A Biomechanical Analysis of the Roundhouse Kick :: essays research papers

Anatomical Analysis Tae Kwon Do is a Korean, unarmed martial art and is best known for its kicks (Park, 2001). The roundhouse kick is a turning kick and happens to be the most commonly used kick during competition (Lee, 1996). For this reason, the roundhouse kick will be analyzed in reference to sparring competition.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The roundhouse kick, a multiplanar skill, starts with the kicking leg traveling in an arc towards the front with the knee in a chambered position (Pearson, 1997). The knee is extended in a snapping movement, striking the opponent with the top of the foot. One’s goal would be to make front torso contact with the kick, while avoiding leaving one’s self open to a counter strike.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The movements that comprise the roundhouse kick begin with a fighting stance: both feet on the ground, toes pointing straight ahead, back foot turned outside up to 22 degrees, front foot approximately 1.5 the distance of one step from the back foot, both feet approximately one length of one foot apart, extension of both legs, slight rotation of the torso in the direction of the back leg, fists held in front of the chest, flexion at the shoulders by about 45 degrees, flexion at the elbow by about 60 degrees, and flexion of the fingers.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One initiates the preparatory phase of the roundhouse kick from the fighting stance: rotation of the torso in the direction of the front leg, flexion and abduction at the hip, flexion at the knee of the back leg which brings the knee to the torso and maintains a minimal relative angle at the knee to the thigh, plantar flexion of the foot, and lateral flexion of the spine toward the ground away from the kicking leg (Table 1).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The fighter is then ready to initiate the movement phase: extension at the knee with a relative angle to the thigh of about 180 degrees, lateral rotation of the grounded foot between 90 and 120 degrees, and additional lateral flexion of the spine.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After attempting to make contact with the opponent, the fighter immediately follows up with the recovery phase: flexion at the knee, lateral flexion of the spine opposite the aforementioned direction, during a slight rotation of the torso, extension of the hip, and dorsiflexion of the foot. This brings the fighter back into the fighting stance with the opposite leg in the front and is now ready to perform the next strike or counterstrike.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James Essays -- The Turn of the Screw H

The Turn of the Screw This novel was, surprisingly, interesting. The intensely complex and intricate (if not confusing!) sentences, upon first thought, made me expect an experience of complete, utter, and total confusion; however, they served not only to keep my interest in the novel – for I had to concentrate to grasp the full, rich meaning of his thoughts – but also to create in me a sense of enjoyment, that of being enriched with the experiences of the main character so that my life and that character's became inseparable, only it occurred not only with the main character, but with the entire plot at once – all characters, all scenes (to which I shall come late), all conversations... everything. I have never seen a man so able to express so much in one sentence, and still be able to have the reader follow his thoughts throughout the entire process. Henry James was a master of expression and grammar. His ability to form a complex, yet coherent sentence did nothing but add to the quality of the novel. The characters alone added to the quality of the novel. It is not so much as they were entirely believable, but they were believable to the extent of their being in a ghost story. The things that happened to these poor characters were not natural in any sense, but they were completely acceptable from within a ghost story. Miles, for example, was too beautiful in action, too simple in thought, and too tempting in appearance (for both the governess and Mr. Quint) to be co... The Turn of the Screw by Henry James Essays -- The Turn of the Screw H The Turn of the Screw This novel was, surprisingly, interesting. The intensely complex and intricate (if not confusing!) sentences, upon first thought, made me expect an experience of complete, utter, and total confusion; however, they served not only to keep my interest in the novel – for I had to concentrate to grasp the full, rich meaning of his thoughts – but also to create in me a sense of enjoyment, that of being enriched with the experiences of the main character so that my life and that character's became inseparable, only it occurred not only with the main character, but with the entire plot at once – all characters, all scenes (to which I shall come late), all conversations... everything. I have never seen a man so able to express so much in one sentence, and still be able to have the reader follow his thoughts throughout the entire process. Henry James was a master of expression and grammar. His ability to form a complex, yet coherent sentence did nothing but add to the quality of the novel. The characters alone added to the quality of the novel. It is not so much as they were entirely believable, but they were believable to the extent of their being in a ghost story. The things that happened to these poor characters were not natural in any sense, but they were completely acceptable from within a ghost story. Miles, for example, was too beautiful in action, too simple in thought, and too tempting in appearance (for both the governess and Mr. Quint) to be co...

Concepts And Definitions Of Disability Essay

The contemporary conception of disability proposed in the WHO International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) views disability as an umbrella term for impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions. Disability is the interaction between individuals with a health condition (e.g. cerebral palsy, Down syndrome or depression) and personal and environmental factors (e.g. negative attitudes, inaccessible transportation, or limited social supports). Long ago there was great confusion over the meaning of terms such as impairment, handicap, or disability. Then, in 1980, the WHO provided great service by offering a clear way of thinking about it all in a little book called â€Å"International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicaps†. All these terms refer to the consequences of disease, but consider the consequences at different levels. The disease produces some form of pathology, and then the individual may become aware of th is: they experience symptoms. Later, the performance or behaviour of the person may be affected, and because of this the person may suffer consequences such as being unable to work. In this general scenario, Impairment was defined as â€Å"any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological, or anatomical structure or function.† Impairment is a deviation from normal organ function; it may be visible or invisible (screening tests generally seek to identify impairments). Disability was defined as â€Å"any restriction or lack (resulting from an impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being.† Impairment does not necessarily lead to a disability, for the impairment may be corrected. I am, for example, wearing eye glasses, but do not perceive that any disability arises from my impaired vision. A disability refers to the function of the individual (rather than of an organ, as with impairment). In turn, Handicap was defined as â€Å"a disadvantage for a given individual, resulting from impairment or a disability that limits or prevents the fulfillment of a role that is normal (depending on age, sex, and social and cultural factors) for that individual.† Handicap considers the person’s participation in their social context. For example, if there is a wheel-chair access ramp at work, a disabled person may not be handicapped in coming to work there. Here are some examples: Impairment – Speech production; Disability – Speaking clearly enough to be understood; Handicap – Communication I – Hearing; D – Understanding; H – Communication I – Vision; D – Seeing; H – Orientation I – Motor control, balance, joint stiffness; D – Dressing, feeding, walking; H – Independence, mobility I – Affective, cognitive limitations; D – Behaving, interacting, supporting; H – Social interaction, reasonableness Here is a diagram that suggests possible parallels between the impairment, disability & handicap triad, and the disease, illness and sickness triad. (The squiggly arrows are intended to indicate a rough correspondence) â€Å"Patients do not come to their physicians to find out what ICD code they have, they come to get help for what is bothering them.† A Positive Perspective? Quality of Life and the International Classification of Function The focus on disability takes a somewhat negative approach to health, perhaps not unreasonable since doctors are supposed to cure diseases. But starting in the 1980s clinicians began to set goals to achieve when the disease could not be cured, beyong merely controlling symptoms. The notion of Quality of Life gained prominence as a way to emphasize a positive perspective on health – health as a capacity to function and to live, even if the patient has a chronic condition. A central aim of care was to enhance the quality of the patient’s function, and hence their ability to life as normal a life as possible, even if the disorder could not be cured. This notion was a further extension of handicap, covering maintenance of normal function, but adding psychological well-being and, if possible, positive feelings of engagement. Measurements of quality of life extend the disability focus beyond the ability to perform â€Å"activities of daily living† to include a broad range of functioning (work, home, play) and also the person’s feelings of satisfaction and well-being. This is necessarily a qualitative and subjective concept, judged by the patient in terms of the extent to which they are able to do the things they wish to do. In this medical context, quality of life is distinct from wealth or possessions, and to amke this clear you may see the term â€Å"health-related quality of life.† Reflecting these evolving ideas, the WHO revised its  Impairment, Disability and Handicap triad in 2001, re-naming it the International Classification of Function (ICF). This classification system provides codes for the complete range of functional states; codes cover body structures and functions, impairments, activities and participation in society. The ICF also considers contextual factors that may influence activity levels, so function is viewed as an interaction between health conditions (a disease or injury) and the context in which the person lives (both physical environment and cultural norms relevant to the disease). It establishes a common language for describing functional states that can be used in comparing across diseases and countries. The ICF therefore uses positive language, so that â€Å"activity† and â€Å"participation† replace â€Å"disability† and â€Å"handicap.† The ICF is described on the WHO web site. Impairment, Disability and Handicap Sheena L. Carter, Ph.D. The words â€Å"impairment,† â€Å"disability,† and â€Å"handicap,† are often used interchangeably. They have very different meanings, however. The differences in meaning are important for understanding the effects of neurological injury on development. The most commonly cited definitions are those provided by the World Health Organization (1980) in The International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities, and Handicaps: Impairment: any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function. Disability: any restriction or lack (resulting from an impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being. Handicap: a disadvantage for a given individual that limits or prevents the fulfillment of a role that is normal As traditionally used, impairment refers to a problem with a structure or  organ of the body; disability is a functional limitation with regard to a particular activity; and handicap refers to a disadvantage in filling a role in life relative to a peer group. Examples to illustrate the differences among the terms â€Å"impairment,† â€Å"disability,† and â€Å"handicap.† 1. CP example: David is a 4-yr.-old who has a form of cerebral palsy (CP) called spastic diplegia. David’s CP causes his legs to be stiff, tight, and difficult to move. He cannot stand or walk. Impairment: The inability to move the legs easily at the joints and inability to bear weight on the feet is an impairment. Without orthotics and surgery to release abnormally contracted muscles, David’s level of impairment may increase as imbalanced muscle contraction over a period of time can cause hip dislocation and deformed bone growth. No treatment may be currently available to lessen David’s impairment. Disability: David’s inability to walk is a disability. His level of disability can be improved with physical therapy and special equipment. For example, if he learns to use a walker, with braces, his level of disability will improve considerably. Handicap: David’s cerebral palsy is handicapping to the extent that it prevents him from fulfilling a normal role at home, in preschool, and in the community. His level of handicap has been only very mild in the early years as he has been well-supported to be able to play with other children, interact normally with family members and participate fully in family and community activities. As he gets older, his handicap will increase where certain sports and physical activities are considered â€Å"normal† activities for children of the same age. He has little handicap in his preschool classroom, though he needs some assistance to move about the classroom and from one activity to another outside the classroom. Appropriate services and equipment can reduce the extent to which cerebral palsy prevents David from fulfilling a normal role in the home, school and community as he grows. 