Advertisements Information Or Manipulation Media Essay

Advertisements Information Or Manipulation Media Essay These are some of the common advertisements that we can see and hear in our everyday life. Advertisement according to oxforddictionaries.com means that a notice or announcement in a public medium promoting a product, service, or event or publicizing a job vacancy. Advertisements are everywhere around us. Whether we noticed it or not, it has been long existed. In fact in Egyptian time, they used papyrus to make sales messages and wall posters to attract the consumers. With todays advancement of the media, the numbers of magazines increasing, newspapers, TVs and radio stations, people are bombarded with thousands of advertising daily. Advertising is in fact important because it creates awareness to the consumers about products that are available in the market. With the presence of the advertisement, it helps to increase the demand for a certain products. It also let the consumer to choose from a number of products available in the market. But does all these advertisement really give the information to the consumers or just plain tactics to manipulate us to buy or use the services? A lot of the advertisements nowadays are actually manipulating us rather than giving us the real information. The advertisers are in fact intelligent people. They know that normal advertisements that only contain facts are plain boring and seem dull. Therefore they created fantasies to make the advertisement look more appealing. We can clearly see that most advertisement created used our desire, such as sports, sexy women and superstars so that we become attracted and intend to purchase them. As an example this one commercial about a deodorant, AXE, that being use by this man. After he uses it, he is able to attract hot and sexy women towards him. People are being trick by such advertisement and they started to buy these products. After they put it on, they feel as they are the same as in the commercial. This clearly shows that they are playing with our emotions. Think wisely why they use such act. Does this have connections with the quality of the product they release to the market? We consumers should be more cautious to the method used in order to prevent us from being manipulated by the advertisers. Be alert that the advertisers worldwide are succeeding in making people change their lifestyle. In this case, they know that popular artist can play their role in making people especially their fans to follow their way. For example popular artist from Japan, Gazette. Their appearances: clothes that they are wearing and their hairstyle, are so cool that many fan decided to follow their style. By using such influence, most people dont mind in spending their money just to be same as their idol. Doing this kind of advertisements is in fact quite expensive. However, they are prepared to spend a lot of money in the advertising so that they can sell their products. It has been estimated that the price of a product may go up over to 40% due to advertisement costs. Still, due to the success of manipulating the consumers, the advertisers get a lot of money. As an example, according to Welt-Online, they reported that the US pharmaceutical industry spent almost double the amount on advertising ( 57.7 billion dollars) than it did on research (31.5 billion dollars). Yet few consumers noticed that they are the ones paying for every cent the US pharmaceutical spent for public relations, advertisements, rebates, packaging since they ordinarily get included in the price calculation. In the end the consumers will pay more to them while the advertisers gain more profits. Another interesting fact is that they also know how to attract people according their age group. In one case, they try to persuade a group of age between below 8 years old. According to American Psychological Association, they found out that young children are unable to understand and interpret televised advertising messages wisely and thus are likely to consider commercials as truthful, accurate and unbiased. This can lead to many problems like unhealthy eating habits as evidenced by todays youth obesity epidemic. The young children also being targeted as they can also persuade their parents to buy the things that they are being attracted to like toys, sweets and ice cream. One successful commercial like the car models from Hot Wheels where they had successfully sell thousands of their toys. As the children are unable to think wisely it is more likely easier to manipulate them by putting more of what they desire in the advertisement rather than supplying information. On one research , it is found that advertisers had spent more than $12 billion a year on messages aimed at the youth market. The average child watches more than 40,000 television commercials a year. This clearly shows just how they are willing to spend money in order manipulate the consumers rather than giving them much more useful information. The young ones are also not the only one being targeted by the advertisers. Todays adolescences are also being seduced by them. Most male adolescence love sports especially football. The advertisers take this chance by using the football stars in their commercial to market their product. It is likely of us nowadays to follow our idol way. No wonder some brands become top in their games as they are able to increase their selling products and gain more profit. One example of one popular brand company, Nike, where they hired Lebron James, a professional NBA player to be one of their ambassadors. The female adolescences also being manipulate by the advertisement. Not being biased but the female is most likely easy to be trick by certain advertisement. Just see how many women are willing to spend their money and time just for shopping. Younger women especially in Malaysia nowadays are attracted and had followed the Japanese style which also known as the Harajuku style that have been started by some of the popular artist like Ayumi Hamasaki and Kumi Koda.It is likely of them to answer like this: Well, this is the latest trend for the season. They buy things like clothes that are being considered popular for the season. Rather than What should I wear today? it has become What trend must I wear for today?. Not only just clothing, even other things like hairstyle, shoes and even skin color are being considered. It makes us set our mind that it is more important to look good rather than the real purpose of wearing clothes. This proves that advertisement manipulate rather than giving information. The advertisers also use tactics like the linking of sporting heroes and smoking through sports sponsorship, the use of cigarettes by popular characters in television programs and cigarette promotions. Like what is happening in India, as the actors smoke, the viewer intend to do the same thing as they feel it is macho to smoke. People rarely think deeply on the effect that might be faced by them on long term side as they think only for short time. Same thing goes to other products like alcohol drinks. The consumption of alcohol is being glamorized and shown without consequences in advertisements, music, magazines, television programs and even in movies. With the media overwhelmed by these kind of advertisements, no wonder more people especially the youngster below aged drink, even though the fact that alcohol bring harmful to the human body. Not all advertisement told the truth. Some of it sometimes hides the real information or facts that are supposed to be told to the consumers. In fact they are just sweet talk so that