Management of Information System Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Management of Information System - Essay Example The customer care department of the company is not helpful to the customer when assisting with online orders for the cellular phone. As a result, the customer is not able to receive the order according to their request. It is because of these problems that the customer decides to send a letter to the CEO so that the company’s management would understand how serious the customer care problem is within the company. The complaint of the customer causes events within the company with the goal of finding the most appropriate solution for the problem. The events, activities and gateway within the service delivery department of Cellular Inc. are presented in the BPMN model in Figure 1 below. Figure 1: BPMN model for the problem at Cellular Inc. Question 2 There is poor communication between the company and its clients. This situation is demonstrated by the events the customer goes through in trying to place the order in an effective way. For example, the use of the company’s w ebsite by the customer reveals that the information which is expected to be at the site is missing. Additionally, the customer later realizes that the promotion had expired even though there was no information on the website to inform the clients when the promotion was supposed to end. The company also has a problem with the transaction system. This is evident by the problems the customer encounters while trying to make payments. The problem with the online transaction system is the duplication of the shipping address field which does not cater to those who would like the delivery to be made to a different location. After a long process of trying to credit the customer’s card, Robbie says that it was not possible because of the cancellation of the transaction by the client earlier on. These illustrations reveal that the company has a serious problem with its online transaction system which it needs to be addressed urgently. This is important because poor transaction processes and the inefficiency related to this are likely to make the customers lose their confidence in the company. How the customer care department functions is also a problem which needs to be addressed. This is apparent when the customer is directed to numerous customer support personnel who do not understand the actual problem with the transactions. The representatives of the company to whom the customer is directed do not seem to settle the customer’s problem. Moreover, there are delays in finding a solution because the customer is put on hold most of the time. Due to these issues it can be said that the customer care functionality of Cellular Inc. does not attend to the needs of the clients in the most efficient and effective manner. As a result, there was a lot of disappointment on the part of the customer which could lead to a loss of loyalty to the company. Question 3 The company must ensure that its website provides adequate details. For example, the prices of various prod ucts must be displayed on the website, including promotions for each product. The credit that the company’s customers are to be given should also be provided on the site. This is to ensure that the customers get adequate information on a product before they make an order. Company websites must provide their clients with timely and sufficient information before the online transa

Strategic Planning and External Analysis Tools Essay Example for Free

Strategic Planning and External Analysis Tools Essay Summary of key concepts and ideas from the lectures, tutorials and readings (500 words) Strategy is a roadmap designed to route the direction of the organization towards achieving its goals. Through an understanding of the organization’s vision and mission and the matching of resources and skills to the environment, the company can formulate and implement strategic plans to achieve long-term sustainable competitive advantage, meet the needs of consumers and satisfy stakeholder’s expectations (Johnson, Scholes and Whittington 2004). Before formulating a strategy, an organization has to gauge its current position in the market using strategic analysis. This involves the use of internal and external analysis tools to gain both an inside view of an organization and the macro environment. Internal analysis tools are used to identify and evaluate an organization’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of its resources, operational capabilities and core competencies. This gives the organization a picture of what strengths to exploit and develop further, and what weaknesses should be corrected to reduce market liability (Hill and Jones 2012). External analysis tools such as Porter’s five forces gives a view of the immediate competitive environment to reveal market opportunities and threats. It allows the organization to identify the market forces, which they have little to no control over, in order to develop contingencies into their strategic plans (Porter 1980). Dynamic capabilities such as SWOT analysis, is a combination of internal and external analysis to reflect an organization’s ability to adapt to volatile markets (Teece 2009). The strategic analysis process would provide a comprehensive overview of an organization’s competency, which then provides the basis for strategic formulation. A suitable approach to strategy formulation would strongly depend on the size and nature of the organization. One method that can be applied across different industries as well as organizations sizes is Porter’s generic strategy. It involves three different strategy classification; low cost leadership, product differentiation and target market focus (Porter 1980). Another method is Miles and Snow’s (1978) typology. It suggests that competing organizations are characterized based on their individual view of the competitive environment and how they allocate resources accordingly. The four basic categories are defender, prospector, analyzer, and reactor. Formulated strategies are not always acted upon, but may serve as a learning process towards more efficient strategy formulation. Allio (2005) states â€Å"immediately following the formal ratification of the firm’s vision and set of strategies, implementation can begin in earnest†. However, implementation of a strategy is considered the greatest challenge due to the risk of setbacks such as the lack of communication throughout the organization, unclear planning as well as poor monitoring and controls. Lastly, a key performance index is used to measure the current or future success of a strategy. It should be closely monitored as it measures performance aspects, which are critical towards the success of the organization (Paramenter 2007). Plans never always work out as anticipated, and contingency plans should be established to better prepare for unforeseen events (Steiner 1979). Therefore, strategy management should be treated with the utmost importance, as it differentiates between the success and failure of the firm. Section 2: Application of key concepts and ideas to the current business news (600 words) Griffin and Kucera (2012) article talks about PayPal’s tie up with Discover to achieve a competitive edge and strengthen its market position. By applying Porter’s five forces (1980) to access their strategic position, majority of forces are posing a challenge for PayPal and Discover. There is high competitive rivalry amongst major credit card companies with Discover  trailing after Visa, MasterCard and American Express (Barr 2012). Forecasted to surpass $171. 5 billion in 2012, up from a value of $105. 9 billion in 2011 (Gartner 2012), the burgeoning mobile payment market has attracted a high number of new entrants. Many major companies are creating their own individual systems to compete for a share of the market. One example is the Isis system by the major telecommunication companies (Johnson 2012). Finally, there is a high threat of substitute as consumers might find it more convenient to simply use cash or swipe their plastic card as compared to the new mobile payment method (Passy 2012). However, one market grabbing force is the low bargaining power of suppliers as the merchants supplying the service would be subjected to lower transaction costs under the PayPal system as compared to their counterparts (Hamblen 2012). Nevertheless, the bargaining power of customers in conjunction to new entrants and substitutes remains high, as there are just too many choices to choose from. Therefore, PayPal and Discover are in an unfavorable position. Welch’s (2012) article talks about how Campbell is innovating its soup products to meet the taste of a new generation. Through the use of the SWOT analysis (Andrews 1971), majority of factors prove positive. With the threat of a declining domestic soup market and difference in preference of a younger generation, it presents Campbell with an opportunity to innovate and differentiate its products in order to achieve market growth (Schultz 2012). Relying on its strengths to introduce new and innovative products fast, Campbell was able to generate a line of new products to address the needs of the new generation. However, Campbell’s weakness lies in the high selling price of its new line of products, three times the price of a can of normal soup. This along with the threat of cheaper alternatives by their competitors, such as Healthy Choice, may prove detrimental to Campbell’s success. Nevertheless, Campbell has had previous successes with higher priced products due to their strength to innovate their products towards the needs of the consumers. They also invest millions in target marketing and merchandising to extend its reach to consumers (Todd 2012). Therefore, it is a good strategy. Edwards (2012) article talks about GameStop’s shifted efforts into the refurbishing of Apple products to counter a declining market. Using the Boston Consulting Group’s Growth Share Matrix (Phadtare 2011), this strategy shows high return potential. With the decline of the gaming industry, sales fell by 25% from last year (Tassi 2012), GameStop’s former ‘Star’ which is the sale of new and used gaming hardware and software, has shifted into a ‘Cash Cow’ due to the decline of market growth. This shift presents an investment opportunity for ‘Question Mark’ to become a ‘Star’, through the conversion from a console game supplier, into the repair and resale of  Apple gadgets. However, with the dwindling interest of consumer to purchase overpriced resale items (Munarriz 2012), GameStop’s ‘Cash Cow’ would eventually shift to a ‘Dog’, providing difficulty in profit generation. There is also a risk that their ‘Question Mark’ would not become a ‘Star’ and just cost large efforts with little return. Nevertheless, Apple products still presents the biggest opportunity due to its large consumer base of over 230 million apple devices. Just by reselling 5 percent of the market, GameStop stands to gain $1 billion of new revenue over the next few years.

Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) Essays -- human sexuality and sex

Sex and relationship education (SRE) is supporting children through their moral, physical and psychological aspects of growing up to be an adult, and making sure they have knowledge on relationships, sex, human sexuality and sexual health (Sex Education Forum, 2010). There are three main elements in SRE, the first element is attitudes and values, which is about developing positive values and be able to consider moral issues before they make their decisions on having intercourse (Kirby, 2007). The second element is personal and social skills, which is about teaching children to have the confidence to value themselves and others to become respectful for individual conscience and the skills to judge the kind of relationship they want; the third element is about accessing the knowledge and understanding of human sexuality, reproduction, sexual health, emotions and relationships (Kirby, 2007). The potential effect of SRE should be seen in these three areas, which includes reduction in tee nager pregnancy, and the chances of getting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and being sexually assault, etc. As SRE can either be given at home to the child by parents, in school by teachers, or in youth organizations, alternative educational institutions, or youth offending organizations by Shine staffs or trained peer educators and volunteers (Levy 1992). This essay is mainly going to focus on the teacher-led SRE given in school and discuss whether it is beneficial or not, with the support of the positive outcome of children having SRE in relation of STDs, pregnancy and peer violence, and also the actual fact of SRE being not useful, supported with the data of teenagers not receiving the knowledge they should have been taught in SRE, and high te... ...ax S(1997) Impact of HIV and Sexual Health Education on the Sexual Behaviour of Young People: a Review Update Godson, S. (2001) Boys+sex–education=crisis. Available online at: http://educationguardian.co.uk/Print/0.3858.4311559.00.html (accessed 4 December 2001). Holland, J., Ramazanoglu, C., Sharpe, S. & Thomson, R. (1998) The male in the head—young people, heterosexuality and power ,London, The Tufnell Press Kirby D. (2001) Emerging Answers: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy. Washington, DC: National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2001. Kohler et al. (2008)â€Å"Abstinence-only and Comprehensive Sex Education and the Initiation of Sexual Activity and Teen Pregnancy.† Journal of Adolescent Health, 42(4): 344-351. Kirby D. (2007) â€Å"Sex and HIV Programs: Their Impact on Sexual Behaviors of Young People Throughout the World.† Journal of Adol Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) Essays -- human sexuality and sex Sex and relationship education (SRE) is supporting children through their moral, physical and psychological aspects of growing up to be an adult, and making sure they have knowledge on relationships, sex, human sexuality and sexual health (Sex Education Forum, 2010). There are three main elements in SRE, the first element is attitudes and values, which is about developing positive values and be able to consider moral issues before they make their decisions on having intercourse (Kirby, 2007). The second element is personal and social skills, which is about teaching children to have the confidence to value themselves and others to become respectful for individual conscience and the skills to judge the kind of relationship they want; the third element is about accessing the knowledge and understanding of human sexuality, reproduction, sexual health, emotions and relationships (Kirby, 2007). The potential effect of SRE should be seen in these three areas, which includes reduction in tee nager pregnancy, and the chances of getting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and being sexually assault, etc. As SRE can either be given at home to the child by parents, in school by teachers, or in youth organizations, alternative educational institutions, or youth offending organizations by Shine staffs or trained peer educators and volunteers (Levy 1992). This essay is mainly going to focus on the teacher-led SRE given in school and discuss whether it is beneficial or not, with the support of the positive outcome of children having SRE in relation of STDs, pregnancy and peer violence, and also the actual fact of SRE being not useful, supported with the data of teenagers not receiving the knowledge they should have been taught in SRE, and high te... ...ax S(1997) Impact of HIV and Sexual Health Education on the Sexual Behaviour of Young People: a Review Update Godson, S. (2001) Boys+sex–education=crisis. Available online at: http://educationguardian.co.uk/Print/0.3858.4311559.00.html (accessed 4 December 2001). Holland, J., Ramazanoglu, C., Sharpe, S. & Thomson, R. (1998) The male in the head—young people, heterosexuality and power ,London, The Tufnell Press Kirby D. (2001) Emerging Answers: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy. Washington, DC: National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2001. Kohler et al. (2008)â€Å"Abstinence-only and Comprehensive Sex Education and the Initiation of Sexual Activity and Teen Pregnancy.† Journal of Adolescent Health, 42(4): 344-351. Kirby D. (2007) â€Å"Sex and HIV Programs: Their Impact on Sexual Behaviors of Young People Throughout the World.† Journal of Adol