2. LD example: Cindy is an 8-year-old who has extreme difficulty with reading (severe dyslexia). She has good vision and hearing and scores well on tests of intelligence. She went to an excellent preschool and several different special reading programs have been tried since early in kindergarten. Impairment: While no brain injury or malformation has been identified, some impairment is presumed to exist in how Cindy’s brain puts together visual and auditory information. The impairment may be inability to associate sounds with symbols, for example. Disability: In Cindy’s case, the inability to read is a disability. The disability can probably be improved by trying different teaching methods and using those that seem most effective with Cindy. If the impairment can be explained, it may be possible to dramatically improve the disability by using a method of teaching that does not require skills that are impaired (That is, if the difficulty involves learning sounds for letters, a sight-reading approach can improve her level of disability). Handicap: Cindy already experiences a handicap as compared with other children in her class at school, and she may fail third grade. Her condition will become more handicapping as she gets older if an effective approach is not found to improve her reading or to teach her to compensate for her reading difficulties. Even if the level of disability stays severe (that is, she never learns to read well), this will be less handicapping if she learns to tape lectures and â€Å"read† books on audiotapes. Using such approaches, even in elementary school, can prevent her reading disability from interfering with her progress in other academic areas (increasing her handicap). Gale Encyclopedia of Education: History of Special Education Top Home > Library > History, Politics & Society > Education Encyclopedia Special education, as its name suggests, is a specialized branch of education. Claiming lineage to such persons as Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard (1775 – 1838), the physician who â€Å"tamed† the â€Å"wild boy of Aveyron,† and Anne Sullivan Macy (1866 – 1936), the teacher who â€Å"worked miracles† with Helen Keller, special educators teach those students who have physical, cognitive, language, learning, sensory, and/or emotional abilities that deviate from those of the general population. Special educators provide instruction specifically tailored to meet individualized needs, making education available to students who otherwise would have limited access to education. In 2001, special education in the United States was serving over five million students. Although federally mandated special education is relatively new in the United States, students with disabilities have been present in every era and in every society. Historical records have consistently documented the most severe disabilities – those that transcend task and setting. Itard’s description of the wild boy of Aveyron documents a variety of behaviors consistent with both mental retardation and behavioral disorders. Nineteenth-century reports of deviant behavior describe conditions that could easily be interpreted as severe mental retardation, autism, or schizophrenia. Milder forms of disability became apparent only after the advent of universal public education. When literacy became a goal for all children, teachers began observing disabilities specific to task and setting – that is, less severe disabilities. After decades of research and legislation, special education now provides services to students with varying degrees and forms of disabilities, including mental retardation, emotional disturbance, learning disabilities, speech-language (communication) disabilities, impaired hearing and deafness, low vision and blindness, autism, traumatic brain injury, other health impairments, and severe and multiple disabilities. Development of the Field of Special Education At its inception in the early nineteenth century, leaders of social change set out to cure many ills of society. Physicians and clergy, including Itard, Edouard O. Seguin (1812 – 1880), Samuel Gridley Howe (1801 – 1876), and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (1787 – 1851), wanted to ameliorate the neglectful, often abusive treatment of individuals with disabilities. A rich  literature describes the treatment provided to individuals with disabilities in the 1800s: They were often confined in jails and almshouses without decent food, clothing, personal hygiene, and exercise. During much of the nineteenth century, and early in the twentieth, professionals believed individuals with disabilities were best treated in residential facilities in rural environments. Advocates of these institutions argued that environmental conditions such as urban poverty and vices induced behavioral problems. Reformers such as Dorothea Dix (1802 – 1887) prevailed upon state governments to provide funds for bigger and more specialized institutions. These facilities focused more on a particular disability, such as mental retardation, then known as â€Å"feeble-mindedness† or â€Å"idiocy†; mental illness, then labeled â€Å"insanity† or â€Å"madness†; sensory impairment such as deafness or blindness; and behavioral disorders such as criminality and juvenile delinquency. Children who were judged to be delinquent or aggressive, but not insane, were sent to houses ofrefuge or reform schools, whereas children and adults judged to be â€Å"mad† were admitted to psychiatric hospitals. Dix and her followers believed that institutionalization of individuals with disabilities would end their abuse (confinement without treatment in jails and poorhouses) and provide effective treatment. Moral treatment was the dominant approach of the early nineteenth century in psychiatric hospitals, the aim being cure. Moral treatment employed methods analogous to today’s occupational therapy, systematic instruction, and positive reinforcement. Evidence suggests this approach was humane and effective in some cases, but the treatment was generally abandoned by the late nineteenth century, due largely to the failure of moral therapists to train others in their techniques and the rise of the belief that mental illness was always a result of brain disease. By the e nd of the nineteenth century, pessimism about cure and emphasis on physiological causes led to a change in orientation that would later bring about the â€Å"warehouse-like† institutions that have become a symbol for abuse and neglect of society’s most vulnerable citizens. The practice of moral treatment was replaced by the belief that most disabilities were incurable. This led to keeping individuals with disabilities ininstitutions both for their own protection and for the betterment of society. Although the transformation took many years, by the end of the nineteenth century the size of institutions had increased so  dramatically that the goal of rehabilitation was no longer possible. Institutions became instruments for permanent segregation. Many special education professionals became critics of institutions. Howe, one of the first to argue for in stitutions for people with disabilities, began advocating placing out residents into families. Unfortunately this practice became a logistical and pragmatic problem before it could become a viable alternative to institutionalization. At the close of the nineteenth century, state governments established juvenile courts and social welfare programs, including foster homes, for children and adolescents. The child study movement became prominent in the early twentieth century. Using the approach pioneered by G. Stanley Hall (1844 – 1924; considered the founder of child psychology), researchers attempted to study child development scientifically in relation to education and in so doing established a place for psychology within public schools. In 1931, the Bradley Home, the first psychiatric hospital for children in the United States, was established in East Providence, Rhode Island. The treatment offered in this hospital, as well as most of the other hospitals of the early twentieth century, was psychodynamic. Psychodynamic ideas fanned interest in the diagnosis and classification of disabili ties. In 1951 the first institution for research on exceptional children opened at the University of Illinois and began what was to become the newest focus of the field of special education: the slow learner and, eventually, what we know today as learning disability. The Development of Special Education in Institutions and Schools Although Itard failed to normalize Victor, the wild boy of Averyon, he did produce dramatic changes in Victor’s behavior through education. Modern special education practices can be traced to Itard, and his work marks the beginning of widespread attempts to instruct students with disabilities. In 1817 the first special education school in the United States, the American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb (now called the American School for the Deaf), was established in Hartford, Connecticut, by Gallaudet. By the middle of the nineteenth century, special educational programs were being provided in many asylums. Education was a prominent part of moral therapy. By the close of the nineteenth century, special classes within regular public schools had been launched in major cities. These special classes were initially established for immigrant students who were  not proficient in English a nd students who had mild mental retardation or behavioral disorders. Descriptions of these children included terms such as steamer children, backward, truant, and incorrigible. Procedures for identifying â€Å"defectives† were included in the World’s Fair of 1904. By the 1920s special classes for students judged unsuitable for regular classes had become common in major cities. In 1840 Rhode Island passed a law mandating compulsory education for children, but not all states had compulsory education until 1918. With compulsory schooling and the swelling tide of anti-institution sentiment in the twentieth century, many children with disabilities were moved out of institutional settings and into public schools. However, by the mid-twentieth century children with disabilities were still often excluded from public schools and kept at home if not institutionalized. In order to respond to the new population of students with special needs entering schools, school officials created still more special classes in public schools. The number of specia l classes and complementary support services (assistance given to teachers in managing behavior and learning problems) increased dramatically after World War II. During the early 1900s there was also an increased attention to mental health and a consequent interest in establishing child guidance clinics. By 1930 child guidance clinics and counseling services were relatively common features of major cities, and by 1950 special education had become an identifiable part of urban public education in nearly every school district. By 1960 special educators were instructing their students in a continuum of settings that included hospital schools for those with the most severe disabilities, specialized day schools for students with severe disabilities who were able to live at home, and special classes in regular public schools for students whose disabilities could be managed in small groups. During this period special educators also began to take on the role of consultant, assisting other teachers in instructing students with disabilities. Thus, by 1970 the field of special education was offering a variety of educational placements to students with varying disabilities and needs; however, public schools were not yet required to educate all students regardless of their disabilities. During the middle decades of the twentieth century, instruction of children with disabilities often was based on process training – which involves attempts to improve children’s academic  performance by teaching them cognitive or motor processes, such as perceptualmotor skills, visual memory, auditory memory, or auditory-vocal processing. These are ancient ideas that found twentieth-century proponents. Process training enthusiasts taught children various perceptual skills (e.g., identifying different sounds or objects by touch) or perceptual motor skills (e.g., balancing) with the notion that fluency in these skills would generalize to reading, writing, arithmetic, and other basic academic tasks. After many years of research, however, such training was shown not to be effective in improving academic skills. Many of these same ideas were recycled in the late twentieth century as learning styles, multiple intelligences, and other notions that the underlying process of learning varies with gender, ethnicity, or other physiological differences. None of these theories has found much support in reliable research, although direct instruction, mnemonic (memory) devices, and a few other instructional strategies have been supported reliably by research. The History of Legislation in Special Education Although many contend that special education was born with the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) in 1975, it is clear that special educators were beginning to respond to the needs of children with disabilities in public schools nearly a century earlier. It is also clear that EAHCA did not spring from a vacuum. This landmark law naturally evolved from events in both special education and the larger society and came about in large part due to the work of grass roots organizations composed of both parents and professionals. These groups dated back to the 1870s, when the American Association of Instructors of the Blind and the American Association on Mental Deficiency (the latter is now the American Association on Mental Retardation) were formed. In 1922 the Council for Exceptional Children, now the major professional organization of special educators, was organized. In the 1930s and 1940s parent groups began to band together on a national level. These groups worked to make changes in their own communities and, consequently, set the stage for changes on a national level. Two of the most influential parent advocacy groups were the National Association for Retarded Citizens (now ARC/USA), organized in 1950, and the Association for Children with Learning Disabilities, organized in 1963. Throughout the first  half of the twentieth century, advocacy groups were securing local ordinances that would protect and serve individuals with disabilities in their communities. For example, in 1930, in Peoria, Illinois, the first white cane ordinance gave individuals with blindness the right-of-way when crossing the street. By mid-century all states had legislation providing for education of students with disabilities. However, legislation was still noncompulsory. In the late 1950s federal money was allocated for educating children with disabilities and for the training of special educators. Thus the federal government became formally involved in research and in training special education professionals, but limited its involvement to these functions until the 1970s. In 1971, this support was reinforced and extended to the state level when the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) filed a class action suit against their Commonwealth. This suit, resolved by consent agreement, specified that all children age six through twenty-one were to be provided free public education in the least restrictive alternative (LRA, which would later become the least restrictive environment [LRE] clause in EAHCA). In 1973 the Rehabilitation Act prohibited discriminatory practices in programs receiving federal financial assistance but imposed no affirmative obligations with respect to special education. In 1975 the legal action begun under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations resulted in EAHCA, which was signed into law by President Gerald Ford. EAHCA reached full implementation in 1977 and required school districts to provide free and appropriate education to all of their students with disabilities. In return for federal funding, each state was to ensure that students with disabilities received non-discriminatory testing, evaluation, and placement; the right to due process; education in the least restrictive environment; and a fre e and appropriate education. The centerpiece of this public law (known since 1990 as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA) was, and is, a free appropriate public education (FAPE). To ensure FAPE, the law mandated that each student receiving special education receive an Individualized Education Program (IEP). Under EAHCA, students with identified disabilities were to receive FAPE and an IEP that included relevant instructional goals and objectives, specifications as to length of school year, determination of the most appropriate educational placement, and descriptions of criteria to be used  in evaluation and measurement. The IEP was designed to ensure that all students with disabilities received educational programs specific to their â€Å"unique† needs. Thus, the education of students with disabilities became federally controlled. In the 1982 case of Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified the level of services to be afforded students with special needs and ruled that special education services need only provide some â€Å"educational benefit† to students – public schools were not required to maximize the educational progress of students with disabilities. In so doing the Supreme Court further defined what was meant by a free and appropriate education. In 1990 EAHCA was amended to include a change to person-first language, replacing the term handicapped student with student with disabilities. The 1990 amendments also added new classification categories for students with autism and traumatic brain injury and transition plans within IEPs for students age fourteen or older. In 1997, IDEA was reauthorized under President Clinton and amended to require the inclusion of students with disabilities in statewide and districtwide assessments, measurable IEP goals and objectives, and functional behavioral assessment and behavior intervention plans for students with emotional or behavioral needs. Because IDEA is amended and reauthorized every few years, it is impossible to predict the future of this law. It is possible that it will be repealed or altered dramatically by a future Congress. The special education story, both past and future, can be written in many different ways.