people will be attracted to what they offer. For example advertisement about shampoo that can make the hair smooth and straight. As nowadays people are eager to have such hair, they are easily influence by these kind of commercial and purchase the product without knowing the fact whether it really do make the hair to be as what they desire for or just bluffing. On top of hiding the real information they also send a blurry fact to the consumers. Just like a fog or mist that we encounter in the early morning, we cant see clearly of what we are facing in front of us. We are not sure whether it is safe or danger in front of us. This implies just the same as the blurry advertisement. It may be good for us and it may be the opposite. In summary, advertisement do contain both information and at the same time trying to manipulate the consumers. However based on the points given earlier, it clearly shows that most advertisement are actually manipulating the consumer rather than giving them full information on certain things. To prevent this from happening, the government should regulate on which advertisements are appropriate to be shown in the mass media so that less consumers are being trick by these kind of advertisement. Still, it is up to the consumers to be alert on what is happening so that they would be cheated easily by some advertisements. Work Cited: Advertising, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising [retrieved 7 September] Criticism of Advertising, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_advertising [retrieved 9 September] ADVERTISING: Information or Manipulation? http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2010/05/advertising-information-or-manipulation/ [retrieved 9 September] Information or Manipulation? Regulators Urged to Further Limit Ads Aimed at Children http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A659-2004Feb23.html [retrieved 12 September] ADVERTISEMENTS:Manipulation of innocent people http://isariamwende.blogspot.com/2005/05/advertisements-manipulation-of.html [retrieved 14 September] Power of advertising http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2010/4/13/lifefocus/6018920sec=lifefocus [retrieved 14 September]

Is life in prison without parole better than the death penalty? Essay

This is it, this is the last time you will ever see daylight again. The dim light of the outside world seems to be overtaken by shadows. You squeeze your eyes shut, and then everything goes dark. That is the death penalty. What exactly is the death penalty? In the dictionary, it is defined as, â€Å"the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offense.† What the death penalty itself serves is retribution and revenge. Many believe that this is the right way to punish criminals in society, although there are many faults with capital punishment as well. Those faults consist of errors in the system, state costs, and the risks of executions of innocent people. Life in prison without parole is better than the death penalty where the death penalty is the foundation in injustice and it is immoral. People supporting the death penalty often argue that capital punishment is required not only for retributive reasons but rather to prevent the taking of innocent lives. Cass R. Sunstein, Professor of Law at Harvard University Law School, and Adrian Vermeule, another professor at Harvard Law School said â€Å"A leading national study suggests that each execution prevents some eighteen murders on average.† What my question is, how does taking away a criminals life prevent a life of an innocent being taken away? Killing a culprit does not prevent murders from happening, because there are still killers outside of jail. Death row does not prevent homicide happening in the outside world. The death penalty is no more effective in deterring others than life sentences. Life without parole also prevents reoffending. It means what it says, spending the rest of your life locked up, knowing you’ll never be free. Leading up to my next point, life without parole costs less than the de ath penalty. The death penalty is much more expensive than life without parole. It requires a long process for capital cases, which is needed in order to make sure that innocent individuals are not executed for crimes they did not commit. If the death penalty was replaced with a sentence of life without parole, which costs millions of dollars less, a lot of money could be saved  for useful necessities. The millions of dollars could be spent on education, roads, programs, and more. Capital punishment is time consuming and expensive than the typical crime cases. Speaking of the innocent, my next point, an innocent person serving life can be released from death row. The system can make tragic mistakes. According to the editorial â€Å"There is No ‘Humane’ Execution†, since 1973, 139 people have been released from death row because they were proven innocent said by the Death Penalty Information Center. We’ll never know for sure how many people have been executed for crimes they didn’t commit. DNA is rarely available in homicides, often irrelevant and can’t guarantee we won’t execute innocent people. A number of innocent people have had to been put to death, which contradicts with the true meaning of justice. Leading to my final point, that capital punishment is immoral and is foundation of injustice. It is barbaric that people siding with capital punishment consider it moral. If anything, death penalty contradicts the true meaning of justice. In the article â€Å"Is Life in Prison without Parole a Better Option than Death Penalty?† John P. Conrad, former Chief of Center for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation at the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice said â€Å"I hold that the execution of the most contemptible murderer conflicts with the true functions of retributive justice- the repudiation of evil done and the prospective reconciliation of the criminal with the community he has wronged.† Capital punishment is immoral and unfair and discriminatory in practice. No one deserves to die. In civilized society, we reject the principle of literally doing to criminals what they do to their victims. For instance, if the culprit’s crime was rape, his punishment cannot literally be rape. We shouldn’t punish the murderer with death. Capit al punishment shows what an uncivilized and immoral society we are. The sentence of capital punishment is a barbaric action for punishment a criminal. Murder is unacceptable by society, yet people seem to approve killing criminals. Sentencing a criminal to death does not solve the questions and problems left behind, it just creates controversy. Capital punishment is wrongly practiced and immoral and the wrong way to punish  criminals. Life in prison without parole is a much better option, whereas capital punishment is just a way to seek revenge on the individual who would rather have the darkness of a solitary than not to see the dark at all.

Practical Demonkeeping Chapter 26

