Disney Corporation Through The Eyes Of A Marxist

Disney Corporation Through The Eyes Of A Marxist The Walt Disney Corporation has just about dipped its fingers within everything consumer based. To give you a picture of just how much Disney is involved in our society, here is exactly where Disney has its foot in the door. From Walt Disney studios (who owns Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar, Touchstone Pictures, Miramax Films); to Walt Disney studios Home Entertainment; to Disney Theatrical Productions (who is one of the largest producers of Broadway musicals, including Disney Live Family Entertainment and Disney on Ice); to the music within their motion pictures (including Walt Disney Records, Hollywood Records, and Lyric Street Records) (8). That is all only within the Walt Disney Studios department of the Disney Corporation. There is also the Disney theme parks and resorts. Since its first park, Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California opened, the Parks and Resorts department has grown to encompass the world-class Disney Cruise Line, eight Disney Vacation Club resorts (with more than 100,000 members), Adventures by Disney (immersive Disney-guided travel around the world), and five resort locations (encompassing 11 theme parks, including some owned or co-owned by independent entities) on three continents (8). There are also the Disney consumer products, which extend the Disney brand to merchandise ranging from apparel, toys, home dà ©cor and books and magazines to interactive games, foods and beverages, stationery, electronics and fine art. [Disneys publishing company,] Disney Publishing Worldwide is the worlds largest publisher of childrens books and magazines, reaching more than 100 million readers each month in 75 countries. Disneys imprints include Disney Libri, Hyperion Books for Children, Jump at the Sun, Disney Press, and Disney Editions (8). Disneys official shopping source is disneystore.com. The Disney stores retail chain is owned and operated by an unaffiliated third party in Japan under a license agreement with The Walt Disney Company. [However,] Disney owns and operates the Disney Store chain in North America and Europe. (8) There are also the various media networks that Disney owns or is majorly affiliated with. From broadcast, to cable, to radio, to publishing and internet business, Disney is tuned into everything. Their keys networks are Disney-ABC Television Group, ESPN Inc., Walt Disney Internet Group, and ABC owned television stations. (8) The Disney-ABC Television Group is home to the ABC Television Network, the Disney Channel, ABC Family, SOAPnet, AE Television, and the Radio Disney Network. When it comes to ESPN, however, with its six domestic cable television networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPNEWS, ESPN Deportes, and ESPNU) along with ESPN International; ESPN Radio; ESPN.com; ESPN The Magazine; ESPN Enterprises; ESPN Zones (their restaurants); ESPN360.com; ESPN Mobile Wireless; ESPN On Demand; ESPN Interactive; and ESPN PPV; the Disney-ABC Television Group only owns 80%, whereas a separate company (The Hearst Corporation) owns the other 20%.(8) So, who is at the top of this money making consumer machine? His name is Robert A. Iger, and in 2008 alone he grossed $51,072,580 (3). A merchandise hostess intern makes about $6.50 per hour. A research specialist, PhotoPass photographer, and guest relations hostess makes an average of $10.00 per hour. Managers make about $29.00 per hour, whereas a ride show technician makes about $23.00 per hour. (4) Why is it that there is such a gap in pay between employees and employers? What would Karl Marx think? With all of the profit the Disney accrues annually from its vast consumerism, the distribution of its profit amongst its employees is greatly skewed. Marx would say that Disney is exploiting its employees and the Disney has far too much excess profit. He would argue that Disney pays its customer service employees close to minimum wage when they are more than capable to be paying their workers a lot more. Disney also pays its managers and supervisors a little more than who they oversee so they will still stick up for their bosses and keep the repression of the workers stable. Also, those who earn the minimum paid work may also be keeping themselves down by working these jobs because they think they too may climb the ladder to success (class reading The Origin and Context of Karl Marxs Thought). If we were to classify people into Marxs two social classes, he would describe the top Disney executives as the bourgeoisie, and the laborers (their maintenance team, retail clerks, park ride o perators, restaurant employees, etc.) are the proletariat. Alienation can be observed on both sides of the spectrum, whether were looking at the top executives or the laborers of Disney. In this quote from The Holy Family, Marx says that the bourgeoisie and proletarians are equally alienated, but experience their alienation in different ways. The propertied class and the class of the proletariat present the same human self-estrangement. But the former class feels at ease and strengthened in this self-estrangement, it recognizes estrangement as its own power and has in it the semblance of a human existence. The class of the proletariat feels annihilated in estrangement; it sees in it its own powerlessness and the reality of an inhuman existence (Engels Marx, 1845). This may be seen that as the Disney executives are alienated, they feel strengthened by this with their own power, whereas the Disney laborers feel their alienation as a form of powerlessness. Marx may also believe that Disney laborers are alienated for many other reasons. He would say that they are operating things that they, in turn, would never own themselves. For example, employees who work at the theme parks will never experience what it is like to be at the park for leisure, unless its a free ticket every once in a while from corporate. Even then, the ticket has restrictions for certain days and seasons. Also, he would say that the Disney laborers inevitably lose control of their lives and selves, in not having any control of their work. They would never become autonomous, self-realized human beings except in how the bourgeois want the workers to be realized (class reading The Origin and Context of Karl Marxs Thought). Within the corporations hiring practices, Disney is not very open to negotiations. They just pitch a package to you, which the prospective cast member can either accept or decline. Marx would probably use this modern day analogy, if he could, that Disney is a 750 pound gorilla in the marketplace and that they know it and arent afraid to use it. For its customers Disney is a place of Imagination, magic, fantasy, romance, adventure, inspiration, family, and so much more. These are the feelings we encounter when we experience anything Disney as a society. Disneys goal for its consumers is to be seen as the happiest place (and products) on earth. The Walt Disney Corporation has been a powerful force in creating childhood culture around the world. Disneys massive success is based on images of innocence, magic, and fun. Its animated films in particular are praised as wholesome family entertainment endorsed by teachers and parents, and immensely popular with children (Feng Sun, 2001). Childrens imaginations have been the product of Disney for many generations now. Its become the ultimate form of fantasy, one that never needs to be questioned. Marx would say that we, as a society, are fools. He would argue that Disneys bourgeois philosophy has clouded our minds to see our world as they want us to see it. The messages of innocence are really messages of passivity, domesticity, and frailty for woman; while messages of adventure and fun really have underlying tones of power, violence, and a false notions of hope in the eyes of our little boys. In a sense, the Disney Corporation perpetuates the ideas of achieving the traditional American dream, while these executives know full well that the society they wish to see has been lost to time for quite a while now. Marx would describe the societal image of Disney as a secular opiate for the people (7). He would argue by saying that this state and this society produce[d Disney], which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world (7). This meaning that the aspects to which Disney is fantasy ridden is opposite from what our society is. Disney has become an escape for us. He would go on by explaining that Disney is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality (7). Meaning that Disney is our imagination come to life. Disney is everything we wish could be within our world in regards to fantasy, and its everything they wish our value system would be. So who else could possibly shed some light on this subject but Max Weber? He would argue with Marx, saying that his thoughts of social stratification do not apply to Disney because there are many other jobs that are affiliated with Disney, but not of Disney, like independent contractors that are virtually ambiguous to the Disney executives. Weber would most likely believe that what Disney is doing is efficient and fair because what theyve been doing is the most effective for them. In the social world, Disney is all about family. They have been trying to uphold and instill the values of the past within virtually all of their consumer products. For Weber, this has a hint of value rationality. He would think that Disney executives utilize this bottom line thinking. They have weighed the costs and benefits of their choices and have gone with whatever brings them the most profit (Phillips). However, Weber would explain that the Disney executives would not apply to his traditional rationality approach because aspects of their corporation are continually changing. From the switch to digital animation from analog animation; updating their amusement park rides to fit todays technology; and even answering to the calls of society to finally create an animated film featuring an African American princess. Theyre not sticking with what theyve always known. Disney is constantly innovating to keep up with technology. Socially, however, Weber would agree with Marx by saying that Disney is sticking to its traditional roots by trying to uphold what they view as good moral values (class reading on Weber). Weber would also argue with Marx about how our society works. Marx says that we are all under control by the bourgeoisie: seeing our society in the ways they want us to view it. Disney wants us to see our society through the messages they imbed in their products. Weber would say that our society should be value free and to just let the chips fall where they may (Phillips). Disney is just doing what it wants to do: it is up to us to determine what way we perceive their messages. Weber would also say that Disney is a business bureaucracy: its goal is to maximize its profit. He would describe Disney within his ideas of social stratification: a combination of class, status, and party (class reading on Weber). These three are independent, yet linked (Phillips). Disney has class in the form of having an exorbitant amount of money; status in the way that virtually everyone knows of Disney, and its usually a good notion; and party in the way the Disney has tremendous power within the market and media (class reading on Weber). Within certain aspects of Disney, Marx and Weber share similar ideologies and in others they are on completely separate pages. Both theorists serve valid, rational points. There is no bias within this research: all ideas of Disney are objective and may not be what the theorists may view. All inquiries are based on their prior ideologies.