My Interview to My Very First Patient as a Nursing Student

My reflection for 1st PCP visit Recently, I have completed the very first visit for the Patient Care (Feel Link) Project (PCP). The story of Mr Yung, the patient whom I visited, does reveal a less familiar side of the lives of chronic health patients. Giving is receiving. The visit not only provides me with a precious opportunity to care for the people in need, but it is also very enlightening and deepens my understanding about the profession. I am assigned to work with a MBBS year 1 student for the whole project. We visited Mr. Yung at Ruttonjee Hospital on 23rd February, 2011.He is a patient who suffers from chronic asthma, GI impairment and allergic rhinitis. He has also undergone several major operations and these operations bring him numerous long-term defects, ranging from failing to have normal solid food intake to receiving long-term drug treatments. Not difficult is it to imagine he leads an inconvenient life because of his chronic illness. I do feel greatly compassionated a nd empathetic towards his pain. This visit is a precious experience that I can have never come across during lectures, so I cherish this visit much. Throughout the whole visit, Mr.Yung emphasized that he was extremely impoverished and begged us to help him seek help from social workers to ease his financial difficulties. I believe he does not receive sufficient help form the health care professionals, and so he has no choice but to ask us to refer his financial need to the social workers. He told us he was extremely depressed because his senior allowance was not enough to support his vast medical expenses. It is expectable that Mr. Yung could have received more effective treatments and medications with a considerable financial ability. Melancholy and depression achieve nothing but only contribute to deteriorating Mr.Yung’s chronic illness. Social workers shall spare no endeavors to take care of chronic patients like Mr. Yung as they ‘assist people to adjust to the chang es brought by the illness’ (Daly, Speedy & Jackson, 2006, p. 188). It is believed that social workers are of paramount importance to promote social well-being of the patients. As a result, rehabilitation of patients can be facilitated and boosted. The shortage of social workers may be the core problem behind Mr. Yung’s story, and this requires government long-term strategic planning to solve it ultimately.It is expected that an increased number of social workers can provide a more holistic counseling for patients, so their needs are better looked after and catered. Mr. Yung also once expressed his reluctance of transferring to Tung Wah East Hospital because he was deeply disappointed with the terrible service quality of the doctors there. On the one hand, it is understandable that the frontline health care professionals are facing much pressure because of heavy workload and exceedingly long working hours. On the other hand, it is inappropriate and undesirable for them to displace their negative emotions on their patients.It succeeds in nothing but only threatens patients’ trust and obedience to health care professionals. An article suggests ameliorating the quality of health care by adopting the healthy psychology approach, which encourages ‘doctor-patient communication and patient cooperation with treatment’ (Friedman, 2002, p. 72). It is foreseeable that adopting the healthy psychology approach can cultivate the relationship between the health care professionals and patients, so they would be able to develop a better understanding of each other. Eventually, Mr.Yung’s story and the stories of many other suffering patients would cease to exist. I treasure this invaluable patient-visiting opportunity a lot because I know little about hospital setting and patients’ need. This visit does guide me understand the psychological need of patients. As discussed by Friedman (2002), health care should never be limited to me dical aspect, but widened to psychological and social aspects because these three aspects are closely related. The Biopsychosocial Health Psychology Model of Health takes more comprehensive and all-rounded care of patients.In the case of my first visit, better services shall be provided by doctors and social workers under this model. In short, unconditional positive regard is the best means to bring patients love and warmth and it also enhances patients’ rehabilitation and restoration from illness. Health care professionals shall put much heeds on psychosocial aspect, instead of medical only, when delivering their cares to patients. This first visit also gives me a chance to learn collaborating and cooperating with others in work.I am deeply pleased to work with my MBBS partner. Interdisciplinary cooperation between us is trained, sharpened and polished through the visit. I was able to have effective division of labour with my partner, and so productivity and efficiency can b e enhanced. The visit allows me to apply the cooperation skills that I have acquired in lectures. Therefore, I now have a better understanding for my future role as a nurse. Indeed, nurses and doctors are very significant members in the multidisciplinary health care teams.This visit gives me a rough idea that multidisciplinary parties achieve much more than single teams in terms of health care. My partner takes the initiative to provide comprehensive medical knowledge and contribute a lot to the quality of the visit. I come to realize how important collaboration and multidisciplinary are after the visit. All in all, I enjoy every moment of the first PCP visit. It widens my horizons and presents me a more complete picture of my future career role as a nurse. This visit redefines my conception of health care provision.After the visit, I come to understand, apart from medical services, psychological and social elements are crucial integral parts of an all-rounded heath care system. Als o, I find the visit extremely inspirational as I become more aware of collaborating with counterparts when administering health care to patients. Well cooperation can bring better health care services and satisfaction to patients. With concerted effort, it is expected that an inclusive health care provision system would be maturely developed in the foreseeable future.Word count: 998 words References Friedman, H. S. (2002). The Social and Cultural Basis of Health and Illness. In H. S. Friedman (Ed. ), Health Psychology (2nd Ed). (pp. 50-74). NJ: Prentice Hall. Friedman, H. S. (2002). Adaptation to Chronic Illness. In H. S. Friedman (Ed. ), Health Psychology (2nd Ed). (pp. 183-213). NJ: Prentice Hall. Griffiths, R. , & Crookers, P. (2006) Multidusciplinary teams. In J. Daly, S. Speedy & D. Jackson (Eds. ), Contexts of nursing an introduction (2nd Ed). (pp. 184-198). Australia: Elsevier

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was one of the most influential and beloved President’s of United States history.   However, his death is shrouded in mystery.   When all is said and done, conspiracy theorists have left virtually no stone unturned in an attempt to explain the tragedy of November 22, 1963.   Clearly Lee Harvey Oswald was present and did shoot a gun.   But did his bullet kill JFK?   Did he act alone?   Many people have their own ideas of what really happened that day.One common theory is that the Cuban government ordered a hit on the President.   The President had attempted to invade Cuba, and though the plan failed, Castro knew that further plans were in the works.   Likewise, Kennedy had made several unsuccessful attempts on Castro’s life.  Ã‚   Getting rid of Kennedy would certainly enable Castro to keep control of Cuba (Anders 1993).A similar theory is that anti-Castro Cubans killed Kennedy.   Perhaps they were hoping that if the suspicion were focused on Castro, America would demand retaliation.   Later, evidence seemed to surface from a former Castro operative that Oswald was actually hired by the Cuban government (Anders 1993, McAdams 2004).   With Oswald’s death, the facts of these reports could not be verified, though Castro staunchly denies this report.Similarly, Russia, the US cold war opponent, was bothered by JFK’s youth and erratic nature.   He would be capable of elevating the cold war to a full blown World War III.   With the introduction of nuclear technology, the fear of a US strike on Russia was also a concern.   Therefore, the Russians planned the assassination.   In a related theory, this order came from Nikita Khrushchev himself (Anders 1993).Another popular theory is that the mafia ordered a hit on Kennedy.   Initially, some big name crime bosses such as Sam Giancana worked with Jimmy Hoffa and the teamsters to get President Kennedy elected, particularly through votes in Ohio ( Unfortunately, President Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy, the US Attorney General, had later stepped up prosecutions of mafia members to an unprecedented high (Odoni 2005; McAdams 2004) J. Edgar Hoover, who was not friendly with President Kennedy, was due to be forced into retirement from his position of the Director of the FBI.Hoover had a history of neglecting to prosecute mafia members.   His retirement would mean mean the end of these favors, especially if JFK appointed his brother Robert to that position. After Kennedy’s death, Hoover remained as the head of the FBI for ten more years. During that time, mafia prosecutions fell dramatically. James Files, a mafia hit man, actually confessed to the murder, indicating that Giancana had ordered the hit.   Oswald’s killer, Jack Ruby, was a small time gangster with a few major mafia connections.   He could have killed Oswald to silence him (Odoni 2005).Two equally argued theories that are more alarmin g are those that implicate the United States itself.   Many suspect Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson.   He gained the Presidency after Kennedy’s death, though he was not liked by the public; Kennedy was planning to drop Johnson from his ticket in 1964.   He was involved in four major criminal investigations involving bribery, money laundering, contract violations and misappropriation of funds, at the time of Kennedy’s death.In fact, Kennedy often complained that he had been manipulated into appointing Johnson by the FBI and that Johnson acted as a spy for J. Edgar Hoover.   After he became President, Johnson’s criminal investigations were dropped (Ayton no date). Another US based theory is that the CIA itself had killed the President to cover up or redirect attention from its new practice of assassinating foreign leaders.   The Church Committee was formed to look into this possible scandal but concluded that while the CIA was increasing in national and international power, it was not responsible for the death of the President (Ayton no date).The Warren Commission heard testimony from 552 witnesses and 10 federal agencies over the span of 10 months as it investigated the assassination and all the related conspiracy theories.   Published in October of 1964, it concluded that, basically, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, shooting three bullets from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository (McAdams 2004).The single bullet that wounded Connally and killed JFK hit him from behind as the motorcade passed by the Depository. However, the issue has not been laid to rest.   Four of the seven members of the investigatory team seemed to indicate skepticism about the Commissions findings (McAdams 2004).   Several individual pieces of the Commission's findings also have been called into question since its completion.Kennedy was struck by two bullets.   One hit him in the back, and one hit him in the head.   The second h it killed the President.   The single bullet theory was born because Oswald’s gun would not have been able to fire fast enough to hit both Kennedy and Connally with separate shots (McAdams 2004).However, the idea that a single bullet traveled through Kennedy’s back, exited his throat, passed through the seat of a car, entered Connally’s back, exited his chest, passed through his wrist and entered his thigh has been seriously questioned by evidence from eye witnesses, including passenger Nellie Connally, and forensic evidence (McAdams 2004) Now this theory is known as the magic bullet theory.   The bullet which had such an incredible journey ended up on a hospital stretcher in near pristine condition (McAdams 2004).Medical examinations and missing x-rays and autopsy pictures also add to the mystery.   Kennedy was taken first to Dallas’ Parkland Hospital where 44 doctors and medical staffers claimed that the exit wound was at the back of JFK’s head.   This would have been impossible if the shot came from the Depository and lended itself to the grassy knoll theory (Odoni 2005).However, two doctors at Bethesda Medical Center, the second hospital Kennedy was taken to, reported that the exit would was at the front of the head (McAdams, 2004).   Why then did over 44 doctors and medical staffers claim that the wound was at the rear of the head?   X-rays that a Parkland Hospital technician claims to have taken have never been found.   Pictures of the autopsy that emerged up to four years after the assassination are suspicious and do not match accounts given by witnesses.All in all, the Warren Commission seemed to ignore 44 doctors and 20 eye-witnesses at the murder scene.   Other evidence was destroyed.   Governor Connally’s shirt from the day of the shooting was dry cleaned at Johnson’s request within 24 hours (McAdams 2004).   The car carrying the Kennedys and the Connallys was immediately cleaned a nd refurbished instead of being thoroughly examined for ballistic evidence.   This was also ordered by Lyndon B. Johnson (McAdams 2004). Any forensic evidence that may have been provided by these items was lost.Nobody will ever really know what happened that day in 1964.   However, it seems that the â€Å"facts† are clearly not what they seem and that the Warren Commission did not delve into the discrepancies too   deeply.   The theories mentioned here are all viable theories that were not examined closely, if at all, by the authorities. The idea of a â€Å"magic† bullet is preposterous.  Ã‚   It seems that something is being covered up. But what?ReferencesAnders, P. (1993). An Introduction to JFK Conspiracy Theories. Stay Free 4. Available from:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/4/jfk.htm [accessed 10 August 2006]Ayton, M. (no date).   Questions of Conspiracy. Spartacus UK. Available from: [accessed 10 August 2006 ]McAdams, J. (2004). The Kennedy Assassination. Available from: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm [accessed 10 August 2006]Odoni, Martin. (2005). Who Killed JFK?   Current Affairs. Available from:     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://havetstorm.tripod.com/currentaffairs/id7.html   [accessed 10 August 2006]