Burger King Corporate Social Responsibility

Assignment Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) refers â€Å"the ethical principle that a person or an organization should be accountable for how Its acts might affect the physical environment and the general public† dobber, D. & Fahy, J. , 2009). Nowadays, CSR programme Is a global trend, which Is encouraged by the government. It also helps the company in partnership and investment opportunities. On the other hand, CSR programme can enhance the company's Image In the consumers' views. It would be very effective In a competitive market.And furthermore, CSR programme can Improve he productivity and reduce the producing cost for the company. For these reasons, all kinds of business have began to focus on their CSR programme as responding to the sociality concerns In various ways. Burger King corporation (BKC) Is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. 3K Is founded In 1954 by James McLamore and David Edgerton. In the end of 2012, It has a total of 12,700 outlets In 7 3 countnes. Recently, BKC has lust arnved to Vietnam. BKC Is located In Hanoi, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh City.However, BKC does not seem to provide a good marketing campaign here. BKC has installed several CSR programmes in other countries but not in Vietnam yet. To implement a CSR programme is a way ot marketing it to Vietnamese society. The problem in Vietnam market is Vietnamese people are not used to tast food due to culture differences. They also care a lot about their looks, their healthy, especially obesity problem. People in ages of 16-35 are the main customer target of BKC, However, the rate of obesity of people in these ages is increasing rapidly.

Media & Invasion of Privacy

LAGOS STATE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION A TERM PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE COURSE: ETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTISE (MAC 854) LECTURER: DR. JIMI KAYODE TITLE: MEDIA AND THE INVASION OF PRIVACY BY AKANDE ADEFEYISAYO ADEBOLARINWA †¢ SUBMITTED ON 30th JANUARY, 2010 INTRODUCTION Media practitioners possess the function of gathering, processing and disseminating news item to a heterogeneous large audience which often times not done with sound moral judgement in mind lands them into pool of troubled waters. Celebrities, politicians and other sought-after sources of news have over time expressed justifiable anguish over the diminishing aspects of their lives that are no longer free from prying eyes and publication from the press. They routinely assert that members of the media violates their privacy based strictly on their need to publish any news story that comes their way for the main purpose of profit and simply can not distinguish what type of information is private, public or newsworthy. Journalists, however, often possess diverse concepts of privacy and newsworthiness, and know that the issue is more complicated based on the fact that reporting news stories in a way that serves and informs the public will often require publicizing details or displaying images that will mortify or anger someone. To make privacy issues even more complicated for journalists, courts constantly redefine what is private based upon interpretations of the elusive legal standard of a â€Å"reasonable expectation of privacy. ( www. winning-newsmedia. com/privacy) â€Å"The U. S. Supreme Courts scolding of the media in the 1999 â€Å"ride along† cases for a perceived inattention to the privacy rights of the people featured in the news most likely reflects the current attitude of many judges and lawmakers and, thus, underscores the importance for journalists to be aware of general privacy principles. † (www. associatedcontent. com/topic) The intrusion and publication of private images can expose journalists to overwhelming financial liability if a court determines that a news organization has invaded a person’s privacy. The invasion of another’s privacy is a tort, meaning a civil wrong against another that results in injury. A privacy tort occurs when a person or entity breaches the duty to leave another person alone. When reporters intrude on a person’s privacy and cause emotional or monetary injury, they may be forced to pay damages. To avoid lawsuits, journalists must know how the law operates while seeking to balance the competing interests of the press and the public against the privacy interests of the subjects of the reports. Journalists often run contrary of this tort through the process of gathering information. Actions that may violate this privacy right include intrusion onto private property, concealed observation and the deceptive access into private areas. Conduct that invades privacy may also violate the criminal law. In general, courts have held that journalists must obey all relevant laws. In Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469 (1975) â€Å"the U. S. Supreme Court noted that in privacy tort, claims of privacy most directly confront the constitutional freedoms of speech and press†. www. definitions. uslegal. com) This study provides a universal explanation of each privacy tort and related causes of action. The privacy facts tort presents the unsettling circumstances in which journalists may be liable for monetary damages for coverage of news item. In several cases the Supreme Court has held that â€Å"where a newspaper publishes truthful information which it has lawfully obtaine d, punishment may lawfully be imposed, if at all, only when narrowly tailored to a state interest of the highest order. Florida Star v. B. J. F. , 491 U. S. 524, 541 (1989). Although the Supreme Court has prevented states from punishing journalists who published legally obtained names of juvenile offenders and rape victims, the Court has not absolutely rejected the private facts tort in this context. Although crimes such as rape are newsworthy and newsworthiness is a defence to a private facts suit, not all courts have agreed that the identity of a rape victim is newsworthy. Apart from news story either in the broadcast or in the print medium, photography has also been observed as posing some inimitable problems in privacy law, broadly, the legal analysis for invasion of privacy through images parallels the analysis for invasions through words. Essentially, the scope of this study is simply to analysis the fundamental nature of privacy laws, the various types that a mass media practitioner can run afoul of in the course of his or her duty and its implication for the society as a whole. Emergence of Privacy Laws: Concerns about intrusive newspaper reporting were mainly the beginning of the law of privacy. At that time, metropolitan daily newspapers used a variety of sensational information to attract potential readers. Media practitioners often played out the lives of the affluent and famous on the pages of their newspaper, permitting their readers to vicariously enjoy the wealth and the status of the celebrity. It was the kind of journalism now commonly referred to as â€Å"yellow journalism† that drove two Boston lawyers, Samuel D. Warren and Louis Brandeis to use the pages of the Harvard Law Review to recommend an officially documented right to privacy titled â€Å"The Right to Privacy† in 1890. Thus, their enterprise can be justifiably referred to as the source from which the law of privacy sprouted from. In their words as cited in Pember & Calvert, 2006: To satisfy a prurient taste the details of sexual relations are spread broad-cast in the columns of the daily papers. To occupy the indolent, column upon column is filled with idle gossip, which can only be procured by intrusion upon the domestic circle†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. The common law has always recognised a man’s house as his castle, impregnable, often, even to its own officers engaged in the execution of its commands. Shall the courts close the front entrance to constituted authority, and open wide the back door to idle or prurient curiosity? Warren and Brandeis strongly proposed that people should be able to go to courts to stop such unwarranted intrusions and also to secure monetary damages for the hardship or emotional distress they suffered from prying and from publication of private materials about them. The question of when the coverage and reporting of news became an invasion of privacy is a difficult one, especially for photographers and videographers. Consequently, the combination of a lack of clear definitions of privacy standards and an acceptance of degree of privacy puts media practitioners in a precarious position. In Sanders v. American Broadcasting Cos. , Inc. , 978 P. 2d 67 Cal. 1999, â€Å"the California Supreme Court held in 1999 that even an employee who holds a conversation in an open office space and overheard by co-workers can pursue an invasion of privacy claim if that conversation is recorded by a reporter’s hidden camera. The court rejected the notion of privacy as an â€Å"all-or-nothing† concept and described an â€Å"expectation of limited privacy† as follows: †¢ A subjective expectation of privacy is an opinion of a person that a certain place or situation is private. †¢ An objective, legitimate or reasonable expectation of privacy is an expectation of privacy recognized by society Under different circumstances, however, courts have established that news media are justified in doing what their subjects may feel is invasive. ( wikipedia: 2002) Definitions: According to the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights Resolution 219A (III), Article 12 of 10 December 1948 as cited in Malemi (2002: 163): No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. Privacy refers primarily to a person’s right to be left alone by the media, not necessarily a physical intrusion into one's private property or personal space. Invasion of privacy charges are usually presented in a civil lawsuit against media outlets that have crossed a perceived line into a celebrity or other public figure's private life, or have used his or her likeness or name in an unauthorized public manner Privacy law is the area of law concerned with the protection and preservation of the privacy rights of individuals. Increasingly, governments and other publics as well as private organizations collect vast amounts of personal information about individuals for a variety of purposes. The law of privacy regulates the type of information which may be collected and how the information may be used. The Right to Privacy: According to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, chapter IV, Section 37 on the right to private and family life says: â€Å"Citizens have right to privacy of themselves, their homes, correspondence, telephone and telegraphic communications. † A violation of this rights amounts to invasion of privacy. Remedies can then be pursued in the courts when anyone goes contrary to the above provisions. The right of privacy is a common-law cause of action that is a recent legal development. The U. S. Constitution contains no direct references to the right of privacy, although the Fourth Amendment states: â€Å"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated†¦ † The right of privacy competes with the freedom of the press as well as the interest of the public in the free dissemination of news and information, and these permanent public interests must be considered when placing the necessary limitations upon the right of privacy. The First Amendment states: â€Å"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press†¦ † â€Å"[pic][pic]Invasion of privacy, then is the intrusion into the personal life of another, without just cause, which can give the person whose privacy has been invaded a right to bring a lawsuit for damages against the person or entity that intruded. It encompasses workplace monitoring, Internet privacy, data collection, and other means of disseminating private information†. Photographers’ guide to Privacy, 2003). The wrongful intrusion into a person's private activities by other individuals, the media or by the government has generally been defined as invasion of privacy. Privacy is invaded when one intentionally intrudes, physically or otherwise, upon a person's solitude or into his private area or affairs. Invasion of privacy is considered a violation of to rt law and can be litigated inside the civil courts for monetary damages. Recently, invasion of privacy has taken on even greater meaning with recent technological advances. Bussian & Levine 2004 opine that: Whether an article or broadcast is newsworthy, whether the information was gathered in an objectionable fashion, whether