The sport discipline

The sport discipline In sport disciplines that rely on speed endurance or strength endurance, anaerobic glycolysis provides the primary energy source for muscular contractions (Zajac et al., 2009) During high intensity exercise there is an increase of hydrogen (H+) ions in the mitochondria (Pilegaard et al., 1999). The metabolic demands of high-intensity exercise are met primarily by glycolysis, which is the non-oxidative breakdown of glucose (Gosselink et al.,1995). This is caused when the demand for energy exceeds oxygen supply or utilisation rate. As a result the cell mitochondria cannot process all hydrogen ions joined to its carrier NADH. The hydrogen ions begin to accumulate in the cells which decrease the pH of exercising muscles and cellular acidosis occurs (Brooks 1985). To maintain availability of NAD+, and to prevent acidosis, excess Hydrogen ions are temporarily bound with pyruvate to form lactic acid. Rupp et al., (1983) states that at rest arterial blood pH is ~7.4, while venous blood pH is normally slightly lower (~7.3-7.35) and muscle pH is ~6.9. It is also suggested Exhaustive exercise decreases pH ~0.4 pH units in both blood and muscle, and is highly correlated to increased blood lactate concentration. Similarly, blood and muscle bicarbonate ion concentration decreases linearly as a function of increasing lactate ion concentration. This increase in hydrogen ion concentration interferes with anaerobic metabolism by disrupting the activities of key enzymes; it is also associated with reduction in ATP production, lipolysis, and muscle tension (Monedero Donne. 2000). Harrison and Thompson (2005) state that the increase in acidity ultimately inhibits energy transfer and the ability of the muscles to contract; forcing the athlete to decrease the intensity of exercise. Gollnick et al., (1986) suggests that this is because hydrogen ions displace calcium from troponin, which causes interference in muscle contraction. It is the production of these hydrogen ions and the decrease in pH that causes the effects associated with fatigue (Robergs, 2004) Acidemia also has an effect on the cardiovascular system, by reducing or stops the responses of the heart to stimulation of sympathetic nerves and slows the heart rate due to vagal stimulation (Hainsworth 1986) CO2 levels and the pH of the blood perfusing the cephalic circulation has an effect on efferent signal activity (Soladoye et al., 1985) The bodys first line of defence to prevent acidemia are naturally occurring chemical buffers such as a weak carbonic acid and sodium bicarbonates (Zajac et al., 2009) A buffer is a solution containing substances which have the ability to minimise changes in pH when an acid or base is added to it (worthley 1977) The intracellular buffering system, includes amino acids, proteins, Pi, HCO3, creatine phosphate (CrP) hydrolysis, and lactate production, binds or consumes H_ to protect the cell against intracellular proton accumulation (Robergs et al., 2004) Explain gradient In the bicarbonate buffer (HCO3) system the chemical equilibrium between carbonic acid and bicarbonate act as a ph regulator. Buffering results in H+ ions being drawn out from the muscle cells into the blood due to a concentration gradient. This process reduces the acidity within in the muscle cells (Lambert et al., 1993). If the [H+] in blood begins to drop then the pH raises, more carbonic acid dissociates, replenishing hydrogen ions. When [H+] rises, the bicarbonate ion acts as a base and removes the excess hydrogen ions lowering the pH (Mcnaughton et al., 2008) During buffering NaHCO3 in plasma exerts a strong buffering action on lactic acid to form sodium lactate and carbonic acid. An additional increase in [H+] from carbonic acid dissociation causes the dissociation reaction to move in the opposite direction to release carbon dioxide into plasma. (McArdle et al., 2007) Hydrogen ions, carbon dioxide, and oxygen are detected by specialized chemoreceptors in the brain. Inside cells, carbon dioxide (CO2) combines with water (H2O) to form carbonic acid (H2CO3). The carbonic acid breaks down rapidly into hydrogen ions and bicarbonate ions. Therefore, an increase in carbon dioxide results in an increase in hydrogen ions, while a decrease in carbon dioxide brings about a decrease in hydrogen ions (West 1995) chemoreceptors in the medulla detect the raised level of carbon dioxide and hydrogen ions. They send afferent signals the inspiratory center, which immidately stimulates veltilation to eliminate excess carbondioxide (McArdle et al., 2007) State how buffers work, conversion of co2 Hawthorn (1986) states that in the short term the most important buffer in the body is haemoglobin as it produces the smallest change in pH per given amount of acid, showing that it is most effective in retaining equilibrium. In the long term the most important buffer during exercise is the ventilatory buffer system in combination with bicarbonate. As the lungs remove excess CO2, reduced plasma CO2 levels accelerate the recombination of H+ and HCO3, lowering free [H+]s in plasma (McArdle et al., 2007) When the buffering capacity within the cell is exceeded, lactate and hydrogen ions diffuse outside the cells (McNaughton, 1992) thus reducing [H+] in muscle cell, this however leads to a higher H+ gradient in the blood (Robergs et al., 2004) resulting in an increased acidic environment. The ability to tolerate high-intensity exercise is limited by the bodys ability to counteract decreases in intracellular (muscle) and extracellular (blood) pH through its intrinsic buffering systems (Gosselink et al.,1995) What is Sodium Bicarbonate Lambert et al., (1993) states that Sodium bicarbonate is an alkalising agent that reduces the acidity of the blood by the process of buffering. Sodium bicarbonatebuffers the acidity from lactic acid that is created by anaerobic metabolism. This allows prolonged maintenance of force or power (Montgomery and Beaudin 1982) Sodium is an electrolyte that helps increase or maintain blood volume, creating a larger buffering space for muscles to excrete the extra acidity created by high-intensity activity. Benardot (2006) has suggested that the sodium in the sodium bicarbonate may actually be more useful than the bi carbonate. Potteiger et al. (1996) tested the effect of sodium citrate on 30-km cycling performance. Performance times averaged almost 3% faster than those in the placebo condition, showing the effectiveness of sodium and its effect on performance. Bicarbonate serves a crucial biochemical role in the pHbuffering system by accepting hydrogen ions from solutions when they are in excess and donating hydrogen ions to the solution when they are depleted, keeping a constant state of homeostasis. (Robergs et al., 2004) This process reduces the acidity within in the muscle cells. The process of buffering could therefore result in delayed fatigue and increased muscle force production. (Lambert et al., 1993) Despite an increase in extracellular bicarbonate, studies show that the sarcolemma is not permeable to bicarbonate (Mainwood Cechetto 1980). This suggests that H+ ions are not buffered inside muscle cells. Extracellular bicarbonate concentration results in greater H+ efflux to the blood (Mainwood Worsley-Brown. 