The Logic of Collective Action by Mancur Olson

The Logic of Collective Action by Mancur Olson There are a lot of government policies, like airline bailouts, that from an economic perspective dont make any sense at all. Politicians have an incentive to keep the economy strong as incumbents are reelected at a much higher rate during booms than busts. So why do so many government policies make such little economic sense? The best answer to this question comes from a book that is almost 40 years old: The Logic of Collective Action by Mancur Olson explains why some groups are able to have a larger influence on government policy than others. In this brief outline, the results of The Logic of Collective Action are used to explain economic policy decisions. Any page references come from the 1971 edition. It has a very useful appendix not found in the 1965 edition. You would expect that if a group of people has a common interest that theyll naturally get together and fight for the common goal. Olson states, however, that this is generally not the case: But it is not in fact true that the idea that groups will act in their self-interest follows logically from the premise of rational and self-interested behavior. It does not follow, because all of the individuals in a group would gain if they achieved their group objective, that they would act to achieve that objective, even if they were all rational and self-interested. Indeed unless the number of individuals in a group is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests.(pg. 2) We can see why this is if we look at the classic example of perfect competition. Under perfect competition, there is a very large number of producers of an identical good. Since the goods are identical, all firms end up charging the same price, a price that leads to a zero economic profit. If the firms could collude and decide to cut their output and charge a price higher than the one that prevails under perfect competition all firms would make a profit. Although every firm in the industry would gain if they could make such an agreement, Olson explains why this does not happen: Since a uniform price must prevail in such a market, a firm cannot expect a higher price for itself unless all of the other firms in the industry have this higher price. But a firm in a competitive market also has an interest in selling as much as it can, until the cost of producing another unit exceeds the price of that unit. In this there is no common interest; each firms interest is directly opposed to that of every other firm, for the more the firms sell, the lower the price and income for any given firm. In short, while all firms have a common interest in a higher price, they have antagonistic interests where output is concerned.(pg. 9) The logical solution around this problem would be to lobby congress to put in place a price floor, stating that producers of this good cannot charge a price lower than some price X. Another way around the problem would be to have congress pass a law stating that there was a limit to how much each business could produce and that new businesses could not enter the market. Well see on the next page that The Logic of Collective Action explains why this will not work either. The Logic of Collective Action explains why if a group of firms cannot reach a collusive agreement in the marketplace, they will be unable to form a group and lobby the government for help: Consider a hypothetical, competitive industry, and suppose that most of the producers in that industry desire a tariff, a price-support program, or some other government intervention to increase the price for their product. To obtain any such assistance from the government, the producers in this industry will presumably have to organize a lobbying organization... The campaign will take the time of some of the producers in the industry, as well as their money. Just as it was not rational for a particular producer to restrict his output in order that there might be a higher price for the product of his industry, so it would not be rational for him to sacrifice his time and money to support a lobbying organization to obtain government assistance for the industry. In neither case would it be in the interest of the individual producer to assume any of the costs himself. [...] This would be true even if everyone in the industry were absolutely convinced that the proposed program was in their interest.(pg. 11) In both instances, groups will not be formed  because the groups cannot exclude people from benefiting if they do not join the cartel or lobbying organization. In a perfect competitive marketplace, the level of production of any one producer has a negligible impact of the market price of that good. A cartel will not be formed because every agent within the cartel has an incentive to drop out of the cartel and produce as much as she possibly can, as her production will not cause the price to drop at all. Similarly, each producer of the good has an incentive not to pay dues to the lobbying organization, as the loss of one dues paying member will not influence the success or failure of that organization. One extra member in a lobbying organization representing a very large group will not determine whether or not that group will get a piece of legislation enacted that will help the industry. Since the benefits of that legislation cannot be limited to those firms in the lobbying group, there is no reason for that firm to join. Olson indicates that this is the norm for very large groups: Migrant farm laborers are a significant group with urgent common interests, and they have no lobby to voice their needs. The white-collar workers are a large group with common interests, but they have no organization to care for their interests. The taxpayers are a vast group with an obvious common interest, but in an important sense they have yet to obtain representation. The consumers are at least as numerous as any other group in the society, but they have no organization to countervail the power of organized monopolistic producers. There are multitudes with an interest in peace, but they have no lobby to match those of the special interests that may on occasion have an interest in war. There are vast numbers who have a common interest in preventing inflation and depression, but they have no organization to express that interest. (pg. 165) In a smaller group, one person makes up a larger percentage of the resources of that group, so the addition or subtraction of a single member to that organization can determine the success of the group. There are also social pressures which work much better on the small than on the large. Olson gives two reasons why large groups are inherently unsuccessful in their attempts to organize: In general, social pressure and social incentives operate only in groups of smaller size, in the groups so small that the members can have face-to-face contact with one another. Though in an oligopolic industry with only a handful of firms there may be strong resentment against the chiseler who cuts prices to increase his own sales at the expense of the group, in a perfectly competitive industry there is usually no such resentment; indeed the man who succeeds in increasing his sales and output in a perfectly competitive industry is usually admired and set up as a good example by his competitors. There are perhaps two reasons for this difference in the attitudes of large and small groups. First, in the large, latent group, each member, by definition, is so small in relation to the total that his actions will not matter much one way or another; so it would seem pointless for one perfect competitor to snub or abuse another for a selfish, antigroup action, because the recalcitrants action would not be decisive in any event. Second, in any large group everyone cannot possibly know everyone else, and the group will ipso facto not be a friendship group; so a person will ordinarily not be affected socially if he fails to make sacrifices on behalf of his groups goals.(pg. 62) Because smaller groups can exert these social (as well as economic) pressures, they are much more able to get around this problem. This leads to the result that smaller groups (or what some would call Special Interest Groups) are able to have policies enacted that hurt the country as a whole. In the sharing of the costs of efforts to achieve a common goal in small groups, there is however a surprising tendency for the exploitation of the great by the small.(pg. 3). Now that we know that smaller groups will generally be more successful than large ones, we understand why the government enacts many of the policies it does. To illustrate how this works, well use a made-up example of such a policy. Its a very drastic over-simplification, but its not that far out. Suppose there are four major airlines in the United States, each of whom is near bankruptcy. The CEO of one of the airlines realizes that they can get out of bankruptcy by lobbying the government for support. He can convince the 3 other airlines to go along with the plan, as they realize that theyll be more successful if they band together and if one of the airlines does not participate a number of lobbying resources will be greatly diminished along with the credibility of their argument. The airlines pool their resources and hire a high-priced lobbying firm along with a handful of unprincipled economists. The airlines explain to the government that without a $400 million dollar package they will not be able to survive. If they do not survive, there will be terrible consequences for the economy, so its in the best interest of the government to give them the money. The congresswoman listening to the argument finds it compelling, but she also recognizes a self-serving argument when she hears one. So shed like to hear from groups opposing the move. However, its obvious that such a group will not form, for the following reason: The $400 million dollars represents around $1.50 for each person living in America. Now obviously many of those individuals do not pay taxes, so well assume that it represents $4 for each tax-paying American (this assumes everyone pays the same amount in taxes which again is an over-simplification). Its obvious to see that its not worth the time and effort for any American to educate themselves about the issue, solicit donations for their cause and lobby to congress if theyd only gain a few dollars. So other than a few academic economists and think tanks, nobody opposes the measure, and it is enacted by congress. By this, we see that a small group is inherently at an advantage against a larger group. Although in total the amount at stake is the same for each group, the individual members of the small group have much more at stake than the individual members of the large group, so they have an incentive to spend more time and energy trying to change government policy. If these transfers just caused one group to gain at the others expense, it wouldnt hurt the economy at all. It wouldnt be any different than someone just handing you $10; youve gained $10 and that person lost $10, and the economy as a whole has the same value it had before. However, it does cause a decline in the economy for two reasons: The cost of lobbying. Lobbying is inherently a non-productive activity for the economy. The resources spent on lobbying are resources that are not being spent on creating wealth, so the economy is poorer as a whole. The money spent on lobbying could have been spent buying a new 747, so the economy as a whole is one 747 poorer.The deadweight loss caused by taxation. In the article The Effect of Taxes on the Economy, its illustrated that higher taxes causes productivity to decline and the economy to be worse off. Here the government was taking $4 from each taxpayer, which is not a significant amount. However, the government enacts hundreds of these policies so in total the sum becomes quite significant. These handouts to small groups cause a decline in economic growth because they change the actions of taxpayers.

Joe Louis Biography essays

Joe Louis Biography essays I guess we should probably start out in Lafayette, Alabama on May 13, 1914 where I was born to the son of an Alabama sharecropper, great grandson of a slave, and the great great grandson of a white slave owner. When I was nine years old my family and I moved to Detroit in 1924. Detroit was where I first became interested in boxing. Having grown up in the old south, I had acquired the instinct and anger of a true fighter. I took on a strong liking to the sport and decided I was going to try boxing out. I trained non stop for the next ten years without any glamour or fame. I had a vision and I wasnt about to let it slip away. I won the Golden Gloves as a light heavyweight which would spark my professional career as a boxer. Within the first year of turning professional I won all twelve of my first bouts. As soon as I reached the pros I new it would be a steep climb up the heavyweight ladder. After I won more and more bouts my reputation as a boxer was growing, until finally I got my big chance. On June of 1935, I fought Primo Carnera, the former heavyweight champion, before a Yankee Stadium crowd of 62,00. I knocked him out in the fourth round. I have to say I was quite nervous going into the fight. After the fight was over I read a quote from Ernest Hemingway describing the fight as the most disgusting public spectacle outside of a public hanging that he had ever seen. I felt invincible the whole boxing world was on my side cheering me on. It almost seemed I couldnt be stopped. This feeling of greatness only lasted so long, until my meeting with Max Schmeling on June 19,1936. Max was the underdog but to the surprise of all including me he gave me a defeat that would continue to sting long after my cuts and bruises had healed. I was counted out in the 12th round of the fight and suffered the most painful defeat of my career. One year later I was back in the ring again t o face the wo...