truthful information is nonetheless highly offensive — all are considerations in weighing individuals' claims against the news media. Invasion of privacy is a tort, a civil wrong, which can lead to jury trials and potential claims for compensatory and punitive damages. It also places judges in the unfamiliar and uncomfortable role as â€Å"editors† of last resort. Celebrities are not protected in most situations, since they have voluntarily placed themselves already within the public eye, and their activities are considered newsworthy. Categorically, invasion of privacy or the intrusion into the personal life of another, without just cause, can give the person whose privacy has been invaded a right to bring a lawsuit for damages against the person or entity that intruded. Folarin, 2005:155 also agrees that the right to privacy is a legal means by which consumers can control media content through suits instituted against the media in defence of their right relating to invasion of privacy which includes insulation from needless publication of private matters. Also that people can sue any media that uses their names falsely. He asserts that the people who have little or no chance of winning most of the suits are acknowledged public figures who are generally assumed to have lost their to privacy by taking up public office or otherwise become public by being involved in a newsworthy act or incident. In distinguishing invasion of privacy among other claims facing the media, unusual situations involving crime victims and witnesses and also photographs of virtually anything visible in a public place do not give rise to actions for publication of private facts. Also facts that give rise to a false light claim may support a defamation claim while injury to reputation is not required for a false light claim. The false light tort aims primarily to protect against emotional distress rather than to protect one’s reputation. Based on First Amendment of the US constitution concerns, and the similarity between the claims, some states have not been persuaded to recognize the false light tort. However, public personalities are not protected in most situations, since they have placed themselves already within the public eye, and their activities (even personal and sometimes intimate) are considered newsworthy and are perceived to be of legitimate public interest. Dimensions of Invasion of Privacy: ) Intrusion on one's solitude or into one's private affairs includes: †¢ The Home: A person's home gets the highest protection from the courts. Entering a house or apartment without permission of the occupant or, in some circumstances, the police, can be considered as an unlawful intrusion. †¢ Photographs and Tape Recording: Taking photographs of a person or his property in a private place may be an invasion of privacy. Tape recording a person without his consent may also provoke damage awards. ) Public di sclosure of embarrassing private information such as: †¢ Personal Matters: Details about a private person's sexual relationships, the contents of personal letters, private facts about an individual, or other intensely personal matters are off-limits to the news media unless they are considered as absolutely newsworthy. †¢ Newsworthiness: Even truthful accounts are actionable if they contain highly offensive details which are not of legitimate concern to the public. ) Publicity which puts him/her in a false light to the public: †¢ Fabrication: Ascribing quotes or fictionalizing actual events can lead to invasion if a person is portrayed in a false light before the public. †¢ Photographs: Using photographs or films to illustrate a story that implies falsely that a person is involved in a disreputable incident. d) Appropriation of one's name or picture for personal or commercial advantage such as: †¢ Advertising: The unauthorized use of a person's name or photo graph in an advertisement is another immense subject in nvading people’s privacy. †¢ Property Rights: This happens when the press offers to give away unauthorized broadcasts or photographs of a performance. The Supreme Court in the United States has ruled that there is a limited constitutional right of privacy based on a number of provisions in the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments. This includes a right to privacy from media surveillance into an area where a person has a â€Å"reasonable expectation of privacy† and also in matters relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing and education. However, records held by third parties such as financial records or telephone call records are generally not protected unless a specific federal law applies. The court has also recognized a right of anonymity and the right of groups to not have to disclose their members' names to media agencies. (www. answers. com) Generally, it’s been considered that one ought to have a reasonable â€Å"expectation of privacy†, meaning: i. A place where a reasonable person would believe that he or she could disrobe in privacy, without being concerned that his or her undressing was being photographed or filmed by another; or ii. A place where one may reasonably expect to be safe from casual or hostile intrusion or surveillance. Given the similarity to voyeurism, an adjudicator might find that placing a hidden camera in a certain location may amount to the torts of indignation or deliberate infliction of emotional distress. Invasion of privacy laws are usually broken into four separate categories highlighted earlier including intrusion, appropriation, false light and public disclosure of embarrassing facts. Intrusion of Solitude: Intrusion of solitude, seclusion or into private affairs is an arm of invasion of privacy done by spying on or intruding upon another person where that person has the expectation of privacy. Places that a person ought to have an expectation of privacy are usually in a home or business setting. Consequently, people who have become public figures do not have the same expectation of privacy. A media practitioner, who intentionally intrudes, physically or otherwise, upon the solitude or seclusion of another or his private affairs or concerns, is subject to liability for invasion of privacy, if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. To be liable for intrusion upon seclusion or solitude, the plaintiff must prove the following elements: Invasion of a secluded place or privacy: this happens when the defendant is alleged to have invaded the plaintiff's personal or private space. This could be determined by: Physical intrusion into a place where the plaintiff has secluded himself. ) Use of the defendant's senses to eavesdrop or spy in order to oversee or overhear the plaintiff's private affairs or b) Some other form of investigation or examination into plaintiff's private concerns. Objectionable intrusion: this is the type of intrusion that would be highly offensive to the ordinary reasonable person. †¢ Invasion of private affairs or matters: the i nterference with the plaintiff's privacy must be substantial (however, if the event reported occurs in public, there is no expectation of privacy). Other examples of intrusion upon privacy include placing microphones or cameras in someone's bedroom or hacking into their computer. Society does not expect a journalist to place wiretaps on a private individual’s telephone without his or her consent. Opening someone's mail is also considered to be intrusion of solitude, seclusion or private affairs. The information gathered by this form of intrusion need not be published in order for an invasion of privacy claim to succeed. Trespass is closely related to the intrusion tort and may be claimed simultaneously. Intrusion claims against the media often centre on some aspect of the newsgathering process. This tort may involve the wrongful use of tape recorders, cameras or other intrusive equipment. Trespass also can be a form of intrusion. An actionable claim for intrusion may arise whether or not a news story is published or aired. (A photographer’s guide to privacy, 2003) Appropriation of Name, Likeness or Identity: The appropriation of a private person's name, likeness or identity by a person or company for commercial gain is prohibited under the invasion of privacy laws. However, this law pertains to a private figure and not a public figure or celebrities, who have fewer and different privacy rights. The Restatement (Second) of Torts Section 652C (1977) defines appropriation of name or likeness as follows: â€Å"One who appropriates to his own use or benefit the name or likeness of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy. † (Bussian & Levine, 2004) Appropriation of name or likeness occurs when someone uses the name or likeness of another for their own advantage. Action for misappropriation of right of publicity protects against commercial loss caused by appropriation of an individual's personality for commercial exploitation. It gives the individual exclusive right to control the commercial value of his or her name and likeness to prevent others from exploiting that value without permission. It is similar to a trademark action with the person's likeness, rather than the trademark, being the subject of the protection. The appropriation category of invasion of privacy prevents others from using a person's name or identity for commercial gain. Ordinarily, the news media do not run afoul of this form of tort. However, seemingly harmless news coverage or advertisements can lead to lawsuits. This law came into existence from a couple of court decisions in the early 1900's where a private person's photograph was being used without consent for advertising purposes and without them receiving any monetary reward for using their pictures in print. The court recognized that the common law right to privacy including a person's identity had been violated by the unauthorized commercial use. In later cases, a person's voice was also included. Public figures, especially politicians do not have the same right to privacy as regards to appropriation of name, likeness or identity since there is much less expectation of privacy for public figures. Celebrities may sue for the appropriation of name, likeness or identity not on grounds of invasion of privacy, but rather on owning their own right to publicity and the monetary rewards (or damages) that come from using their likeness. False Light: As cited in Bussian , (2004) The Restatement (Second) of Torts Section 652E (1977) provides that: One who gives publicity to a matter concerning another that places the other before the public in a false light is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the false light in which the other was placed would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and the actor had knowledge of or acted in reckless disregard as to the falsity of the publicized matter and the false light in which the other would be placed. Creating a false image for an individual may constitute an invasion of privacy. This is an aspect of invasion of privacy that deals with untruthful publication. In this instance, the offended person is placed in a false light through misleading descriptions, confusion of the person's identity with another, fictionalization of actual events, or photographs taken out of context. Its features are: It gives an individual unreasonable and highly objectionable publicity that attributes false characteristics, conduct or beliefs to him or her. The said material must be published to a third person or publicised to a large audience or to so many persons that the matter must be regarded as substantially certain to become one of public knowledge. The invasion of privacy tort of false light is upheld in court when the plaintiff can prove that the defendant publicize the plaintiff in such as way that it would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. However, it is pertinent to note that this tort shares many similarities with libel and many courts have trouble separating the two. Public Disclosure of Embarrassing Private Facts: Public disclosure of embarrassing private facts becomes an invasion of privacy tort when the disclosure is so despicable that it becomes a matter of public concern and it outrages the public sense of decency. In this invasion of privacy tort, the information may be truthful and yet still be considered an invasion if it is not newsworthy, if the event took place in private and there was no consent to reveal the information. The Restatement (Second) of Torts Section 652D (1977) provides that: One who gives ublicity to a matter concerning the private life