1975) More about why Thus it has been reasoned by physiologists that by increasing bicarbonate reserves, the bodys extracellular buffering capacity will allow hydrogen ions to diffuse from the muscles at a faster rate. The benefit from sodium bicarbonate supplementation would therefore be a delayed onset of fatigue during anaerobic exercise (Cairns, 2006) In the early 1980s it was suggested that ingestion of NaCO3 could be effective in improving short-term exercise performance. Wilkes et al., (1983)compared the effects of NaCO3 and a placebo in six competitive 800-m runners. The bicarbonate was givenover a two-hour period at a dose equivalent to 21 gm for a 70-kg person (0.3 g per kg of body weight).The athletes completed a competitive 800-m race. Average performance was 2% faster in the bicarbonate condition than in the control or placebo conditions. In a similar study, but using a higher dose of sodium bicarbonate (0.4 g/kg, or 28 gm for a 70-kg person),Goldfinch et al. (l988)investigated the 400-m race performance of six trained runners.Athletes competed in pairs to simulate real competition. The performance of the bicarbonate group was 2% better than the control and placebo, which were not different from each other. The time difference was equivalent to a 10-m distance at the finish. Muscle biopsys on athletes have shown that after bicarbonate loading, the less acidic your blood pH and also less acidic your muscle pH. (Bouissou et al., 1988) Other studies Lactate production acts as both a buffering system, by consuming H+, and a proton remover, by transporting H+ across the sarcolemma, to protect the cell against metabolic acidosis. (Robergs et al., 2004) Katz and Sahlin (1988) states that rapid the increase in the production of lactic acid and the free H+ can be buffered by bicarbonate causing the nonmetabolic production of carbon dioxide (CO2). Consecutively the raised blood CO2 content stimulate an increased rate of ventilation causing the temporal relationship between the lactate and ventilatory thresholds (Stringer et al., 1992). Thomas et al., (2005) state that Lactate concentrations increase post exercise after NaHCO3 ingestion. This is common amongst studies testing the effects of NaHCO3. Raymer et al. (2004) suggests that at the point of fatigue, muscle [H+] does not decrease with sodium-bicarbonate ingestion. However the acidosis threshold increases, meaning that during induced alkalosis, muscle acidosis is lower at the same muscle workload. This is congruent with Cairns (2006) who stated that NaHCO3 delays onset of fatigue during anaerobic exercise. However there are potential negative side effects from taking sodium bicarbonate include severe gastrointestinal distress and nausea; this should give athletes reason to be careful before taking this potential ergogenic aid (Applegate 1999). These risks can be reduced through appropriate dosing and timing RPE and anticipation, if RPE is reduced then you should go faster How bicarb affects perceived exersion How other mechanism so regulating ph and mayb central gonenor afferent and efferent pacing algorithm However it has been suggested that NaHCO3 ingestion alone may not increase performance and other mechanisms may regulate performance for example the Central Governor model. The central governor model suggests that the brain is contently monitoring biochemical changes in the body through afferent and efferent signals and regulates them accordingly. This safety mechanism is in place to regulate and possibly stop exertion to prevent damage to the cells. This would suggest that the reason athletes are able to exert for longer is that the afferent signals such as pH levels in the muscle allow the brain to exert more without the risk of damage. Studies giving evidence for this argument include studies by Kostka Cafarelli (1982) have suggested that RPE during exercise maybe influenced through manipulation of acid-base status, suggesting that shifts in [H+] are linked to sensory processes (Renfree 2009) Ingestion of NaHCO3has been demonstrated to reduce RPE during supra lactate threshold (>LT) intensity exercise (Robertson et al 1986). This is congruent with finding from Renfree (2009) who found that Power output was higher (P Robbertson et al 1986 Applegate, E (1999). Effective nutritional ergogenic aids. International journal of nutrition. 9 (2) 229-39 Bouissou, P; Defer, G; Guezennec, C Y; Estrade, P Y; Serrurier, B (1988) Metabolic and blood catecholamine responses to exercise during alkalosis. Medicine Science in Sports Exercise, 20, (3) Cairns, S.P. (2006) Lactic acid and exercise performance. Sports Medicine 36, 279-289. concentration on the efflux of lactate from frog sartorius muscle. J. Physiol. (Lond.). 250:1-22, 1975. Dan Benardot. D (2006) Advanced Sports Nutrition Fitts, R. Holloszy, J. (1976). Lactate and contractile force in frog muscle during development of fatigue and recovery. American Journal of Physiology, 231(3), 430-433. Goldfinch, J., Mc Naughton, L.R., Davies, P. (1988). Bicarbonate ingestion and its effects upon 400-m racing time. European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology, 57, 45-48. Gollnick, P., Bayly, W. Hodgson, D. (1986). Exercise intensity, training diet, and lactate concentration in muscle and blood. Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise, 18(3), 334-340. Gosselink. K, Linderman. J, Fahey. T (1995) Sodium Bicarbonate as an Ergogenic aid. Life Science journal, 239-250 Harrison, A. and Thompson, K. (2005) Ergogenic aids: sodium bicarbonate. Peak Performance 219, 9-10 Katz A and Sahlin K. (1988) Regulation of lactic acid production during exercise. J Appl Physiol 65: 509-518 Kostka, C., AND E.Caffarelli (1982) Effect of pH on sensation and vastus lateralis electromyogram during cycle exercise.J.App.Physiol.52(5)1181-1185. Lambert, C.P., Greenhaff, P.L., Ball., Maughan, R.J. (1993). Influence of sodium bicarbonate ingestion on plasma ammonia accumulation during incremental exercise in man. European journal of applied physiology, 66, 49-54. Lindermann, J.K., Gosselink, K.L. (1994). The effects of sodium bicarbonate ingestion on exercise performance, Sports Medicine, 18, 75-80. Mainwood, G.W., and D. Cechetto. The effect of bicarbonate concentration on fatigue and recovery in isolated rat diaphragm muscle. Can. J. Physiol. Pharmacol. 58:624-632, 1980. Mainwood, G.W., and P.A. Worsley-Brown. The effect of extracellular pH and buffer McArdle, W.D, Katch, F.I, Katch, V.L., (2005) Exercise Physiology, 6th edition. Baltamore: Lippincott, Williams Wilkins Mcnaughton, L.R., J. Siegler, And A. Midgley. (2008) Ergogenic Effects Of Sodium Bicarbonate. Curr. Sports Med. Rep., 7 (4) 230-236, Monedero, J. Donne, B. (2000). Effect of recovery interventions on lactate removal and subsequent performance. International Journal of Sports Medicine, 21, 593- 597 Montgomery, D.L, and Beaudin, P.A. (1982). Blood lactate and heart rate response of young females during gymnastic routines.J. Sports Med.22, 358-365. Pilegaard, H., Domino, K., Noland, T., Juel, C., Hellsten, Y., Halestrap, A. Bangsbo, J. (1999). Effect of high-intensity exercise training or lactate/H+ transport capacity in human skeletal muscle. American Journal of Physiology, 276(2), Raymer, G.H., Marsh, J.M. Kowalchuk, and. Thompson, R.T (2004) Metabolic effects of induced alkalosis during progressive forearm exercise to fatigue. J. Appl. Physiol. 