26 TRAVIS'S STORY Augustus Brine sat in one of the big leather chairs in front of his fireplace, drinking red wine from a balloon goblet and puffing away on his meerschaum. He had promised himself that he would have only one glass of wine, just to take the edge off the adrenaline and caffeine jangle he had worked himself into during the kidnapping. Now he was on his third glass and the wine had infused him with a warm, oozy feeling; he let his mind drift in a dreamy vertigo before attacking the task at hand: interrogating the demonkeeper. The fellow looked harmless enough, propped up and tied to the other wing chair. But if Gian Hen Gian was to be believed, this dark young man was the most dangerous human on Earth. Brine considered washing up before waking the demonkeeper. He had caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror – his beard and clothing covered with flour and soot, his skin caked with sweat-streaked goo – and decided that he would make a more intimidating impression in his current condition. He had found the smelling salts in the medicine cabinet and sent Gian Hen Gian to the bathroom to bathe while he rested. Actually he wanted the Djinn out of the room while he questioned the demonkeeper. The Djinn's curses and ravings would only complicate an already difficult task. Brine set his wineglass and his pipe on the end table and picked up a cotton-wrapped smelling-salt capsule. He leaned over to the demonkeeper and snapped the capsule under his nose. For a moment nothing happened, and Brine feared that he had hit him too hard, then the demonkeeper started coughing, looked at Brine, and screamed. â€Å"Calm down – you're all right,† Brine said. â€Å"Catch, help me!† The demonkeeper struggled against his bonds. Brine picked up his pipe and lit it, affecting a bored nonchalance. After a moment the demonkeeper settled down. Brine blew a thin stream of smoke into the air between them. â€Å"Catch isn't here. You're on your own.† Travis seemed to forget that he had been beaten, kidnapped, and tied up. His concentration was focused on Brine's last statement. â€Å"What do you mean, Catch isn't here? You know about Catch?† Brine considered giving him the I'm-asking-the-questions-here line that he had heard so many times in detective movies, but upon reflection, it seemed silly. He wasn't a hardass; why play the role? â€Å"Yes, I know about the demon. I know that he eats people, and I know you are his master.† â€Å"How do you know all that?† â€Å"It doesn't matter,† Brine said. â€Å"I also know that you've lost control of Catch.† â€Å"I have?† Travis seemed genuinely shaken by this. â€Å"Look, I don't know who you are, but you can't keep me here. If Catch is out of control again, I'm the only one that can stop him. I'm really close to ending all this; you can't stop me now.† â€Å"Why should you care?† â€Å"What do you mean, why should I care? You might know about Catch, but you can't imagine what he's like when he's out of control.† â€Å"What I mean,† Brine said, â€Å"is why should you care about the damage he causes? You called him up, didn't you? You send him out to kill, don't you?† Travis shook his head violently. â€Å"You don't understand. I'm not what you think. I never wanted this, and now I have a chance to stop it. Let me go. I can end it.† â€Å"Why should I trust you? You're a murderer.† â€Å"No. Catch is.† â€Å"What's the difference? If I do let you go, it will be because you will have told me what I want to know, and how I can use that information. Now I'll listen and you'll talk.† â€Å"I can't tell you anything. And you don't want to know anyway, I promise you.† â€Å"I want to know where the Seal of Solomon is. And I want to know the incantation that sends Catch back. Until I know, you're not going anywhere.† â€Å"Seal of Solomon? I don't know what you're talking about.† â€Å"Look – what is your name, anyway?† â€Å"Travis.† â€Å"Look, Travis,† Brine said, â€Å"my associate wants to use torture. I don't like the idea, but if you jerk me around, torture might be the only way to go.† â€Å"Don't you have to have two guys to play good cop, bad cop?† â€Å"My associate is taking a bath. I wanted to see if I could reason with you before I let him near you. I really don't know what he's capable of†¦ I'm not even sure what he is. So if we could get on with this, it would be better for the both of us.† â€Å"Where's Jenny?† Travis asked. â€Å"She's fine. She's at work.† â€Å"You won't hurt her?† â€Å"I'm not some kind of terrorist, Travis. I didn't ask to be involved in this, but I am. I don't want to hurt you, and I would never hurt Jenny. She's a friend of mine.† â€Å"So if I tell you what I know, you'll let me go?† â€Å"That's the deal. But I'll have to make sure that what you tell me is true.† Brine relaxed. This young man didn't seem to have any of the qualities of a mass murderer. If anything, he seemed a little naive. â€Å"Okay, I'll tell you everything I know about Catch and the incantations, but I swear to you, I don't know anything about any Seal of Solomon. It's a pretty strange story.† â€Å"I guessed that,† Brine said. â€Å"Shoot.† He poured himself a glass of wine, relit his pipe, and sat back, propping his feet up on the hearth. â€Å"Like I said, it's a pretty strange story.† â€Å"Strange is my middle name,† Brine said. â€Å"That must have been difficult for you as a child,† Travis said. â€Å"Would you get on with it.† â€Å"You asked for it.† Travis took a deep breath. â€Å"I was born in Clarion, Pennsylvania, in the year nineteen hundred.† â€Å"Bullshit,† Brine interrupted. â€Å"You're not a day over twenty-five.† â€Å"This is going to take a lot more time if I have to keep stopping. Just listen – it'll all fall into place.† Brine grumbled and nodded for Travis to continue. â€Å"I was born on a farm. My parents were Irish immigrants, black Irish. I was the oldest of six children, two boys and four girls. My parents were staunch Catholics. My mother wanted me to be a priest. She pushed me to study so I could get into seminary. She was working on the local diocese to recommend me while I was still in the womb. When World War I broke out, she begged the bishop to get me into seminary early. Everybody knew it was just a matter of time before America entered the war. My mother wanted me in seminary before the Army could draft me. Boys from secular colleges were already in Europe, driving ambulances, and some of them had been killed. My mother wasn't going to lose her chance to have a son become a priest to something as insignificant as a world war. You see, my little brother was a bit slow – mentally, I mean. I was my mother's only chance.† â€Å"So you went to seminary,† Brine interjected. He was becoming impatient with the progress of the story. â€Å"I went in at sixteen, which made me at least four years younger than the other boys. My mother packed me some sandwiches, and I packed myself into a threadbare black suit that was three sizes too small for me and I was on the train to Illinois. â€Å"You have to understand, I didn't want any part of this stuff with the demon; I really wanted to be a priest. Of all the people I had known as a child, the priest seemed like the only one who had any control over things. The crops could fail, banks could close, people could get sick and die, but the priest and the church were always there, calm and steadfast. And all that mysticism was pretty nifty, too.† â€Å"What about women?† Brine asked. He had resolved himself to hearing an epic, and it seemed as if Travis needed to tell it. Brine found he liked the strange young man, in spite of himself. â€Å"You don't miss what you've never known. I mean I had these urges, but they were sinful, right? I just had to say, ‘Get thee behind me Satan', and get on with it.† â€Å"That's the most incredible thing you've told me so far,† Brine said. â€Å"When I was sixteen, sex seemed like the only reason to go on living.