of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the matter publicized is of a kind that (a) would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and (b) is not of legitimate concern to the public. (ibid) The media can also be held accountable for damages for truthful publication. It is considered that the antisocial article or broadcast exposes to public view certain highly offensive matters that are not considered newsworthy. In order for an offended plaintiff to prevail, he must prove that the publication was: a) Extremely offensive to a reasonable person, b) And that the matters were not of legitimate concern to the public. The latter requirement may give the news media what might be called the newsworthiness defence. Though, the legal concern of the public in a matter is not presumed by the matter's publication. Thus, a plaintiff may prove that an article is lacking in newsworthiness despite its publication. Below is a good example: Case study: Publication of Embarrassing Private Facts Nollywood actress and 2005 Gulder Ultimate Search star, Anita Hogan, was reported to have lost a three-month-old pregnancy following the shock caused by the publication of her nude pictures in Daily Sun, an evening newspaper in 2006. Anita, according to her lawyer, was engaged to be married to a white man whose nude pictures were published along with hers in the Friday, August 11th edition of the newspaper. Police detectives in Lagos eventually arrested one Emeka Nwankwo, a computer engineer who allegedly circulated the shocking pictures to the media, after the actress rebuffed his alleged bid to blackmail and extort money from her over the lurid shots. The actress through her counsel explained that the computer where the controversial photos were saved developed a fault and had to be taken for repairs, from where they were allegedly stolen. The shots were said to have been taken by Anita’s fiance and stored on her personal computer. Emeka allegedly approached her to pay him N500, 000 or risk getting her pornographic pictures with the white man published in newspapers. The actress was said to have turned down the request, which she regarded as blackmail, and Emeka allegedly went ahead with his threat to circulate the pictures to media houses. A petition written by Anita’s lawyer, Mr Tony Dania of Dania and Associates, to the Deputy Commissioner of Police SCID, Lagos, actually admitted that the pictures in circulation were those of the actress but stressed that they were Anita’s private pictures with her fiance, stolen and doctored to suit the purpose of blackmail. The aforesaid publication is a criminal invasion of our client’s privacy. From the story the suspects published, it was obvious that there was blackmail and attempts to extort money from our client. They stole some of our clients’ pictures, used the computer to improvise and superimpose further images on them, called our clie nt and demanded for money. â€Å"The white man in the published pictures is a true resemblance of Anita’s fiance who works in a very decent organisation. In fact, they have done the pre-marriage formal introduction. Anita, who lost her dad recently, was actually carrying the baby of the white man, but the shock of the aforesaid inglorious publications made her to lose her pregnancy between Saturday/Sunday, August, 12, 13, 2006,† the petition alleged. CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS Misappropriation: There are statutes that govern the right of publicity. These laws have two purposes: 1) To protect ordinary individuals from the mental anguish that may accompany the undesired commercial use of their name or image, and 2) To protect the property interest that celebrities develop in their identities. Under these laws the use of a relevant picture to illustrate a newsworthy article will generally not lead to liability. The unauthorized use of a celebrity’s picture in an advertisement often will. False Light: A photograph or videotape by itself will rarely place a subject in a false light. Rather, the accompanying text, caption, or voice-over could be misleading and portray the person in a false context. However, an accurate depiction of a person in a publication the person finds offensive does not, in itself, state a false light claim. Private Facts: The private facts tort presents unsettling scenario in which media practitioners may be iable for money damages for reporting the truth. In several cases the US Supreme Court has held that â€Å"where a newspaper publishes truthful information which it has lawfully obtained, punishment may lawfully be imposed, if at all, only when narrowly tailored to a state interest of the highest order. † Florida Star v. B. J. F. , 49 1 U. S. 524, 541 (1989) as cited in Bussian & Levine 2004. Although the Supreme Court has prevented states from punishing journalists who published legally obtained names of juvenile offenders and rape victims, the Court has not absolutely rejected the private facts tort in this context. Although crimes such as rape are newsworthy not all courts have agreed that the identity of a rape victim is newsworthy. Intrusion: Intrusion always comes into play through the process of gathering information. Here, the subsequent publication of the information is not required. Actions that may violate this privacy right include trespass onto private property, hidden surveillance, and the fraudulent entry into private areas. Conduct that invades privacy may also violate the criminal law. In general, courts have held that journalists must obey generally applicable laws. Trespass is the illegal entry onto private property. If the owner or person in charge of private property orders a photographer to leave, the photographer should leave or be prepared to face a trespass charge. Photographers who accompany police onto private property are not necessarily immune from liability. Camera operators should also be aware of federal and state laws that govern the taping of oral communications. The federal wiretap statute prohibits the interception of oral communications unless one party such as the journalist consents to the recording. And there have been instances where barring the taping of oral communications exist unless all parties consent to the taping. Privacy and the Internet: â€Å"The US Congress and its state legislatures across the nation have considered or are considering scores of bills aimed at reducing public concern about the ability of Internet users to protect their private lives as they surf the World Wide Web. † (Pember & Calvert, 2006). Despite the positive usage of the internet, the have been growing concern among users about the technology considering the ease with which third parties can collect data bout users and what the data collectors can do with the material they have gathered. However, the Nigerian Government have not woken from its slumber towards the direction of giving adequate protection to its citizens, properties and of course, rights. Defences available to Privacy Suits: Several defences are available to photographers and news organizations accused of invasion of privac y: Legitimate concern: defendant in a disclosure can challenge the plaintiff's proof of the basic elements of intrusion. For example, the defendant may be able to show that the facts that the defendant disclosed were matters of legitimate public concern. If a person is involved in a matter of legitimate public concern, a â€Å"newsworthy† event, the person becomes a public figure with respect to that event, regardless of the person's intentions or desires. If a person is a public official or public figure, his or her reasonable expectations of privacy are dramatically reduced. As a practical matter, a public official or public figure cannot successfully sue unless the invasion of privacy is outrageous or done with actual malice. Consent: it is a voluntary agreement to a publication or permission to enter a private place to gather information. It could be expressed or implied. Allis (2009) opines that a person who accepts money or other considerations in exchange for the invasion of privacy is said to have sold his or her â€Å"rights. † Though some defendants, such as prosecutors and government officials do have immunity if they are acting within the scope of their authority. Anything to be used in a commercial context, whether it is a photo taken in public or in private, must have consent, usually in the form of a model release. Consent must be obtained from someone who can validly give it. Consent to enter a home may not be consent to photograph it. Consent exceeded can be the same as no consent at all. Although oral consent may protect the press from liability for invasion of privacy, written consent is more likely to foreclose the possibility of a lawsuit. However, a subject’s subsequent withdrawal of consent does not bar the publication of the photograph. It simply means that the journalist may not assert consent as a defence if the subject later files suit. Cornwell (2008) sums it by saying â€Å"the more explicit the consent, the better the protection for the press. † Newsworthiness: Is generally defined as what the public is interested in. According to Wulfemeyer (2003), if a story that includes legally obtained private information that is embarrassing to the plaintiff but the subject matter is of public concern, it would be difficult for the plaintiff to win the law suit because courts give wide latitude to the newsworthiness defence. Photographs taken in public places generally are not actionable. Photographs of crimes, arrests and accidents usually are considered newsworthy and immune from privacy claims. Public places: if an event occurs in public view, they are almost always considered public and not private. Though public places defence have been considered not absolute. Public proceedings: Information obtained during public meetings, hearings or trials can be reported by a news organization. Public records: if information has been obtained from a document that is of a public record, it can not be deemed private. ETHICAL OBLIGATION Momoh (2004) opines that as a rule a journalist should respect the privacy of individuals and their families unless it affects public interest in the following ways: †¢ Information on the private life of an individual or his family should only be published if it impinges on public interest, †¢ Publishing of such information about an individual as mentioned above should be deemed justifiable only if it is directed at: 1. Exposing crime or serious misdemeanour; 2. Exposing anti – social conduct; 3. Protecting public health, morality and safety; 4. Preventing the public from being misled by some statement or action of the individual concerned. SUMMING UP The Right of Privacy is a good measure to check media practitioners on inappropriate media content so a news medium while carrying out its function must at all time be concerned with the welfare of its consumer. A media practitioner must ensure the accuracy of his or her information and must be ready to make corrections and clarifications when necessary after publishing or broadcasting untrue information. A media practitioner must at all time uphold the dignity of his or her profession comply with his or her professional codes and respect the human rights. A media expert must also recognise that gathering and reporting information may sometimes cause discomfort, so must seek ways to minimise the hurt. (Kayode, 2009). REFERENCES Allis. (2009). Invasion of Privacy—Appropriation. Retrieved September 19, 2009, from Lexis-Nexis database. Bussian & Levine. (2004). Invasion of Privacy: The Right â€Å"to be left alone† Retieved September 18, 2009, from Lexis-Nexis database. Cornwell, C. N. (2008). Freedom of the Press: Rights and liberties under the law. Retrieved September 18, 2009, from http://www. abc. clio. com Expectation of privacy (2002). Retrieved September 18, 2009, From http://www. wikipedia. com Folarin , B. (2005). Theories of Mass Communication: An Introductory Text. Abeokuta: Bakinfol Publication Invasion of Privacy (2003). Retrieved September 18, 2009, From http://www. winningnewsmedia. com/privacy Kayode, J. (2009). Ethics and professional practise [Record] . Lagos. Malemi, E. (2002). Mass Media Law: Cases and materials Lagos: Grace Publishing Incorporation Momoh, T . (2004). Nigerian Media Laws & Ethics Lagos : Efua Media Associates. Pember & Calvert. (2006). Mass Media Law Boston: McGraw Hill. Phtographers’ giude to Privacy (2003), Retrieved September 18, 2009, From http://www. rcfp. org Wulfemeyer, K. T. (2003). Radio & TV Newswriting: A workbook Retrieved September 19, 2009, from Lexis-Nexis database.