96:2050-2056 Renfree 2009 (The effect of NaHCO3ingestion on power output during exercise at a constant level of perceived exertion) Proceedings of the Ecss conference 2009 Robergs, R.A, Ghiasvand. F, and Parker. D (2004) Biochemistry of exercise-induced metabolic acidosis. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 287: 502-516 Robergs. R,Ghiasvand. F andParker. R (2004) Biochemistry of exercise-induced metabolic acidosis. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 287: 502-516 Robertson R.J., J.E.Falkel, A.L.Drash, A.M.Swank, K.F.Metz, S.A.Spungen, AND J.R.LeBoeuf (1986) Effect of blood pH on peripheral and central signals of perceived exertion.Med.Sci.Sp.Ex.18(1)114-122 Rupp J.C., Bartels. R.L, Zuelzer. W, Fox. E.L and Clark. R.N (1983) Effect of sodium bicarbonate ingestion on blood and muscle pH and exercise performance. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc, 15, 115. Soladoye, A.O, Rankin. A.J, Hainsworth. R (1985)Influence Of Carbon Dioxide Tension In The Cephalic Circulation On Hind-Limb Vascular Resistance In Anaesthetized Dogs. Experimental Physiology,70,527-538. Stringer W, Casaburi R, and Wasserman K. (1992) Acid-base regulation during exercise and recovery in humans. J Appl Physiol 72: 954-961, Sutton, J.R., Jones, N.L., Toews, C.J. (1981). Effect of pH on muscle glycolysis during exercise. Clinical Science, 61, 331-338. West, J. B. (1995).Respiratory Physiology: the essentials, (5)1-10 Wilkes, D., Gledhill, N., Smyth, R. (1983). Effect of acute induced metabolic alkalosis on 800-m racing time, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 15, 277-280. Williams, M.H. (1992). Bicarbonate loading, Gatorade Sports Science Exchange, 4(36). Worthley LI.(1977) Hydrogen ion metabolism.Anaesth Intensive Care PubMed 5(4) 347-407 Zajac. A, Cholewa. J, Poprzecki. S, Waskiewicz. Z and Langfort. J. (2009) Effects of sodium bicarbonate ingestion on swim performance in youth athletes. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 8, 45-50

Food Consumption in America :: Health Nutrition Diet Exercise Essays

Food Consumption    Not all people eat the same food, but there are some connections between who people eat with and what types of food they eat. Throughout life, people live with different people or alone and they eat different food. Most people live with their family when they are young, then move out and live on their own, then sometimes get married and have their own family, and then live once again on their own or with their spouse.    While living at home, parents usually make food for their children. They make dinner for the family, and it is usually healthy. The children eat fairly healthy because even when they make food for themselves, the food in the house is probably fairly healthy. Not only do the children eat pretty healthy, the parent or parents do too. They make meals for the family and they mostly have all food groups included. They can prepare a lot of food and most of it will get eaten. For example, a parent can make a bag of frozen vegetables, and most of it will get eaten by the family. If a person living on their own wanted vegetables, the bag would have more servings than needed. When someoneà ­s food is prepared for them, they will be very willing to eat it and they will not need to do any work themselves.    When children move away from home and go to school, the school cafeteria makes food for them. This food is made for many people and there is a large variety. Overall it is healthy and people eat it because it is good, but mostly because it is prepared for them.    When children move away from home and do not go to school but live on their own, they do not always eat very healthy. No one makes food for them, and they do not want to take a lot of time to prepare food for just themselves. Also, they do not want to make a large amount of food for just one person and have too much food left over. This is true for anyone who lives on their own. People who live alone only need to make enough for one person, and they always need to make it themselves unless they go out to eat.

Derek Jeter: Before A World Champion Essay -- Biography Biographies Bi

The Life of Derek Jeter: Before a World Champion "Derek Jeter, a professional ballplayer for the YankeesÂ…" are the exact words Derek Jeter, himself, used in his eighth-grade yearbook (Jeter xvi). For as long as he could remember, Jeter has longed to be a New York Yankee. Fifteen years after predicting he would be a professional ballplayer for the Yankees, Derek Jeter is now more than a Yankee. Jeter isn't only a Yankee; he is a family guy and a World Champion. His career started when he was five years old, and everything has evolved from there. Sports fans know what life for Derek Jeter is now, but what was life like before he became a world champion, superstar, and captain of the New York Yankees. Derek Jeter's life is started and baseball is about to be changed forever. On June 26, 1974, Charles and Dorothy Jeter gave birth to one of the greatest athletes today, Derek Jeter, in Pequannock, New Jersey (Biography par 1). Charles, being caucasian, and Dorothy, being African American, gave Derek his tan complexion. For the next four years Jeter lived in New Jersey within 30 miles of Yankee Stadium (Biography par 1). Not knowing at the time that he would end up back in New York as a Yankee, Jeter's family moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan where Derek was able to start playing baseball at the age of five, and would spend the summers with his grandma in New Jersey (Biography par 1). She persuaded him to be a Yankee fan by taking him to multiple games during the summer at Yankee Stadium. Soon, Jeter would come to idolize Dave Winfield (Biography par 1), who played outfield for the Yankees from 1981 to 1988 (Winfield), and was later inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Now that Jeter has been exposed to baseball and Yankee... ... healthy lifestyle. It also taught kids to "turn away" from substances such as drugs and alcohol. From the time Jeter was born he should have been put in a Yankee uniform. He was born to play baseball and he obviously realized that. With his hard work and effort, he now is Captain of the New York Yankees. But without his hard work, dedication, and family support, Jeter wouldn't be anywhere near a Yankee. Now a four time World Champion and two times MVP of the World Series. Jeter continues to work hard and accomplish more and more goals. Derek Jeter will soon be remembered as one of the best players to ever play the game of baseball. Works Cited 1. Jeter, Derek. The Life You Imagine: Life Lessons for achieving you're dreams. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2000. 2. Derek Jeter-Biography. 1 Nov 2006 . 3. Dave Winfield-Fielding. 30 Oct 2006 .