A Biography of Civil War General Stonewall Jackson

A Biography of Civil War General Stonewall Jackson Stonewall Jackson - Early Life: Thomas Jonathan Jackson was born to Jonathan and Julia Jackson on January 21, 1824 at Clarksburg, VA (now WV). Jacksons father, an attorney, died when he was two leaving Julia with three small children. During his formative years, Jackson lived with a variety of relatives but spent the majority of time at his uncles mill in Jacksons Mills. While at the mill, Jackson developed a strong work ethic and sought out education when possible. Largely self-taught, he became an avid reader. In 1842, Jackson was accepted to West Point, but due to his lack of schooling struggled with the entrance exams. Stonewall Jackson - West Point Mexico: Due to his academic difficulties, Jackson began his academic career at the bottom of his class. While at the academy, he quickly proved himself a tireless worker as he endeavored to catch up to his peers. Graduating in 1846, he was able to achieve class rank of 17 out 59. Commissioned a second lieutenant in the 1st US Artillery, he was sent south to take part in the Mexican-American War. Part of Major General Winfield Scotts army, Jackson took part in the siege of Veracruz and the campaign against Mexico City. In the course of the fighting, he earned two brevet promotions and a permanent one to first lieutenant. Stonewall Jackson - Teaching at VMI: Taking part in the assault on Chapultepec Castle, Jackson again distinguished himself and was brevetted to major. Returning the United States after the war, Jackson accepted a teaching position at the Virginia Military Institute in 1851. Filling the role of Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy and Instructor of Artillery, he developed a curriculum that emphasized mobility and discipline. Highly religious and somewhat eccentric in his habits, Jackson was disliked and mocked by many of the students. This was worsened by his approach in the classroom where he repeatedly recited memorized lectures and offered little help to his students. While teaching at VMI, Jackson married twice, first to Elinor Junkin who died in childbirth, and later to Mary Anna Morrison in 1857. Two years later, following John Browns failed raid on Harpers Ferry, Governor Henry Wise asked VMI to provide a security detail for the abolitionist leaders execution. As the artillery instructor, Jackson and 21 of his cadets accompanied the detail with two howitzers. Stonewall Jackson - The Civil War Begins: With the election of President Abraham Lincoln and the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Jackson offered his services to Virginia and was made a colonel. Assigned to Harpers Ferry, he began organizing and drilling troops, as well as operating against the BO railroad. Assembling a brigade of troops recruited in and around the Shenandoah Valley, Jackson was promoted to brigadier general that June. Part of General Joseph Johnstons command in the Valley, Jacksons brigade was rushed east in July to aid in the First Battle of Bull Run. Stonewall Jackson - Stonewall: As the battle raged on July 21, Jacksons command was brought forward to support the crumbling Confederate line on Henry House Hill. Demonstrating the discipline that Jackson had instilled, the Virginians held the line, leading Brigadier General Barnard Bee to exclaim, There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Some controversy exists regarding this statement as some later reports claimed that Bee was angry at Jackson for not coming to his brigades aid faster and that stone wall was meant in a pejorative sense. Regardless, the name stuck to both Jackson and his brigade for the remainder of the war. Stonewall Jackson - In the Valley: Having held the hill, Jacksons men played a role in the subsequent Confederate counterattack and victory. Promoted to major general on October 7, Jackson was given command of the Valley District with headquarters at Winchester. In January 1862, he conducted an abortive campaign near Romney with the goal of re-capturing much of West Virginia. That March, as Major General George McClellan began transferring Union forces south to the Peninsula, Jackson was tasked with defeating Major General Nathaniel Banks forces in the Valley as well as preventing Major General Irvin McDowell from approaching Richmond. Jackson opened his campaign with a tactical defeat at Kernstown on March 23, but rebounded to win at McDowell, Front Royal, and First Winchester, ultimately expelling Banks from the Valley. Concerned about Jackson, Lincoln order McDowell to assist and dispatched men under Major General John C. Frà ©mont. Though outnumbered, Jackson continued his string of success defeating Frà ©mont at Cross Keys on June 8 and Brigadier General James Shields a day later at Port Republic. Having triumphed in the Valley, Jackson and his men were recalled to the Peninsula to join General Robert E. Lees Army of Northern Virginia. Stonewall Jackson - Lee Jackson: Though the two commanders would form a dynamic command partnership, their first action together was not promising. As Lee opened the Seven Days Battles against McClellan on June 25, Jacksons performance dipped. Throughout the fighting his men were repeatedly late and his decision making poor. Having eliminated the threat posed by McClellan, Lee ordered Jackson to take the Left Wing of the army north to deal with Major General John Popes Army of Virginia. Moving north, he won a fight at Cedar Mountain on August 9 and later succeeded in capturing Popes supply base at Manassas Junction. Moving onto the old Bull Run battlefield, Jackson assumed a defensive position to await Lee and the Right Wing of the army under Major General James Longstreet. Attacked by Pope on August 28, his men held until they arrived. The Second Battle of Manassas concluded with a massive flank attack by Longstreet which drove Union troops from the field. Following the victory, Lee decided to attempt an invasion of Maryland. Dispatched to capture Harpers Ferry, Jackson took the town before joining the rest of the army for the Battle of Antietam on September 17. Largely a defensive action, his men bore the brunt of the fighting at the northern end of the field. Withdrawing from Maryland, Confederate forces regrouped in Virginia. On October 10, Jackson was promoted to lieutenant general and his command officially designated the Second Corps. When Union troops, now led by Major General Ambrose Burnside, moved south that fall, Jacksons men joined Lee at Fredericksburg. During the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, his corps succeeded in holding off strong Union assaults south of the town. With the end of the fighting, both armies remained in place around Fredericksburg for the winter. When campaigning resumed in the spring, the Union forces guided by Major General Joseph Hooker attempted to move around Lees left to attack his rear. This movement presented problems for Lee as he had sent Longstreets corps away to find supplies and was badly outnumbered. Fighting at the Battle of Chancellorsville began on May 1 in a thick pine forest known as the Wilderness with Lees men under heavy pressure. Meeting with Jackson, the two men devised a daring plan for May 2 which called for the latter to take his corps on a wide flanking march to strike at the Union right. This daring plan succeeded and Jacksons attack began rolling up the Union line late on May 2. Reconnoitering that night, his party was confused for Union cavalry and was hit by friendly fire. Struck three times, twice in the left arm and once in the right hand, he was taken from the field. His left arm was quickly amputated, but his health began to deteriorate as he developed pneumonia. After lingering for eight days, he died on May 10. In learning of Jacksons wounding, Lee commented, Give General Jackson my affectionate regards, and say to him: he has lost his left arm but I my right. Selected Sources Virginia Military Institute: Thomas Stonewall JacksonCivil War: Stonewall JacksonStonewall Jackson House

Hitlers Table Talk Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Hitlers Table Talk - Essay Example Hitler was born in a Catholic home and he became a staunch Catholic once he began school. It is noted that he even contemplated becoming a priest because the Catholic faith was good to him. After the death of his brother in 1900, his passion for church declined. This may have been as a result of a blow in his belief about God and Jesus being a healer and yet his brother died of measles and God did not help him (Weinberg 53). The invasion of Vienna by Jews whom according to him seem to want to take over the country also further drove him away from Christianity and his belief in God. However he believed and continued to believe in Islam and even Japanese religious culture and hence that may be reason why he did not want to interfere much with religious issues as he did not understand them that well as he thought he did. Hitler’s earlier staunch belief in the Catholic faith and even his support and following of Martin Luther’s protestant movement indicate that he truly continued to follow Christian teachings. This may be the reason why he made that this talk because he did not try to force people to leave their Christianity faith even though he considered parts of the faith to be superstitious like that of the Jews. Even though Hitler was not so religious and especially after he gained power in Germany and he was said to be anti-Semitic, he never denied anyone the freedom of religion. It’s openly known that he was constantly in conflict with the Catholic Church but he did not openly denounce his faith in the church and it is still thought that he died a catholic. His lack of denial of people to worship and his joining of protestants which had almost the same rituals as those performed in a catholic mass strongly supports this table talk from him (Weinberg 135). Hitler is known to have positive comments about Islamic religion and even supported the religious culture of the

Equity and trusts Master Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Equity and trusts Master - Case Study Example However it is important the trust instrument must allow the property to be identified clearly. (The K-Zone - Certainty of Subject Matter) The transfer of five thousand shares in Echo Ltd to be held in Trust will be considered as valid trust property as has been decided in the case of Re Rose (1952)4. The fact that the transfer of the shares was not registered does not affect the creation of the trust covering the shares, as the legal presumption is that even when the settler has not done enough to effect a legal transfer the act of creating a trust including the shares as the trust property will constitute a trust. The transfer of some prime agricultural land from the farm which Andy will inherit under his father's will does not constitute a trust. This is due to the fact that the title to the property in the passes to Andy only on the death of his father when the will takes effect. As the subject matter of the trust is not certain there is no creation of any trust in respect of the agricultural land. This is the case of a 'future property' that the settler expects to obtain. Any attempt to create a trust of a future property will be considered as void as the setter does not have the right to transfer the title to the trustee (The K-Zone - Future Property) This issue is well settled in Re Ellenborough 19035. 3. Transfer of house property to Pat - On her marriage to Jonathan In this case when Andy creates a trust of the house property in favour of Pat on the condition that she marries Jonathan it gives rise to a case that a court of equity would compel Andy to constitute the Trust if he reneges on his commitment (The K-Zone - Marriage Consideration). However there are no specific case laws to prove that marriage consideration would still constitute a valid purpose for the creation of a trust for a modern court. But the existence of marriage consideration is attracted by the basic implication of 'unregistered conveyancing' which may require the transfer of title to Pat. 4. Transfer to Richard one of the house properties In Milroy v Lord 18626 there are three processes that must be carried out to recognize the transfer of any property as a valid gift. They are: An outright transfer of legal title to the beneficiary An outright transfer to trustees to hold on trust for the beneficiary or a self declaration trust The principle to be considered here is that the above three circumstances are mutually exclusive and the courts will not consider an imperfect gift as a trust or vice versa. The principle established in the case of Re Rose 1952 though has been made specifically applicable to transfer of shares can equally be