Prejudice in to Kil a Mocking Bird

Prejudice is shown in many ways in To Kill a Mocking Bird. From social prejudice against the Cunninghams to racial prejudice against Tom Robinson, the book has displayed many aspects of how people can look through the window and see things completely differently than the person beside them. A form of social prejudice is when Aunt Alexandra forbid Scout to play with Walter Cunningham, a poor boy whom Scout attends school with. This is because Aunt Alexandra sees Walter and his family as poor and beneath the Finches, in her words,† †¦ they're good folks.But they're not our kind of folks. †Ã‚   This shows that to the Maycomb citizens, social status is an extremely important issue. Also, in Tom Robinson’s case, Aunt Alexandra also advices Atticus not to take up the case, as it would cause the people of Maycomb to look down on them or gossip about them. Hence this shows that people in Maycomb like Aunt Alexandra are extremely conscious about where they stand in the society. Maycomb is a very religious town with the foot-washing Baptists appearing to have a strong influence on the community.The foot-washers have very strict views and believe that anything which is pleasurable is a sin. They are therefore prejudiced against a great deal of people who are different from them with different opinions. An example of their prejudice is when Miss Maudie says, â€Å"some of ‘em came out of the woods one Saturday and passed by this place and told me and my flowers we were going to hell†. Their belief is so extreme that they feel they should threaten those who enjoy life. Another example of religious prejudice is the isolation of the Radleys.This isolation is due to the Radley family not attending church which is Maycomb’s â€Å" principal recreation †The Radleys suffer religious prejudice because they keep themselves to themselves, apart from everyone else. This action is considered a disapproval by the people of Maycomb. Als o, Mrs Radley hardly ever â€Å" crossed the street for a mid-morning coffee break with her neighbours †, this is also deemed unfriendly and unforgivable by the people of Maycomb hence the isolated of the Radleys.A form of racial prejudice can be seen from the trial of Tom Robinson. Tom Robinson is a black man who was found guilty of a rape he didn't commit. The racial prejudice nature of Maycomb is clearly portrayed through such instances as the fact that Atticus is accused by the town of being a â€Å"nigger lover† for defending Tom’s case and also through the mob scene outside the jail. The fact that a white man would stand up for a black man in that town got them very upset. â€Å"Yeah, but Atticus aims to defend him. That's what I don't like about it†.The people are also not pleased that Atticus tried his best to defend Tom Robinson It is in the Tom Robinson trial that the greatest example of injustice because of prejudice is seen. The townspeople di d not care whether Tom was innocent or guilty because of his color and never even gave him a chance because he was black. Although Atticus actually manages to prove the innocence of Tom Robinson, the white jury still refuses to declare the innocence of a black man over a white resulting in the most blatant testimony to the fact that the town of Maycomb held racial discrimination above justice.Through its decision the town essentially kills a mockingbird. Tom Robinson was a man who did no harm to others but instead actually helped others out of kindness – a mockingbird who becomes victim to a racist society. Another form of racial prejudice is how inhumane the white are towards the black. The townspeople viewed this case as a carnival. â€Å"It was a gala occasion. There was no room at the public hitching trail for another animal, mules and wagons were parked under every available tree.The courthouse square was covered with picnic parties sitting on newspapers, washing down b iscuit and syrup with warm milk from fruit jars†. This was more like entertainment for the townspeople. This was fun for them, talking with friends, having lunch, and joking. They were there only to watch the trial like as if they were watching a show, they were only curious about the verdict of Tom Robinson’s case and were not concern about his predicament. This shows the prejudice in the white that caused them to be extremely cruel.

A Dirty Job Chapter 10

– Dag Hammarskjà ¶ld 10 DEATH TAKES A WALK Mornings, Charlie walked. At six, after an early breakfast, he would turn the care of Sophie over to Mrs. Korjev or Mrs. Ling (whoever’s turn it was) for the workday and walk – stroll really, pacing out the city with the sword-cane, which had become part of his daily regalia, wearing soft, black-leather walking shoes and an expensive, secondhand suit that had been retailored at his cleaner’s in Chinatown. Although he pretended to have a purpose, Charlie walked to give himself time to think, to try on the size of being Death, and to look at all the people out and about in the morning. He wondered if the girl at the flower stand, from whom he often bought a carnation for his lapel, had a soul, or would give hers up while he watched her die. He watched the guy in North Beach make cappuccinos with faces and fern leaves drawn in the foam, and wondered if a guy like that could actually function without a soul, or was his soul collecting dust in Charlie’s back ro om? There were a lot of people to see, and a lot of thinking to be done. Being out among the people of the city, when they were just starting to move, greeting the day, making ready, he started to feel not just the responsibility of his new role, but the power, and finally, the specialness. It didn’t matter that he had no idea what he was doing, or that he might have lost the love of his life for it to happen; he had been chosen. And realizing that, one day as he walked down California Street, down Nob Hill into the financial district, where he’d always felt inferior and out of touch with the world, as the brokers and bankers quickstepped around him, barking into their cell phones to Hong Kong or London or New York and never making eye contact, he started to not so much stroll, as strut. That day Charlie Asher climbed onto the California Street cable car for the first time since he was a kid, and hung off the bar, out over the street, holding out the sword-cane as if charging, with Hondas and Mercedes zooming along the street beside him, pas sing under his armpit just inches away. He got off at the end of the line, bought a Wall Street Journal from a machine, then walked to the nearest storm drain, spread out the Journal to protect his trousers against oil stains, then got down on his hands and knees and screamed into the drain grate, â€Å"I have been chosen, so don’t fuck with me!† When he stood up again, a dozen people were standing there, waiting for the light to change. Looking at him. â€Å"Had to be done,† Charlie said, not apologizing, just explaining. The bankers and the brokers, the executive assistants and the human-resource people and the woman on her way to serve up clam chowder in a sourdough bowl at the Boudin Bakery, all nodded, not sure exactly why, except that they worked in the financial district, and they all understood being fucked with, and in their souls if not in their minds, they knew that Charlie had been yelling in the right direction. He folded his paper, tucked it under his arm, then turned and crossed the street with them when the light changed. Sometimes Charlie walked whole blocks when he thought only of Rachel, and would become so engrossed in the memory of her eyes, her smile, her touch, that he ran straight into people. Other times people would bump into him, and not even lift his wallet or say â€Å"excuse me,† which might be a matter of course in New York, but in San Francisco meant that he was close to a soul vessel that needed to be retrieved. He found one, a bronze fireplace poker, set out by the curb with the trash on Russian Hill. Another time, he spotted a glowing vase displayed in the bay window of a Victorian in North Beach. He screwed up his courage and knocked on the door, and when a young woman answered, and came out on the porch to look for her visitor, and was bewildered because she didn’t see anyone there, Charlie slipped past her, grabbed the vase, and was out the side door before she came back in, his heart pounding like a war drum, adrenaline sizzling through his veins like a hormonal ti lt-a-whirl. As he headed back to the shop that particular morning, he realized, with no little sense of irony, that until he became Death, he’d never felt so alive. Every morning, Charlie tried to walk in a different direction. On Mondays he liked to go up into Chinatown just after dawn, when all the deliveries were being made – crates of produce, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, melons, and a dozen varieties of cabbage, tended by Latinos in the Central Valley and consumed by Chinese in Chinatown, having passed through Anglo hands just long enough to extract the nourishing money. On Mondays the fishing companies delivered their fresh catches – usually strong Italian men whose families had been in the business for five generations, handing off their catch to inscrutable Chinese merchants whose ancestors had bought fish from the Italians off horse-drawn wagons a hundred years before. All sorts of live and recently live fish were moved across the sidewalk: snapper and halibut and mackerel, sea bass and ling cod and yellowtail, clawless Pacific lobster, Dungeness crab, ghastly monkfish, with their long saberlike teeth and a sin gle spine that jutted from their head, bracing a luminous lure they used to draw in prey, so deep in the ocean that the sun never shone. Charlie was fascinated by the creatures from the very deep sea, the big-eyed squid, cuttlefish, the blind sharks that located prey with electromagnetic impulses – creatures who never saw light. They made him think of what might be facing him from the Underworld, because even as he fell into a rhythm of finding names at his bedside, and soul vessels in all manner of places, and the appearance of the ravens and the shades subsided, he could feel them under the street whenever he passed a storm sewer. Sometimes he could hear them whispering to one another, hushing quickly in the rare moments when the street went quiet. To walk through Chinatown at dawn was to become part of a dangerous dance, because there were no back doors or alleys for loading, and all the wares went across the sidewalk, and although Charlie had enjoyed neither danger nor dancing up till now, he enjoyed playing dance partner to the thousand tiny Chinese grandmothers in black slippers or jelly-colored plastic shoes who scampered from merchant to merchant, squeezing and smelling and thumping, looking for the freshest and the best for their families, twanging orders and questions to the merchants in Mandarin, all the while just a second or a slip away from being run over by sides of beef, great racks of fresh duck, or hand trucks stacked high with crates of live turtles. Charlie was yet to retrieve a soul vessel on one of his Chinatown walks, but he stayed ready, because the swirl of time and motion forecast that one foggy morning someone’s granny was going to get knocked out of her moo shoes. One Monday, just for sport, Charlie grabbed an eggplant that a spectacularly wizened granny was going for, but instead of twisting it out of his hand with some mystic kung fu move as he expected, she looked him in the eye and shook her head – just a jog, barely perceptible really – it might have been a tic, but it was the most eloquent of gestures. Charlie read it as saying: O White Devil, you do not want to purloin that purple fruit, for I have four thousand years of ancestors and civilization on you; my grandparents built the railroads and dug the silver mines, and my parents survived the earthquake, the fire, and a society that outlawed even being Chinese; I am mother to a dozen, grandmother to a hundred, and great-grandmother to a legion; I have birthed babies and washed the dead; I am history and suffering and wisdom; I am a Buddha and a dragon; so get your fucking hand off my eggplant before you lose it. And Charlie let go. And she grinned, just a little. Three teeth. And he wondered if it ever did fall to him to retrieve the soul vessel of one of these crones of Chronos, if he’d even be able to lift it. And he grinned back. And asked for her phone number, which he gave to Ray. â€Å"She seemed nice,† Charlie told him. â€Å"Mature.