Analysis Of Mark Strand?s ?kee :: essays research papers

Although it’s not a lengthy poem, the few words and their layout in â€Å"Keeping Things Whole† certainly possess great significance. This poem is centered on the idea that the narrator’s life is lacking purpose. In exploring the meaning of his existence, he determined that his reason for living was to keep moving so that people’s lives were only temporarily interrupted.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Strand’s technique of splitting up his sentences helps emphasize certain phrases and ideas. When I read poetry I naturally pause for a brief second at the end of each line to allow the words to sink in, therefore taking an extra moment to realize what the author is saying. With each line in this poem only a few words long, there is a higher pause-to-word ratio, which allows for more thought for each idea the first time you read through it. Strand splits up the sentences in places where he is trying to convey more meaning, with the hope that the reader will pause and contemplate what was just read. His stanzas are concluded when he wants more attention placed on his current idea.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The narrator’s viewpoint towards life in this poem is quite different from how most people see it. Where he writes, â€Å"In a field / I am the absence / of field.† (ll. 1-3) instead of acknowledging his existence as something, he regards it as a lack of something. This negativity towards himself is what the entire poem is focused on.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  He uses the idea that when his body enters an area the parts of that area are momentarily interrupted and are forced around him, just waiting to return back to normal once he leaves: â€Å"When I walk / I part the air / and always / the air moves in / to fill the spaces / where my body’s been.† (ll. 8-13) The â€Å"air† in that line symbolizes the existence of other people around him, and the narrator sees himself as a nuisance to those people, always being in the way. He is saying that whenever he enters into a location with a bunch of people, those people see him as a bother and simply as something that they must put up with for a little while. They can’t wait for the narrator to leave so that they don’t have to put up with him anymore and can therefore return to what they were doing. The last stanza explains the narrator’s reason for â€Å"moving,† or in other words living: â€Å"I move / to keep things whole. Analysis Of Mark Strand?s ?kee :: essays research papers Although it’s not a lengthy poem, the few words and their layout in â€Å"Keeping Things Whole† certainly possess great significance. This poem is centered on the idea that the narrator’s life is lacking purpose. In exploring the meaning of his existence, he determined that his reason for living was to keep moving so that people’s lives were only temporarily interrupted.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Strand’s technique of splitting up his sentences helps emphasize certain phrases and ideas. When I read poetry I naturally pause for a brief second at the end of each line to allow the words to sink in, therefore taking an extra moment to realize what the author is saying. With each line in this poem only a few words long, there is a higher pause-to-word ratio, which allows for more thought for each idea the first time you read through it. Strand splits up the sentences in places where he is trying to convey more meaning, with the hope that the reader will pause and contemplate what was just read. His stanzas are concluded when he wants more attention placed on his current idea.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The narrator’s viewpoint towards life in this poem is quite different from how most people see it. Where he writes, â€Å"In a field / I am the absence / of field.† (ll. 1-3) instead of acknowledging his existence as something, he regards it as a lack of something. This negativity towards himself is what the entire poem is focused on.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  He uses the idea that when his body enters an area the parts of that area are momentarily interrupted and are forced around him, just waiting to return back to normal once he leaves: â€Å"When I walk / I part the air / and always / the air moves in / to fill the spaces / where my body’s been.† (ll. 8-13) The â€Å"air† in that line symbolizes the existence of other people around him, and the narrator sees himself as a nuisance to those people, always being in the way. He is saying that whenever he enters into a location with a bunch of people, those people see him as a bother and simply as something that they must put up with for a little while. They can’t wait for the narrator to leave so that they don’t have to put up with him anymore and can therefore return to what they were doing. The last stanza explains the narrator’s reason for â€Å"moving,† or in other words living: â€Å"I move / to keep things whole.

Naked Body and Death in The Unbearable Lightness of Being Essay

This paper will argue that Teresa’s dreams in The Unbearable Lightness of Being foreground the character’s suppressed fear of uniformization and her alternative representation of Tomas, as the Apollonian, reasoning masculine figure par excellence. This argument will be developed alongside the lines of the interpretation of dreams provided by Sigmund Freud and by Carl Gustav Jung. In his Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud argued that dreams are manifestations of the unconscious and that their imagery is a combination of motifs drawn from reality and distortions operated by suppressed feelings like fear and sexuality residing in the subconscious: the strict seclusion or isolation of the dream from real, true life on the one hand, and on the other the continual encroachment of the one on the other, the constant dependence of the one on the other. —The dream is something altogether separate from the reality we experience when awake; one might call it an existence hermetically closed within itself, cut off from real life by an unbridgeable chasm. It frees us from reality, extinguishes our normal recollection of it, and places us in another world and in a quite different life-story, which has fundamentally nothing to do with our real one (Hildebrandt, quoted in Freud, 1976). The notion that dreams bring to the fore an alternative life story is quite significant for our analysis of the presence of dreams in Kundera’s novel. Teresa’s dreams represent a parallel life story in the novel, which compliments and explicates the character’s manifest life. As compared to Tomas, who strives for the obliteration of the differences between spirit and matter, Teresa recognizes the importance of individuality as translated by one’s awareness of the body. However, her relationship with her body is a problematic one because her mother had imposed a wholly different corporeal philosophy on her in her childhood. The exposure of the naked body, devoid of any reticence or libido represents, in the eyes of adult Teresa, the uniformization of the self. It is also a mark of endless anonymous sexual intercourse which is epitomized in the novel by Tomas’ illicit love affairs. In one of her recurrent dreams, which she recounts to Tomas, the fear of corporeal aneantization, which she suppresses while awake, surfaces with a vengeance: I was at a large indoor swimming pool. There were about twenty of us. All women. We were naked and had to march around the pool. There was a basket hanging from the ceiling and a man hanging in the basket. The man wore a broad-brimmed hat shading his face, but I could see it was you. You kept giving us orders. Shouting at us. We had to sing as we marched, sing and do knee bends. If one of us did a bad knee band, you would shoot her and she would fall dead into the pool. Which made everybody laugh and sing even louder. You never took your eyes off us, and the minute we did something wrong, you would shoot. The pool was full of corpses floating just below the surface. And I knew I lacked the strength to do the next knee bend and you would shoot me! (Kundera, 1999, p. 18). Corporeal sameness signifies, as the narrator explains, the anonymity of sexuality and individuality which Teresa fears intensely. As in Freud’s interpretation, the fear of homogenisation translates the fear of death, which Teresa clearly expresses in this dream in contrast to the other women whose laughter and song seem to celebrate the approaching absolute sameness in death. The particular instantiation of Tomas, wearing a hat is highly significant too. According to Jung, â€Å"the hat, as a covering for the head, has the general sense of something that epitomizes the head. [†¦] a stranger’s hat imparts a strange personality† (p. 120). Tomas appears in this dream as a conductor and murderer because, on the one hand, because of his philandering in real life, he forces Teresa into the anonymity of sexual bodies and, on the other hand, his â€Å"strangeness† could signify his equation with absolutism. Teresa’s dream therefore draws a parallel between unrepressed sexuality and death, the bodies’ nakedness ambiguously alluding either to sexuality or to the death camps. These dreams express Teresa’s fear of the obliteration of individuality (and ultimately, her fear of death) through Tomas’ infidelities which undermine her self-image as a wonderful accumulation of contingencies which she values so much. References: Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Penguin Books, 1976. Jung, Carl Gustav. Dreams. Routledge, 2001. Kundera, Milan. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. trans Michael Henry Heim, New York: Harper Collins, 1999. Porter, Laurence M. The Interpretation of Dreams: Freud’s Theories Revisited. Twayne Publishers, 1987.

