Narrative Essay Skills

Narrative Writing Lesson plans and other teaching resources Action Chains Students learn to elaborate on an event in a narrative by expanding their sentences into action chains. Expanding single actions into an action chain provides the reader with a more detailed picture of an event in a narrative. This lesson is designed for grades 3-5. Active Beginnings This 3-page printable handout focuses on crafting strong leads. It is designed for elementary students and requires Adobe Reader or compatible application.Constructing Narratives: A Unit Plan for Taking Apart and Reconstructing Stories This lesson is designed as a project-based unit plan that will take students through the narrative process from deconstruction to construction. After initial discussion, students will use an interactive story map to deconstruct a short story. Students will use pictures to put together a PowerPoint-based storyboard that other students will use to construct a story. This unit is designed for grades 6-8 .From Object to Story: Writing a Historical Narrative Featuring an Artifact from One's Family History Students share observations about the history of familial artifacts. They then research the history and cultural significance of selected objects to prepare their own historical narratives. Includes short reading as prewriting activity. Getting Hooked: Introduction for a Narrative Students will be able to identify techniques for writing an introduction for a narrative and use them effectively. This lesson is designed for grades 2-4.Hands, Hands, Hands – Writing a Narrative Essay from the Perspective of a Particular Hand The teacher will show pictures of six hands to students (pictures included with other handouts). After a brainstorming session, students will choose one hand that illustrates a particular story from their life. Then students will write a two page narrative essay about this story. These stories will be posted on a class blog to allow for feedback and discussion from classmates. In Search Of Wisdom: An Interview With An Elder Students develop interview questions, interview someone aged 60 or older, and write a narrative using that person's voice.Incorporating Flashbacks in Narrative Text — The Sinking of the U. S. S. Indianapolis Students watch a 2:25 video segment that shows an interview with one of the survivors of the U. S. S. Indianapolis who recalls the sinking of the ship and his survival. Students then create an original narrative that utilizes flashback to tell the survivor's story. This lesson is designed for grades 8-10 and includes links to the downloadable video and all support materials. Make Kids' Writing Shine: Using Beginnings and Endings to Teach Craft Strategies to build elementary writing skills.Scroll down for revision and assessment ideas, resources. Memory Preservation–One Relative at a Time After organizing and conducting an interview of a grandparent/senior citizen, students create a slideshow presenta tion using the information and memorabilia collected at the interview. This lesson plan includes rubric and model. It is designed for 8th grade. Narrative Writing & Reading Core Skills Lesson Plan Creating a story is like magic! Grab your magician's hat and wand for this activity. Teach core curriculum concepts of narrative writing (story creation) through the use of characters, setting, and plot.Also teaches skills needed to meet language arts reading and writing core curriculum standards that require the ability to describe characters, settings, and major events in a story. Designed for elementary students. Nibble, Nibble, Little Mouse Students in grades 6-8 explore the implications of point of view in literature and write a narrative, retelling a traditional story from a different character's point of view. A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words Students are given a picture that tells a story. They brainstorm words and ideas, then write a story based on what they see.This lesson is d esigned for grades 6-8. Note: more ideas for teaching the personal narrative can be found on the Biography page. Prewriting Exercises for Personal Narratives Ten activities for personal narrative writing. Savvy Story Structurestudents learn to actively engage in reading by becoming more familiar with the elements of a story. Students will be required to think at a higher level and will enhance their understanding of selected passages and stories. Students should also begin to relate stories to their own lives. Designed for grades 3-5.Ten Narrative Writing Prompts These prompts are designed for high school and college students, but it might be possible to modify some of them for younger students. Tir Nan Og This 4:04 video offers many options: introduction to linear narrative, making predictions, sequencing, writing descriptions, adding dialogue. Using Music to Teach Personal Narrative Students use songs like â€Å"Snapshots† and â€Å"Crossing the Border† to reflect on their own experience. From the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Using Personal Photographs to Spark Narrative WritingThe lesson plan asks students to bring in a photograph that has special meaning for them and to write about it. Using Pictures to Teach Narrative Writing with Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Students respond to pictures depicting segregation. They write a story from the point of view of someone in the picture. Writing to Photography/Photography to Writing A teacher designed this project with two goals in mind: (1) to improve students' writing by incorporating photography into descriptive and narrative writing exercises designed to inspire more varied and creative perspectives, and (2) to enhance visual as well as verbal literacy.

Toefl Independent

Many people have learned a foreign language in their own country; others have learned a foreign language in the country in which it is spoken. Which is better? Give the advantages of each and support your viewpoint. Today the majority of ambitious young students try hard to learn as many languages as possible. Some prefer to learn a foreign language in just their own country. I think learning this way enables you to learn by using your native language in terms of difficulties you might face. Another advantage of this way is that you learn together with your friends, and this is very encouraging. However, learning a foreign language in the country where it is spoken helps you to improve your pronunciation, speak as clearly as native speakers and learn more new words. Moreover, in a foreign country you are just forced to speak everything in a foreign language. Learning a foreign language in your native country is very effective, especially, for beginners. In general, people of beginner level of a foreign language, frequently need translations or detailed explanations of matters. They might also need assistance in grammar structures. From these points of view, I believe that people of your own country would be more helpful by providing you useful guides in your native language. Moreover, learning a foreign language in your own country would be very encouraging because your friends are together with you. In my opinion, it would be more enjoyable as well as efficient if working together on a foreign language, speaking it and attending conversation clubs. In a foreign country, however, you can be able to pronounce words very clearly since you hear true pronunciations of words whole the day. In addition, you can learn more words from native speakers. You can also improve your speaking rate. Because you are not able to use your native language, it will always be needed to express your ideas in a foreign language as quickly as possible. In conclusion, I want to mention that I prefer learning a foreign language in my own country. First, I can get the help of my teachers when needed. Besides, staying in a foreign country and learning a language would cost me much.

Reflection paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 3

Reflection paper - Essay Example The checklists consisted of items that highlight the characteristic behaviors that can be observed with the student and is associated with the disorder such as inattentiveness and poor organization. A section for other learning problems and family history was also given in the checklist. Finally, a free-flow box was also made available and is intended for checklist users to express further comments and explanations about the student. The next part of the chapter delved on the two types of ADD, its causes, analogous illnesses, co-morbidity, and intervention team. According to Hannell (2006), an individual with ADD can exhibit as an Inattentive Type, Hyperactive-Impulsive Type, or a combination of both. Inattentive individuals typically daydream and fail to finish classroom tasks. Meanwhile, the hyperactive-impulsive types are those who are restless, talkative, and sometimes destructive. Hannell (2006) revealed that the cause of ADD is usually attributed to genetic factors and some food link. In the normal course of development, individuals may show the same symptoms for the disorder but are usually in more intense degrees. Giftedness, emotional and behavioral disturbances, and epilepsy may be quite similar to ADD but is not qualified as such. ADD also co-exists with learning disabilities, oppositional defiant disorder, and conduct disorder. Lastly, teachers, behavior management specialists, and pediatricians are involved in helping the student with ADD. Before taking on any appointment with a student with ADD, it is imperative that a counselor get his hands on as much in-depth information as he can about the intricacies of the disorder. In this way, he will know the best way to communicate with a child or adolescent with the condition during the counseling session. Considering that they have special needs, the typical counseling approaches may not work well with them. But with adequate

Time Management Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Time Management - Research Paper Example It is important to define what essentially time management is. It is the basis of properly allocating time dimensions to a particular activity so that all the tasks and activities that need to be completed by this individual are done within a stipulated time period. If the activities are not done within this allotted time, it would mean that there have been serious transgressions within this field and hence the overall time has been compromised upon. The people who are unable to manage time feel that they are a victim of their own doing as they blame themselves for the lack of adherence to time domains. But then again, there are people who are always punctual and believe earnestly within the reigns of time management. What is needed here is a balance between managing time activities and letting go of the issues which plague the timely completion of activities, tasks and actions (Haynes, 2009). This balance can only come about when people realize that their actions are being kept a ch eck upon, if not by somebody else then their own selves as well. However, it becomes quite a hectic job to track each and every move that human beings undertake, and hence is a good idea to stick to the avenues of time management as much as possible. This makes things easier as far as the future undertakings of life, career and other fields are related. Some of the most significant principles within time management is to make sure that the priorities are broken up into different zones.

Responsibility and brand advertising in the alcoholic beverage market Essay - 1

Responsibility and brand advertising in the alcoholic beverage market. The modelling of normative drinking behaviour. by Debra Jones Ringold - Essay Example Thesis Statement: The purpose of this essay is to critically review the above article by Ringold (2008). The theories, ideas or beliefs that the author tested will be summarised; the contents of the article will be condensed; and the weaknesses and strengths of the research study will be critically analysed. Ringold (2008) states that her study revealed moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages as the norm in the United States. This is similar to the results of the Gallup polls (2004) which have indicated the same outcome since 1939. The recommendations given by the United States Dietary Guidelines on moderate drinking was consistent with the consumption found in 90% of people who consume alcohol. This is supported by Saad (2005), who states that underage drinking and alcohol abuse have considerably reduced in the last three decades. The per capita consumption of alcohol has continued to decline over the past twenty-five years, states NIAAA (2006). The main aim of the article by Ringold (2008) is to study the outcome of alcoholic beverage advertising on its consumption levels. The research study takes into consideration the actual and desired impacts of, describes and evaluates the controversy regarding industry-sponsored responsibility campaigns; and identifies a number of issues that require future research. The results of the study reveal that alcoholic beverage advertising does not exert a material influence on total consumption or abuse. On the other hand, it models normative drinking behaviour, hence may be a crucial inhibitor of alchohol misuse. Responsibility efforts sponsored by industry, by government and by nonprofits lead to desired changes, modeling desired drinking behaviours, and may be more beneficial for heavier drinkers. The article by Ringold (2008) is timely, because of the continued trend of increased expenditure on advertising, undertaken by alcohol manufacturers. This is

Facebook and Privacy Issues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Facebook and Privacy Issues - Essay Example While social networking has its advantages, it is also important to note that, there are drawbacks related to the use of social media platforms. This is because, social networking involves sharing of information between two or more people, and in some occasions, the information shared can reach wrong hands. This in essence, creates problems concerning privacy issues since users may want some of the information they share through the social media to remain private. In this regard, a leading social media site like Facebook is embattling problems related to privacy issues for its users. This paper examines privacy issues as one of the drawbacks for Facebook considered the leading social media platform globally.Prior to the advent of digital communications, sharing of information between persons or institutions in the society was rather cumbersome. This is because in order to interact with other people, this had to be done physically and involved moving from one point to another point. I n addition, dissemination of information was slow and mails had to be delivered physically to their destinations. The only means of a quicker communication network in the 19th and early 20th century was through the telephone or telegram. But these communication tools were the preserve of those with higher social standing. The rest of the society was left to rely on one-on-one communication or postal mails. While it was slow to interact with other people or disseminate information in this era, issues related to privacy were not a concern for people.