† â€Å"That's what they thought at seminary, too. Because I was younger than the others, the prefect of discipline, Father Jasper, took me on as his special project. To keep me from impure thoughts, he made me work constantly. In the evenings, when the others were given time for prayer and meditation, I was sent to the chapel to polish the silver. While the others ate, I worked in the kitchen, serving and washing dishes. For two years the only rest I had from dawn until midnight was during classes and mass. When I fell behind in my studies, Father Jasper rode me even harder. â€Å"The Vatican had given the seminary a set of silver candlesticks for the altar. Supposedly they had been commissioned by one of the early popes and were over six hundred years old. The candlesticks were the most prized possession of the seminary and it was my job to polish them. Father Jasper stood over me, evening after evening, chiding me and berating me for being impure in thought. I polished the silver until my hands were black from the compound, and still Father Jasper found fault with me. If I had impure thoughts it was because he kept reminding me to have them. â€Å"I had no friends in seminary. Father Jasper had put his mark on me, and the other students shunned me for fear of invoking the prefect of discipline's wrath. I wrote home when I had a chance, but for some reason my letters were never answered. I began to suspect that Father Jasper was keeping my letters from getting to me. â€Å"One evening, while I was polishing the silver on the altar, Father Jasper came to the chapel and started to lecture me on my evil nature. â€Å"‘You are impure in thought and deed, yet you do not confess,' he said. ‘You are evil, Travis, and it is my duty to drive that evil out!' â€Å"I couldn't take it any longer. ‘Where are my letters?' I blurted out. ‘You are keeping me from my family.' â€Å"Father Jasper was furious. ‘Yes, I keep your letters. You are spawned from a womb of evil. How else could you have come here so young. I waited for eight years to come to Saint Anthony's – waited in the cold of the world while others were taken into the warm bosom of Christ.' â€Å"At last I knew why I had been singled out for punishment. It had nothing to do with my spiritual impurity. It was jealousy. I said, ‘And you, Father Jasper, have you confessed your jealousy and your pride? Have you confessed your cruelty?' â€Å"‘Cruel, am I?' he said. He laughed at me, and for the first time I was really afraid of him. ‘There is no cruelty in the bosom of Christ, only tests of faith. Your faith is wanting, Travis. I will show you.' â€Å"He told me to lie with arms outstretched on the steps before the altar and pray for strength. He left the chapel for a moment, and when he returned I could hear something whistling through the air. I looked up and saw that he was carrying a thin whip cut from a willow branch. â€Å"‘Have you no humility, Travis? Bow your head before our Lord.' â€Å"I could hear him moving behind me, but I could not see him. Why I didn't leave right then I don't know. Perhaps I believed that Father Jasper was actually testing my faith, that he was the cross I had to bear. â€Å"He tore my robe up the back, exposing my bare back and legs. ‘You will not cry out, Travis. After each blow a Hail Mary. Now,' he said. Then I felt the whip across my back and I thought I would scream, but instead I said a Hail Mary. He threw a rosary in front of me and told me to take it. I held it behind my head, feeling the pain come with every bead. â€Å"‘You are a coward, Travis. You don't deserve to serve our Lord. You are here to avoid the war, aren't you, Travis?' â€Å"I didn't answer him and the whip fell again. â€Å"After a while I heard him laughing with each stroke of the whip. I did not look back for fear he might strike me across the eyes. Before I had finished the rosary, I heard him gasp and drop to the floor behind me. I thought – no, I hoped – he had had a heart attack. But when I looked back he was kneeling behind me, gasping for air, exhausted, but smiling. â€Å"‘Face down, sinner!' he screamed. He drew back the whip as if he were going to strike me in the face and I covered my head. â€Å"‘You will tell no one of this,' he said. His voice was low and calm. For some reason that scared me more than his anger. ‘You are to stay the night here, polish the silver, and pray for forgiveness. I will return in the morning with a new robe for you. If you speak of this to anyone, I will see that you are expelled from Saint Anthony's and, if I can manage it, excommunicated.' â€Å"I hadn't ever heard excommunication used as a threat. It was something we studied in class. The popes had used it as an instrument of political control, but the reality of being excluded from salvation by someone else had never really occurred to me. I didn't believe that Father Jasper could really excommunicate me, but I wasn't going to test it. â€Å"While Father Jasper watched, I began to polish the candlesticks, rubbing furiously to take my mind off the pain in my back and legs, and to try to forget that he was watching. Finally, he left the chapel. When I heard the door close, I threw the candlestick I was holding at the door. â€Å"Father Jasper had tested my faith, and I had failed. I cursed the Trinity, the Virgin, and all the saints I could remember. Eventually my anger subsided and I feared Father Jasper would return and see what I had done. â€Å"I retrieved the candlestick and inspected it to see if I had done any damage. Father Jasper would check them in the morning as he always did, and I would be lost. â€Å"There was a deep scratch across the axis of the candlestick. I rubbed at it, harder and harder, but it only seemed to get worse. Soon I realized that it wasn't a scratch at all but a seam that had been concealed by the silversmith. The priceless artifact from the Vatican was a sham. It was supposed to be solid silver, but here was evidence that it was hollow. I grabbed both ends of the candlestick and twisted. As I suspected, it unscrewed. There was a sort of triumph in it. I wanted to be holding the two pieces when Father Jasper returned. I wanted to wave them in his face. ‘Here', I would say, ‘these are as hollow and false as you are. I would expose him, ruin him, and if I was expelled and damned, I didn't care. But I never got the chance to confront him. â€Å"When I pulled the two pieces apart, a tightly rolled piece of parchment fell out.† â€Å"The invocation,† Brine interrupted. â€Å"Yes, but I didn't know what it was. I unrolled it and started to read. There was a passage at the top in Latin, which I didn't have much trouble translating. It said something about calling down help from God to deal with enemies of the Church. It was signed by His Holiness, Pope Leo the Third. â€Å"The second part was written in Greek. As I said, I had fallen behind in my studies, so the Greek was difficult. I started reading it aloud, working on each word as I went. By the time I was through the first passage, it had started to get cold in the chapel. I wasn't sure what I was reading. Some of the words were mysteries to me. I just read over them, trying to glean what I could from the context. Then something seemed to take over my mind. â€Å"I started reading the Greek as if it were my native language, pronouncing the words perfectly, without having the slightest idea of what they meant. â€Å"A wind whipped up inside the chapel, blowing out all the candles. Except for a little moonlight coming through the windows, it was completely dark, but the words on the parchment began to glow and I kept reading. I was locked into the parchment as if I had grabbed an electric wire and couldn't let go. â€Å"When I read the last line, I found I was screaming the words. Lightning flashed down from the roof and struck the candlestick, which was lying on the floor in front of me. The wind stopped and smoke filled the chapel. â€Å"Nothing prepares you for something like that. You can spend your life preparing to be the instrument of God. You can read accounts of possession and exorcism and try to imagine yourself in the situation, but when it actually happens, you just shut down. I did, anyway. I sat there trying to figure out what I had done, but my mind wouldn't work. â€Å"The smoke floated up into the rafters of the chapel and I could make out a huge figure standing at the altar. It was Catch, in his eating form.