Island of the Sequined Love Nun Chapter 44~45

44 Revealed: The Perfect Couple Back at his bungalow, an argument went on in the still-sober brain of Tucker Case. I am scum. I should have told them to shove it. But they might have killed you. Yeah, but I would have at least had my integrity. Your what? Get real. But I'm scum. Big deal. You've been scum before. You've never owned a Learjet before. You actually think they'll give me the jet? It could happen. Stranger things have happened. But I should do something about this. Why? You've never done anything before. Well, maybe it's time. No way. Take the jet. I'm scum. Well, yes, you are. But you're rich scum. I can live with that. The dog tags and Jefferson Pardee's notebook lay on the coffee table, threatening to set off another fusillade of doubt and condemnation. Tuck lay back on the rattan couch and turned on the television to escape the noise in his mind. Skinny Asian guys were beating the snot out of each other in a kickboxing match from the Philippines. The Malaysian channel was showing how to fillet a schnauzer. The cooking show reminded him of surgery, and surgery reminded him that there was a beautiful island girl lying in the clinic, recovering from an unnecessary major surgery that he could have prevented. Definitely kickboxing. He was just getting into the rhythm of the violence when the bat came through the window and made an awkward swinging landing on one of the bungalow's open rafters. Tuck lost his breath for a minute, thinking there might just be a wild animal in his house. Then he saw the sunglasses. Roberto steadied himself into a slightly swinging upside-down hang. Tuck sighed. â€Å"Please just be a bat in sunglasses tonight. Please.† Thankfully, the bat said nothing. The sunglasses were sliding off his nose. â€Å"How do you fly in those things?† Tuck said, thinking out loud. â€Å"They're aviators.† â€Å"Of course,† Tuck said. The bat had indeed changed from rhinestone glasses to aviators, but once you accept a talking bat, the leap to a talking bat with an eyewear wardrobe is a short one. Roberto dropped from the rafter and took wing just before he hit the floor. Two beats of his wings and he was on the coffee table, as awkward in his spiderlike crawl as he was graceful in the air. With his wing claw, he raked at Jefferson Pardee's notebook until it was open to the middle, then he launched himself and flew out the window. Tuck picked up the notebook and read what Pardee had written. Tuck had missed this page when he had looked at the notebook before. This page had been stuck to the one before it; the bat's clawing had revealed it. It was a list of leads that Pardee had made for the story he had been working on. The second item read: â€Å"What happened to the first pilot, James Sommers? Call immigration in Yap and Guam.† Tuck flipped through the notebook to see if he had missed something else. Had Pardee found out? Of course he had. He'd found out and he'd followed Sommers to the last place anyone had seen him. But where was Pardee? His notebook hadn't come to the island without him. Tuck went through the notebook three more times. There were some foreign names and phone numbers. Something that looked like a packing list for a trip. Some notes on the background of Sebastian Curtis. Notes to check up on Japanese with guns. The word â€Å"Learjet† underlined three times. And nothing else. There didn't seem to be any organizational form to the notes. Just random facts, names, places, and dates. Dates? Tuck went through it once more. On the third page in, all by itself, was printed: â€Å"Alualu, Sept. 9.† Tuck ran to the nightstand drawer, where the Curtises had left him a calendar. He counted back the days to the ninth and tried to put events to days. The ship had arrived on the ninth, and the morning of the tenth he had made his first flight. Jefferson Pardee could be lying in the clinic right now, wondering where in the hell his kidney was. If he was, Tuck needed to see him. Tuck looked in the closet for something dark to wear. This was going to be different than sneaking out to the village. There were no buildings between the guards' quarters and the clinic, no trees, nothing but seventy-five yards of open compound. Darkness would be his only cover. It was a tropical-weight wet suit – two-mil neoprene – and it was two sizes two big, but it was the only thing in the closet that wasn't khaki or white. In the 80-degree heat and 90-percent humidity, Tuck was reeling from the heat before he got the hood on. He stepped into the shower and soaked himself with cold water, then peeled the hood over his head and made his escape through the shower floor, dropping onto the wet gravel below. In the movies the spies – the Navy SEALS, the Special Forces, the demolition experts – always sneak through the night in their wet suits. Why, Tuck wondered, don't they squish and slosh and make squeaking raspberry noises when they creep? Must be special training. You never hear James Bond say, â€Å"Frankly, Q, I'll trade the laser-guided cufflink missiles for a wet suit that doesn't make me feel like a bloody bag of catsick.† Which is how Tuck felt as he sloshed around the side of the clinic and peeked across the compound at the guard on duty, who seemed to be looking right at him. Tuck pulled back around the corner. He needed a diversion if he was going to make it to the clinic door unseen. The moon was bright, the sky clear, and the compound of white coral gravel reflected enough light to read by. He heard the guard shout, and he was sure he'd been spotted. He flattened against the wall and held his breath. Then there were more Japa-nese from across the compound, but no footsteps. He ventured a peek. The guard was gesturing toward the sky and brushing his head. Two other guards had joined him and were laughing at the guard on duty. He seemed to get angrier, cursing at the sky and wiping his hand on his uniform. The other guards led him inside to calm him down and clean him up. Tuck heard a bark from the sky and looked up to see the silhouette of a huge bat against the moon. Roberto had delivered a guano air strike. Tuck had his diversion. He slipped around the front of the building, grabbed the doorknob, and turned. It was unlocked. Given Beth Curtis's irritation at being buzzed and the amount of wine she'd consumed, Tuck had guessed that she'd get tired locking and unlocking the door. What did Mary Jean always say? â€Å"Ladies, if you do your job and assume that everyone else is incompetent, you will seldom be disappointed.† Amen, Tuck thought. He squished into the outer room of the clinic, which was dark except for the red-eyed stare of a half-dozen machines and the dancing glow of a computer screen running a screen saver. He'd try to get into that later, but now he was interested in what, or who, lay in the small hospital ward, two rooms back. He sloshed into the examination/operating room by the light of more LED eyes and pushed through the curtain to the four-bed ward. Only one bed held a patient – or what looked like a patient. The only light was a green glow from a heart monitor that blipped away silently, the sound turned off. Whoever was in the bed was certainly large enough to be Jeffer-son Pardee. There were a couple of IVs hanging above the patient. Probably painkillers after such major surgery, Tuck thought. He moved closer and ventured a whisper. â€Å"Pst, Pardee.† The lump under the covers moved and moaned in a distinctly unmasculine voice. â€Å"Pardee, it's Tucker Case. Remember?† The sheet was thrown back and Tuck saw a thin male face in the green glow. â€Å"Kimi?† â€Å"Hi, Tucker.† Kimi looked down at the other person under the covers. â€Å"You remember Tucker? He all better now.† The pretty island girl said, â€Å"I take care of you when you sick. You stink very much.† Tuck backed off a step. â€Å"Kimi, what are you doing here?† â€Å"Well, she like pretty thing, and I like pretty thing. She tired of having many means and so am I. We have a lot in common.† â€Å"He the best,† Sepie added with an adoring smile at Kimi. Kimi handed the smile off to Tuck. â€Å"Once you be a woman, you know how to make a woman happy.