Very easy no essay Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Very easy no essay - Assignment Example y-four year olds owning their own businesses: "The trend may dilute corporate pools of promotable junior managers but provide a needed infrastructure for corporate outsourcing" (Keaveney 102-103). Which paraphrase is acceptable? A necessary infrastructure for corporate outsourcing is provided even though the trend of members of the younger generation owning their own businesses is weakening the availability of potential executives (Keaveney 102-103). Increasingly, members of the younger generation are becoming entrepreneurs rather than making themselves available to work their way up the management scale for an individual company; the difficulties this may cause for companies is offset by the services as subcontractors they can provide as outsourcing becomes more necessary and more common (Keaveney 102-103). The current fashion of members of the younger generation owning their own businesses might water down the numbers of available potential low-ranking administrators; however, it might also supply a necessary means at a basic level for business to subcontract (Keaveney 102-103). The original quotation from Bob Simpson on a website reads "Although some people believe the Lamborgotti Fasterossa is the fastest car in the world, others name the Ferrari as the fastest." Which is an unfair and misleading use of this quotation? You are using material from a newspaper article. There is no author given, but the title of the article is "Was Emerson lying to his constituents?," published in the  Edmonton Journal  on Feb. 14, 2006, on p. A2. Which is the proper parenthetical citation for this

Critical Incident Management Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Critical Incident Management - Research Paper Example One of the methods that help justice and security organizations to be firm on its certification of public safety is scenario-based planning (Eppen, Martin, & Scharge, 1989). Scenario planning is â€Å"a comprehensive planning tool that some of the dedicated firms make use of to achieve their long-term goals† (Eppen, Martin, & Scharge, 1989). Scenario-based planning ensures the management of civil liberties in justice organization that they unintentionally compromise fulfilling other duties. It also makes sure that the organizations do not forget public safety while satisfying other demands. The role of scenario planning within these organizations is to minimize or control these risks (Tibettes, 1998). Many security and justice organizations have policies that make them implement on the actual rules and regulation of these companies. To understand this clearly, example of use of force is appropriate. The policies regarding use of force describe an increasing sequence of actions that an officer can take to handle a situation (Tibettes, 1998). This sequence usually has many levels of intensities, and there is a strict instruction for officers to use an appropriate level of intensity of force, keeping in mind the present situation. This also allows an officer to shift from one level of sequence to another without much difficulty. In law enforcement, there is a huge carefulness which makes it very important; police discretion refers to the autonomy of a justice agency or individual officer working in that or any other justice agency to choose to involve in a certain situation to handle it or not (Tibettes, 1998). The implementation of scale of discretion by an office is when an officer arrests a person for a DUI (Driving under the influence); there is a low discretion in this incident in the name of public safety. High discretion is observed when as officer issues a citation on a driver failing to signal a lane change. In particular, the â€Å"amount of effo rt required by police to compel compliance from an unwilling subject is legal definition of use of force† (Tibettes, 1998). Officers should not use any force if they find no conflicts, fights or battles, in other words, no force if there is no resistance. As an example, the sequence of intensities of force starts from officer using verbalization for controlling a situation; if situation does not come under control, he can go for Empty Hand Control. Even when the situation gets worse, an officer can go for Soft Hand Technique, then gradually Less Lethal Method (Surette, 2010). If the situation cannot be controlled with any of the above methods, officers can have an impact on it with the use of weapon, then chemical spray, and then finally the use of lethal force. There are many debates regarding the use of force continuum. These are regarding the convenience of techniques or tools under this continuum. Should the law include this method in the policies and would they might incr ease the liability? Use of force is not appropriate for every situation because not every situation can convert into a continuum (Tibettes, 1998). The law enforcement and other criminal and justice agencies need to structure their organization in a way that everyone can openly share their ideas and opinions; there is no fear of saying anything even if it is wrong. Most importantly, veterans should give

Faculty Members' Styles Of Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Faculty Members' Styles Of Leadership - Essay Example Scholars have identified various leadership styles and continue to refine concepts behind leadership to guide organisations in determining the appropriate leadership styles that will help organisations attain its goals. Huber states that school leaders are essential because they make a difference. Recognising the significance and crucial role of leadership in educational institution, this research will look into the various forms of leadership styles vis-a-vis its impact on the development of the faculty members. Specifically, this study intends to conduct a research on leadership styles and its impact on the development of faculty members at the College of Education at Ha'il University in Saudi Arabia to understand the connection between leadership styles and faculty development as the study centres on leadership and its impact on faculty development. The proposal will focus on the following areas. The introduction wherein research questions, the significance of the research and its aims are laid down. The literature review, which presents the discourses of scholars pertinent to the issue of educational leadership and faculty development. The research methodology that will be adopted in the conduct of the research. A qualitative case study will be used in this study as it attempts to answer the concerns of the research. In addition, the procedure for data collection, sampling of this research with great detail, validity and reliability, data analysis, ethical considerations, and conclusion will be discussed.... Huber (2004) states that school leaders are essential because they make a difference. Recognising the significance and crucial role of leadership in educational institution, this research will look into the various forms of leadership styles vis-a-vis its impact on the development of the faculty members. Specifically, this study intends to conduct a research on leadership styles and its impact on the development of faculty members at the College of Education at Ha'il University in Saudi Arabia to understand the connection between leadership styles and faculty development as the study centres on leadership and its impact on faculty development. The proposal will focus on the following areas. (1) The introduction wherein research questions, significance of the research and its aims are laid down. (2) The literature review, which presents the discourses of scholars pertinent to the issue of educational leadership and faculty development. (3) The research methodology that will be adopted in the conduct of the research. A qualitative case study will be used in this study as it attempts to answer the concerns of the research. In addition, the procedure for data collection, sampling of this research with great detail, validity and reliability, data analysis, ethical considerations and conclusion will be discussed. The Setting The research will be conducted on the College of Education at Ha’il University. The study will focus on the issue regarding the impact of styles of leadership in the College to the development of its faculty members. The research will involve the participation three (3) Department Heads of the College of Education at the Hail

Free

Free Will Versus Determinism Essay The excerpt I chose was â€Å"Free Will versus Determinism†, and I noticed from the beginning the piece was written with reasons to support the content. First, the presentation introduces two beliefs; the behavior of atoms is governed entirely by physical law, and humans have free will. Immediately after presenting these ideas and questioning the relations in the two, the excerpt explains the logical approach to why they do not necessarily favor one another. Any argument that is presented, or comparison of two aspects, needs facts and reasons to confirm why the person is trying to convince the reader or other person that the argument is supported. Referring to the two beliefs presented at the beginning of the excerpt, the piece supports the idea that the behavior of atoms is governed entirely by physical law and humans have free will do not have a congruent relationship. Atoms will do what they have to do because of physical law and its determination of what each atom will do in the given circumstances. This is fact which is presented clearly and holds accuracy. An interpretation of the example given would be is if an atom does Z in circumstance Q, then circumstance Q will result in the atom having to do Z. By physical law, one cannot predict, change, or control what atoms do and how they do what they do. Continuing on to the next segment of the excerpt, it explains that free will is what happens, but did not necessarily have to happen. Unlike atoms and how they are governed by physical law, free will is something that has to be invoked by a human. Choice is the root in free will and what a person chooses to do will have a result. In this second part I began to see the argument because it was the comparison to the first fact presented, and reasons are given for why the argument is being made. A quote is written into the conclusion that points out that humans have free will to a certain degree, but it does not relate to how atoms are governed. The strengths that I found were the facts presented and the explanation of the material. Also I like the order in which the excerpt was written. The two beliefs were first, followed by the questioning of validation and reasons why the two beliefs did not fit well together as one belief. I could not identify any weaknesses in the excerpt, or parts that were irrelevant. As stated before the segment was factual, and the reasons were enough to convince the reader that the theory presented is accurate. References: Moore-Bruder, (2008). Philospophy (7th ed. ). : The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Separation of Photosynthetic Pigments: Paper Chromatography