Is Justice Scalia Wise Enough in His Supreme Court Rulings Research Paper

Is Justice Scalia Wise Enough in His Supreme Court Rulings - Research Paper Example The jurist is a fervent champion of the authority of the executive arm of government; he believes that the original ideology of the authors of the American constitution was to establish and protect a powerful presidency to ensure stability of the nation. In his rulings the judge rejects double standards in the application of the law such as policies aimed to empower minority groups. Talbot (43) avers that Scalia often files separate minority verdicts in which he criticizes the majority decision. This paper explores the philosophies of Justice Scalia as evident in some of the Supreme Court rulings he has made on discrimination and criminal procedure. Justice Scalia is widely described as a conservative figure on the bench, implying that he offers the Constitutional interpretation in letter and spirit of its key architects of the eighteenth century (Bramwell 370-375). In his rulings, the justice captures the philosophies that inspired the Amendment to the Constitution. Scalia believes various constitutional changes to the US laws should be interpreted with respect to their essence at the period of amendment. Nevertheless, the justice is at pains to explain his judicial approach relative to the verdict of Brown v. Board of Education of 1954, which declared segregated learning facilities illegal. The ruling also cited the Fourteenth Amendment, which the justice interprets otherwise, as a deciding factor in the case. The enactment of the Amendment contradicts Scalia’s observations as it allowed corporations some rights under the constitution (Niose 16-21). It is arguable that the architects of the Fourteenth Amendment wanted to enhance school segregation. Scalia however, says he would have rejected school segregation in America, an opinion which is driven by the need for a real united America. According to Scalia and Ring, the justice enthusiastically rejects the notion of an evolving society guided by an â€Å"adjusting† set of laws (9-11). Scaliaâ₠¬â„¢s ideology implies that it is beyond the mandate of the court to adapt the constitutional interpretation. The justice sounds an alarm that if Americans accepted the fact that constitutionalism should be modified to suit an evolving society, the dangers of evaluating changing standards may be tantamount to believing that the evolution has boiled down into one's personal opinion. Nevertheless, by comparing the Constitution with original statutes, which should be bequeathed future generations in its letter and spirit, the philosophies advanced by the justice may fail to enable the modern American society to manage new cultural trends, some of which may be good and promote peace and stability in the world (Lakin 47). Additionally, due to the fact that laws are crafted to serve justice, the evolution of the values of the American society may turn the people into â€Å"slaves† of their forefathers’ ideologies if Scalia’s philosophies are anything to go by. Plainti ff has an upper hand Scalia’s philosophy on criminal procedures is largely in favor of the plaintiff. For instance, he rejected the Court's landmark ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, which offered guidelines on the treatment of criminal suspects. The ruling held that a testimony by a suspect in police custody who is ignorant of his rights was unconstitutional. Scalia’s verdict to judicially review Miranda in the Dickerson v. United States case of 2000 hit a snag, when he found himself in the minority,

Relevant career Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Relevant career - Essay Example I think the most theory that appeals to me and I found interest in week 2 is utilitarianism, which maximizes the power of happiness. Utilitarianism is theory, which lead to the proper action as maximizing benefit and reducing the negatives. Furthermore, utilitarianism is not limited to the happiness caused by single actions but also contain the happiness of all the people that involved and the future consequences. Also, in week 2 I learnt about Bentham’s utilitarianism which is about the human’s feeling or basic emotions. Humans are more likely looking for happiness rather than suffering from problems. According to Bentham’s utility can be found in every single thing that contribute to the happiness, which is really good. In my opinion utilitarianism has many interesting points that can be used in most of the aspect of life. One of the most common criticism of utilitarian ethics is the perspective that â€Å"the end justify the means†. Since utilitarian theory aims to maximize the benefit of happiness and reducing negatives in its objective, the theory holds that the means or the way to achieve it is justifiable. Other theorist however misused and misunderstood this that an ideal end or objective is enough to justify a less than ideal means. Citing as an example in business, we can take the idea of profit to be able to give more to employees and its shareholders. As a business organization, it is only but natural that a business would like to keep its shareholders happy by giving higher returns and to give bonuses and higher wages to its employees so that they will become happy and be more productive. Taking the theory of utilitarianism to the extreme, it could mean that using any available means to increase profit including illegal means such as manipulating financial manipulating financial stat ements to make the company look profitable and increase its stock valuation in

CreationStories Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

CreationStories - Essay Example It thus becomes of importance to recognize the different creation stories in the world and accept them as they are without bias. It thus becomes a fundamental issue for creation stories to be studied thoroughly and they can be compared and contrasted, and similarly be respected. The purpose of this study is to elaborate, compare and contrast the creation stories of Islam and creativity (Bramsen 2009). The Muslim creation story begins with a god and that if the god wants to create something, all he was to say was let it be and it became. He created the world and the heavens. He even created all forms of creatures to walk, crawl and fly all over the world. He also made the sun, moon, angels and stars to dwell in the universe in peace. The Quran continues and states that god poured down torrents of rain to break down the soil so that it could bring forth plants and the entire vegetation on the face of the earth. God commanded the angels to visit the earth so that they could pick up some types of soil so that man could be modeled. Then it was so and the first man was made and God named him Adam. God further went on and created the first woman and named her Eve so that they could live in paradise. Eve was made from the side of man. Adam was taught by God to give and name all creatures of the universe and the angel was ordered to bow down before Adam. However, Iblis one of God’s refused to follow the order and disobeyed God (Wolde 1997). Adam and eve were placed in a very beautiful garden which looked like a paradise and they were allowed to eat anything they wanted other than the fruits on the trees. Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s direct commands and ate the fruit. When God found out, Adam and Eve were sent to earth because of their disobedience. Therefore, the purpose of the earth was to provide food and shelter to all mankind. Light was provided by the moon and the sun. Furthermore, the human race was to serve God by obeying him and his will as the Quran

Expanding an MNC Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 2

Expanding an MNC - Essay Example However, it was unable to compete with the already established competitors in the market and therefore, the company is now entirely focused on domestic devices required for household work. Overall, Nestfree has around 200 factories in the above mentioned countries with around 150,000 employees worldwide. The range of products provided by Nestfree is as follows: However, the company is now seeking to expand its markets in emerging countries of the world. The emerging markets of China, India and Brazil. The information and relative factors of these countries is provided below. The economic system followed in China is a modern one which is supported by a strong financial services sector. One of the major advantages is that the government has zero debt and the Chinese citizens are savers as compared to the borrowing nature of the citizens of United States. The savings by consumers result in high amounts of capital available for banks to invest. This further boosts up investments in the economy which results in economic growth. The political environment in China is relatively stable as compared to other emerging markets. The political risk involved is quite low however; lower transparency in legal and regulatory policies is a big hurdle for foreign companies. The stability in the political environment is brought about by the one party system which results in lower arguments and therefore, greater peace. The business rules and regulations are not very effective with serious transparency issues. Especially for high tech and commodity companies, the regulatory transparency becomes a major issue as well as a big challenge. The Chinese technological environment is quite advanced and the government plans to make china a world leader in the field of science as well as technology. The aim is to make china self sufficient in terms of technology as a result of effective policies designed by the government. The Chinese

CreationStories Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

CreationStories - Essay Example It thus becomes of importance to recognize the different creation stories in the world and accept them as they are without bias. It thus becomes a fundamental issue for creation stories to be studied thoroughly and they can be compared and contrasted, and similarly be respected. The purpose of this study is to elaborate, compare and contrast the creation stories of Islam and creativity (Bramsen 2009). The Muslim creation story begins with a god and that if the god wants to create something, all he was to say was let it be and it became. He created the world and the heavens. He even created all forms of creatures to walk, crawl and fly all over the world. He also made the sun, moon, angels and stars to dwell in the universe in peace. The Quran continues and states that god poured down torrents of rain to break down the soil so that it could bring forth plants and the entire vegetation on the face of the earth. God commanded the angels to visit the earth so that they could pick up some types of soil so that man could be modeled. Then it was so and the first man was made and God named him Adam. God further went on and created the first woman and named her Eve so that they could live in paradise. Eve was made from the side of man. Adam was taught by God to give and name all creatures of the universe and the angel was ordered to bow down before Adam. However, Iblis one of God’s refused to follow the order and disobeyed God (Wolde 1997). Adam and eve were placed in a very beautiful garden which looked like a paradise and they were allowed to eat anything they wanted other than the fruits on the trees. Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s direct commands and ate the fruit. When God found out, Adam and Eve were sent to earth because of their disobedience. Therefore, the purpose of the earth was to provide food and shelter to all mankind. Light was provided by the moon and the sun. Furthermore, the human race was to serve God by obeying him and his will as the Quran

Quality Assurance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Quality Assurance - Essay Example Therefore, it is in the interest of a firm to ensure the goods that are produced are of high quality and are appealing to the market as a whole. In making this a reality, the firms have to indulge various aspects which include strategic planning, data collection and effective communication; both inside and outside the firm. The Core Concepts of Quality and Total Quality There are various concepts that are used by firms and businesses to improve the quality of production. When these concepts are implemented the firm gains by giving satisfactory results to customers. The first concept in TQM is developing customer focus (Rawlins, 2008:12). Customers create the main demand for the products and services that are offered, and will have direct impact on the performance of a business. Therefore, as a measure in a firm, it should structure the best ways of creating an impressive reception from the customers. This can be done by ensuring the products that are produced according to customersâ €™ needs. Production in a firm involves transforming raw materials to finished goods, which are used by the clients. Therefore, a business has to ensure it is centred on the production process, which will generate finished goods. This is a concept that involves structured processes that are repetitive. As such, a firm should have a developed way of ensuring these steps are followed to the latter, in ensuring the products are available at the right time (Rawlins, 2008:15). In implementing such procedures, the firm is likely to reflect satisfactory results in terms of production of products and services. 2.0 Total Quality Application to the Organisation in RWDI Formation of an integrated system is a concept in TQM, which explains the connection of all the functional parts in an organisation. While some organisations use the vertical integration of management, other firms embrace the horizontal structure of management. All these activities are vital in coming up with the end produc ts. Therefore, a well arranged structure will accrue the best results in a firm, depending on their effectiveness and efficiency. Therefore, a business has to involve both minute processes and the other large process to record the desired results. Many firms apply the aspect of continuous improvement, especially in performance. This is done in many ways where the products and services of a firm or organisation have to keep improving. In many instances, organisations direct their focus on improving the quality and effectiveness of products and services. With a constant improvement in the products and services, it is guaranteed that the organisation will attract a larger number of customers. As such, it increases the demand for the products of the firm, which in turn increases the performance of the firm. 3.0 Problem Hard and soft problems RWDI has been 3experrincingh a number of problems in regard to its performance. Its performance has been dwindling with time, which has lowered its reception in the market. However, there are two types of the problems that affect the firm. These are soft issues and hard issues where some are measured while others are not measured. To begin with, the firm experiences hard problems which occur from submerging profit levels. This is reflected from the low performance and appeal to the market. Apparently, the costs incurred in the firm are increasing day in and day out, which

Six steps to writing a successful narrative Essay Example for Free

Six steps to writing a successful narrative Essay A narrative should be able to tell a story, whether it relates to fiction or non-fiction ideas. In writing any form of literary narrative, several steps should be followed to arrive at a coherent and consistent whole. The first step involves the identification of an appropriate topic, that which stirs the best interest of the target reader. It is in this first step that the attention of the reader will be established. Secondly, the major details that will be interwoven into the storyline must be gathered, included in which are the characters, setting, conflict and the events that make up the plot. Without this, the narrative may be exposed into several risks like, disorganized thoughts and missing details. It may further contribute confusion to readers since this part lays all the foundations of pre-creating a story. Subsequently, the results of the gathered information must undergo the assessment of an instructor or any learned narrative writer. This serves as a guide whether supplementary accounts must be added or eliminated. The fourth step, which necessarily deals with the construct of an outline, takes account of the introduction, the main events and the conclusion. Gathered details are coherently fabricated according to the writer’s choice of style, whether for a tone of whodunit, essay, poems etc. It is best to evaluate the details of this next step through sensory details. Moreover, transitions and dialogues must be properly observed to help guide the readers on the events the writer tries to show. For corrections to the written work, editing and proofreading courtesy of an instructor constitute the fifth step. Finally, the corrected story can now be shared among others to live up the ideas incorporated in it. References http://yennadon. sd42. ca/online/langarts/narrative/narrativewriting. html (July 2007) http://www. bookrags. com/articles/7. html ( July 2007)