† â€Å"What's his eating form?† Brine asked. â€Å"I assume from the deal with the flour that you know Catch is visible to others only when he is in his eating form. Most of the time I see him as a three-foot imp covered with scales. When he feeds or goes out of control, he's a giant. I've seen him cut a man in half with one swipe of his claws. I don't know why it works that way. I just know that when I saw him for the first time, I had never been so frightened. â€Å"He looked around the chapel, then at me, then at the chapel. I was praying under my breath, begging God for protection. â€Å"‘Stop it!' he said. ‘I'll take care of everything.' Then he went down the aisle and through the chapel doors, knocking them off their hinges. He turned and looked back at me. He said: ‘You have to open these things, right? I forgot – it's been a while.' â€Å"As soon as he was gone I picked up the candlesticks and ran. I got as far as the front gates before I realized that I was still wearing the torn robe. â€Å"I wanted to get away, hide, forget what I had seen, but I had to go back and get my clothes. I ran back to my quarters. Since I was in my third year at seminary, I been given a small private room, so, thankfully, I didn't have to go through the dormitory ward rooms where the newer students slept. The only clothes I had were the suit I had worn when I came and a pair of overalls I wore when I worked in the seminary fields. I tried to put on the suit, but the pants were just too tight, so I put the overalls on and wore the suit jacket over them to cover my shoulders. I wrapped the candlesticks in a blanket and headed for the gate. â€Å"When I was just outside the gate, I heard a horrible scream from the rectory. There was no mistaking; it was Father Jasper. â€Å"I ran the six miles into town without stopping. The sun was coming up as I reached the train station and a train was pulling away from the platform. I didn't know where it was going, but I ran after it and managed to swing myself on board before I collapsed. â€Å"I'd like to tell you I had some kind of plan, but I didn't. My only thought was to get as far away from St. Anthony's as I could. I don't know why I took the candlesticks. I wasn't interested in their value. I guess I didn't want to leave any evidence of what I'd done. Or maybe it was the influence of the supernatural. â€Å"Anyway, I caught my breath and went into the passenger car to find a seat. The train was nearly full, soldiers and a few civilians here and there. I staggered down the aisle and fell into the first empty seat I could find. It was next to a young woman who was reading a book. â€Å"‘This seat is taken,' she said. â€Å"‘Please, just let me rest here for a minute,' I begged. ‘I'll get up when your companion returns.' â€Å"She looked up from her book and I found myself staring into the biggest, bluest eyes I'd ever seen. I will never forget them. She was young, about my age, and wore her dark hair pinned up under a hat, which was the style in those days. She looked genuinely frightened of me. I guess I was wearing my own fright on my face. â€Å"‘Are you all right? Shall I call the conductor?' she asked. â€Å"I thanked her but told her that I just needed to rest a moment. She was looking at the strange way I was dressed, trying to be polite, but obviously perplexed. I looked up and noticed that everyone in the car was staring at me. Could they know about what I'd done? I wondered. Then I realized why they were staring. There was a war on and I was obviously the right age for the Army, yet I was dressed in civilian clothes. ‘I'm a seminary student,' I blurted out to them, causing a breeze of incredulous whispers. The girl blushed. â€Å"‘I'm sorry,' I said to her. ‘I'll move on.' I started to rise, but she put her hand on my shoulder to push me back into my seat and I winced when she touched my injured shoulder. â€Å"‘No,' she said, ‘I'm traveling alone. I've just been saving this seat to ward off the soldiers. You know how they can be sometimes, Father.' â€Å"‘I'm not a priest yet,' I said. â€Å"‘I don't know what to call you, then,' she said. â€Å"‘Call me Travis,' I said. â€Å"‘I'm Amanda,' she said. She smiled, and for a moment I completely forgot why I was running. She was an attractive girl, but when she smiled, she was absolutely stunning. It was my turn to blush. â€Å"‘I'm going to New York to stay with my fianc's family. He's in Europe,' she said. â€Å"‘So this train is going east?' I asked. â€Å"She was surprised. ‘You don't even know where the train is going?' she asked. â€Å"‘I've had a bad night,' I said. Then I started to laugh – I don't know why. It seemed so unreal. The idea of trying to explain it to her seemed silly. â€Å"She looked away and started digging in her purse. ‘I'm sorry,' I said, ‘I didn't mean to offend you.' ‘You didn't offend me. I need to have my ticket ready for the conductor.' â€Å"I'd completely forgotten about not having a ticket. I looked up and saw the conductor coming down the aisle. I jumped up and a wave of fatigue hit me. I almost fell into her lap. â€Å"‘Is something wrong?' she asked. â€Å"‘Amanda,' I said, ‘you have been very kind, but I should find another seat and let you travel in peace.' â€Å"‘You don't have a ticket, do you?' she said. â€Å"I shook my head. ‘I've been in seminary. I'd forgotten. We don't have any need for money there and†¦' â€Å"‘I have some traveling money,' she said. â€Å"‘I couldn't ask you to do that,' I said. Then I remembered the candlesticks. ‘Look, you can have these. They're worth a lot of money. Hold them and I'll send you the money for the ticket when I get home,' I said. â€Å"I unrolled the blanket and dropped the candlesticks in her lap. â€Å"‘That's not necessary,' she said. â€Å"I'll loan you the money.' â€Å"‘No, I insist you take them,' I said, trying to be gallant. I must have looked ridiculous standing there in my overalls and tattered suit jacket. â€Å"‘If you insist,' she said. ‘I understand. My fianc is a proud man, too.' â€Å"She gave me the money I needed and I bought a ticket all the way to Clarion, which was only about ten miles from my parent's farm. â€Å"The train broke down somewhere in Indiana and we were forced to wait in the station while they changed engines. It was midsummer and terribly hot. Without thinking, I took off my jacket and Amanda gasped when she saw my back. She insisted that I see a doctor, but I refused, knowing that I would only have to borrow more money from her to pay for it. We sat on a bench in the station while she cleaned my back with damp napkins from the dining car. â€Å"In those days the sight of a woman bathing a half-naked man in a train station would have been scandalous, but most of the passengers were soldiers and were much more concerned with being AWOL or with their ultimate destination, Europe, so we were ignored for the most part. â€Å"Amanda disappeared for a while and returned just before our train was ready to leave. ‘I've reserved a berth in the sleeping car for us,' she said. â€Å"I was shocked. I started to protest, but she stopped me. She said, ‘You are going to sleep and I am going to watch over you. You are a priest and I'm engaged, so there is nothing wrong with it. Besides, you are in no shape to spend the night sitting up in a