† Sometimes Charlie’s walks took him through Japantown, where he passed the most enigmatic shop in the city, Invisible Shoe Repair. He really intended to stop in one day, but he was still coming to terms with giant ravens, adversaries from the Underworld, and being a Merchant of Death, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for invisible shoes, let alone invisible shoes that needed repair! He often tried to look past the Japanese characters into the shop window as he passed, but saw nothing, which, of course, didn’t mean a thing. He just wasn’t ready. But there was a pet shop in Japantown (House of Pleasant Fish and Gerbil), where he had originally gone to buy Sophie’s fish, and where he returned to replace the TV attorneys with six TV detectives, who also simultaneously took the big Ambien a week later. Charlie had been distraught to find his baby daughter drooling away in front of a bowl floating more dead detectives than a film noir festival, and after fl ushing all six at once and having to use the plunger to dislodge Magnum and Mannix, he vowed that next time he would find more resilient pals for his little girl. He was coming out of House of PFG one afternoon, with a Habitrail pod containing a pair of sturdy hamsters, when he ran into Lily, who was making her way to a coffeehouse up on Van Ness, where she was planning to meet her friend Abby for some latte-fueled speed brooding. â€Å"Hey, Lily, how are you doing?† Charlie was trying to appear matter-of-fact, but he found that the awkwardness between him and Lily over the last few months was not mitigated by her seeing him on the street carrying a plastic box full of rodents. â€Å"Nice gerbils,† Lily said. She wore a Catholic schoolgirl’s plaid skirt over black tights and Doc Martens, with a tight black PVC bustier that was squishing pale Lily-bits out the top, like a can of biscuit dough that’s been smacked on the edge of the counter. The hair color du jour was fuchsia, over violet eye shadow, which matched her violet, elbow-length lace gloves. She looked up and down the street and, when she didn’t see anyone she knew, fell into step next to Charlie. â€Å"They’re not gerbils, they’re hamsters,† Charlie said. â€Å"Asher, do you have something you’ve been keeping from me?† She tilted her head a little, but didn’t look at him when she asked, just kept her eyes forward, scanning the street for someone who might recognize her walking next to Charlie, thus forcing her to commit seppuku. â€Å"Jeez, Lily, these are for Sophie!† Charlie said. â€Å"Her fish died, so I’m bringing her some new pets. Besides, that whole gerbil thing is an urban myth – â€Å" â€Å"I meant that you’re Death,† Lily said. Charlie nearly dropped his hamsters. â€Å"Huh?† â€Å"It’s so wrong – † Lily continued, walking on after Charlie had stopped in his tracks, so now he had to scurry to catch up to her. â€Å"Just so wrong, that you would be chosen. Of all of life’s many disappointments, I’d have to say that this is the crowning disappointment.† â€Å"You’re sixteen,† Charlie said, still stumbling a little at the matter-of-fact way she was discussing this. â€Å"Oh, throw that in my face, Asher. I’m only sixteen for two more months, then what? In the blink of an eye my beauty becomes but a feast for worms, and I, a forgotten sigh in a sea of nothingness.† â€Å"Your birthday is in two months? Well, we’ll have to get you a nice cake,† Charlie said. â€Å"Don’t change the subject, Asher. I know all about you, and your Death persona.† Charlie stopped again and turned to look at her. This time, she stopped as well. â€Å"Lily, I know I’ve been acting a little strangely since Rachel died, and I’m sorry you got in trouble at school because of me, but it’s just been trying to deal with it all, with the baby, with the business. The stress of it all has – â€Å" â€Å"I have The Great Big Book of Death,† Lily said. She steadied Charlie’s hamsters when he lost his grip. â€Å"I know about the soul vessels, about the dark forces rising if you fuck up, all that stuff – all of it. I’ve known longer than you have, I think.† Charlie didn’t know what to say. He was feeling panic and relief at the same time – panic because Lily knew, but relief because at least someone knew, and believed it, and had actually seen the book. The book! â€Å"Lily, do you still have the book?† â€Å"It’s in the store. I hid it in the back of the glass cabinet where you keep the valuable stuff that no one will ever buy.† â€Å"No one ever looks in that cabinet.† â€Å"No kidding? I thought if you ever found it, I’d say it had always been there.† â€Å"I have to go.† He turned and started walking the other direction, but then realized that they had already been heading toward his neighborhood and turned around again. â€Å"Where are you going?† â€Å"To get some coffee.† â€Å"I’ll walk with you.† â€Å"You will not.† Lily looked around again, wary that someone might see them. â€Å"But, Lily, I’m Death. That should at least have given me some level of cool.† â€Å"Yeah, you’d think, but it turns out that you have managed to suck the cool out of being Death.† â€Å"Wow, that’s harsh.† â€Å"Welcome to my world, Asher.† â€Å"You can’t tell anyone about this, you know that?† â€Å"Like anyone cares what you do with your gerbils.† â€Å"Hamsters! That’s not – â€Å" â€Å"Chill, Asher.† Lily giggled. â€Å"I know what you mean. I’m not going to tell anyone – except Abby knows – but she doesn’t care. She says she’s met some guy who’s her dark lord. She’s in that stage where she thinks a dick is some kind of mystical magic wand.† Charlie adjusted his hamster box uncomfortably. â€Å"Girls go through a stage like that?† Why was he just hearing about this now? Even the hamsters looked uncomfortable. Lily turned on a heel and started up the street. â€Å"I’m not having this conversation with you.† Charlie stood there, watching her go, balancing the hamsters and his completely useless sword-cane while trying to dig his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. He needed to see that book, and he needed to see it sooner than the hour it would take him to get home. â€Å"Lily, wait!† he called. â€Å"I’m calling a cab, I’ll give you a ride.† She waved him off without looking and kept walking. As he was waiting for the cab company to answer, he heard it, the voice, and he realized that he was standing right over a storm drain. It had been over a month since he’d heard them, and he thought maybe they’d gone. â€Å"We’ll have her, too, Meat. She’s ours now.† He felt the fear rise in his throat like bile. He snapped the phone shut and ran after Lily, cane rattling and hamsters bouncing as he went. â€Å"Lily, wait! Wait!† She spun around quickly and her fuchsia wig only did the quarter turn instead of the half, so her face was covered with hair when she said, â€Å"One of those ice-cream cakes from Thirty-one Flavors, okay? After that, despair and nothingness.† â€Å"We’ll put that on the cake,† Charlie said. A Dirty Job Chapter 10 – Dag Hammarskjà ¶ld 10 DEATH TAKES A WALK Mornings, Charlie walked. At six, after an early breakfast, he would turn the care of Sophie over to Mrs. Korjev or Mrs. Ling (whoever’s turn it was) for the workday and walk – stroll really, pacing out the city with the sword-cane, which had become part of his daily regalia, wearing soft, black-leather walking shoes and an expensive, secondhand suit that had been retailored at his cleaner’s in Chinatown. Although he pretended to have a purpose, Charlie walked to give himself time to think, to try on the size of being Death, and to look at all the people out and about in the morning. He wondered if the girl at the flower stand, from whom he often bought a carnation for his lapel, had a soul, or would give hers up while he watched her die. He watched the guy in North Beach make cappuccinos with faces and fern leaves drawn in the foam, and wondered if a guy like that could actually function without a soul, or was his soul collecting dust in Charlie’s back ro om? There were a lot of people to see, and a lot of thinking to be done. Being out among the people of the city, when they were just starting to move, greeting the day, making ready, he started to feel not just the responsibility of his new role, but the power, and finally, the specialness. It didn’t matter that he had no idea what he was doing, or that he might have lost the love of his life for it to happen; he had been chosen. And realizing that, one day as he walked down California Street, down Nob Hill into the financial district, where he’d always felt inferior and out of touch with the world, as the brokers and bankers quickstepped around him, barking into their cell phones to Hong Kong or London or New York and never making eye contact, he started to not so much stroll, as strut. That day Charlie Asher climbed onto the California Street cable car for the first time since he was a kid, and hung off the bar, out over the street, holding out the sword-cane as if charging, with Hondas and Mercedes zooming along the street beside him, pas sing under his armpit just inches away. He got off at the end of the line, bought a Wall Street Journal from a machine, then walked to the nearest storm drain, spread out the Journal to protect his trousers against oil stains, then got down on his hands and knees and screamed into the drain grate, â€Å"I have been chosen, so don’t fuck with me!