Dell Company Essay -- Case Study Business Essays, solution

Dell Company The Company was founded in 1984 by Michael Dell, now the computer industry's longest-tenured chief executive officer, on a simple concept: that by selling personal computer systems directly to customers, Dell could best understand their needs, and provide the most effective computing solutions to meet those needs. Dell Computer's mission statement is: "Dell's mission is to be the most successful computer company in the world at delivering the best customer experience in markets we serve. In doing so, Dell will meet customer expectations of: †¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Highest quality †¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Leading technology †¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Competitive pricing †¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Individual and company accountability †¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Best-in-class service and support †¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Flexible customization capability †¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Superior corporate citizenship †¢Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Financial stability" Dell’s target market consists of large corporate accounts, medium and small businesses, and the consumer business. Dell has set out to satisfy each different customer segment through its Direct Model. In order to continue being successful, Dell has to make sure that it produces the right PCs that would be satisfying to customers, and take advantage of the opportunities that are available. Focusing on the laptop industry, if Dell wants to produce a next generation laptop platform that will carry its business in the future, it should look at today’s trends in the industry and how they could impact the next generation laptop.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Mobility is increasingly influencing the world and markets that Dell will be operating in. Therefore, the implication associated with this trend is that the laptop that Dell would produce should be lighter and smaller.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The internet is becoming a necessity in people’s everyday life. Because of this trend, and the impact of mobility at the same time, wireless internet would be a potential demand.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Moore’s Law: it has been observed that laptops and PCs in general are becoming cheaper, smaller and faster, with CPU performance doubling every 18 months. This is an affect of people’s demand for continuous improvement and innovation.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  People today are using their computers for a broad range of activities (digital cameras, MP3 players, music, DVDs, etc†¦)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The growth in the economy has been observed on a worldwide scale. It increases demand for productivity, therefore impacti... ...ormance, this might be a threat in the future. -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Intensity of Rivalry. As performance increases, differentiation between brand names might decrease. Dell’s rivals are finding ways to increase their market share by replicating some of dell’s advantages. For example, IBM recognize the advantages of direct distribution and launched initiatives to expand its own direct sales. Compaq saw the advantage of reducing inventory, and therefore took initiatives to do so. -  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  PDAs replacing laptops. Whether this is a threat or not is still unknown. If the case was that PDAs substitute laptops, it would be a threat to Dell’s laptop business, but not to the entire Company if Dell keeps improving in the production of PDAs. To conclude, in order for Dell to compete efficiently in the laptop industry in the future, it needs to take advantage of all of the above opportunities. Consumers are becoming increasingly more demanding and price-sensitive. The next generation laptop must be consistent with the relevant trends affecting the industry today. If Dell succeeds in its attempt to make a product that fits the trends, it will probably still remain in its leading position in the future.

These three poems are all based upon time, they all show time passing :: English Literature

These three poems are all based upon time, they all show time passing and how it effects human life and nature. to his coy These three poems are all based upon time, they all show time passing and how it effects human life and nature. ‘to his coy mistress’ shows time passing as the poet tries to say that time doesn’t last forever , and that you should make the most if youth, because one day it will all be over and you will be getting old. ‘to the virgins make much of time’ also shows a very similar approach of how you should make the most.’Ozymandias’ shows time passing by saying that structures will out do people and that nothing can prevent time stopping, eventually it will catch up on us all. The poem to his coy mistress’ is a poem of great passion to ask the woman if she will date him and also go to bed with him. It is a poem of originality and the language used in the poem is very soft texture and content. The poem is split up into three sections one part is ‘if’, the second part is ‘but, and the last part is therefore. All theses show a different view of how he is persuading her to do all these things. The rhythm and rhyme of the poem to reinforce the arguments a used by rhyming couplets, which create a light hearted approach on the poem. The first two lines of the poem relate to the subject of time by saying, that if there was enough time and if life was longer then we could see much more things and, do more things with each other, it also uses the word crime which I used to show that it is no crime for us to do things together. The third and fourth lines show the man and the woman and how they could live their lives without rushing, because life would be longer than before. On lines 5-7 the poet compares the woman to the Ganges and himself to the Humber is used as a tone of mockery and is meant to be a joke. Line 10 shows the ‘flood’ which is a biblical reference showing that he will love her even before this point. On line 23-25 it shows how she will get old very quick and that you should make the most of your life, because one day it will be forgotten and your beauty will have faded. On lines 28-29 there are stops before the end, this is the poet

MRP (Materials Requirements Planning)

From reading about material requirements planning (MRP), I deciphered that this is a manufacturing planning and inventory control system that helps manage manufacturing procedures. MRP systems ideally have three main purposes.The first is to make sure that all materials are obtainable for manufacturing and the products are accessible to deliver to the buyers. The second purpose is to uphold the low inventory in store, and the third is to design manufacturing actions, delivery agendas and purchasing actions.The simple purpose of MRP system is to regulate the inventory. The use of MRP assists companies in keeping their inventory as low as possible while helping plan manufacturing, purchasing and delivering functions.Businesses need to regulate the kinds and amounts of supplies that they buy, strategize which products are to be made and how much of it and confirm that they are capable of meeting existing and upcoming consumer requests, while sustaining the lowest price for the company. Making a bad decision in any of these areas will make the company lose money.Not planning accordingly within this criterion could cause the company to lose a lot of capital. MRP can help you know what resources are needed and how many, as well as when you will need these materials.MRP can be used for materials that are bought from external sellers as well as those made in-house. You need to keep in mind what materials you are making, how much of it do you need, how long they can be stored for. For the planning portion, you need to know what limitations you may have for producing the materials as well as how to make them.For the outputs and reports part of MRP, you have output 1 which is the â€Å"Recommended Production Schedule†. What this does is that it gives you a thorough schedule of the dates that you need to complete the task along with how many to fulfill the call from the Master Production Schedule.Output 2 is the â€Å"Recommended Purchasing Schedule†. This ou tput gives you the dates you will get the materials bought and the dates that the purchase orders should transpire to equal the production schedules. Like with any other system, there are problems that evolve from using theMRP system. The main issue with MRP systems is the integrity of the data. If for some reason there are any mistakes in the inventory data, the bill of materials data, or production schedule, then this would make the output data wrong.To rectify these issues however, some businesses use pull systems and bar code scanning which makes it more accurate. A big concern with the MRP systems is the fact that they are mandated to state the length of time that a manufacturer will need to make a product.The system assumes that this time in manufacturing won’t change every time the item is produced, with no concern as to how many are made, or other things that may be made at the same time. Regardless of some of the issues that the MRP system may have, it does help comp anies reduce cost and inventory on hand.It helps companies produce what they need, when they needed to meet any demands that any consumers may have as well as deadlines etc. This system works well with many different types of companies and it seems to be fairly efficient.