† Tuck was getting over the initial surprise and began to smell the smoke of his beautiful island girl fantasy as it caught fire and burned to ash. He hadn't realized how much time he'd spent thinking about this girl. She, after all, was the one who had revived his manhood. Sort of. â€Å"You right,† Kimi said. â€Å"Women are better. I am lesbian now.† â€Å"You shouldn't be doing this. This girl just had major surgery.† â€Å"Oh, we not doing nothing but kissing. She very hurt. But this make it better.† Kimi held his arm up, displaying an IV line. â€Å"You want to try? Put in you arm and push button. It make you feel very very nice.† â€Å"That's for her, Kimi. You shouldn't be using it.† â€Å"We share,† Sepie said. â€Å"Yes, we share,† Kimi said. â€Å"I'm very happy for you. How in the hell did you get in here?† â€Å"Like you get out. I swim around mimes and come here to see Sepie. No problem.† â€Å"You don't want to let them catch you. You've got to go. Now.† â€Å"One more push.† Sepie held the button, ready to administer another dose of morphine to Kimi. Tuck grabbed it from her hand. â€Å"No. Go now. How did you know about the mines?† â€Å"I have other friend. Sarapul. I teach him how to be a navigator. He know a lot of things too. He a cannibal.† â€Å"You're a cannibal lesbian?† â€Å"Just learning. How come you have rubber suit? You kinky?† â€Å"Sneaky. Look, Kimi, have you seen a fat white guy, an American?† â€Å"No, but Sarapul see him. He see the guards take him from the beach. He not here?† â€Å"No. I found his notebook. I met him on Truk.† â€Å"Sarapul say he see the guards bring him to the Sorcerer. He say it very funny, the white man wear pigs with wings.† Tuck felt his face go numb. All that was left of Pardee was a pelvic bone wedged in the reef, stripped of flesh and wrapped in flying piggy shorts. Oh, there might be the odd kidney left alive in someone in Japan, a kidney that he had delivered. Had the fat man died on the operating table during the operation, the surgery too much for his heart? Or was he put under and never meant to wake up? Tuck suddenly felt that getting into the doctor's computer was more important than ever. He grabbed Kimi's arm and pulled the IV needle out of his vein. The navigator didn't resist, and he didn't seem to feel it. â€Å"Kimi, see if you can get that back in Sepie's arm and come with me.† â€Å"Okay boss.† Tuck looked down at the girl, who had evidently picked up on the panic in his voice. Her eyes were wide, despite the morphine glaze. â€Å"Don't buzz the doctor until after we're gone. This button will let you have only so much morphine, and Kimi's used some of yours. But if it hurts, you still have to wait, okay?† She nodded. Kimi crawled out of the bed and nearly fell. Tuck caught him by the arm and steadied him. â€Å"I am chosen,† Sepie said. â€Å"When Vincent comes, he will give me many pretty things.† Tuck brushed back her hair with his fingers. â€Å"Yes, he will. You sleep now. And thank you for taking care of me when I was sick.† Kimi kissed the girl and after a minute Tuck pulled him away and led him through the operating room to the office section of the clinic. In the glow of the computer screen, Tuck said, â€Å"Kimi, the doctor and his wife are killing people.† â€Å"No, they not. They sent by Vincent. Sepie say Vincent come from Heaven to bring people many good things. They very poor.† â€Å"No, Kimi, they are bad people. Like Malcolme. They are taking advantage of Sepie's people. They are just pretending to be working for a god.† â€Å"How you know? You no believe in God.† Tuck took the boy by the shoulders. He was no longer angry or even irritated, he was afraid, and for the first time ever, not just for himself. â€Å"Kimi, can you swim back around the mines?† â€Å"I think.† â€Å"You've got to go to the other side of the island and you can't come back. If the guards find you I'm pretty sure you'll be killed.† â€Å"You just want Sepie for yourself. She tell me you follow her.† â€Å"I'll check on her and I'll meet you at the drinking circle tomorrow night – tell you how she's doing. I won't touch her, I promise. Okay?† â€Å"Okay.† Kimi leaned against the wall by the door. Tuck studied him for a moment to try and determine just how fucked up he was. It wasn't a difficult swim. Tuck had done it stone drunk, but he'd been wearing fins and a mask and snorkel. â€Å"You're sure you can swim?† Kimi nodded and Tuck cracked the door. The moon had moved across the sky throwing the front of the clinic in shadow. The guard across the compound was reading a magazine by flashlight. â€Å"When you get outside, go left and get behind the building.† The navigator stepped out, slid down the side of the building and around the corner. Tuck heard him trip and fall and swear softly in Filipino. â€Å"Shit,† Tuck said to himself. He glanced at the computer. It would have to wait. He slid out the door, palming it shut behind him, then followed the navigator around the building. He heard the guard shout from across the compound, and for once in his life, Tuck made a definitive decision. He grabbed the navigator under the arms and ran. 45 Confessions Over Tee Tucker Case dreamed of machine-gun fire and jerked as the bullets ripped into his back. He tossed forward into the dirt, mouth filling with sand, smothering him as the life drained out of a thousand ragged wounds, and still the guns kept firing, the rhythmic reports pounding like a violet storm of timpanis, like a persistent fist on a rickety door. â€Å"Just let me die!† Tuck screamed, most of the sound caught by his pillow. It was a persistent fist on a rickety door. â€Å"Mr. Case, rise and shine,† said a cheery Sebastian Curtis. â€Å"Ten minutes to tee time.† Tuck rolled into the mosquito netting, became entangled, and ripped it from the ceiling. He was still wearing his wet suit and the fragile netting clung to it like cobwebs. He arrived at the door looking like a tattered ghost fresh out of Davy Jones's locker. â€Å"What? I can't fly. I can't even fucking walk. Go away.† Tuck was not a morning person. Sebastian Curtis stood in the doorway beaming. â€Å"It's Wednesday,† he said. â€Å"I thought you might want to play a few holes.† Tuck looked at the doctor through bloodshot eyes and several layers of torn mosquito netting. Behind Curtis stood one of the guards, sans machine gun, with a golf bag slung over his shoulder. â€Å"Golf?† Tuck said. â€Å"You want to play golf?† â€Å"It's a different game here on Alualu, Mr. Case. Quite challenging. But then, you've been practicing, haven't you?† â€Å"Look, Doc, I didn't sleep well last night†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Could be the wet suit, if you don't mind my saying. Here in the tropics, you want fabrics that breathe. Cotton is best.† Tuck was beginning to come around, and as he did, he found he was focusing an intense hatred on the doctor. â€Å"I guess we know who got laid last night.† Curtis looked down and smiled coyly. He was actually embarrassed. Tuck couldn't quite put it together. The doc didn't seem to have any problem with killing people or taking their organs – or both – but he was blushing at the mention of sex with his wife. Tuck glared at him. Curtis said, â€Å"You'd better change. The first tee is out in front of the hangar. I'll go down and practice a few drives while you get dressed.† â€Å"You do that,† Tuck said. He slammed the door. Twenty minutes later Tuck, his hair still wet from the shower, joined Curtis and the guard in front of the hangar. He was feeling the weight of three nights with almost no sleep, and his back ached from dragging Kimi across the compound, then towing him in the water to the far side of the minefield. The guard had never caught up to them, but he had come to the edge of the water and shouted, waving his machine gun until Tuck and Kimi were out of sight. â€Å"We'll have to share a set of clubs,† Curtis said. â€Å"But perhaps now that you've decided to stay, we can order you a set.