Separation of Photosynthetic Pigments: Paper Chromatography Plant pigments have the ability to absorb visible light, which can be used in order to harvest energy for photochemical reactions. There are a variety of pigments present in plants, and for this experiment, these pigments were separated using paper chromatography. Absorbance spectrophotometry was also used in order to obtain the different absorbances of the pigments. The data was then used to compare relative chlorophyll content in both old and young leaves, and to identify the pigments present in the leaves. It was seen that chlorophyll a and b were present, and young leaves yielded more chlorophyll than old leaves as reflected by the high absorbance of the young leaf extract as compared to the old leaf extract. The performance of this experiment can be deemed successful in separating pigments, however identification of the pigment concentration could also be done to better quantify the amount of pigment in the leaves. INTRODUCTION Chromatography is a technique used to separate complex mixtures between a stationary phase and a mobile phase. (Craig) There are several types of chromatography, namely: gas chromatography, liquid chromatography, ion exchange chromatography, affinity chromatography, adsorption chromatography, partition chromatography, and molecular exclusion chromatography. (Carrier, Bordonaro and Yip) The concept behind this process is that the smaller the affinity a molecule has for the stationary phase, the faster it migrates. The stationary phase varies depending on the type of chromatography used (Carrier, Bordonaro and Yip). Most of the time, chromatography is used for purification techniques. The process is also used in separation of substances, an example of which is plant pigments. The result of chromatography is a chromatogram. From the chromatogram, different information about the test sample can be attained. By counting the number of peaks in the chromatogram, one can deduce the complexity of the mixture. The more peaks there are, the more complex the mixture is. Also, qualitative information about the composition of the mixture can be deduced by comparing the peak positions with a standard. Quantitative assessment of the relative concentration of the components can also be attained by comparing the peak areas (Carrier, Bordonaro and Yip). In this experiment, chromatography was used to separate pigments extracted from old and young leaves. The pigments were further identified using absorbance spectrophotometry. MATERIALS AND METHODS For this experiment, photosynthetic pigments were separated through paper chromatography and the absorption spectra of these were measured through absorbance spectrophotometry. Pigment Extraction Old and young leaf samples were obtained around the UP campus. Each set of samples was shredded into smaller pieces and weighed to twenty grams. Using mortar and pestle, each sample was immersed in 50 ml acetone and ground thoroughly to fully extract the chloroplast pigments. After this, the extracts were filtered by using filter paper and Buchner funnel. The eluted extracts were collected in separate beakers and transferred into separate test tubes, and labelled accordingly as OLD and YOUNG. Paper Chromatography The extract from young leaves was subjected to paper chromatography. Three pieces of 3cm x 11cm Whatman no. 42 filter paper were cut out. The sheets of paper were marked 3 cm from one end, and 2 cm from the other. The 3cm-point served as the point where the extract would be loaded, while the 2cm-point dictates the point of termination of the chromatogram. This end was tied with a string so that it could easily be suspended on a Gatorade bottle cap. With a Pasteur pipette, one drop of extract was loaded on each sheet of the filter paper. To further saturate the loading, the filter paper sheets were loaded ten times. However, for each loading, the previous spot was allowed to dry before an additional drop of extract was added. Developing solvent of petroleum ether was prepared. The solvent was then poured into three Gatorade bottles, filling only up to two centimetres of the bottle. The paper strips were then secured on the bottle caps with tape and hung, with its end touching the developing solvent, but not the loaded extract. The development of the chromatogram was terminated after the pigments or the developing solvent has reached the 2cm-line. Of the three chromatograms, only one was presented for the results because it has the clearest separation. Absorbance Spectrophotometry Absorbance spectrophotometry was also done to obtain absorbance spectra of the different pigments present in leaves. Both the old and young leaf extracts were used and the absorbances of extracts were obtained for the following wavelengths (nm): 400, 450, 470, 500, 550, 600, 647, 650, 663, 700. Two trials were done per leaf sample. The absorbances obtained were then plotted against wavelength. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Pigments are defined as substances in plants that are able to absorb visible light. These can be classified into three basic groups. (University of California Berkeley, 2006) The first are the chlorophylls which are greenish pigments containing a porphyrin ring. The ring contains several double bonds which makes it stable, and at the same time allows free migration of electrons. In this way, when sunlight strikes the plant surface, electrons in the pigment molecules of the chloroplast thylakoid become excited which in turn pass on this excitation to the photosystems that begins the series of cellular events that generate oxygen and sugar. Four species of chlorophyll a, b, c, and d are known. Chlorophyll a is the primary photosynthetic pigment in all higher plants, algae, and the cyanobacteria. Chlorophyll b is found virtually in all higher plants and green algae, differing from the former only in that a formyl group substitutes for the methyl group in ring II. Chlorophyll c is meanwhile found in the diatoms, dinoflagellates, and brown algae and lacks the phytol tail of chlorophyll a. Lastly, chlorophyll d is found only in the red algae and has an (-O-CHO) group in place of the (-CH=CH2) group on ring I of chlorophyll a. (Taiz and Zeiger, 2008) The second class of pigments are the carotenoids. They are usually red, orange, or yellow pigments composed of two small six-carbon rings connected by a chain of carbon atoms. Their high carbon content prevents them from dissolving in water and as such they must be attached to membranes within the cell. They have several functions, including the broadening of the spectrum of colors able to drive photosynthesis (especially in seasons with shortened days such as fall and winter), and in photoprotection; they are able to absorb and dissipate excessive light energy that can otherwise damage chlorophyll or interact with oxygen to produce reactive oxidative molecules that can damage the cell. (Cain, et. Al, 2011) The third class of pigments are the phycobilins. They are water-soluble pigments found in the chloroplast stroma or the cell cytoplasm. Occurring only in the Cyanobacteria and Rhodophyta, they are efficient in absorbing light wavelengths that are not well absorbed by chlorophyll a. These pigments are bound to phycobiliproteins which pass on the absorbed light energy to chloroplasts for photosynthesis. Knowledge of which types of pigments are present in a plant is useful in the field of agriculture. Using this information, lights that promoting the optimal growth of plants having certain pigments can be developed, increasing their yield. Additionally, pigments extracted from plants can be used as dyes in scientific research. One way of determining the pigments present in a plant sample is through paper chromatography. Paper chromatography separates pigments present in the plant sample based on their solubilities in the solvent; compounds which are very soluble move along with the advancing solvent front, while less soluble compounds travel slowly through the paper, well behind the solvent front. Chlorophyll a is slightly soluble in a 3:1:1 mixture of petroleum ether, acetone, and water (which was the resulting mixture used in the study), while carotenoids are very soluble in this system. This difference in solubility should allow the separation of chlorophyll a from the carotenoids and chlorophyll b, which is less soluble than chlorophyll a. (Bowen and Baxter, 1980) The following chromatogram was obtained from the chromatography done in the study. chlorophyll B chlorophyll A carotenoid Figure 1. Obtained chromatogram from the paper chromatography of (young or old?) leaf extracts. Only one trial was used in the identification of pigments, with the topmost band determined to be a carotenoid, followed by chlorophyll A and chlorophyll B. The first pigment band was identified as a carotenoid due to its yellow-orange color, the second band identified as chlorophyll A due to its darker green color, and the third band identified as chlorophyll B due to its yellow-green color. The study is said to be a success in this respect as the results obtained matched the theoretical results. Additionally, pigments can also be identified based on the value of their retention factor; the retention factor (Rf) is calculated as the distance the pigment travels (in centimeters) divided by the distance the solvent travels (in centimeters). Standard values of the Rf are compared to the calculated values and the closest standard value that matches the calculated value is used to identify the pigment. This step however, was no longer done in the study. Figure 2. A graph showing the absorbance obtained from the old and young leaf extracts through absorptive spectrophotometry. Spectrophotometry can be utilized for measuring the chlorophyll content of a leaf by measuring the absorbances of the plant extract at red and far red regions of the visible light spectrum. The absorbance of the extract is directly proportional to its chlorophyll content. The experiment measured the absorbances of old and young leaves coming from the same plant in order to compare their chlorophyll content. In the experiment, the pigments from old and young plants were subjected to spectrophotometry to identify which wavelength would yield the highest absorption therefore identifying the pigments present, and also compare at which level of maturity plants would yield more chlorophyll. The former is possible because plant pigments participate in photosynthesis by absorbing light, and there is the optimal wavelength wherein they can absorb the most amount of light and can therefore enhance the process of photosynthesis. Pigments in seed plants may be present as chlorophyll a, b, and carotenoids, all with varying abundance. For the old and leaf samples, it can be seen that the measured absorbances peaked at two wavelengths (Figure 2). The first peak is around 450-470 nm while the second peak is around 663 nm. This data implies that most of the pigment extracted must be from chlorophyll a and b, since theoretically, these pigments peak at 430-450 nm and 640-660 nm. It should also be remembered that peaks in an absorbance vs. wavelength pigment spectra means that these pigments absorb and utilize light best in these wavelengths. In Figure 3 below, the other pigments and corresponding peak wavelengths can be seen. Figure 3. Absorption spectra of pigments found in seed plants Aside from knowing the pigments present in the leaves, the graph could also show the relative amount of chlorophyll present in the leaves. Theoretically, older leaves contain much more chlorophyll than younger leaves; this is contrary to the results as depicted by Fig. 2. These results can only make sense if the plant from which the extract was taken from has a magnesium deficiency, assuming that no methodological error was committed. Plant with Mg deficiency tend to sequester Mg from old leaves by degrading chlorophyll and then transporting the retrieved Mg to the younger leaves which have higher photosynthetic needs. Other methods of measuring the pigment content of leaves include using chlorophyll content meters, which do not require an extract to be prepared, and the more superior technique known as chlorophyll fluorescence where the ratio of chlorophyll fluorescence at certain wavelengths give a linearly proportional estimation of the chlorophyll content. Literature Cited Hopkins, W.G. HÃ ¼ner, N.P.A. (2009). Introduction to plant physiology (4th ed). Ontario, Canada: John Wiley Sons. Cain, M. L, Jackson, R.B., Minorsky, P.V., Reece, J.B., Urry, L.A., Wasserman, S.A. (2011). Campbell biology (9th ed). San Francisco, USA: Benjamin/Cummings. University of California Berkeley. (2006). Photosynthetic pigments. Retrieved from http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/g lossary/gloss3/pigments.html on August 23, 2012. Bowen, W. R., Baxter, W. D. (1980). Experimental cell biology: an integrated laboratory guide and text. New York, USA: Macmillan Publishing Co. Taiz L and Zeiger E. (2008). Plant Physiology. 3rd ed. Sinauer Associates, Inc. Hermans C.; Vuylsteke F.; Coppens F.. 2009. Systems Analysis of the responses to long-term magnesium deficiency and restoration in Arabidopsis thaliana.ÂÂ  New PhytologistÂÂ  187: 132-144. Carrier, Rebecca, Julie Bordonaro and Kevin Yip. Chromatography. 1997. 23 August 2012 Retrieved from:http://www.rpi.edu/dept/ chem-eng/Biotech Environ/CHROMO/chromintro. html. Craig, Paul A. Chromatography. 2007. 23 August 2012 Retrieved from: http://people.rit.edu/pac8612/ webionex/website/html/ione8h o9.html. Domestic violence: Prevention and treatment Domestic violence: Prevention and treatment Introduction Domestic violence is a universal phenomenon and more and more governments play importance on it. There are three major types of domestic violence including violent against women, child abuse and elder abuse. Since domestic violence includes primarily of violence against women, we will going to review the situation of violent against women in Hong Kong in this paper. In this study, the term of violence against women will be used instead of wife abuse because violence against women consists not only women who are married legally with the abuser, but also the co-habitees or separated partners, since violence could be continued even the relationship ended. Definitions of violence against women Although the United Nations found violence against women as the major obstacle to the achievement of equality, development and peace for women in 1985 (1), the nations didnt seem to emphasis it. Research showed that every one of three women in the global had ever experienced violence in an intimate relationship. (World Health Organization, 1997)(12) Generally speaking, violence against women refers to those acts totally committed violent against women. In the United Nations General Assembly 1994, violence against women had been defined as any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life. UN had a rather feminist view that violence against women is an expression of sex inequality and is used to uphold the domination over women and to keep discrimination against women by men. (UN, 1995) The severity of violence against women According to the data of Social Welfare Department of HK, there is an increase in the number of spouse battering from 1,906 in 1998 up to 6,483 in 2008. (SWD, HK. 2008) Over 80% of them are women abuse. The researches related to violence against women in Hong Kong were very rare, they asserted that the situation is getting worse and the government should take it seriously, however. It is about two-third of Tangs survey respondents had at least one time of verbal abuse, (Tang, 1999) Researches showed that around 10% of the survey respondents had experienced at least one time of physical abuse by their male partners. (Tang, 1999; Chan, 2005) Chan (2000, 2005) also noticed that a rather high proportion of victims were having little schooling as well as homemakers. Studies revealed the fact that over 50% of battered women were at the age range of 31 to 40 (Harmony House Report 2007; Chan, 2000) and over 80% were new migrants from Mainland China. (Harmony House Report 2007) Majority of women who experience intimate violence do not report it to the police. (Backman and Coker, 1995) Outline of this paper In the following, we will first go through the forms of violence against women including physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse. Then, the theories related to violence against women Family perspective and Feminist perspective will be discussed, and the idea of Patriarchal ideology and Confucianism will be addressed. After that, we will look deep into the existing situation in Hong Kong which consist the services provided for the victims and the abusers, the difficulties the victims face, and how Hong Kong government handle domestic violence. In the last part, the intervention strategies like resource allocation, legislation and education that combating this violence issue will be encountered. Forms of violence against women There are three forms of abuse: Physical abuse, psychological abuse and sexual abuse, in which physical abuse is the most common form that abuse men give to their female partners. Physical abuse Physical abuse refers to a physical assault or violent act that attacks the victims physical integrity, like pushes, slaps, pinches, punches, spits, kicks, burns, fractures, locked women in the house, put women in an unsafe places or murder. (Chan, 2000) Dobash et al., (1985) stated that only 3% of assaults are low in physical severity the rest are medium or high. (as cited in Mullender, 1996) Physical abuse usually accompanied by emotional abuse. Psychological or emotional abuse Psychological abuse, also referred to as emotional abuse, is a kind of emotional or psychological attacks or the neglect of psychological or emotional needs, described a person subjecting or exposing another to behavior that is psychologically harmful. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_abuse) Actually, there is no universal accepted definition for emotional abuse. Here I adopted the definition from U.S. Department of Justice that emotional abuse is causing fear by intimidation, verbal or non-verbal, threatening physical harm to self, partner, children, or partners family or friends, destruction of pets and property, forcing isolation from family, friends, or school or work.(U.S. Department of Justice, Edleson, 1984) Emotional abuse, differ from physical abuse and sexual abuse, is a continued and repetitive behavior, used to harden fear to reinforce the control of the abuser so as to strengthen the obedience and passive acceptance to the abuser. Sexual abuse Sexual abuse is a dissented and pressurized sexual behavior or acts, forced by one person upon another. Sometimes the abuser compels unwanted sexual activity without physical force by using their position of trust but mostly physical abuse comes with sexual abuse. According to Chan (2000), those behaviors includes rape or sexual assault, incest coerced by force, inappropriate touching, exposure of genitalia, force the partner to have sexy dressing or ignoring ones sexual character. Russell (1990) reminded us that spousal sexual abuse is one kind of domestic violence which may sometimes constitute marital rape or an assault. Causes of the problem Theories related to Violence against women The universality of domestic violence caused many scholars to explore the reasons for violence against women. Family perspective Family perspective is one of the perspectives the scholars like to adopt. This approach believed that the behavior of a family member is influenced by the responses or feedback of other members. It seemed violence as a symmetrical between both sexes, and viewed individual and family relation as the core for the explanation for domestic violence, suggested a reduction in structural stresses and work on individual pathologies in dealing with the problem. Obviously the Hong Kong government had adapted this perspective in explaining the causes of domestic violence as it stressed on maintaining the function of the family or improving marital relationships. (Leung, 2008) Feminist perspective On the other hand, some scholars explained violence against women abuse from the view of feminist theory which locates the root of violence against women in a social-structural context rather than a private or family problem. (United Nation, 1989; Adam, 1998) This approach believed that women do not have equal rights and do not have institutional power, instead, women are considered as inferior and subordinate, and more serious, the properties to men. (United Nation, 1989) As the tolerance for violence act against women are vary across culture, the feminist give explanation that it is due to different levels of patriarchal values across cultures. (Bui Morash, 1999; Nayak et al.2003) The endorsement of the beliefs regarding rape and spousal physical violence and the tendency of blaming the victim showed that both gender and sociocultural factors had great impact on the attitudes toward violence against women. (Nayak et al. 2003) Tang (1999) recommended patriarchy theory in explaining violence against women in Chinese societies. Patriarchal ideology Patriarchy Patriarchy is a system of society in which men holding the determination power over women and children of the household. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchy) Feminists believed that violence against women is rooted in a patriarchal system which men keep women in a subordinate position through the use of control, usually enhanced through existing economics, social, and political, and legal dimensions. Socialization process help strengthen men to subordinate women. (Sugarmen and Frankel, 1996) Many scholars agreed that the social structure created and maintained under the patriarchy keep on justified the male dominant beliefs of womens inferior status. (Tang, 1999; Anderson, 1988; Sugarmen and Frankel, 1996) Patriarchal ideology and Confucianism Confucianism which strengthens patriarchal system had great impact in Chinese society. Women lived under the ethical norms of Confucianism were suppressed into inferior, dependent, and submissive status, and are expected to obey the men. In the past thousand years, Chinese women followed womanhood decencies like san cong si de (three obedience and four virtues) and xian qi liang mu, (a virtuous wife and a good mother) (Tang, 1999) see contributing male offsprings to their husbands lineage and serving her husband as her responsibilities. The social norms in Chinese society accept using physical force to discipline female family members, for those fail to live up their prescribed roles will result in patraiarchal brutality under the rules of the family. Therefore, it is legal for a man to afford all forms of violence against women, usually physical abuse. On the other hand, the Chinese culture of interpersonal harmony forced wives to keep on tolerating the inequality so as to protect the reputation and stability of their families. Research showed that around half of the surveyed women mentioned cultural reasons for staying with their partner. (Adam, 1998) Therefore, the extent of violence against women has been largely hidden and widely denied by our society. Though Chinese women had greater opportunities for education in recent decades, and there is an increase in the acceptance of a greater flexibility of gender norms, decision making power in the household matter still holding in the mens hand. More and more female go out to work, yet they have to do most of the housework. (Choi and Lee, 1997) Chan and Lee believed that traditional patriarchal values are deeply permeated into Chinese family system. Therefore, when wives ask for more gender equality, the husbands may understand as their domination and superiority in the family had been defied, and may react with use of violence. Tang (1999) As the society tolerate towards domestic violence, and the experience of being discrimination when seeking for help, the abused women remained in the relationship. The existing situation in Hong Kong Violence against women in Hong Kong In the past 10 years, there was a rapid increase in spousal abuse. Importantly, more than 80% of victims of spousal abuse in 2008 were female, 60% of the female victims were suffering from physical abuse (SWD, HK, 2008) Harmony House reported that 71% of women had been subjected to violence for over three years. (Harmony House Annual Report 2008-2009) Pahl(1985a) and Binneyet al. (1988) got similar findings. (As cited in Mullender, 1996) Harmony House (Harmony House, 1996/1997 Annual Report) pointed out 41.7% of female victims suffered from both physical and sex abuse, and 24.1% suffered physical, psychological and sexual abuse at the same time. Chan (2000) found that 63.6% of his survey respondents viewed male chauvinism as the major cause of domestic violence which request obedience of the women. It is concluded as influenced by the traditional culture of patriarchal ideology in which female were in an inferior status. It is rather problematic that the mass as well as the front-line professionals such as police officers and social workers were likely to endorse that wife abuse is a private matter or family issue. (Tang, 2005; Leung, 2008) Leung (2008) stated that the occurrence of domestic violence, in the current view of Hong Kong society, is due to lack of communication between family members or because of individuals under pressure. The mainstream believed that both men and women have equal chance of spousal abuse. Therefore, the government did not consider the hidden gender power imbalances in domestic violence during the policy formulating process. Under such ideologies, the services related to domestic violence focus on how to maintain the unity of the family rather the safety of the victims; the police officers view domestic violence as low priority to handle, and discouraged abused women to file their complaints (Leung, 2008), and legal system continue to treat battering as an individual problem rather than criminal behavior (Ferraro, 1989; Leung, 2008) In result, the victims who are in the subordinate status would rather keep quite, while the abusers violent act was intensified. (Leung, 2006)(Tam and Tang, 2005) Service provided for the victims and the abusers There are certain NGOs in Hong Kong care and pay effort in the fighting against domestic violence, providing shelters and services for victims and male batterers, arranging prevention programmes and community education. Due to limited resources, their services are unable to handle the needs. Leung (2009) explained the Hong Kong government has increase the budget on family service in the past years in order to recruit more staff to carry out the family support projects, nevertheless, the fund did not specifically designate to the use of handling cases of domestic violence. SWD had increase resources on the accommodation beds in the shelter from 180 in 2007-2008 to 260 in 2008-2009, and to prolong the working hour of the shelters so as to provide better service for the victims. But it is regrettable that there are too little resources for measures to combat gender-based violence in the home. The difficulties the victims face Researchers found that the abused women in Hong Kong had great difficulties in seeking help from neither police officers nor social workers. (Leung, 2008; Hong Kong Womens Coalition on Equal Opportunities, 2005; Tam and Tang, 2005) It is very common for the front-line professionals to endorse that wife abuse is a private matter or family issue. (Tang, 2005; Leung, 2008) Leung (2008) pointed out that abused women always had bad experience when they seek help from the police. Most of the police perceive violence against women as a family issue and pay less attention to it, they usually persuade the victims to close the files. Even though the police are willing to handle the case, for domestic violence usually seems as family disputes which may not involved in criminal act that the police could take action, the case would most be disregarded. On the other hand, some front-line social workers paid inadequate support and empathy to the victims. It is largely because of the common bias att itudes towards the abused women especially those came from Mainland China. Some other social workers use family therapy that emphasis unity of the family to handle domestic violence cases that force the abused woman to go back to the abuser. It is inevitable that rare of legislator, social worker or police may suggest the abused women to apply injunction order. It revealed that the front-line professionals were lack of gender sensitivity in dealing the cases. The abused women often found housing problem. Compassionate rehousing could only offer by the social workers of SWD which relied on strong social ground defined by the social workers themselves. However, most social workers had bias that those women were taking advantage during the process. The policies of CSSA restrict the application for those new arrivals that were lived in Hong Kong for less than seven years even those they suffered from abuse. How Hong Kong government handle Domestic Violence There was a great reaction in the society after Tin Sui Wai Family Tragedy happened in 2004 and the government was forced to deal with it. According to the Report of Review Panel on Family Services in Tin Shui Wai (2004), 25 suggestions were addressed, including the measures of three-tiered structure established by the police provide a graded response to investigating domestic violence. Relevant information is input into the Central Domestic Violence Database, district supervisory officers will look into those repeated cases occurring within 12 months. However, the prosecution rate of spouse battering remains low. In 2005, the police recorded 1,274 cases of spouse battering, in which 1,159 cases were arrested due to their criminal act, but only 10% were finally convicted. (Hong Kong Amnesty International, 2006) The Domestic Violence Ordinance (DVO) was enacted in 1986 in Hong Kong. At that time, the scope of definition of domestic violence is narrow to those live in matrimonial home, but excludes some other intimate relationships like co-habitees, separated partners or same sex partners. And the domestic violence is seemed as molest in this ordinance that restricted domestic violence to civil act. The limited scope of definition of domestic violence led to low utilization rate of DVO and low application of injunction order. Amendments of DVO came after more and more criticism in recent years in 2008 and 2009. Amendments includes the scope of definition of domestic violence extend to co-habitees, separated partners and same sex cohabitants and the Batterer Intervention Programme was enforced. The Womens Commission, a central mechanism plays a strategic role in advising Hong Kong Government on policy direction on women issues, addressed a policy paper in 2006 to outline a strategy to address victims empowerment, prevention of violence, timely and effective intervention, community education and support. The paper provided a lot of suggestions related to various aspects, including legislation reform, services, promotion, database, training for professionals, training on gender mainstream, early identification and intervention and community networks. The paper is comprehensive, yet the Commission has not legal authorities to implement the suggestions. In response to the rapid increase of domestic violence in past decades, Working Group on Combating Violence (WGCV), coordinated by the SWD, comprises representatives from related bureaux, government departments and non-governmental organizations, is formed for mapping out strategies to address the problem of spouse battering and sexual violence. (www.swd.gov.hk) Due to limited authority, the WGCV seems unable to coordinate the cooperation among different sectors of the government departments that no body function in policy making, coordination, and supervising (Leung, 2008) Leung (2008) criticized that the work done by the Hong Kong government in the fighting against domestic violence was unsatisfactory, the most critical problem is that the Hong Kong government and most of the policy makers did not view violence against women at home as a gender issue or human right issue but only family issue. For this reason, no comprehensive policy base on the gender mainstream was set to handle the domestic violence. (Leung, 2006; Hong Kong Womens Coalition on Equal Opportunities) The SWD report (2005) confirmed that domestic violence is a family matter by mentioned that family violence amongst those who used violence, such as low self-esteem, lack of empathy, alcohol or drug addiction, a history of abuse and neglect as a child, social isolation etc.. Such viewpoint makes people ignore how serious women abuse is in Hong Kong, and force the abused women to remain in the relationship. Actually domestic violence rooted in patriarchal ideology that is widespread over t he community that the violent act of the abuser is literally an offense of manipulation of male against women. Leung (2008) found that there are two main obstacles in putting the concept of gender mainstream into the domestic violence policies. The first one is that both the front-line professional and the policy makers were lack of gender sensitivity; secondly, inadequate resource and service coordination is put and insufficient staff and authority of coordinating framework to organize, and to coordinate and supervise the policies of domestic violence and its implementation. (Leung, 2008, P70) Besides, the government has not made any specific action plan on how to carry out the gender mainstreaming policy. Intervention strategies to combat the violence issue Legislation and judicial procedures It is necessary to review the current measures on domestic violence if we want to resolve the issue of violence against women in the long-run. In the aspect of legislation and judicial procedures, the government should take a deep review the law on domestic violence so that violence against women could be classified as criminal act. Simplify and improve the judicial protection orders like lengthen the duration of injunction order would be helpful. Also, improvement to the measures of support for victims of domestic violence would reinforce the prosecution. It is rather difficult for the victims to testify against their husbands face to face in the court. The Hong Kong Council of Social Service (2007) thus suggested providing supporting worker for the victims who would accompany with victims during the hearing, provide relevant legal information actively, and contact with the prosecutors and the court to keep updated the process of the case. Comprehensive information for victims is vi tal. For most of the victims do not know their right, it is rather helpful if the front-line professional would provide appropriate information and service such as shelters and application for injunction order. Resources It is certainly that government should enhance the availability and accessibility of the shelters at the same time. For the perpetrators, compulsory batterer intervention program (BIP) seems to be effective and should be enforced. On the other hand, Tin Sui Wai Family Tragedy revealed that professional training for handling domestic violence must be strengthened. As a matter of fact, social welfare agencies are lack of resources and support from the government to combat gender-based violence in the home. Therefore, it is unable for them to deepen the intervention and therapies on domestic violence. The government should add the specific matching grants of domestic violence. Although extra HKD 22 million has budgeted to recruit additional staff to implement family support projects, no designation for the fund to handle cases of domestic violence, in result, no advancement to the service on domestic violence. The change of ideology Other than resource and legislation and judicial procedures, the change of ideology is most significant. In recent years, governments in many western countries agreed that domestic violence is a gender issue and bring it to the criminal level. Similar arguments also found in Hong Kong (The Womens Commission, 2006; Leung, 2006, 2008) Leung (2008) stressed that the best way to protect women from abuse is to take the concept of gender mainstream into account when handling the issue of domestic violence. The concept of gender mainstreaming having been developed after the 1985 3rd World Conference on Women in Nairobi and was formally featured in the Platform for Action of the 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. (centers.law.nyu.edu) Gender mainstreaming is defined as the public policy concept of the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making womens as well as mens concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality. (Un ited Nations, 1997) In response to the ineffective of WGCV, Leungs suggestions are worthy to mention. Leung (2008) suggested the government should adopt the definition of gender mainstreaming and its practice guidelines offered by international organizations; to develop a comprehensive policy of domestic violence and strategy execution according to gender mainstream; and to establish a high ranking coordinating body to work out an action plan for combating and preventing domestic violence; to improve the central data collection and the information dissemination systems; to consolidate the collaboration system between government and NGOs to ensure the resources had been used in combating against violence, to set up crisis intervention team with the collaboration of police and social workers; to meliorate the service coordination within different social service organizations; to strengthen the education on gender sensitivity for the frontline professionals. Reference Chan, K.L. (2000) The Impact of Family Violence to Women and their Children, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Christian Family Service and Hong Kong University, Department of Social Work and Social Administration. Leung, L.C. (2008) The possibilities of Gender Mainstreaming Domestic Violence Policy in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong, Department of Applied Social Science. (centers.law.nyu.edu/jeanmonnet/papers/00/000201) United Nations. Report of the Economic and Social Council for 1997. A/52/3.18 September 1997. Backman, R., Coker, A. (1995). Police involvement in domestic violence: The interactive effects of victim injury, offenders history of violence, and race. Violence and Victims, 10(2), 91- 106. Other information Definitions of domestic violence Intimate partner violence (IPV), also termed domestic violence, is the most common form of violence against women. (Watt and Zimmerman, 2002) Wesley defined domestic violence as any behavior which is intended to cause unwanted harm, either physical (e.g., sexual or physical assault, and murder) or nonphysical (e.g., intimidation malicious insults) to a romantic partner. (Wesley et al, 2006) Adams gave a rather completed definition, the repeated, habitual or random use of aggression, whether physical, verbal, social, sexual, emotional, psychological or economic, by an individual on a partner or ex-partner in an existing or previous domestic relationship to force submission to that persons demands, thus depriving the partner of personal liberty and basic human rights. (Adam, 1998) Continuums of abuse Apart from the forms of abuse, we should consider the level of severity of abuse when we look into a case whether it is an abuse or not. The following table showed different levels of abuse from least to most severe. Assumed relationship between Patriarchal ideology and Attitude towards violence against women Sugarman and Frankel (1996) in their study examining how wide the patriarchy ideology molds the individuals experiences in terms of domestic violence, showed that previous researches on wife abuse done by Dobash and Dobash (1979), Kurz (1989) and Schechter (1982) conjectured that acceptance of traditional gender ideals and expectations about women serves to maintain subordination of women and is a primary source of violence against women (Sugarman and Frankel, 1996) Pagelow (1984) even suggested that traditional gender belief system could be retain since the assaultive husbands adopt the patriarchal conception of family. (Sugarman and Frankel, 1996) Findings verified that assaultive husbands showed more positive attitudes toward marital violence than nonassaultive husbands (Sugarman and Frankel, 1996) However, until 2005, the United Nations still found that women subjected to violence, including physical violence, psychological violence or sexual violence is a very common phenomenon. Research report Health Canada (1996) tended to believe that emotional abuse is based on power and control and characterized it into six forms: rejecting, degrading, terrorizing, isolating, corrupting/exploiting and denying emotional responsiveness Tomison and Tucci (1997) mentioned that emotional abuse is characterised by a climate or pattern of behaviour(s) occurring over time. Physical abuse always accompany with emotional abuse contains words and actions to break the womans spirit and destroy her self-image and self-esteem. (Mullender, 1996) It also includes imposing any kind of intimacy while the woman is still hurting from the violence, and physical or verbal harassment. (Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2001, Alic, Margaret; Burstow; Mullender, 1996; Wikipedia) Most of the scholars explained violence against women from mainly two different views of theories, one is from the view of individual or family ground, and another is from the view of society or social structure. Psychological theories emphasis on assertively uncontrollable anger which is seen as rooted in unresolved family conflicts, primitive aggressive reactions, the submerged fear of the bully, insecure dependence on women, or any other form of internal stress (Mullender, 1996, summarized by Dobash and Dobash, 1992, p237) Feminists view that violence against women as a typical behavior and brooked by the society with the approval of social rules supporting male domination. (Adam, 1998) United Nation (1989) believed the interconnection of economic, social and political factors creating a structure placed the women with low economic status in a weakness position to violence within the household. Adam stressed that the masculine values in capitalist system apt to value women as mother, housewives or sexual objects Nayak et al. (2003) examined the attitudes of undergraduates from four countries toward violence against women, and discovered that groups with different values or attitudes also differ in violence acts, and would have different level of acceptance of violence. It refers not only the power of male in the household, but also refers to the dominance of men in social or cultural systems. Feminist theory stresses that the structure of modern cultural and political systems under patriarchy are totally ruled by men. (Wikipedia) (Castro, Ginette. American Feminism: a contemporary history, p. 31.) Obviously, violence against women seemed as normal under the development of dominant-submissive power relations. such that they have little or no independent status and transgressions outside the family and male authority expose them to swift retributions and confirm their vulnerability. Adams (1998) Researches demonstrated that patriarchy involves concepts of feminism and male domination in society and within the family. (Tang, 1999; Adam, 1998; Sugarmen and Frankel, 1996) The violence against women is the product of the interrelated and complex values wherein women are considered as inferior and subordinate to men, in result male is allowed to view female partners as his properties, and handling it within the privacy and autonomy of the family. (United Nation, 1989) Adams (1998) agreed with Mama that women are strongly fixed into the familial structure and hierarchic gender relations in the socialization process. Yllo also found that there is a positive correlation between more patriarchal social structure and higher level of women abuse. (Yllo, 1983, 1984) Research also found that traditional gender role soc