Animals of Wonderland

TITLE: | The Animals of Wonderland: Tenniel as Carroll's Reader| SOURCE: | Criticism 45 no4 383-415 Fall 2003| The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://wsupress. wayne. edu/ ROSE LOVELL-SMITH WHEN JOHN TENNIEL was providing 42 illustrations for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1864 he was in his mid-forties, an established illustrator and a Punch cartoonist.At that time C. L. Dodgson and Lewis Carroll were equally unknown as authors, for adults or children. Tenniel, on the other hand, already had a professional understanding of the visual codes and illustrative techniques of his day, and already had an audience–an adult rather than a child audience–who would expect from him a certain level of technical proficiency, humor, and social nous.Tenniel's illustrations should therefore interest us today not just for their remarkable and continuing success as a felicitous adjunct to Carroll's text, but also as the first–arguably, the best–Victorian reading or interpretation of Carroll's text. After all, as a reader Tenniel enjoyed considerable advantages, including his personal position and experience, his access to the author's own illustrations to the manuscript version of the story, and access to the author himself.In his study of illustration in children's literature, Words about Pictures, Perry Nodelman has argued that â€Å"the pictures in a sequence act as schemata for each other†Ã¢â‚¬â€œthat is, all the expectations, understanding, and information we bring to reading an illustrated book, and all the information we accumulate as our reading proceeds, â€Å"becomes a schema for each new page of words and each new picture as we continue throughout a book. (FN1) If this is so, all Tenniel's choices relating to subject matter, size, position, and style of i llustration must come to operate, as we proceed through Alice in Wonderland, as a kind of guide to reading Carroll's text. An examination of Tenniel's opening sequence of illustrations as they appeared on the page in the 1866 edition of Alice in Wonderland(FN2) will therefore begin to reveal Tenniel's preoccupations, the kind of interpretation of Carroll's text he is nterested in making. As William Empson pointed out in 1935, two aspects of Alice are traditional in children's stories: the idea of characters of unusual size (miniatures and giants) and the idea of the talking beast. (FN3) Tenniel's opening drawing, the White Rabbit at the head of chapter 1, draws on both these traditions. The rabbit occupies a point between animal and human, simultaneously both these things and neither of them, an implication hardly made so firmly by Carroll's text.The rabbitness of the rabbit is emphasized by the meadow setting, the absence of trousers, and the careful attention paid to anatomy and p roportion. But the rabbit is slightly distorted towards the human by his upright posture, his clothing and accessories, his pose, and his human eye and hand. Less obviously, Tenniel also extends Carroll's text by offering information about the size of the rabbit. From the grass and dandelion clock (a visual joke) in the background the reader grasps the rabbit as rather larger than normal bunny size: about the size of a toddler or small child, perhaps.As this illustration was invented by Tenniel (Carroll's headpiece illustration shows Alice, her sister, and the book), the contrast is clear between Carroll, whose picture draws attention to the frame of the story, to the affectionate relationship of sisters, and thereby to Alice's membership of the human family, and Tenniel, who selects a traditional story idea that shifts the focus another way, toward a mediation between different kinds familiar from those many forms of art in which animal behavior is used to represent human behavior. In further illustrations, Tenniel offers more images suggestive of unusual relative size. The second picture, page 8, shows Alice too large to go through the little door. On page 10 she holds the bottle labeled â€Å"DRINK ME† which will shrink her; on page 15 she is growing taller, with the text elongated to match. Then comes page 18, where the frame and larger size suggest that here is an important picture. In it the human/animal rabbit and the idea of Alice's unusual size occur together.Alice looks gigantic in relation to the hallway, and the White Rabbit, normal size for the hallway (it appears) but perhaps (in that case) outsize for a rabbit, is much reduced from the importance he assumed in the first illustration and is shown fleeing from her terrifying figure. The pool of tears illustration on page 26 also relates to these themes. Here a fully clad human, Alice, is depicted much the same size as the unclothed mouse with which she swims.Note, too, that in the text, Alic e frightens the mouse away as she had previously frightened the rabbit, although this time it is by talking about her pet, her cat Dinah. The reader who ponders this opening sequence of illustrations might reflect that Alice would also be frightened of Dinah if she met her while still mouse-sized. The schemata, then, direct the reader towards a cluster of ideas in which animal fears and anxieties about survival are connected with images of lesser or greater relative size. FN4) Tenniel appears to have arrived at this interpretation independently: while he does frequently follow Carroll's designs closely in the subject and overall approach to an illustration (Michael Hancher provides some useful opportunities to make comparisons),(FN5) of the pictures just discussed only the one of Alice growing taller at the head of chapter 2 very much resembles a parallel drawing in Carroll's manuscript.Moreover, when Tenniel does follow Carroll in choice of subject he usually makes significant chan ges in treatment: Tenniel's Alice, for instance, having slipped into the pool of tears, is very much more alarmed than Carroll's Alice. (FN6) Edward Hodnett, who reviewed Tenniel's work for the Alice books picture by picture, makes rather slighting remarks about several of the designs in this opening sequence: those on pages 8 and 10 are â€Å"too matter-of-fact to be necessary,† the â€Å"elongated Alice stands merely looking round-eyed,† and the second vignette of Alice swimming with the mouse â€Å"makes the first superfluous. (FN7) Hodnett seems to me to have missed the point. These designs are in my view extremely consistent in seeking and developing a particular nexus of ideas. Despite the evident connection between many Tenniel illustrations and Carroll's own illustrations, then, this is clearly Tenniel's own interpretation. But if this is so, what is to be made of it?My thesis in this paper is that through his animal drawings, Tenniel offers a visual angle on the text of Alice in Wonderland that evokes the life sciences, natural history, and Darwinian ideas about evolution, ideas closely related by Tenniel to Alice's size changes, and to how these affect the animals she meets. (FN8) As I will show, this is partly a matter of Tenniel's â€Å"drawing out† an underlying field of reference in Carroll's text. I will also argue, however, that when Tenniel's approach to his animal subjects is compared to that in earlier and contemporary illustrated natural istory books, the viewer is conscious of resemblances which indicate that Tenniel's pictures are best situated and read in that context. The effect of the initial sequence described above, for instance, is that as chapter 3 unfolds Alice's encounters with various different creatures, the illustrations begin to re-create Alice itself as a kind of zany natural history for children. Our post-Freudian view of Alice in Wonderland tends to be of a private, heavily encoded, inward exploration or adventure.But Tenniel's reading, I would argue, offers us an outward-looking text, a public adventure, a jocular reflection on the natural history craze, on reading about natural history, and on Darwin's controversial new theory of natural selection. I will return to Tenniel as reader later, but in order to establish that this interpretation is no mere add-on but a genuine response to the text, I must first deal with science, natural history, and evolutionary ideas as themes that Carroll himself originates.Interest in contemporary ideas about the animal kingdom is signaled early on in Alice in Wonderland, in chapter 2, when Alice finds that the well-known children's recitation piece â€Å"How doth the little busy bee† has been mysteriously ousted from her mind by new verses that celebrate a predator, the crocodile. Carroll's parody of Isaac Watts's pious poem for children(FN9) thereby establishes his book's reference to a newer, more scientific view of nature–appro aching a controversially Darwinist view.It does this by mocking and displacing the worldview often called natural theology. According to natural theology, a set of convictions much touted in children's reading, God's existence can be deduced from the wondrous design of his creation. The universe is benign and meaningful, a book of signs (like the industrious bee) of God's benevolent and educative intentions just waiting to be read by humans. Carroll's crocodile, all tooth and claw, signifies other things: amorality, the struggle for existence, predation of the weaker by the stronger.Readers of Alice in Wonderland are also likely to notice that the animal characters do not behave or talk much like animals in traditional fairy tales or fables. They are neither helpers nor donors nor monsters nor prophetic truth-tellers, the main narrative functions of animals in traditional fairy tales,(FN10) but nor are they the exemplary figures illustrative of human fallibilities and moralities fam iliar from fables. They do not teach lessons about kindness to animals, as animals in children's stories often did, and they do not much resemble the creatures in nursery rhymes or jingles or Edward Lear's nonsensical poems either.Instead, they talk, chopping logic, competing with Alice and each other, and often mentioning things â€Å"natural† animals might be imagined to talk about, like fear, death, and being eaten. I think Denis Crutch is also roughly right when he points out that there is in Alice a hierarchy of animals equivalent to the Victorian class system but also suggesting a competitive model of nature: the white rabbit, caterpillar, and March Hare seem to be gentlemen, frog and fish are footmen, Bill the lizard is bullied by everybody, hedgehogs and flamingos are made use of, and the dormouse and the guinea pigs are victimized by larger animals and by humans. FN11) William Empson's 1935 essay notes how Carroll's ideas and manuscript illustrations associate evolut ionary theories with Alice in Wonderland. (FN12) This is a crucial point and, I believe, the best explanation for the presence of so many animals in Wonderland. It was after all Carroll who put a dodo, best known for being extinct, into the text,(FN13) and Carroll who first included an ape, that key symbol of evolutionary debate, in his drawing of the motley crowd of beasts in the pool of tears.But Carroll's evolutionary reference is much more extensive than Empson found it, for a Darwinist view of life as competitive struggle is also promoted by Alice, who–apparently unconsciously, as if she really cannot help it–repeatedly reminds us that in life one must either eat or be eaten. Alice will keep talking about Dinah to the little creatures she meets who are the natural victims of cats (26-27), she has to admit to the pigeon that she herself has eaten eggs (73), and in the Mock Turtle scene she has to check herself rather than reveal that she has eaten lobster and whiti ng (148, 152).The Mock Turtle, of course, is a very creature of the table, while Dinah the predator, the aboveground cat, has a place maintained for her in Wonderland by the Cheshire Cat, a friendly but slightly sinister appearing and disappearing cat whose most significant body part is his grinning, tooth-filled mouth (he grins like the crocodile, as Nina Auerbach has noted). (FN14) The â€Å"little bright-eyed terrier† of which the aboveground Alice is so fond (27) also has other-selves in Wonderland, Fury in the Mouse's Tale, the puppy in chapter 4.Moreover, the Mouse's Tale–the next poem in the book after the crocodile poem–talks about predation as if it were a legal process. The reader should therefore take the hint and connect the animal â€Å"eat or be eaten† motif elsewhere in the story with the trial scene in the last stage of the book. Carroll has the White Rabbit make this association of ideas when he mutters â€Å"The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws!Oh my fur and whiskers! She'll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! † (41). This is one of those moments when Alice reveals its ferocious undercurrent. The White Rabbit here anticipates legal execution as simultaneous with the process of being prepared for table: that is, these â€Å"civilized† human behaviors are proffered by Carroll as analogous to predation by a â€Å"natural† enemy, ferrets.Alice herself, by kicking Bill the Lizard up the chimney (an incident memorably illustrated by Tenniel in a very funny picture) and by looking on approvingly while the guinea pigs are so unkindly treated in court, inverts the theme of kindness to animals established in more orthodox children's literature like Maria Edgeworth's tale of â€Å"Simple Susan,† where a girl's pet lamb is saved from the slaughterer's knife. FN15) In Alice in Wonderland there is humorous delight in the misappropriation of the creatures in the croquet scene, and the re are many other versions of a cruel carnival in the book: for instance, Alice imagines herself being set to watch a mousehole by her own cat. She also resents â€Å"being ordered about by mice and rabbits† (46)–a phrase that suggests the â€Å"world upside down† of carnival but which might also be taken as summing up the new evolutionary predicament of humanity.Fallen down the rabbit hole from her lordly position at the top of the Great Chain of Being, Alice instead finds herself, through a series of size changes, continually being repositioned in the food chain. The importance of the theme of predation, â€Å"the motif of eating and being eaten,† is such that it has attracted a number of commentaries. It is fully described by Margaret Boe Birns in â€Å"Solving the Mad Hatter's Riddle† and by Nina Auerbach in â€Å"Alice and Wonderland: A Curious Child. (FN16) Birns remarks in opening her essay that â€Å"Most of the creatures in Wonderland ar e relentless carnivores, and they eat creatures who, save for some outer physical differences, are very like themselves, united, in fact, by a common ‘humanity. ‘† Birns therefore even cites a crocodile-eating fish as a case of â€Å"cannibalism,†(FN17) quoting in support of this idea Alice's â€Å"Nurse! Do let's pretend that I'm a hungry hyaena and you're a bone! (Looking-Glass, 8). She also remarks that Wonderland contains creatures whose only degree of self-definition is expressing a desire to be eaten or drunk, and offers other comments on scenes in Through the Looking-Glass where, as she puts it, â€Å"food can become human, human beings can become food. â€Å"(FN18) I do not always find â€Å"cannibal† readings supported by the parts of the text in question.Auerbach also makes claims about cannibalism, but a little differently, referring the idea of â€Å"eat or be eaten† back to Alice, her â€Å"subtly cannibalistic hunger,†(F N19) the â€Å"unconscious cannibalism involved in the very fact of eating and the desire to eat. â€Å"(FN20) Auerbach associates this interpretation with Dodgson's own attitude to food. But textual support for the quality Auerbach calls Alice's cannibalism seems lacking. Alice does not really eye the other animals in her pool of tears with â€Å"a strange hunger† as Auerbach suggests,(FN21) nor do the Hatter and the Duchess â€Å"sing savage songs about eating† as Auerbach claims. FN22) To describe a panther eating an owl as cannibalism, Auerbach(FN23) must assume (like