cold, clear air was making his wet face sting; he gulped it down, feeling as though he had never breathed properly before, and, panting, pulled Ron and the little girl up with him. All around him, wild, green-haired heads were emerging out of the water with him, but they were smiling at him. The crowd in the stands was making a great deal of noise; shouting and screaming, they all seemed to be on their feet; Harry had the impression they thought that Ron and the little girl might be dead, but they were wrong†¦both of them had opened their eyes; the girl looked scared and confused, but Ron merely expelled a great spout of water, blinked in the bright light, turned to Harry, and said, â€Å"Wet, this, isn't it?† Then he spotted Fleur's sister. â€Å"What did you bring her for?† â€Å"Fleur didn't turn up, I couldn't leave her,† Harry panted. â€Å"Harry, you prat,† said Ron, â€Å"you didn't take that song thing seriously, did you? Dumbledore wouldn't have let any of us drown!† â€Å"The song said -â€Å" â€Å"It was only to make sure you got back inside the time limit!† said Ron. â€Å"I hope you didn't waste time down there acting the hero!† Harry felt both stupid and annoyed. It was all very well for Ron; he'd been asleep, he hadn't felt how eerie it was down in the lake, surrounded by spear-carrying merpeople who'd looked more than capable of murder. â€Å"C'mon,† Harry said shortly, â€Å"help me with her, I don't think she can swim very well.† They pulled Fleur's sister through the water, back toward the bank where the judges stood watching, twenty merpeople accompanying them like a guard of honor, singing their horrible screechy songs. Harry could see Madam Pomfrey fussing over Hermione, Krum, Cedric, and Cho, all of whom were wrapped in thick blankets. Dumbledore and Ludo Bagman stood beaming at Harry and Ron from the bank as they swam nearer, but Percy, who looked very white and somehow much younger than usual, came splashing out to meet them. Meanwhile Madame Maxime was trying to restrain Fleur Delacour, who was quite hysterical, fighting tooth and nail to return to the water. â€Å"Gabrielle! Gabrielle! Is she alive? Is she ‘urt?† â€Å"She's fine!† Harry tried to tell her, but he was so exhausted he could hardly talk, let alone shout. Percy seized Ron and was dragging him back to the bank (â€Å"Gerroff, Percy, I'm all right!†); Dumbledore and Bagman were pulling Harry upright; Fleur had broken free of Madame Maxime and was hugging her sister. â€Å"It was ze grindylows†¦zey attacked me†¦oh Gabrielle, I thought†¦I thought†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Come here, you,† said Madam Pomfrey. She seized Harry and pulled him over to Hermione and the others, wrapped him so tightly in a blanket that he felt as though he were in a straitjacket, and forced a measure of very hot potion down his throat. Steam gushed out of his ears. â€Å"Harry, well done!† Hermione cried. â€Å"You did it, you found out how all by yourself!† â€Å"Well -† said Harry. He would have told her about Dobby, but he had just noticed Karkaroff watching him. He was the only judge who had not left the table; the only judge not showing signs of pleasure and relief that Harry, Ron, and Fleur's sister had got back safely. â€Å"Yeah, that's right,† said Harry, raising his voice slightly so that Karkaroff could hear him. â€Å"You haff a water beetle in your hair, Herm-own-ninny,† said Krum. Harry had the impression that Krum was drawing her attention back onto himself; perhaps to remind her that he had just rescued her from the lake, but Hermione brushed away the beetle impatiently and said, â€Å"You're well outside the time limit, though, Harry†¦.Did it take you ages to find us?† â€Å"No†¦I found you okay†¦.† Harry's feeling of stupidity was growing. Now he was out of the water, it seemed perfectly clear that Dumbledores safety precautions wouldn't have permitted the death of a hostage just because their champion hadn't turned up. Why hadn't he just grabbed Ron and gone? He would have been first back†¦.Cedric and Krum hadn't wasted time worrying about anyone else; they hadn't taken the mersong seriously†¦. Dumbledore was crouching at the water's edge, deep in conversation with what seemed to be the chief merperson, a particularly wild and ferocious-looking female. He was making the same sort of screechy noises that the merpeople made when they were above water; clearly, Dumbledore could speak Mermish. Finally he straightened up, turned to his fellow judges, and said, â€Å"A conference before we give the marks, I think.