Comparing the Use of Images in The Other Wife and The Story of an Hour

Comparing the Use of Images in The Other Wife and The Story of an Hour The Other Wife and The Story of an Hour are two short stories both seemingly similar and contrasting in different ways. In Chopin’s story we see that Louise Mallard reveals her ironically natural feeling of joy and freedom following the news of her husband’s death. Louise’s sensation of freedom is conveyed through the use of vivid natural images and color. While in Colette’s story the two female protagonists contrastingly suffer from repression while the other practices freedom and liberty. These contrasting feelings are conveyed by the usage of various color images. Both Chopin and Colette address the theme of freedom and liberty from male control through the indirect use of natural, color, and vivid imagery. More often, the natural images are associated with the setting and the atmosphere, while color imagery is repeatedly linked to the physical appearance of the characters. In The Story of an Hour Chopin’s use of natural images develop and convey the theme of female freedom and liberty. The image of window is one of the most fundamental symbols which puts across this theme. The window exemplifies the ‘monstrous joy’ and the ironically natural freedom Louise is feeling in her following the news of her husband’s death. This oxymoron can be defined as the feeling she knows is considered ‘monstrous’ by society who does not expect her to be glad at her husband’s death. The way in which she faces the ‘open window’ reveals the new beginning she is looking forward to and her realization of a fresh start without her husband. Furthermore, the author’s application of an image of a ‘tree’ that were ‘aquiver’ and the ‘countless sparrows’ whic... ...n Chopin’s The Story of an Hour there is less work for the readers’ to work out specific hidden meanings. It is much harder to work out meanings when Alice doesn’t answer when Marc says 'were satisfied†¦Aren’t we, darling?’ Throughout the course of the two stories The Other Wife and The Story of an Hour, the use of natural, color, and vivid images are an essential tool for both authors to convey the theme of freedom and liberty from male control. The use of the various types of imagery shows the similar techniques Colette and Chopin shared. However, there are some minor differences these two stories shared, such as the use of dialogues and narratives as well as one being more symbolic than the other. The use of imagery is just a very small part of all the other features the writers used to develop the theme of female Freedom & Rights from male control.

Spinoza And Free Will Essay -- essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are many great philosophical ideas and questions that are known and of course unknown. One of the questions that really enticed my interest was the question of whether or not we have free will. I myself was once a believer of people having free will and doing what I want was my choice and my choice alone. However, after careful consideration and lectures I have been reversed in how I believe in free will. Is there any free will though? Many people would say yes there is and of course there are some who believe that free will is a fallacy and not to be believed. Whether or not there is free will is yet to be determined but what we have to go on and by is from philosophers and every person who has their two cents to fill in. In this discussion of philosophy there will be points made for and against the establishment of free will and basis for judgement of free will exists or not.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Spinoza, Paul, Augustine, Luther have all grappled with this question of free will for many years. What has been said goes to a religious side. Which has been believed of an omnipotent God who will preordain who would be saved and who would be lost. In the simple but complex question in the book of whether or not you slept in late or not, and has been said that God knew you would. With the explanation of the book in its words go as follows; â€Å"This...

Global Change Essay -- Environmental Biology Science Essays

Global Change Introduction: Global Change is a new mutli-disciplinary science which seeks to understand the various ways the environment is being altered by man's activities. The mechanisms of change are referred to as anthropogenic forcings and are usually involved with atmospheric alteration or land-use changes. The atmosphere is being altered by the addition of many chemicals including carbon dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, sulfur compounds, halogen compounds and various aerosols. Land-use changes include habitat fragmentation, conversion to agricultural uses and biome conversion from introduced exotic species. As the human population continues to expand it puts increasing pressure on ecosystem services (Cairns, 1996). Ecosystem services are those benefits man derives from the natural world including air and water of a composition which promotes health, soil and nutrients in which to grow food, plants to convert sunlight into energy and an atmosphere which provides livable climate conditions. Global Change rese arch attempts to quantify and understand these processes and how human activities may alter them. Current research programs are being conducted by the National Science Foundation, the United Nations, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Project (Walker, 1994), the World Wildlife Fund for Nature and many other nations and international organizations. Atmospheric Change Global Warming One of the most heated debates on global change is the possibility of global warming. The first hints of global warming came from David Keeling's Mauna Loa Observatory carbon dioxide data which showed repeated yearly fluctuations and a definite upward trend in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations (Graedel, 1993). Since then... .../www.lib.utexas.edu:80:/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/ Map_collection.html 7. Sustainable Development http://www.ulb.ac.be/ceese/sustvl.html 8. Environment Today http://enviro.mond.org/ 9. National Biological Survey http://www.im.nbs.gov/ 10. University Corporation for Atmospheric Research http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/ 11. National Climatic Data Center http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ncdc.html 12. United Nations International Panel on Climate Change http://www.unep.ch/ipcc/ipcc- O.html 13. Global Change Master Directory http://www.gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 14. U.S. D.O.E. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/ 15. The Nature Conservancy http://www.tnc.org/ 16. EPA Global Warming Page http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/home.htm 17. United Nations Global Environment Outlook 1997 http://www.grid.unep.ch/geol/

Where Have All the Booklovers Gone?

here Have All the Booklovers Gone? Where have All the Book Lovers gone? By William B. Ongsitco (www. thenewstoday. info, September 11, 2008) In my conversations with parents in the school where I work, one of the favorite topics is fostering among the young people the love for reading. For some of them, this is a real concern. In a generation saturated by iPods, online games, and media blitz, it is not surprising to see book lovers getting lesser and lesser. But wait, does it really pay to be a young reading aficionado? Ah, there's no doubt about it.Ask any teacher who has taught for at least a year and he can assure you that book lovers have a cutting edge that helps them a great deal in accomplishing their academic demands. For educators, it is a fact that wide readers do much better in school compared with those who simply pick up their text books because there's going to be an exam the next day. | | It's very interesting how some parents managed to raise kids who take great deli ght in reading. Here are some of their secrets. Read to your kids.Smart parents start reading to their children as soon as the latter can appreciate stories. And they read to them whenever there's an opportunity. They recite to their kids stories, kiddy poems, limericks and even the tiny words on candy wrappers. While riding in a jeepney or a bus, they unlock to their children the meanings of the words they see around the city-on stores, buildings, hotels, and many more. In this way, young children begin to see the wonders behind the words they encounter everyday. It is important however that when we read stories to children, we do it with theatrical enthusiasm and gestures.Children will love reading if they see that those who know how to read take delight in doing so. Allow yourself to be seen reading by your children. Kids thrive in examples. This is a principle that all parents have seen in their own children. In fact this is how very young kids assimilate language- by unconsciou s imitation. And if a child sees that father and mother regularly spend some time reading everyday, the chance that the child would pick up the habit of reading is much greater compared with a child who seldom sees his parents going over a literature.Habitual reading then is something well worth acquiring on the part of the parents even if only to help their children develop early love for books and magazines. Tell your kids about the latest book you're reading. It is indeed a great idea to share them the latest stories we've read. When children see that books are sources of awesome information, their reading interest is heightened. And there are countless of opportunities for the sharing. One can do this while taking a meal, strolling on a beach, or even while doing a chore with a child.By the way, it would be good for parents to read about matters that interest their children. For instance, if a boy is very curious about dinosaurs, it is advisable that parents read up on this topi c and tell their kid that they have gotten the information from a certain book. It is almost sure that the boy will pick up that book to satisfy all his curiosities about dinosaurs. Have plenty of interesting and good books at home. While any printed materials can help children learn how to read, it is much better to expose them to value-laden books and magazines.In this way, we hit two birds with one stone- they learn to read and they get to know what is right and what is wrong. Parents have to be extra careful with the reading materials that penetrate their homes. Even the seemingly innocuous teen magazines may actually contain information that can undermine the values you teach your children. Likewise, let us keep again in mind the interest of the children as we select the books we will display at home. Regulate television viewing and playing of video games.This last advice is really crucial. Habitual reading of books and addiction to TV or video games are incompatible. Children who are often found riveted to their television set or whose only delight is spending hours and hours playing computer games often find it very difficult to develop the habit of reading. The explanation is very simple. Most of the kiddy shows such as cartoons do not encourage sustained concentration on children. Many of the programs we see on TV are simply there to give pure entertainment.Unlike reading which often requires focus, active thinking and effort to imagine, most of the TV programs simply require passive viewing. Much of the information are transmitted through flashy images and exciting sounds. And when kids are used to getting information in this way, and sure enough video games are included in this category, then they find reading really boring. All these practical advice my require parents to change some of their personal habits. But considering the great benefits they could bring to the whole family, altering some of our practices is certainly worth all the effort.

International studies-global childhood Essay

This article written about the number of children who die on daily basis from various reasons is intended to inform the general globe community of the deaths so that appropriate measures can be taken to counter the trend. Anup points out that this is a global issue as it affects everybody in the world in regard to social, political, economical and environmental aspects. According to me, child mortality or the death of children is a global issue which should be ignored but instead should be given a priority by every authority since it affects virtually everyone either directly or directly (Shah, 2010). Just as Anup states in the Article, the number of children who die on daily basis is a matter of international concern. Anup further outlines the importance of understanding the issue of child mortality. He points out that the child mortality rate is significant in that it is a gauge to assess the general wellbeing of children and specifically the child health. To begin with, Anup mentions that it evaluates the end results of the development process of a country rather than the input. It evaluates concepts like the capital calorie accessible or the ratio of medical personnel to the population which are an essential towards achieving positive child welfare (Shah, 2010). Anup notes that child mortality rate is dependent on a number of factors which include nutritional status and the mothers ‘knowledge on health matters, the degree of immunization and the accessibility of maternal and child health services. Other determinants of child mortality rate are availability of food and clean and safe drinking water. The entire safety of the child’s environment also contributes to child mortality rate (Shah, 2010). Child mortality rate is not affected by mathematical computations like average. GNI per capita for instance will be affected by average because the natural scale places the children wealth people at a 1,000 times chance of surviving as although the human-designed scale which does not place them at equal position in regard to income (Shah, 2010). This information including the figure is accurate and reliable since it has been summarized from UNICEF findings. A do agree with Anup that this is enough justification of the significance of understanding child mortality. This is particularly because UNICEF is very elaborate on child issues and usually provides relevant and accurate information concerning children issues (Shah, 2010). The writer compares the figure of the number of children who die on daily basis with well known world disasters in order to create a clear picture of the issue in question. Anup equates the figure to the number of people who succumbed to the 2010 Haiti earthquake if had to occur every 9-10 days and the 2004 Asian tsunami if it were to occur every ten days (Shah, 2010). The writer has further justified his report by quoting the sources of the data that he used for comparison. The figure of the number of the victims who died from the Haiti earthquake was taken from the reliable BBC reports (BBC, 2010). He converts the figure to various ratios in order to bring out a more concrete outline of the seriousness of the issue. For instance he mentions that the 24,000 children dying every minute is equivalent to a single child dying after every 3. 6 seconds or close to 9 million children dying in each year. According to Anup, 79 million children died between the years 2000 and 2007 (Shah, 2010). He has used various simple graphs to illustrate the trend of child mortality rate. The causes of this large number of deaths are poverty, hunger and certain diseases and illness that that can either be cured or prevented (Shah, 2010). The writer is also surprised at the manner in which this disaster is not in the headlines. He mentions that just as the global community responds to other disasters like the disastrous earthquakes, it should respond similarly to the escalating child mortality rates (Shah, 2010). I support the writer in this aspect because little has been documented on child mortality rates. This has further worsened the problem because many authorities, agencies or organizations that could offer significant help to bring this disaster under control have completely ignored the issue or have not taken it with the seriousness it deserves. This is partly because the issue is not found in the headlines (Shah, 2010). Conclusion I support Anup’s report that the issue of child mortality rate has not been taken with the magnitude that it deserves by the world’s authorities, agencies and any relevant organization. This issue should be regarded as a disaster because the number of children dying every day from the various causes is even larger than that resulting from some of the world’s worst tragedies like the Haiti earthquake (BBC, 2010). The issue is rarely placed in the headlines and thus fails to attract the appropriate attention. Child mortality rate is very important in assessing the general wellbeing of children. Child mortality rate further affects political, social, political and environmental issues in the globe either in a direct or an indirect manner (Global issues, 2010).