† When he stood up again, a dozen people were standing there, waiting for the light to change. Looking at him. â€Å"Had to be done,† Charlie said, not apologizing, just explaining. The bankers and the brokers, the executive assistants and the human-resource people and the woman on her way to serve up clam chowder in a sourdough bowl at the Boudin Bakery, all nodded, not sure exactly why, except that they worked in the financial district, and they all understood being fucked with, and in their souls if not in their minds, they knew that Charlie had been yelling in the right direction. He folded his paper, tucked it under his arm, then turned and crossed the street with them when the light changed. Sometimes Charlie walked whole blocks when he thought only of Rachel, and would become so engrossed in the memory of her eyes, her smile, her touch, that he ran straight into people. Other times people would bump into him, and not even lift his wallet or say â€Å"excuse me,† which might be a matter of course in New York, but in San Francisco meant that he was close to a soul vessel that needed to be retrieved. He found one, a bronze fireplace poker, set out by the curb with the trash on Russian Hill. Another time, he spotted a glowing vase displayed in the bay window of a Victorian in North Beach. He screwed up his courage and knocked on the door, and when a young woman answered, and came out on the porch to look for her visitor, and was bewildered because she didn’t see anyone there, Charlie slipped past her, grabbed the vase, and was out the side door before she came back in, his heart pounding like a war drum, adrenaline sizzling through his veins like a hormonal ti lt-a-whirl. As he headed back to the shop that particular morning, he realized, with no little sense of irony, that until he became Death, he’d never felt so alive. Every morning, Charlie tried to walk in a different direction. On Mondays he liked to go up into Chinatown just after dawn, when all the deliveries were being made – crates of produce, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, melons, and a dozen varieties of cabbage, tended by Latinos in the Central Valley and consumed by Chinese in Chinatown, having passed through Anglo hands just long enough to extract the nourishing money. On Mondays the fishing companies delivered their fresh catches – usually strong Italian men whose families had been in the business for five generations, handing off their catch to inscrutable Chinese merchants whose ancestors had bought fish from the Italians off horse-drawn wagons a hundred years before. All sorts of live and recently live fish were moved across the sidewalk: snapper and halibut and mackerel, sea bass and ling cod and yellowtail, clawless Pacific lobster, Dungeness crab, ghastly monkfish, with their long saberlike teeth and a sin gle spine that jutted from their head, bracing a luminous lure they used to draw in prey, so deep in the ocean that the sun never shone. Charlie was fascinated by the creatures from the very deep sea, the big-eyed squid, cuttlefish, the blind sharks that located prey with electromagnetic impulses – creatures who never saw light. They made him think of what might be facing him from the Underworld, because even as he fell into a rhythm of finding names at his bedside, and soul vessels in all manner of places, and the appearance of the ravens and the shades subsided, he could feel them under the street whenever he passed a storm sewer. Sometimes he could hear them whispering to one another, hushing quickly in the rare moments when the street went quiet. To walk through Chinatown at dawn was to become part of a dangerous dance, because there were no back doors or alleys for loading, and all the wares went across the sidewalk, and although Charlie had enjoyed neither danger nor dancing up till now, he enjoyed playing dance partner to the thousand tiny Chinese grandmothers in black slippers or jelly-colored plastic shoes who scampered from merchant to merchant, squeezing and smelling and thumping, looking for the freshest and the best for their families, twanging orders and questions to the merchants in Mandarin, all the while just a second or a slip away from being run over by sides of beef, great racks of fresh duck, or hand trucks stacked high with crates of live turtles. Charlie was yet to retrieve a soul vessel on one of his Chinatown walks, but he stayed ready, because the swirl of time and motion forecast that one foggy morning someone’s granny was going to get knocked out of her moo shoes. One Monday, just for sport, Charlie grabbed an eggplant that a spectacularly wizened granny was going for, but instead of twisting it out of his hand with some mystic kung fu move as he expected, she looked him in the eye and shook her head – just a jog, barely perceptible really – it might have been a tic, but it was the most eloquent of gestures. Charlie read it as saying: O White Devil, you do not want to purloin that purple fruit, for I have four thousand years of ancestors and civilization on you; my grandparents built the railroads and dug the silver mines, and my parents survived the earthquake, the fire, and a society that outlawed even being Chinese; I am mother to a dozen, grandmother to a hundred, and great-grandmother to a legion; I have birthed babies and washed the dead; I am history and suffering and wisdom; I am a Buddha and a dragon; so get your fucking hand off my eggplant before you lose it. And Charlie let go. And she grinned, just a little. Three teeth. And he wondered if it ever did fall to him to retrieve the soul vessel of one of these crones of Chronos, if he’d even be able to lift it. And he grinned back. And asked for her phone number, which he gave to Ray. â€Å"She seemed nice,† Charlie told him. â€Å"Mature.† Sometimes Charlie’s walks took him through Japantown, where he passed the most enigmatic shop in the city, Invisible Shoe Repair. He really intended to stop in one day, but he was still coming to terms with giant ravens, adversaries from the Underworld, and being a Merchant of Death, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for invisible shoes, let alone invisible shoes that needed repair! He often tried to look past the Japanese characters into the shop window as he passed, but saw nothing, which, of course, didn’t mean a thing. He just wasn’t ready. But there was a pet shop in Japantown (House of Pleasant Fish and Gerbil), where he had originally gone to buy Sophie’s fish, and where he returned to replace the TV attorneys with six TV detectives, who also simultaneously took the big Ambien a week later. Charlie had been distraught to find his baby daughter drooling away in front of a bowl floating more dead detectives than a film noir festival, and after fl ushing all six at once and having to use the plunger to dislodge Magnum and Mannix, he vowed that next time he would find more resilient pals for his little girl. He was coming out of House of PFG one afternoon, with a Habitrail pod containing a pair of sturdy hamsters, when he ran into Lily, who was making her way to a coffeehouse up on Van Ness, where she was planning to meet her friend Abby for some latte-fueled speed brooding. â€Å"Hey, Lily, how are you doing?† Charlie was trying to appear matter-of-fact, but he found that the awkwardness between him and Lily over the last few months was not mitigated by her seeing him on the street carrying a plastic box full of rodents. â€Å"Nice gerbils,† Lily said. She wore a Catholic schoolgirl’s plaid skirt over black tights and Doc Martens, with a tight black PVC bustier that was squishing pale Lily-bits out the top, like a can of biscuit dough that’s been smacked on the edge of the counter. The hair color du jour was fuchsia, over violet eye shadow, which matched her violet, elbow-length lace gloves. She looked up and down the street and, when she didn’t see anyone she knew, fell into step next to Charlie. â€Å"They’re not gerbils, they’re hamsters,† Charlie said. â€Å"Asher, do you have something you’ve been keeping from me?† She tilted her head a little, but didn’t look at him when she asked, just kept her eyes forward, scanning the street for someone who might recognize her walking next to Charlie, thus forcing her to commit seppuku. â€Å"Jeez, Lily, these are for Sophie!† Charlie said. â€Å"Her fish died, so I’m bringing her some new pets. Besides, that whole gerbil thing is an urban myth – â€Å" â€Å"I meant that you’re Death,† Lily said. Charlie nearly dropped his hamsters. â€Å"Huh?† â€Å"It’s so wrong – † Lily continued, walking on after Charlie had stopped in his tracks, so now he had to scurry to catch up to her. â€Å"Just so wrong, that you would be chosen. Of all of life’s many disappointments, I’d have to say that this is the crowning disappointment.† â€Å"You’re sixteen,† Charlie said, still stumbling a little at the matter-of-fact way she was discussing this. â€Å"Oh, throw that in my face, Asher. I’m only sixteen for two more months, then what? In the blink of an eye my beauty becomes but a feast for worms, and I, a forgotten sigh in a sea of nothingness.† â€Å"Your birthday is in two months? Well, we’ll have to get you a nice cake,† Charlie said. â€Å"Don’t change the subject, Asher. I know all about you, and your Death persona.† Charlie stopped again and turned to look at her. This time, she stopped as well. â€Å"Lily, I know I’ve been acting a little strangely since Rachel died, and I’m sorry you got in trouble at school because of me, but it’s just been trying to deal with it all, with the baby, with the business. The stress of it all has – â€Å" â€Å"I have The Great Big Book of Death,† Lily said. She steadied Charlie’s hamsters when he lost his grip. â€Å"I know about the soul vessels, about the dark forces rising if you fuck up, all that stuff – all of it. I’ve known longer than you have, I think.† Charlie didn’t know what to say. He was feeling panic and relief at the same time – panic because Lily knew, but relief because at least someone knew, and believed it, and had actually seen the book. The book! â€Å"Lily, do you still have the book?† â€Å"It’s in the store. I hid it in the back of the glass cabinet where you keep the valuable stuff that no one will ever buy.† â€Å"No one ever looks in that cabinet.† â€Å"No kidding? I thought if you ever found it, I’d say it had always been there.† â€Å"I have to go.† He turned and started walking the other direction, but then realized that they had already been heading toward his neighborhood and turned around again. â€Å"Where are you going?† â€Å"To get some coffee.† â€Å"I’ll walk with you.† â€Å"You will not.† Lily looked around again, wary that someone might see them. â€Å"But, Lily, I’m Death. That should at least have given me some level of cool.† â€Å"Yeah, you’d think, but it turns out that you have managed to suck the cool out of being Death.† â€Å"Wow, that’s harsh.† â€Å"Welcome to my world, Asher.† â€Å"You can’t tell anyone about this, you know that?† â€Å"Like anyone cares what you do with your gerbils.† â€Å"Hamsters! That’s not – â€Å" â€Å"Chill, Asher.† Lily giggled. â€Å"I know what you mean. I’m not going to tell anyone – except Abby knows – but she doesn’t care. She says she’s met some guy who’s her dark lord. She’s in that stage where she thinks a dick is some kind of mystical magic wand.† Charlie adjusted his hamster box uncomfortably. â€Å"Girls go through a stage like that?† Why was he just hearing about this now? Even the hamsters looked uncomfortable. Lily turned on a heel and started up the street. â€Å"I’m not having this conversation with you.† Charlie stood there, watching her go, balancing the hamsters and his completely useless sword-cane while trying to dig his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. He needed to see that book, and he needed to see it sooner than the hour it would take him to get home. â€Å"Lily, wait!† he called. â€Å"I’m calling a cab, I’ll give you a ride.† She waved him off without looking and kept walking. As he was waiting for the cab company to answer, he heard it, the voice, and he realized that he was standing right over a storm drain. It had been over a month since he’d heard them, and he thought maybe they’d gone. â€Å"We’ll have her, too, Meat. She’s ours now.† He felt the fear rise in his throat like bile. He snapped the phone shut and ran after Lily, cane rattling and hamsters bouncing as he went. â€Å"Lily, wait! Wait!† She spun around quickly and her fuchsia wig only did the quarter turn instead of the half, so her face was covered with hair when she said, â€Å"One of those ice-cream cakes from Thirty-one Flavors, okay? After that, despair and nothingness.† â€Å"We’ll put that on the cake,† Charlie said.