train.' â€Å"I think it was then that I realized that I was in love with her. Not that it mattered. It was just that after living so long with Father Jasper's abuse I wasn't prepared for the kindness she was showing me. It never occurred to me that I might be putting her in danger. â€Å"As we pulled away from the station, I looked out on the platform, and for the first time I saw Catch in his smaller form. Why it happened then and not before I don't know. Maybe I didn't have any strength left, but when I saw him there on the platform, flashing a big razor-toothed grin, I fainted. â€Å"When I came to, I felt like my back was on fire. I was lying in the sleeping berth and Amanda was bathing my back with alcohol. â€Å"‘I told them you'd been wounded in France,' she said. â€Å"The porter helped me get you in here. I think it's about time you told me who did this to you.' â€Å"I told her what Father Jasper had done, leaving out the parts about the demon. I was in tears when I finished, and she was holding me, rocking me back and forth. â€Å"I'm not sure how it happened – the passion of the moment and all that, I guess – but the next thing I knew, we were kissing, and I was undressing her. Just as we were about to make love she stopped me. â€Å"‘I have to take this off,' she said. She was wearing a wooden bracelet with the initials E + A burnt into it. ‘We don't have to do this,' I said. â€Å"Have you, Mr. Brine, ever said something that you know you will always regret? I have. It was: ‘We don't have to do this.' â€Å"She said: ‘Oh, then let's not.' â€Å"She fell asleep holding me while I lay awake, thinking about sex and damnation, which really wasn't any different from what I'd thought about each night in the seminary – a little more immediate, I guess. â€Å"I was just dozing off when I heard a commotion coming from the opposite end of our sleeping car. I peeked through the curtains of the berth to see what was happening. Catch was coming down the aisle, looking into berths as he went. I didn't know at the time that Catch was invisible to other people, and I couldn't understand why they weren't screaming at the sight of him. People were shouting and looking out of their berths, but all they were seeing was empty air. â€Å"I grabbed my overalls and jumped into the aisle, leaving my jacket and the candlesticks in the berth with Amanda. I didn't even thank her. I ran down the aisle toward the back of the car, away from Catch. As I ran, I could hear him yelling, ‘Why are you running? Don't you know the rules?' â€Å"I went through the door between the cars and slid it shut behind me. By now people were screaming, not out of fear of Catch, but because a naked man was running through the sleeping car. â€Å"I looked into the next car and saw the conductor coming down the aisle toward me. Catch was almost to the door behind me. Without thinking, or even looking, I opened the door to the outside and leapt off the train, naked, my overalls still in hand. â€Å"The train was on a trestle at the time and it was a long drop to the ground, fifty or sixty feet. By all rights I should have been killed. When I hit, the wind was knocked out of me and I remember thinking that my back was broken, but in seconds I was up and running through a wooden valley. I didn't realize until later that I had been protected by my pact with the demon, even through he was not under my control at the time. I don't really know the extent of his protection, but I've been in a hundred accidents since then that should have killed me and come out without a scratch. â€Å"I ran through the woods until I came to a dirt road. I had no idea where I was. I just walked until I couldn't walk anymore and then sat down at the side of the road. Just after sunup a rickety wagon pulled up beside me and the farmer asked me if I was all right. In those days it wasn't uncommon to see a barefoot kid in overalls by the side of the road. â€Å"The farmer informed me that I was only about twenty miles from home. I told him that I was a student on holiday, trying to hitchhike home, and he offered to drive me. I fell asleep in the wagon. When the farmer woke me, we were stopped at the gate of my parents' farm. I thanked him and walked up the road toward the house. â€Å"I guess I should have known right away that something was wrong. At that time of the morning everyone should have been out working, but the barnyard was deserted except for a few chickens. I could hear the two dairy cows mooing in the barn when they should have already been milked and put out to pasture. â€Å"I had no idea what I would tell my parents. I hadn't thought about what I would do when I got home, only that I wanted to get there. â€Å"I ran in the back door expecting to find my mother in the kitchen, but she wasn't there. My family rarely left the farm, and they certainly wouldn't have gone anywhere without taking care of the animals first. My first thought was that there had been an accident. Perhaps my father had fallen from the tractor and they had taken him to the hospital in Clarion. I ran to the front of the house. My father's wagon was tied up out front. â€Å"I bolted through the house, shouting into every room, but there was no one home. I found myself standing on the front porch, wondering what to do next, when I heard his voice from behind me. â€Å"‘You can't run from me,' Catch said. â€Å"I turned. He was sitting on the porch swing, dangling his feet in the air. I was afraid, but I was also angry. â€Å"‘Where is my family?!' I screamed. â€Å"He patted his stomach. ‘Gone,' he said. â€Å"‘What have you done with them?' I said. â€Å"‘They're gone forever,' he said. ‘I ate them.' â€Å"I was enraged. I grabbed the porch swing and pushed it with everything I had. The swing banged against the porch rail and Catch went over the edge into the dirt. â€Å"My father kept a chopping block and an ax in front of the house for splitting kindling. I jumped off the porch and snatched up the ax. Catch was just picking himself up when I him in the forehead with it. Sparks flew and the ax blade bounced off his head as if it had hit cast iron. Before I knew it I was on my back and Catch was sitting on my chest grinning like the demon in that Fuselli painting, The Nightmare. He didn't seem at all angry. I flailed under him but could not get up. â€Å"‘Look,' he said, ‘this is silly. You called me up to do a job and I did it, so what's all the commotion about? By the way, you would have loved it. I clipped the priest's hamstrings and watched him crawl around begging for a while. I really like eating priests, they're always convinced that the Creator is testing them.' â€Å"‘You killed my family!' I said. I was still trying to free myself. â€Å"‘Well, that sort of thing happens when you run away. It's all your fault; if you didn't want the responsibility, you shouldn't have called me up. You knew what you were getting into when you renounced the Creator.' â€Å"‘But I didn't,' I protested. Then I remembered my curses in the chapel. I had renounced God. ‘I didn't know,' I said. â€Å"‘Well, if you're going to be a weenie about it, I'll fill you in on the rules,' he said. ‘First, you can't run away from me. You called me up and I am more or less your servant forever. When I say forever, I mean forever. You are not going to age, and you are not going to be sick. The second thing you need to know is that I am immortal. You whack me with axes all you want and all you'll get is a dull ax and a sore back, so just save your energy. Third, I am Catch. They call me the destroyer, and that's what I do. With my help you can rule the world and other really swell stuff. In the past my masters haven't used