† The judges went into a huddle. Madam Pomfrey had gone to rescue Ron from Percy's clutches; she led him over to Harry and the others, gave him a blanket and some Pepperup Potion, then went to fetch Fleur and her sister. Fleur had many cuts on her face and arms and her robes were torn, but she didn't seem to care, nor would she allow Madam Pomfrey to clean them. â€Å"Look after Gabrielle,† she told her, and then she turned to Harry. â€Å"You saved ‘er,† she said breathlessly. â€Å"Even though she was not your ‘ostage.† â€Å"Yeah,† said Harry, who was now heartily wishing he'd left all three girls tied to the statue. Fleur bent down, kissed Harry twice on each cheek (he felt his face burn and wouldn't have been surprised if steam was coming out of his ears again), then said to Ron, â€Å"And you too-you ‘elped -â€Å" â€Å"Yeah,† said Ron, looking extremely hopeful, â€Å"yeah, a bit -â€Å" Fleur swooped down on him too and kissed him. Hermione looked simply furious, but just then, Ludo Bagman's magically magnified voice boomed out beside them, making them all jump, and causing the crowd in the stands to go very quiet. â€Å"Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our decision. Merchieftainess Murcus has told us exactly what happened at the bottom of the lake, and we have therefore decided to award marks out of fifty for each of the champions, as follows†¦. â€Å"Fleur Delacour, though she demonstrated excellent use of the Bubble-Head Charm, was attacked by grindylows as she approached her goal, and failed to retrieve her hostage. We award her twenty-five points.† Applause from the stands. â€Å"I deserved zero,† said Fleur throatily, shaking her magnificent head. â€Å"Cedric Diggory, who also used the Bubble-Head Charm, was first to return with his hostage, though he returned one minute outside the time limit of an hour.† Enormous cheers from the Hufflepuffs in the crowd; Harry saw Cho give Cedric a glowing look. â€Å"We therefore award him forty-seven points.† Harry's heart sank. If Cedric had been outside the time limit, he most certainly had been. â€Å"Viktor Krum used an incomplete form of Transfiguration, which was nevertheless effective, and was second to return with his hostage. We award him forty points.† Karkaroff clapped particularly hard, looking very superior. â€Å"Harry Potter used gillyweed to great effect,† Bagman continued. â€Å"He returned last, and well outside the time limit of an hour. However, the Merchieftainess informs us that Mr. Potter was first to reach the hostages, and that the delay in his return was due to his determination to return all hostages to safety, not merely his own.† Ron and Hermione both gave Harry half-exasperated, half-commiserating looks. â€Å"Most of the judges,† and here, Bagman gave Karkaroff a very nasty look, â€Å"feel that this shows moral fiber and merits full marks. However†¦Mr. Potter's score is forty-five points.† Harry's stomach leapt – he was now tying for first place with Cedric. Ron and Hermione, caught by surprise, stared at Harry, then laughed and started applauding hard with the rest of the crowd. â€Å"There you go. Harry!† Ron shouted over the noise. â€Å"You weren't being thick after all – you were showing moral fiber!† Fleur was clapping very hard too, but Krum didn't look happy at all. He attempted to engage Hermione in conversation again, but she was too busy cheering Harry to listen. â€Å"The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June,† continued Bagman. â€Å"The champions will be notified of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of the champions.† It was over. Harry thought dazedly, as Madam Pomfrey began herding the champions and hostages back to the castle to get into dry clothes†¦it was over, he had got through†¦he didn't have to worry about anything now until June the twenty-fourth†¦. Next time he was in Hogsmeade, Harry decided as he walked back up the stone steps into the castle, he was going to buy Dobby a pair of socks for every day of the year.