Value of Diversity in the Workplace

The global workplace has made diversity a significant issue. Companies have to adjust how they operate so they can accommodate the diverse customer base that is growing. It is important for any organization to consist of employees who can bring different skills, abilities, and culture to workplace. Developing effective intercultural communication within the workplace will allow the connection between employees and customers with different cultural backgrounds and languages. Introduction In today’s society, a diverse workforce is needed to accommodate the different multicultural backgrounds that make it up.The value of diversity in a workplace is important because of the different sets of skills and backgrounds a company has to offer when trying to solve conflicts and provide effective solutions. This paper will recap an incident that happened at an insurance agency because of the lack of diversity, along with the ramifications, and strategies that may have facilitated a more s uccessful resolution. Diversity issue in the workplace I have experienced how lack of diversity in the workplace can cause conflict for the organization. A few years back I worked for an insurance agency in south Louisiana.The agency consisted of the head agent and owner, who is a male, and four women who worked for him, to include myself. One day a Hispanic couple came in to purchase some insurance policies for their home and vehicles. The issue was the couple spoke only Spanish. The percentage of Hispanics in south Louisiana was very low at the time and there was not a high demand for bilingual employees who spoke Spanish. Because of the lack of diversity in the office, none of the employees spoke fluent Spanish to help the potential new customers. The employees who knew a little Spanish tried to communicate as best they could but to no avail.The couple became very angry at the insurance agency’s poor attempt to communicate with them. They left the office outraged and state d that would never recommend this company to anyone. Ramifications As a result of this lack of diversity in the insurance agency, the agency itself, employees, and potential customers were impacted. The agency lost a customer and revenue because of a lack of diversity in the office. Not only did the company lose one customer but also the potential of future customers that may be recommended from the couple.This issue left the employees upset and stressed about not being able to help a customer. Since the start of business the agency has been a customer- oriented company, and has taken pride in providing the best customer service in the area. This situation left the owner distraught because he lost potential income for his business. To make matters worse, the couple filed a complaint against the agency for not having a bilingual employee in the office. The agency had never received a negative complaint for customer service.Strategies. Diversity in the workplace can help companies avo id unnecessary issues in the workplace. Diversity also gives the company leverage over their competitors. In smaller companies a lack of diversity is almost inevitable, but if approached in the right way it can be avoided. The diversity issue the insurance agency was faced with could have been resolved if the agency had been aware of the influx of the Hispanic population in south Louisiana. In order to stay ahead of the competition, the agency should have kept up on the different types of people moving into the area.In order for the insurance agency to address the lack of diversity for the possibility of future occurrences, the hiring protocol the agency follows will need to be modified. â€Å"A diverse collection of skills and experiences (e. g. languages, cultural understanding) allows a company to provide service to customers on a global basis† (Greenburg, 2004). The possible issue that may arise from this protocol is finding a qualified person with this skill. This approa ch though would not benefit the agency right away because of the low turn around of employees and the low number of employees the agency is able to keep employed.Another way to address the issue would be for the insurance agency to pay for at least one, if not all, of the employees to attend a class that teaches the Spanish language. This task may be hard for the insurance agency to complete because of funding and for the employees because of extra time needed to attend the class. For the future, this type of training would benefit the insurance agency by increasing the potential number of customers it can provide a service to. Conclusion Diversity is becoming a necessity in the workplace in today’s global working environment.A multicultural society forces companies to employ a diverse workforce so they can adapt â€Å"to fluctuating markets and customer demands† (Greenburg, 2004). Having a diverse workforce will appeal to a larger diverse customer base that will benef it the growth for any company.ReferencesGreenberg, J. (2004). Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits, Challenges and Solutions. The Multicultural Advantage: Career Management and Job Info for Professionals from Diverse Backgrounds. Retrieved from http://www. multiculturaladvantage. com/recruit/diversity/Diversity-in-the-Workplace-Benefits-Challenges-Solutions. asp