† â€Å"Swell,† Tuck said. He couldn't be sure, but he thought the guard might be the same one that had chased them to the beach. Tuck sneered at him and he looked away. Yep, he was the one. â€Å"This is Mato. He'll be caddying for us today.† The guard bowed slightly. Tuck saluted him with a middle finger. If the doctor saw the gesture, he didn't comment. He was lining the ball up on a small square of Astro Turf with a rubberized pad on the bottom. â€Å"We have to hit off of this. At least until someone invents a gravel wedge.† He laughed at his own joke. Tuck forced a smile. â€Å"The Shark People covered this entire island with gravel hundreds of years ago. Keeps the topsoil from being washed away in typhoons. This first hole is a dogleg to the left. The pin is behind the staff's quarters about a hundred yards.† â€Å"Doc, now that we've come clean, why don't we call them the guards?† â€Å"Very well, Mr. Case. Would you like honors?† â€Å"Call me Tuck. No, you go ahead.† Curtis hit a long bad hook that arced around the guards' quar ters and landed out of sight in a stand of palm trees behind the building. â€Å"I have to admit that I may have a bit of an advantage. I've laid out the course to accommodate my stroke. Most of the holes are doglegs to the left.† Tuck nodded as if he understood what Curtis was talking about, then took the driver from the doctor and hit his own shot, a grounder that skipped across the gravel to stop fifty yards in front of them. â€Å"Oh, bad luck. Would you like to take a McGuffin?† â€Å"Blow me, Doc,† Tuck said as he walked away toward his ball. â€Å"I guess not, then.† The pins were bamboo shafts driven into the compound, the holes were lined with old Coke cans with the tops cut off. The best part about it was that Tuck was able to deliver several vicious high-velocity putts into the shins of Mato, who was tending the pins. The worst part was that now that Curtis considered Tuck a confidant, he decided to open up. â€Å"Beth is quite a woman, isn't she? Did I tell you how we met?† â€Å"Yeah.† â€Å"I was at a transplant symposium in San Francisco. Beth is quite the nurse, the best I've ever seen in an operating room, but she wasn't working as a nurse when I met her.† â€Å"Oh, good,† Tuck said. Curtis seemed to be waiting for Tucker to ask. Tucker was waiting for the guard to rat him out for sneaking out of the compound last night. â€Å"She was a dancer in North Beach. An exotic dancer.† â€Å"No shit.† Tuck said. â€Å"Are you shocked?† Curtis obviously wanted him to be shocked. â€Å"No.† â€Å"She was incredible. The most incredible woman I had ever seen. She still is.† â€Å"But then, you've been a missionary on a remote island for twenty-eight years,† Tuck said. Curtis picked his club for the next shot: the seven iron. â€Å"What's this?† â€Å"Looks like blood and feathers,† Tuck said. Curtis handed the club to Mato for him to clean it. â€Å"Beth did a dance with surgical tubing and a stethoscope that took my breath away.† â€Å"Pretty common,† Tuck said. â€Å"Choke you with the surgical tubing and use the stethoscope to make sure you haven't done the twitching fish.† â€Å"Really?† Curtis said. â€Å"You've seen a woman do that?† Tuck put on his earnest young man face. â€Å"Seen? You didn't notice the ligature marks on my neck when you examined me?† â€Å"Oh, I see,† Curtis said. â€Å"Still, I, at least, had never seen anything like it. She†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Curtis couldn't seem to return to his story. â€Å"The wet suit this morning. Was that a sexual thing? I mean, most people would find it uncomfortable.† â€Å"No, I'm just trying to lose a little weight.† Curtis looked serious now. â€Å"I don't know if that's such a good idea. You're still very thin from your ordeal in getting here.† â€Å"I'd like to get down to about eight pounds,† Tuck said. â€Å"There's a big Gandhi revival thing going on back in the States. Guys who look like they're starving have to beat the babes off with a stick. Started with female fashion models, but now it's moved to the men.† Curtis look embarrassed. â€Å"I guess I'm a bit out of touch. Beth tries to keep up with what's going on in the States, but it, well, seems irrelevant out here. I guess I'll be glad when this is all over and we can leave the island.† â€Å"Then why don't you just leave? You're a physician. You could open up a practice in the States and pull down a fortune without all this.† Curtis glanced at the guard, then looked back to Tuck. â€Å"A fortune maybe, but not a fortune like we're accumulating now. I'm too old to start over at the bottom.† â€Å"You've got twenty-eight years' experience. You said yourself that the people you take care of are the healthiest in the Pacific. You wouldn't be starting over.† â€Å"Yes, I would. Mr. Case – Tuck – I'm a doctor, but I'm not a very good one.† Tuck had met a number of doctors in his life, but he had never met one who could bear to admit that he was incompetent at anything. It was a running joke among flight instructors that doctors made the worst students. â€Å"They think they're gods. It's our job to teach them that they're mortal. Only pilots are gods.† This guy seemed so pathetic that Tuck had to remind himself that the good doctor was at least a double murderer. He watched Curtis hit a nice hundred-yard bloodstained seven iron to within ten feet of the pin, which was set up on a small patch of grass near the beach. Tuck chased down his own skidding thwack of a nine iron that had landed between the roots of a walking tree, an arboreal oddity that sat atop a three-foot teepee of tangled roots and gave the impression that it might move off on its own power at any moment. Tuck was hoping that it would. The caddie followed Tuck, and when they were out of earshot of the doctor, he turned to face the stoic Japanese. â€Å"You can't tell him, can you?† The guard pretended not to understand, but Tuck saw that he was getting it, even if only by inflection. â€Å"You can't tell him and you can't fucking shoot me, can you? You killed the last pilot and that got you in a world of trouble, didn't it? That's why you guys follow me like a bunch of baby ducks, isn't it?† Tuck was guessing, but it was the only logical explanation. Mato glanced toward the doctor. â€Å"No,† Tuck said. â€Å"He doesn't know that I know. And we're not going to tell him, are we? Just shake your head if you're getting this.† The guard shook his head. â€Å"Okay, then, here's the deal. I'll let you guys look like you're doing your job, but when I wave you off, you're gone. You hear me? I want you guys off my ass. You tell your buddies, okay?† The guard nodded. â€Å"Can you speak any English at all?† â€Å"Hai. A rittle.† â€Å"You guys killed the pilot, didn't you?† â€Å"He tly to take prane.† Mato looked as if the words were painful for him to form. Tuck nodded, feeling heat rise in his face. He wanted to smash the guard's face, knock him to the ground, and kick him into a glob of goo. â€Å"And you killed Pardee, the fat American man.† Mato shook his head. â€Å"No. We don't.† â€Å"Bullshit!† â€Å"No, we†¦we†¦Ã¢â‚¬  He was searching for the English word. â€Å"What?† â€Å"We take him, but not shoot.† â€Å"Take him where? To the clinic?† The guard shook his head violently. Not saying no, but trying to say that he couldn't say. â€Å"What happened to the fat man?† â€Å"He die. Hospital. We put him water.† â€Å"You took his body to the edge of the reef, where the sharks would find it?† The guard nodded. â€Å"And the pilot? You put him in the same place?† Again the nod. â€Å"What's going on. Are you going to hit or not?† Tuck and the guard looked up like two boys caught trading curses in the schoolyard. Curtis had come back down the fairway to within fifty feet of them. Tuck pointed to his ball. â€Å"Kato here won't let me move that out for a shot. I'll take the penalty stroke, Doc. But hell, we don't have mutant trees like that in Texas. It's unnatural.† Curtis looked sideways at Tuck's ball, then at Mato. â€Å"He can move it. No penalty. You're a guest here, Mr. Case. We can let you bend a few rules.† Curtis did not smile. Suddenly he seemed very serious about his golf. â€Å"We're partners now, Doc,† Tuck said. â€Å"Call me Tuck.†