me to the best advantage, but you might be the exception, although I doubt it. Fourth, when I'm in this form, you are the only one who can see me. When I take on my destroyer form, I am visible to everyone. It's stupid, and why it's that way is a long story, but that's the way it is. In the past they decided to keep me a secret, but there's no rule about i t.' â€Å"He paused and climbed off my chest. I got to my feet and dusted myself off. My head was spinning with what Catch had told me. I had no way of knowing whether he was telling the truth, but I had nothing else to go on. When you encounter the supernatural, your mind searches for an explanation. I'd had the explanation laid in my lap, but I didn't want to believe it. â€Å"I said, ‘So you're from hell?' I know it was a stupid question, but even a seminary education doesn't prepare you for a conversation with a demon. â€Å"‘No,' he said, ‘I'm from Paradise.' â€Å"‘You're lying,' I said. It was the beginning of a string of lies and misdirections that have gone on for seventy years. â€Å"He said, ‘No, really, I'm from Paradise. It's a little town about thirty miles outside of Newark.' Then he started laughing and rolling around in the dirt holding his sides. â€Å"‘How can I get rid of you?' I asked. â€Å"‘Sorry,' he said, ‘I've told you everything that I have to.' â€Å"At the time I didn't know how dangerous Catch was. Somehow I realized that I was in no immediate danger, so I tried to come up with some sort of plan to get rid of him. I didn't want to stay there at the farm, and I didn't have anywhere I could go. â€Å"My first instinct was to turn to the Church. If I could get to a priest, perhaps I could have the demon exorcised. â€Å"I led Catch into town, where I asked the local priest to perform an exorcism. Before I could convince him of Catch's existence, the demon became visible and ate the priest, piece by piece, before my eyes. I realized then that Catch's power was beyond the comprehension of any normal priest, perhaps the entire Church. â€Å"Christians are supposed to believe in evil as an active force. If you deny evil, you deny good and therefore God. But belief in evil is as much an act of faith as belief in God, and here I was faced with evil as a reality, not an abstraction. My faith was gone. It was no longer required. There was indeed evil in the world and that evil was me. It was my responsibility, I reasoned, to not let that evil become manifest to other people and thereby steal their faith. I had to keep Catch's existence a secret. I might not be able to stop him from taking lives, but I could keep him from taking souls. â€Å"I decided to remove him to a safe place where there were no people for him to feed on. We hopped a freight and rode it to Colorado, where I led Catch high into the mountains. There I found a remote cabin where I thought he would be without victims. Weeks passed and I found that I had some control over the demon. I could make him fetch water and wood sometimes, but other times he defied me. I've never understood the inconsistency of his obedience. â€Å"Once I had accepted the fact that I couldn't run away from Catch, I questioned him constantly, looking for some clue that might send him back to hell. He was vague, to say the least, giving me little to go on except that he had been on Earth before and that someone had sent him back. â€Å"After we had been in the mountains for two months, a search party came to the cabin. It seemed that hunters in the area of the cabin, as well as people in villages as far as twenty miles away, had been disappearing. When I was asleep at night, Catch had been ranging for victims. It was obvious that isolation wasn't going to keep the demon from killing. I sent the search party away and set myself on coming up with some kind of plan. I knew we would have to move or people would discover that Catch existed. â€Å"I knew there had to be some sort of logic to his presence on Earth. Then, while we were hiking out of the mountains, it occurred to me that the key to sending Catch back must have been concealed in another candlestick. And I had left them on the train with the girl. Jumping off the train to escape Catch may have cost me the only chance I had to get rid of him. I searched my memory for anything that could lead me to the girl. I had never asked where she was going or what her last name was. In trying to recall details of my time with her I kept coming up with the image of those striking blue eyes. They seemed etched into my memory while everything else faded. Could I go around the eastern United States asking anyone if they had seen a young girl with beautiful blue eyes? â€Å"Something nagged at me. There was something that could lead me to the girl; I just had to remember it. Then it hit me – the wooden bracelet she wore. The initials carved inside the heart were E + A. How hard could it be to search service records for a soldier with the first initial E? His service records would have his next of kin, and she was staying with his family. I had a plan. â€Å"I took Catch back East and began checking local draft boards. I told them I had been in Europe and a man whose first name began with E had saved my life and I wanted to find him. They always asked about divisions and stations and where the battle had taken place. I told them I had taken a shell fragment in the head and could remember nothing but the man's first initial. No one believed me, of course, but they gave me what I asked for – out of pity, I think. â€Å"Meanwhile, Catch kept taking his victims. I tried to point him toward thieves and grifters when I could, reasoning that if he must kill, at least I could protect the innocent. â€Å"I haunted libraries, looking for the oldest books on magic and demonology I could find. Perhaps somewhere I could find an incantation to send the demon back. I performed hundreds of rituals – drawing pentagrams, collecting bizarre talismans, and putting myself through all sorts of physical rigors and diets that were supposed to purify the sorcerer so the magic would work. After repeated failures, I realized that the volumes of magic were nothing more than the work of medieval snake-oil salesmen. They always added the purity of the sorcerer as a condition so they would have an excuse for their customers when the magic did not work. â€Å"During this same time I was still looking for a priest who would perform an exorcism. In Baltimore I finally found one who believed my story. He agreed to perform an exorcism. For his protection, we arranged to have him stand on a balcony while Catch and I remained in the street below. Catch laughed himself silly through the entire ritual, and when it was over, he broke into the building and ate the priest. I knew then that finding the girl was my only hope. â€Å"Catch and I kept moving, never staying in one place longer than two or three days. Fortunately there were no computers in those days that might have tracked the disappearances of Catch's victims. In each town I collected a list of veterans, then ran leads to the ground by knocking on doors and questioning the families. I've been doing that for over seventy years. Yesterday I think I found the man I was looking for. As it turned out, E was his middle initial. His name is J. Effrom Elliot. I thought my luck had finally turned. I mean the fact that the man is still alive is pretty lucky in itself. I thought that I might have to trace the candlesticks through surviving relatives, hoping that someone remembered them, perhaps had kept them as an heirloom. â€Å"I thought it was all over, but now Catch is out of control and you are keeping me from stopping him forever.†