Part Two Chapter VII

VII Once the first impulse of spite had worn off, Samantha bitterly regretted inviting Gavin and Kay to dinner. She spent Friday morning joking with her assistant about the dreadful evening she was bound to have, but her mood plummeted once she had left Carly in charge of Over the Shoulder Boulder Holders (a name that had made Howard laugh so hard the first time he had heard it that it had brought on an asthma attack, and which made Shirley scowl whenever it was spoken in her presence). Driving back to Pagford ahead of the rush hour, so that she could shop for ingredients and start cooking, Samantha tried to cheer herself up by thinking of nasty questions to ask Gavin. Perhaps she might wonder aloud why Kay had not moved in with him: that would be a good one. Walking home from the Square with bulging Mollison and Lowe carrier bags in each hand, she came across Mary Fairbrother beside the cash-point machine in the wall of Barry's bank. ‘Mary, hi †¦ how are you?' Mary was thin and pale, with grey patches around her eyes. Their conversation was stilted and strange. They had not spoken since the journey in the ambulance, barring brief, awkward condolences at the funeral. ‘I've been meaning to drop in,' Mary said, ‘you were so kind – and I wanted to thank Miles – ‘ ‘No need,' Samantha said awkwardly. ‘Oh, but I'd like – ‘ ‘Oh, but then, please do – ‘ After Mary had walked away, Samantha had the awful feeling that she might have given the impression that that evening would be a perfect time for Mary to come round. Once home, she dropped the bags in the hall and telephoned Miles at work to tell him what she had done, but he displayed an infuriating equanimity about the prospect of adding a newly widowed woman to their foursome. ‘I can't see what the problem is, really,' he said. ‘Nice for Mary to get out.' ‘But I didn't say we were having Gavin and Kay over – ‘ ‘Mary likes Gav,' said Miles. ‘I wouldn't worry about it.' He was, Samantha thought, being deliberately obtuse, no doubt in retaliation for her refusal to go to Sweetlove House. After she had hung up, she wondered whether to call Mary to tell her not to come that evening, but she was afraid of sounding rude, and settled for hoping that Mary would find herself unequal to calling in after all. Stalking into the sitting room, she put on Libby's boy band DVD at full volume so that she would be able to hear it in the kitchen, then carried the bags through and set to work preparing a casserole and her fall-back pudding, Mississippi mud pie. She would have liked to buy one of Mollison and Lowe's large gateaux, to save herself some work, but it would have got straight back to Shirley, who frequently intimated that Samantha was over-reliant on frozen food and ready meals. Samantha knew the boy band DVD so well by now that she was able to visualize the images matching the music blaring through to the kitchen. Several times that week, while Miles was upstairs in his home study or on the telephone to Howard, she had watched it again. When she heard the opening bars of the track where the muscular boy walked, with his shirt flapping open, along the beach, she went through to watch in her apron, absent-mindedly sucking her chocolatey fingers. She had planned on having a long shower while Miles laid the table, forgetting that he would be late home, because he had to drive into Yarvil to pick up the girls from St Anne's. When Samantha realized why he had not returned, and that their daughters would be with him when he did, she had to fly around to organize the dining room herself, then find something to feed Lexie and Libby before the guests arrived. Miles found his wife in her work clothes at half-past seven, sweaty, cross and inclined to blame him for what had been her own idea. Fourteen-year-old Libby marched into the sitting room without greeting Samantha and removed the disc from the DVD player. ‘Oh, good, I was wondering what I'd done with that,' she said. ‘Why's the TV on? Have you been playing it?' Sometimes, Samantha thought that her younger daughter had a look of Shirley about her. ‘I was watching the news, Libby. I haven't got time to watch DVDs. Come through, your pizza's ready. We've got people coming round.' ‘Frozen pizza again?' ‘Miles! I need to change. Can you mash the potatoes for me? Miles?' But he had disappeared upstairs, so Samantha pounded the potatoes herself, while her daughters ate at the island in the middle of the kitchen. Libby had propped the DVD cover against her glass of Diet Pepsi, and was ogling it. ‘Mikey's so lush,' she said, with a carnal groan that took Samantha aback; but the muscular boy was called Jake. Samantha was glad they did not like the same one. Loud and confident Lexie was jabbering about school; a machine-gun torrent of information about girls whom Samantha did not know, with whose antics and feuds and regroupings she could not keep up. ‘All right, you two, I've got to change. Clear away when you're done, all right?' She turned down the heat under the casserole and hurried upstairs. Miles was buttoning up his shirt in the bedroom, watching himself in the wardrobe mirror. The whole room smelt of soap and aftershave. ‘Everything under control, hon?' ‘Yes, thanks. So glad you've had time to shower,' spat Samantha, pulling out her favourite long skirt and top, slamming the wardrobe door. ‘You could have one now.' ‘They'll be here in ten minutes; I won't have time to dry my hair and put on make-up.' She kicked off her shoes; one of them hit the radiator with a loud clang. ‘When you've finished preening, could you please go downstairs and sort out drinks?' After Miles had left the room, she tried to untangle her thick hair and repair her make-up. She looked awful. Only when she had changed did she realize that she was wearing the wrong bra for her clinging top. After a frantic search, she remembered that the right one was drying in the utility room; she hurried out onto the landing but the doorbell rang. Swearing, she scuttled back to the bedroom. The boy band's music was blaring out of Libby's room. Gavin and Kay had arrived on the dot of eight because Gavin was afraid of what Samantha might say if they turned up late; he could imagine her suggesting that they had lost track of time because they were shagging or that they must have had a row. She seemed to think that one of the perks of marriage was that it gave you rights of comment and intrusion over single people's love lives. She also thought that her crass, uninhibited way of talking, especially when drunk, constituted trenchant humour. ‘Hello-ello-ello,' said Miles, moving back to let Gavin and Kay inside. ‘Come in, come in. Welcome to Casa Mollison.' He kissed Kay on both cheeks and relieved her of the chocolates she was holding. ‘For us? Thanks very much. Lovely to meet you properly at last. Gav's been keeping you under wraps for far too long.' Miles shook the wine out of Gavin's hand, then clapped him on the back, which Gavin resented. ‘Come on through, Sam'll be down in a mo. What'll you have to drink?' Kay would ordinarily have found Miles rather smooth and over-familiar, but she was determined to suspend judgement. Couples had to mix with each other's circles, and manage to get along in them. This evening represented significant progress in her quest to infiltrate the layers of his life to which Gavin had never admitted her, and she wanted to show him that she was at home in the Mollisons' big, smug house, that there was no need to exclude her any more. So she smiled at Miles, asked for a red wine, and admired the spacious room with its stripped pine floorboards, its over-cushioned sofa and its framed prints. ‘Been here for, ooh, getting on for fourteen years,' said Miles, busy with the corkscrew. ‘You're down in Hope Street, aren't you? Nice little houses, some great fixer-upper opportunities down there.' Samantha appeared, smiling without warmth. Kay, who had previously seen her only in an overcoat, noted the tightness of her orange top, beneath which every detail of her lacy bra was clearly visible. Her face was even darker than her leathery chest; her eye make-up was thick and unflattering and her jangling gold earrings and high-heeled golden mules were, in Kay's opinion, tarty. Samantha struck her as the kind of woman who would have raucous girls' nights out, and find stripograms hilarious, and flirt drunkenly with everyone else's partner at parties. ‘Hi there,' said Samantha. She kissed Gavin and smiled at Kay. ‘Great, you've got drinks. I'll have the same as Kay, Miles.' She turned away to sit down, having already taken stock of the other woman's appearance: Kay was small-breasted and heavy-hipped, and had certainly chosen her black trousers to minimize the size of her bottom. She would have done better, in Samantha's opinion, to wear heels, given the shortness of her legs. Her face was attractive enough, with even-toned olive skin, large dark eyes and a generous mouth; but the closely cropped boy's hair and the resolutely flat shoes were undoubtedly pointers to certain sacrosanct Beliefs. Gavin had done it again: he had gone and picked another humourless, domineering woman who would make his life a misery. ‘So!' said Samantha brightly, raising her glass. ‘Gavin-and-Kay!' She saw, with satisfaction, Gavin's hangdog wince of a smile; but before she could make him squirm more or weasel private information out of them both to dangle over Shirley's and Maureen's heads, the doorbell rang again. Mary appeared fragile and angular, especially beside Miles, who ushered her into the room. Her T-shirt hung from protruding collarbones. ‘Oh,' she said, coming to a startled halt on the threshold. ‘I didn't realize you were having – ‘ ‘Gavin and Kay just dropped in,' said Samantha a little wildly. ‘Come in, Mary, please †¦ have a drink †¦' ‘Mary, this is Kay,' said Miles. ‘Kay, this is Mary Fairbrother.' ‘Oh,' said Kay, thrown; she had thought that it would only be the four of them. ‘Yes, hello.' Gavin, who could tell that Mary had not meant to drop in on a dinner party and was on the point of walking straight back out again, patted the sofa beside him; Mary sat down with a weak smile. He was overjoyed to see her. Here was his buffer; even Samantha must realize that her particular brand of prurience would be inappropriate in front of a bereaved woman; plus, the constrictive symmetry of a foursome had been broken up. ‘How are you?' he said quietly. ‘I was going to give you a ring, actually †¦ there've been developments with the insurance †¦' ‘Haven't we got any nibbles, Sam?' asked Miles. Samantha walked from the room, seething at Miles. The smell of scorched meat met her as she opened the kitchen door. ‘Oh shit, shit, shit †¦' She had completely forgotten the casserole, which had dried out. Desiccated chunks of meat and vegetables sat, forlorn survivors of the catastrophe, on the singed bottom of the pot. Samantha sloshed in wine and stock, chiselling the adhering bits off the pan with her spoon, stirring vigorously, sweating in the heat. Miles' high-pitched laugh rang out from the sitting room. Samantha put on long-stemmed broccoli to steam, drained her glass of wine, ripped open a bag of tortilla chips and a tub of hummus, and upended them into bowls. Mary and Gavin were still conversing quietly on the sofa when she returned to the sitting room, while Miles was showing Kay a framed aerial photograph of Pagford, and giving her a lesson in the town's history. Samantha set down the bowls on the coffee table, poured herself another drink and settled into the armchair, making no effort to join either conversation. It was awfully uncomfortable to have Mary there; with her grief hanging so heavily around her she might as well have walked in trailing a shroud. Surely, though, she would leave before dinner. Gavin was determined that Mary should stay. As they discussed the latest developments in their ongoing battle with the insurance company, he felt much more relaxed and in control than he usually did in Miles and Samantha's presence. Nobody was chipping away at him, or patronizing him, and Miles was absolving him temporarily of all responsibility for Kay. ‘†¦ and just here, just out of sight,' Miles was saying, pointing to a spot two inches past the frame of the picture, ‘you've got Sweetlove House, the Fawley place. Big Queen Anne manor house, dormers, stone quoins †¦ stunning, you should visit, it's open to the public on Sundays in the summer. Important family locally, the Fawleys.' ‘Stone quoins?' ‘Important family, locally?' God, you are an arse, Miles. Samantha hoisted herself out of her armchair and returned to the kitchen. Though the casserole was watery, the burnt flavour dominated. The broccoli was flaccid and tasteless; the mashed potato cool and dry. Past caring, she decanted it all into dishes and slammed it down on the circular dining-room table. ‘Dinner's ready!' she called at the sitting-room door. ‘Oh, I must go,' said Mary, jumping up. ‘I didn't mean – ‘ ‘No, no, no!' said Gavin, in a tone that Kay had never heard before: kindly and cajoling. ‘It'll do you good to eat – kids'll be all right for an hour.' Miles added his support and Mary looked uncertainly towards Samantha, who was forced to add her voice to theirs, then dashed back through into the dining room to lay another setting. She invited Mary to sit between Gavin and Miles, because placing her next to a woman seemed to emphasize her husband's absence. Kay and Miles had moved on to discussing social work. ‘I don't envy you,' he said, serving Kay a large ladle full of casserole; Samantha could see black, scorched flecks in the sauce spreading across the white plate. ‘Bloody difficult job.' ‘Well, we're perennially under-resourced,' said Kay, ‘but it can be satisfying, especially when you can feel you're making a difference.' And she thought of the Weedons. Terri's urine sample had tested negative at the clinic yesterday and Robbie had had a full week in nursery. The recollection cheered her, counterbalancing her slight irritation that Gavin's attention was still focused entirely on Mary; that he was doing nothing to help ease her conversation with his friends. ‘You've got a daughter, haven't you, Kay?' ‘That's right: Gaia. She's sixteen.' ‘Same age as Lexie; we should get them together,' said Miles. ‘Divorced?' asked Samantha delicately. ‘No,' said Kay. ‘We weren't married. He was a university boyfriend and we split up not long after she was born.' ‘Yeah, Miles and I had barely left university ourselves,' said Samantha. Kay did not know whether Samantha meant to draw a distinction between herself, who had married the big smug father of her children, and Kay, who had been left †¦ not that Samantha could know that Brendan had left her †¦ ‘Gaia's taken a Saturday job with your father, actually,' Kay told Miles. ‘At the new cafe.' Miles was delighted. He took enormous pleasure in the idea that he and Howard were so much part of the fabric of the place that everybody in Pagford was connected to them, whether as friend or client, customer or employee. Gavin, who was chewing and chewing on a bit of rubbery meat that was refusing to yield to his teeth, experienced a further lowering in the pit of his stomach. It was news to him that Gaia had taken a job with Miles' father. Somehow he had forgotten that Kay possessed in Gaia another powerful device for anchoring herself to Pagford. When not in the immediate vicinity of her slamming doors, her vicious looks and caustic asides, Gavin tended to forget that Gaia had any independent existence at all; that she was not simply part of the uncomfortable backdrop of stale sheets, bad cooking and festering grudges against which his relationship with Kay staggered on. ‘Does Gaia like Pagford?' Samantha asked. ‘Well, it's a bit quiet compared to Hackney,' said Kay, ‘but she's settling in well.' She took a large gulp of wine to wash out her mouth after disgorging the enormous lie. There had been yet another row before leaving tonight. (‘What's the matter with you?' Kay had asked, while Gaia sat at the kitchen table, hunched over her laptop, wearing a dressing gown over her clothes. Four or five boxes of dialogue were open on the screen. Kay knew that Gaia was communicating online with the friends she had left behind in Hackney, friends she had had, in most cases, since she had been in primary school. ‘Gaia?' Refusal to answer was new and ominous. Kay was used to explosions of bile and rage against herself and, particularly, Gavin. ‘Gaia, I'm talking to you.' ‘I know, I can hear you.' ‘Then kindly have the courtesy to answer me back.' Black dialogue jerked upwards in the boxes on the screen, funny little icons, blinking and waggling. ‘Gaia, please will you answer me?' ‘What? What do you want?' ‘I'm trying to ask about your day.' ‘My day was shit. Yesterday was shit. Tomorrow will be shit as well.' ‘When did you get home?' ‘The same time I always get home.' Sometimes, even after all these years, Gaia displayed resentment at having to let herself in, at Kay not being at home to meet her like a storybook mother. ‘Do you want to tell me why your day was shit?' ‘Because you dragged me to live in a shithole.' Kay willed herself not to shout. Lately there had been screaming matches that she was sure the whole street had heard. ‘You know that I'm going out with Gavin tonight?' Gaia muttered something Kay did not catch. ‘What?' ‘I said, I didn't think he liked taking you out.' ‘What's that supposed to mean?' But Gaia did not answer; she simply typed a response into one of the scrolling conversations on the screen. Kay vacillated, both wanting to press her and afraid of what she might hear. ‘We'll be back around midnight, I expect.' Gaia had not responded. Kay had gone to wait for Gavin in the hall.) ‘Gaia's made friends,' Kay told Miles, ‘with a girl who lives in this street; what's her name – Narinder?' ‘Sukhvinder,' said Miles and Samantha together. ‘She's a nice girl,' said Mary. ‘Have you met her father?' Samantha asked Kay. ‘No,' said Kay. ‘He's a heart surgeon,' said Samantha, who was on her fourth glass of wine. ‘Absolutely bloody gorgeous.' ‘Oh,' said Kay. ‘Like a Bollywood film star.' None of them, Samantha reflected, had bothered to tell her that dinner was tasty, which would have been simple politeness, even though it was awful. If she wasn't allowed to torment Gavin, she ought at least to be able to needle Miles. ‘Vikram's the only good thing about living in this godforsaken town, I can tell you,' said Samantha. ‘Sex on legs.' ‘And his wife's our local GP,' said Miles, ‘and a parish councillor. You'll be employed by Yarvil District Council, Kay, are you?' ‘That's right,' said Kay. ‘But I spend most of my time in the Fields. They're technically in Pagford Parish, aren't they?' Not the Fields, thought Samantha, Oh, don't mention the bloody Fields. ‘Ah,' said Miles, with a meaningful smile. ‘Yes, well, the Fields do belong to Pagford, technically. Technically, they do. Painful subject, Kay.' ‘Really? Why?' asked Kay, hoping to make conversation general, because Gavin was still talking in an undertone to the widow. ‘Well, you see – this is back in the fifties.' Miles seemed to be embarking on a well-rehearsed speech. ‘Yarvil wanted to expand the Cantermill Estate, and instead of building out to the west, where the bypass is now – ‘ ‘Gavin? Mary? More wine?' Samantha called over Miles. ‘ – they were a little bit duplicitous; land was bought without it being very clear what they wanted it for, and then they went and expanded the estate over the border into Pagford Parish.' ‘Why aren't you mentioning Old Aubrey Fawley, Miles?' asked Samantha. She had, at last, reached that delicious point of intoxication where her tongue became wicked and she became disengaged from fear of consequences, eager to provoke and to irritate, seeking nothing but her own amusement. ‘The truth is that Old Aubrey Fawley, who used to own all those lovely stone quoits, or whatever Miles was telling you about, did a deal behind everyone's backs – ‘ ‘That's not fair, Sam,' said Miles, but she talked over him again. ‘ – he flogged off the land where the Fields are built, pocketed, I don't know, must have been a quarter of a mill or so – ‘ ‘Don't talk rubbish, Sam, back in the fifties?' ‘ – but then, once he realized everyone was pissed off with him, he pretended he hadn't known it would cause trouble. Upper-class twit. And a drunk,' added Samantha. ‘Simply not true, I'm afraid,' Miles said firmly. ‘To fully understand the problem, Kay, you need to appreciate a bit of local history.' Samantha, holding her chin in her hand, pretended to slide her elbow off the table in boredom. Though she could not like Samantha, Kay laughed, and Gavin and Mary broke off their quiet conversation. ‘We're talking about the Fields,' said Kay, in a tone intended to remind Gavin that she was there; that he ought to be giving her moral support. Miles, Samantha and Gavin realized simultaneously that the Fields was a most tactless subject to raise in front of Mary, when they had been such a bone of contention between Barry and Howard. ‘Apparently they're a bit of a sore subject locally,' said Kay, wanting to force Gavin to express a view, to rope him in. ‘Mmm,' he replied, and turning back to Mary, he said, ‘So how's Declan's football coming on?' Kay experienced a powerful stab of fury: Mary might be recently bereaved, but Gavin's solicitousness seemed unnecessarily pointed. She had imagined this evening quite differently: a foursome in which Gavin would have to acknowledge that they really were a couple; yet nobody looking on would imagine that they enjoyed a closer relationship than acquaintanceship. Also, the food was horrible. Kay put her knife and fork together with three-quarters of her helping untouched – an act that was not lost on Samantha – and addressed Miles again. ‘Did you grow up in Pagford?' ‘Afraid so,' said Miles, smiling complacently. ‘Born in the old Kelland Hospital along the road. They closed it in the eighties.' ‘And you? – ‘ Kay asked Samantha, who cut across her. ‘God, no. I'm here by accident.' ‘Sorry, I don't know what you do, Samantha?' asked Kay. ‘I've got my own busi – ‘ ‘She sells outsize bras,' said Miles. Samantha got up abruptly and went to fetch another bottle of wine. When she returned to the table, Miles was telling Kay the humorous anecdote, doubtless intended to illustrate how everyone knew everyone in Pagford, of how he had been pulled over in the car one night by a policeman who turned out to be a friend he had known since primary school. The blow-by-blow re-enactment of the banter between himself and Steve Edwards was tediously familiar to Samantha. As she moved around the table replenishing all the glasses, she watched Kay's austere expression; evidently, Kay did not find drink-driving a laughing matter. ‘†¦ so Steve's holding out the breathalyser, and I'm about to blow in it, and out of nowhere we both start cracking up. His partner's got no idea what the hell's going on; he's like this' – Miles mimed a man turning his head from side to side in astonishment – ‘and Steve's bent double, pissing himself, because all we can think of is the last time he was holding something steady for me to blow into, which was nigh on twenty years ago, and – ‘ ‘It was a blow-up doll,' said Samantha, unsmiling, dropping back into her seat beside Miles. ‘Miles and Steve put it in their friend Ian's parents' bed, during Ian's eighteenth-birthday party. Anyway, in the end Miles was fined a grand and got three points on his licence, because it was the second time he'd been caught over the limit. So that was hysterically funny.' Miles' grin remained foolishly in place, like a limp balloon forgotten after a party. A stiff little chill seemed to blow through the temporarily silent room. Though Miles struck her as an almighty bore, Kay was on his side: he was the only one at the table who seemed remotely inclined to ease her passage into Pagford social life. ‘I must say, the Fields are pretty rough,' she said, reverting to the subject with which Miles seemed most comfortable, and still ignorant that it was in any way inauspicious within Mary's vicinity. ‘I've worked in the inner cities; I didn't expect to see that kind of deprivation in a rural area, but it's not all that different from London. Less of an ethnic mix, of course.' ‘Oh, yes, we've got our share of addicts and wasters,' said Miles. ‘I think that's about all I can manage, Sam,' he added, pushing his plate away from him with a sizeable amount of food still on it. Samantha started to clear the table; Mary got up to help. ‘No, no, it's fine, Mary, you relax,' Samantha said. To Kay's annoyance, Gavin jumped up too, chivalrously insisting on Mary's sitting back down, but Mary insisted too. ‘That was lovely, Sam,' said Mary, in the kitchen, as they scraped most of the food into the bin. ‘No, it wasn't, it was horrible,' said Samantha, who was only appreciating how drunk she was now that she was on her feet. ‘What do you think of Kay?' ‘I don't know. She's not what I expected,' said Mary. ‘She's exactly what I expected,' said Samantha, taking out plates for pudding. ‘She's another Lisa, if you ask me.' ‘Oh, no, don't say that,' said Mary. ‘He deserves someone nice this time.' This was a most novel point of view to Samantha, who was of the opinion that Gavin's wetness merited constant punishment. They returned to the dining room to find an animated conversation in progress between Kay and Miles, while Gavin sat in silence. ‘†¦ offload responsibility for them, which seems to me to be a pretty self-centred and self-satisfied – ‘ ‘Well, I think it's interesting that you use the word â€Å"responsibility†,' said Miles, ‘because I think that goes to the very heart of the problem, doesn't it? The question is, where exactly do we draw the line?' ‘Beyond the Fields, apparently.' Kay laughed, with condescension. ‘You want to draw a line neatly between the home-owning middle classes and the lower – ‘ ‘Pagford's full of working-class people, Kay; the difference is, most of them work. D'you know what proportion of the Fields lives off benefits? Responsibility, you say: what happened to personal responsibility? We've had them through the local school for years: kids who haven't got a single worker in the family; the concept of earning a living is completely foreign to them; generations of non-workers, and we're expected to subsidize them – ‘ ‘So your solution is to shunt off the problem onto Yarvil,' said Kay, ‘not to engage with any of the underlying – ‘ ‘Mississippi mud pie?' called Samantha. Gavin and Mary took slices with thanks; Kay, to Samantha's fury, simply held out her plate as though Samantha were a waitress, her attention all on Miles. ‘†¦ the addiction clinic, which is absolutely crucial, and which certain people are apparently lobbying to close – ‘ ‘Oh, well, if you're talking about Bellchapel,' said Miles, shaking his head and smirking, ‘I hope you've mugged up on what the success rates are, Kay. Pathetic, frankly, absolutely pathetic. I've seen the figures, I was going through them this morning, and I won't lie to you, the sooner they close – ‘ ‘And the figures you're talking about are †¦?' ‘Success rates, Kay, exactly what I said: the number of people who have actually stopped using drugs, gone clean – ‘ ‘I'm sorry, but that's a very naive point of view; if you're going to judge success purely – ‘ ‘But how on earth else are we supposed to judge an addiction clinic's success?' demanded Miles, incredulous. ‘As far as I can tell, all they do at Bellchapel is dole out methadone, which half of their clients use alongside heroin anyway.' ‘The whole problem of addiction is immensely complicated,' said Kay, ‘and it's naive and simplistic to put the problem purely in terms of users and non †¦' But Miles was shaking his head, smiling; Kay, who had been enjoying her verbal duel with this self-satisfied lawyer, was suddenly angry. ‘Well, I can give you a very concrete example of what Bellchapel's doing: one family I'm working with – mother, teenage daughter and small son – if the mother wasn't on methadone, she'd be on the streets trying to pay for her habit; the kids are immeasurably better off – ‘ ‘They'd be better off away from their mother, by the sound of it,' said Miles. ‘And where exactly would you propose they go?' ‘A decent foster home would be a good start,' said Miles. ‘Do you know how many foster homes there are, against how many kids needing them?' asked Kay. ‘The best solution would have been to have them adopted at birth – ‘ ‘Fabulous. I'll hop in my time machine,' retorted Kay. ‘Well, we know a couple who were desperate to adopt,' said Samantha, unexpectedly throwing her weight behind Miles. She would not forgive Kay for the rude outstretched plate; the woman was bolshy and patronizing, exactly like Lisa, who had monopolized every get-together with her political views and her job in family law, despising Samantha for owning a bra shop. ‘Adam and Janice,' she reminded Miles in parenthesis, who nodded; ‘and they couldn't get a baby for love nor money, could they?' ‘Yes, a baby,' said Kay, rolling her eyes, ‘everybody wants a baby. Robbie's nearly four. He's not potty-trained, he's developmentally behind for his age and he's almost certainly had inappropriate exposure to sexual behaviour. Would your friends like to adopt him?' ‘But the point is, if he'd been taken from his mother at birth – ‘ ‘She was off the drugs when he was born, and making good progress,' said Kay. ‘She loved him and wanted to keep him, and she was meeting his needs at the time. She'd already raised Krystal, with some family support – ‘ ‘Krystal!' shrieked Samantha. ‘Oh my God, are we talking about the Weedons?' Kay was horrified that she had used names; it had never mattered in London, but everyone truly did know everyone in Pagford, it seemed. ‘I shouldn't have – ‘ But Miles and Samantha were laughing, and Mary looked tense. Kay, who had not touched her pie, and had managed very little of the first course, realized that she had drunk too much; she had been sipping wine steadily out of nerves, and now she had committed a prime indiscretion. Still, it was too late to undo that; anger overrode every other consideration. ‘Krystal Weedon is no advert for that woman's mothering skills,' said Miles. ‘Krystal's trying her damnedest to hold her family together,' said Kay. ‘She loves her little brother very much; she's terrified he'll be taken away – ‘ ‘I wouldn't trust Krystal Weedon to look after a boiling egg,' said Miles, and Samantha laughed again. ‘Oh, look, it's to her credit she loves her brother, but he isn't a cuddly toy – ‘ ‘Yes, I know that,' snapped Kay, remembering Robbie's shitty, crusted bottom, ‘but he's still loved.' ‘Krystal bullied our daughter Lexie,' said Samantha, ‘so we've seen a different side of her to the one I'm sure she shows you.' ‘Look, we all know Krystal's had a rough deal,' said Miles, ‘nobody's denying that. It's the drug-addled mother I've got an issue with.' ‘As a matter of fact, she's doing very well on the Bellchapel programme at the moment.' ‘But with her history,' said Miles, ‘it isn't rocket science, is it, to guess that she'll relapse?' ‘If you apply that rule across the board, you ought not to have a driving licence, because with your history you're bound to drink and drive again.' Miles was temporarily baffled, but Samantha said coldly, ‘I think that's a rather different thing.' ‘Do you?' said Kay. ‘It's the same principle.' ‘Yes, well, principles are sometimes the problem, if you ask me,' said Miles. ‘Often what's needed is a bit of common sense.' ‘Which is the name people usually give to their prejudices,' rejoined Kay. ‘According to Nietzsche,' said a sharp new voice, making them all jump, ‘philosophy is the biography of the philosopher.' A miniature Samantha stood at the door into the hall, a busty girl of around sixteen in tight jeans and a T-shirt; she was eating a handful of grapes and looking rather pleased with herself. ‘Everyone meet Lexie,' said Miles proudly. ‘Thank you for that, genius.' ‘You're welcome,' said Lexie pertly, and she swept off upstairs. A heavy silence sank over the table. Without really knowing why, Samantha, Miles and Kay all glanced towards Mary, who looked as though she might be on the verge of tears. ‘Coffee,' said Samantha, lurching to her feet. Mary disappeared into the bathroom. ‘Let's go and sit through,' said Miles, conscious that the atmosphere was somewhat charged, but confident that he could, with a few jokes and his habitual bonhomie, steer everyone back into charity with each other. ‘Bring your glasses.' His inner certainties had been no more rearranged by Kay's arguments than a breeze can move a boulder; yet his feeling towards her was not unkind, but rather pitying. He was the least intoxicated by the constant refilling of glasses, but on reaching the sitting room he realized how very full his bladder was. ‘Whack on some music, Gav, and I'll go and get those choccies.' But Gavin made no move towards the vertical stacks of CDs in their sleek Perspex stands. He seemed to be waiting for Kay to start on him. Sure enough, as soon as Miles had vanished from sight, Kay said, ‘Well, thank you very much, Gav. Thanks for all the support.' Gavin had drunk even more greedily than Kay throughout dinner, enjoying his own private celebration that he had not, after all, been offered up as a sacrifice to Samantha's gladiatorial bullying. He faced Kay squarely, full of a courage born not only of wine but because he had been treated for an hour as somebody important, knowledgeable and supportive, by Mary. ‘You seemed to be doing OK on your own,' he said. Indeed, the little he had permitted himself to hear of Kay and Miles' argument had given him a pronounced sense of deja vu; if he had not had Mary to distract him, he might have fancied himself back on that famous evening, in the identical dining room, when Lisa had told Miles that he epitomized all that was wrong with society, and Miles had laughed in her face, and Lisa had lost her temper and refused to stay for coffee. It was not very long after, that Lisa had admitted that she was sleeping with an associate partner at her firm and advised Gavin to get tested for chlamydia. ‘I don't know any of these people,' said Kay, ‘and you haven't done one damn thing to make it any easier for me, have you?' ‘What did you want me to do?' asked Gavin. He was wonderfully calm, insulated by the imminent returns of the Mollisons and Mary, and by the copious amounts of Chianti he had consumed. ‘I didn't want an argument about the Fields. I don't give a monkey's about the Fields. Plus,' he added, ‘it's a touchy subject around Mary; Barry was fighting on the council to keep the Fields part of Pagford.' ‘Well, then, why couldn't you have told me – given me a hint?' He laughed, exactly as Miles had laughed at her. Before she could retort, the others returned like the Magi bearing gifts: Samantha carrying a tray of cups, followed by Mary holding the cafetiere, and Miles, with Kay's chocolates. Kay saw the flamboyant gold ribbon on the box and remembered how optimistic she had been about tonight when she had bought them. She turned her face away, trying to hide her anger, frantic with the desire to shout at Gavin, and also with a sudden, shocking urge to cry. ‘It's been so nice,' she heard Mary say, in a thick voice that suggested she, too, might have been crying, ‘but I won't stay for coffee, I don't want to be late back; Declan's a bit †¦ a bit unsettled at the moment. Thanks so much, Sam, Miles, it's been good to, you know †¦ well, get out for a bit.' ‘I'll walk you up the – ‘ Miles began, but Gavin was talking firmly over him. ‘You stay here, Miles; I'll see Mary back. I'll walk you up the road, Mary. It'll only take five minutes. It's dark up the top there.' Kay was barely breathing; all her being was concentrated in loathing of complacent Miles, tarty Samantha and fragile, drooping Mary, but most of all of Gavin himself. ‘Oh, yes,' she heard herself saying, as everybody seemed to look towards her for permission, ‘yep, you see Mary home, Gav.' She heard the front door close and Gavin had gone. Miles was pouring Kay's coffee. She watched the stream of hot black liquid fall, and felt suddenly, painfully alive to what she had risked in overthrowing her life for the man walking away into the night with another woman.