Family Health Assessment Family Assessment - 1884 Words

Family Health Assessment The family assessment involves a simultaneous data collection on individual family members or if able the whole family. The nurses and other healthcare professionals interview individuals and family as a whole to understand and assess the health of the family. This interview help professionals detecting the possible origin or factors contributes to the family’s health problems. The Gordon’s functional health pattern will be used as a model to collect and organize data about the dysfunctional and functional behaviors of the Laredo’s family. Mrs. Maria Laredo served as the primary contributor of her family health data during this interview. At the end of this interview, the nurse must have an idea on how†¦show more content†¦Mexican food is rich in salt, fat, sugar and has a high carbohydrate contents, Maria managed to modify their food style. Her observation of meals served to her patients in the facility where she works and from the suggestion of her daughter, Camilla helps her track the nutrients and caloric counts of the food she cooks. As the interviews go on, she added in this section, that her mother died from breast cancer and Leon’s father has diabetes and the maternal sides were all tendencies to gain more weight. Drinking 8-glasses of fluid a day is like a toll order for Maria and highly encourage her family to do so. In her knowledge, the family is consuming 80-90% pure water and the rest is comprised of, a cup of coffee (caffeinated), regular soda (believed the artificial sweetener caused cancer), juices and permissible 2 to 3 bottles of beer for Leon occasionally a week. Sleep/Rest Maria and the rest of the family members disclosed to sleep deprived person, similar to those busy families who struggles to work harder and harder every day to make a decent living. Maria works a 12-hour shift three times a week, while Leon, spending 12 hours working hour 6 days a week including his part time job as a maintenance landscaper. The couple is spending at least 2-hour drive going to work and coming home during theirShow MoreRelatedFamily Health Assessment : Family Assessment Essay1469 Words   |  6 PagesFamily Health Assessment Family is so important in the society and it is a blessing from God. Healthy behaviors learn from within the family and family member’s stimulus one to each other with health promotion practices. There fore, the health behaviors are very essential in the family assessment and which notifies health-promotion and disease-prevention. Within families, members will be the first one to learn about to promoting health. Families have impact on children’s lifestyle choices. The AmericanRead MoreFamily Health Assessment1252 Words   |  6 PagesFamily Health Assessment A family health assessment is an important tool in formulating a health care plan for a family. This paper will discuss the nurse’s role in family assessment and how this task is performed. A nurse has an important role in health promotion. To perform these tasks the author has chosen a nuclear family. By the use of family focused open ended questions, 11 functional health patterns were covered. This principle is known as the Gordon’s functional health patterns.Read MoreFamily Health Assessment1375 Words   |  6 PagesFamily Health Assessment Using Gordon’s functional health patterns to assess a family will guide the nurse in developing a comprehensive nursing assessment that is holistic in nature. Gordon’s functional health patterns are founded on 11 principles that are incorporated within the nursing practice. These 11 principles serve as a framework for a thorough nursing assessment in which to build a holistic and individual family care plan (Grand Canyon University, 2011). The author has developed family-focusedRead MoreFamily Health Assessment1150 Words   |  5 Pagesremember the family has an important role in the paradigm of health promotion for the patient. The roles in which the family plays in assisting the patient and providing care are crucial to the health of the patient and the well being of the family as a whole. One tool to assess not only a patient and their views on different aspects of health, but an entire family or even community is Gordon’s Functional Health Patterns. This as sessment tool incorporates eleven topics of health patterns. Health patternsRead MoreFamily Health Assessment1461 Words   |  6 PagesHeritage Assessment: Evaluation of families, cultures and views on health Anniemae Stubbs Grand Canyon University Culture and Cultural Competency in Health Promotion NURS 429 Professor Alma Celaya June 19, 2016 Heritage Assessment: Evaluation of families , cultures and views on health Cultural Heritage is a concept that is passed on from one generation to the next that depicts how people live, act, behave, or think. It can be a noticeable or vague manifestation. It includes various customsRead MoreFamily Health Assessment1085 Words   |  5 PagesFAMILY HEALTH ASSESSMENT This assessment was conducted after interviewing the Nelson family using Gordon’s functional health pattern. Marjorie Gordon developed a method to be used by nurses in the nursing process to provide a comprehensive nursing assessment. It includes eleven principles for the collection of data and helps the nurse identify two or more wellness nursing diagnoses. It is a systematic and standardized approach to data collection (â€Å"functional health† n.d.)Read MoreFamily Health Assessment1465 Words   |  6 PagesFamily Health Assessment Family health and wellness can be influenced by many factors such as society, culture, religion, and family members. Somehow, society, culture, religion and families are connected to each other. To understand an individual, it’s important to understand the family system of an individual. Health practices, whether effective or ineffective, are activities performed by individuals or families as a whole to promote health and prevent disease (Edelman, 2010). A family healthRead MoreFamily Health Assessment2074 Words   |  9 PagesRunning head: FAMILY HEALTH ASSESSMENT Family Health Assessment Thresiamma John Grand Canyon University Family-Centered Health Promotion NRS-429V Stout, Kimberly March 11 2012 Family Health Assessment Introduction A comprehensive family assessment provides a foundation to promote family health (Edelman Mandle, 2011). 1987 Marjorie Gordon purposed 11 functional health patterns to use for guidance in order to facilitate nurses to have a frame work for the family assessmentRead MoreFamily Health Assessment1655 Words   |  7 PagesFamily Health Assessment Shaila Rahman Grand Canyon University Family-Centered Health Promotion NRS-429V Melanie Gray MSN October 19, 2014 Family Health Assessment Gordons Functional Health Patterns provide a useful structural guideline that help nurse or any health care provider to assess any family’s health status and develop a nursing diagnosis according to their need to improve their quality of life. Through each of these eleven patterns of health assessment, nurse can create a systemicRead MoreFamily Health Assessment1537 Words   |  7 PagesFamily Health Assessment Melody Moore Grand Canyon University NRS-429V Instructor: Renita Holmes May 10th 2013 Family Health Assessment A comprehensive family assessment provides a foundation to promote family health (Edelmanamp;Mandle, 2011).Gordon’s functional health patterns is a method developed by Marjorie Gordon in 1987 in which she proposed functional health patterns as a guide to establishing a comprehensive data base.(Kriegleramp;Harton,1992).Gordon’s eleven functional health