Birns) that the creatures in Alice are definitely to be read as humans in fur and feathers. My argument is that they need not be so read: the point might be their and Alice's animal nature. Nor does the food at Queen Alice's dinner party at the end of Through the Looking-Glass â€Å"begin to eat the guests†(FN24) as Auerbach claims, although food does misbehave in Looking-Glass and the Puddin g might have this in mind (Looking-Glass, 206).Overall, however, in my view the preoccupation of Alice in Wonderland with creatures eating other creatures is much better accounted for by the â€Å"more sinister and Darwinian aspects of nature†(FN25) which Auerbach and Birns(FN26) also recognize as a part of the Alice books. I now return to my main argument, that Tenniel's illustrations pick up on but also extend this Darwinist and natural history field of reference in Carroll's text.As already noted, Tenniel's drawings of animals do not stylistically suggest a â€Å"children's fairy tale†(FN27) but rather produce Alice as a kind of natural history by resembling those in the plentiful and lavishly illustrated popular natural histories of the day (see figs. 1 and 2). My argument therefore differs from Michael Hancher's, which emphasizes social and satirical contexts by comparing pictures of various Wonderland and Looking-Glass creatures to those in Tenniel's and others' Punch cartoons. FN28) While Hancher establishes the relationship with Punch as an important one, however, the most convincing animal resemblances he reproduces from Alice in Wonderland (I am not here concerned with Through the Looking-Glass) amount to only two pictures, the Cheshire Cat in a tree resembling the â€Å"Up a Tree† cartoon of a raccoon,(FN29) and the ape on page 35 of Alice resembling the ape in â€Å"Bomba's Big Brother,†(FN30) Tenniel's frog footman and fish footman are Grandvillian figures with animal heads but human bodies, and also evidently suggest social commentary.But they stand apart from the argument I am presenting here because no effort is made by Tenniel to present them as animals. The satiric side of Tenniel's animal illustrations in Alice, hinted at by echoes of Punch, is never very dominant, then, and should not be seen as precluding another field of reference in natural history reading.The scope, persistence, eccentricity, and variety of t he natural history craze–or rather, series of crazes–that swept Britain between 1820 and 1870 are described for the general reader by Lynn Barber in The Heyday of Natural History and by others in more specialized publications, and need not be redescribed here. (FN31) The importance of illustration in contemporary natural history publishing, however, is central to my argument and must be touched on briefly.Even in the midcentury climate of Victorian self-improvement and self-education, the volume of this well-established branch of publishing is impressive: the standard of illustration in popular periodicals and books was high, and sales were also impressively high in Victorian terms. Rev. John George Wood, according to his son and biographer Theodore Wood, a pioneer in writing natural history in nontechnical language, had reasonable sales for his one-volume The Illustrated Natural History in 1851 and very good sales for Common Objects of the Sea Shore in 1857.But when R outledge brought out his lavishly illustrated Common Objects of the Country in 1858 it sold 100,000 copies within a week of publication, and the first edition was followed by many others, a figure worth comparing with Darwin's more modest first-edition sell-out of 1,250 copies–or, indeed, with Dickens's sales of Bleak House (1852), which were 35,000 in the first two years.The result of Wood's success was a much grander publishing venture by Routledge, Wain and Routledge, a three-volume The Illustrated Natural History with new drawings including some by Joseph Wolf: volume 1 (1859) was on mammals, volume 2 (1862) on birds–the frontispiece is reproduced in figure 2–and volume 3 (1863) on reptiles, fish, and mollusks. FN32) Wood's astonishingly prolific career as a popularizer, however, of which I have described only a tiny fraction (he was dashing off such productions as Anecdotes of Animal Life, Every Boy's Book, and Feathered Friends in this decade as well), is in line with much other more or less theologically inclined and intellectually respectable natural history publishing in the 1850s and 1860s, often by clergymen.Children were important consumers of such books and periodicals and sometimes are obviously their main market, and a number of fictional works, such as Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies (1863) and Margaret Gatty's Parables from Nature, of which the first four series appeared between 1855 and 1864 (that is, in the decade prior to Carroll's publication of Alice in Wonderland), capitalize on the contemporary conviction that natural history was a subject especially appropriate for children. (FN33)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Tenniel connects his Alice and natural history illustration by a number of stylistic allusions.He borrows the conventional techniques of realism, such as the cross-hatching and fine lines used to suggest light, shade, and solidity of form in the Mock Turtle's shell and flippers, or the crabs' and lobster's claws. Accu racy in proportion and a high level of anatomical detail are equally important. As can be seen by comparing figures 1 and 2, too, the grouping of subjects may also be suggestive–a point first noted by Narda Schwartz, who also drew attention to the resemblance between the etching of the dodo in Wood's three-volume natural history and Tenniel's dodo. FN34) Also significant is the way Tenniel's design showing the creatures recently emerged from the pool of tears includes a rather furry-haired Alice among, and on a level with, the beasts and birds. Carroll's own pictures for the pool of tears sequence have the quite different effect of separating Alice from the animal world, a point 1 will return to. Another Tenniel habit that suggests natural history illustration is his provision of sketchy but realistic and appropriate backgrounds.Here Tenniel's viewpoint sometimes miniaturizes the reader, setting the viewpoint low and thus letting us in on the ground level of a woodland world magnified for our information (compare figs. 3 and 4). When Alice stands on tiptoe to peep over the edge of a mushroom, when she carries the pig baby in the woods or talks to the Cheshire Cat, Tenniel uses a typical natural history technique, placing a familiar woodland flower–a foxglove–in the background in such away as to remind the reader of Alice's size at that time.Similarly, Tenniel makes use of the difference between vignettes for simple or single subjects, and framed illustrations, including full-page illustrations, for larger-scale and more important and complex subjects, in a way that very closely resembles a similar distinction in natural history illustration–popular natural histories like Wood's tend to use large, framed illustrations to make generalized statements, showing, for instance, a group of different kinds of rodent, while vignettes present an individual of one species.And above all, although Tenniel certainly endows his creatures with perso nality and facial expressions, his animals, unlike his humans, are never grotesques. In fact, nineteenth-century natural history illustration also delights in endowing the most solidly â€Å"realistic† creatures with near-human personality or expressiveness, a quality that Tenniel builds on to good effect, for instance, in his depiction of the lawyer-parrots, which remind one of Edward Lear's magnificent macaws (see figs. 5, 6, and 7).Thus while Tenniel's animal portraits reflect the Victorians' pleasure in their expanding knowledge of the variety of creatures in the world, they also faithfully reproduce the contemporary assimilation of this variety to familiar human social types, a sleight of hand of which Audubon, for example, is a master: his Great Blue Heron manages also to subtly suggest a sly old gentleman, probably shortsighted, and with side-whiskers. In the visual world inhabited by Tenniel, then, the differing works of Audubon and Grandville (the latter could depict a heron as a priest merely by giving the bird spectacles) slide together.Where few of Tenniel's successors have been able to resist the temptation to turn the animals in Alice in Wonderland into cartoon or humorous creations, though, it is Tenniel's triumph that he drew his creatures straight, or almost straight: the Times review of Alice in Wonderland (December 26, 1865) particularly noted for praise Tenniel's â€Å"truthfulness †¦ in the delineation of animal forms. â€Å"(FN35) It was, indeed, his skill in drawing animals that first established his reputation as an illustrator, when he provided illustrations for Rev. Thomas James's Aesop's Fables in 1848. FN36)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Can sources for Tenniel's remarkable animal drawings be more precisely identified? An early biographer of Tenniel records his acknowledgment that he liked to spend time observing the animals at the Zoo. (FN37) However, comparisons between pictures reveal that in addition Tenniel almost certainly con sulted scientific illustrations or recalled them for his Alice in Wonderland drawings. For example, in the mid-eighteenth century George Edwards produced a hand-colored engraving of a dodo which, he wrote, he had copied from a painting of a live dodo brought from Mauritius to Holland.The original painting was acquired by Sir Hans Sloane, passed on to Edwards, and given by him to the British Museum. (FN38) In 1847 C. A. Marlborough painted a picture of a dodo, which is now in the Ashmolean Museum (it was reproduced on the cover of the magazine Oxford Today in 1999). And in 1862 the second volume of J. G. Wood's The Illustrated Natural History includes a picture of a dodo. (FN39) Compare all these with Tenniel's dodo (figs. 8, 9, 10, and 11): they surely either have a common ancestor or are copies one from the other. The dodo is a special case in that Tenniel could hardly have studied one at the London zoo.But I wish to put forward a claim that Wood's 1851 one-volume and, later, expan ded three-volume Illustrated Natural History were very probably familiar to Carroll and the small Liddells and also to Tenniel, not only because Wood's dodo illustration is a possible source for Tenniel's but because these volumes also display smiling crocodiles, baby eagles in their nest, and the lory,(FN40) as well as illustrations of numerous more familiar animals that appear in the words and/or pictures of Alice, including the edible crab, the lobster, the frog, the dormouse, guinea pigs, flamingos, varieties of fancy pigeon, and so forth.Given the compendious nature of Wood's works, this is hardly surprising, of course. But Wood must be favored as the source of animal drawings most probably known to Tenniel for the further reason that Wood illustrations often quite strongly resemble Tenniel illustrations, as readers may judge by comparing figures 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16, to the toucan, eagle, and crab from Alice (see fig. 1) and the lobster and dormouse (see Alice in Wonderland, 157 and 97). (FN41)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  No matter how good Tenniel's famous visual memory, he is unlikely to have drawn such a menagerie without some research.Hancher noted the strong resemblance between a Bewick hedgehog (from the General History of Quadrupeds, 1790, often reprinted) and the evasive croquet-ball hedgehog at Alice's feet on page 121. (FN42) Bewick's hedgehog, however, had already been recycled by William Harvey for Wood's one-volume Illustrated Natural History where Tenniel is equally likely to have seen and remembered it: all three hedgehogs have the same dragging rear foot (see figs. 17, 18, and 19). This is another case, like that of the dodo, where scientific natural history illustrations have been copied, recopied, or reworked for reprinting.A similar argument could be presented about the large number of depictions of sinuous flamingos that Tenniel might have consulted. The volume of contemporary natural history publishing for children and adults, the evident cont emporary interest in illustrations of animals, and the resemblance between Tenniel's and contemporary natural history drawings have important implications: the resemblance indicates that Tenniel is here creating the context within which he wants his pictures to be read.He shows us that he saw (and wanted the viewer to be able to see) Carroll's animals as â€Å"real† animals, like those that were the objects of current scientific study and theories, at least as much as he saw them as Grandville or Punch-type instruments of social satire, or fairy-tale or fable talking beasts. (FN43)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In line with his scientific interpretation, then, Tenniel in illustrating Alice in Wonderland intensifies Carroll's reference to Darwin's theory of evolution by carrying out his own visual editing of the Carroll illustrations in the manuscript.Tenniel makes the ape appear in two consecutive illustrations: in the second, it stares thoughtfully into the eyes of the reader–appea ring to claim kinship. Tenniel includes among the creatures in these illustrations on pages 29 and 35 a fancy pigeon, perhaps a fantail or a pouter, which should in my view be taken as a direct reference to Darwin's argument from the selective breeding of fancy pigeon varieties in chapter 1 of The Origin of Species. FN44) A visual detail that Tenniel introduced into the book, the glass dome in the background to the royal garden scene on page 117, looks like the dome at the old Surrey Zoological Gardens(FN45) and therefore constitutes another reference to the study of animals. And as already noted, Tenniel does not reproduce Carroll's rather lonely image of Alice abandoned by the animals, which would have had the effect of separating her human figure from the animal ones and thus emphasizing Alice's difference from them.Instead, Tenniel provides two images of Alice among, and almost of, the animal world, developing a radical implication of Carroll's text of which Carroll himself was possibly unaware. On the other hand, Carroll's interest in predation, in the motif of â€Å"eat or be eaten,† is not one on which Tenniel expands. No doubt it would have been thought too frightening for children: one must recall the care taken by Carroll over the positioning of the Jabberwocky illustration in Through the Looking-Glass. FN46) But while Carroll's text here develops emphatically–albeit peripherally–some ideas that Tenniel could only leave aside, Tenniel's recognition of the importance of such themes is strongly demonstrated by the puppy picture. This illustration is a particularly large one, dominating the page (55) on which it appears. It is framed, and therefore gives an impression of completion and independent significance, very different from that given by the more common vignette with its intimate and fluid relationship to the text.These things make it probable that the puppy scene and its illustration were especially important in Tenniel's re ading of Alice in Wonderland. Yet commentaries on Alice in Wonderland tend to ignore the puppy scene, perhaps because critics are often most interested by Carroll's verbal nonsense, and the puppy is speechless. Indeed, Denis Crutch disapproves of the puppy as â€Å"an intruder from the ‘real' world† and Goldthwaite takes up this point, commenting that the puppy was Carroll's â€Å"most glaring aesthetic mistake in †¦Alice†Ã¢â‚¬â€œneither seems to have noticed that the hedgehogs and flamingos are also not talking beasts. (FN47) Another reader of Tenniel's illustrations, Isabelle Nieres, takes a similar line, remarking that â€Å"the full-page illustration is perhaps placing too much emphasis on Alice's encounter with the puppy. â€Å"(FN48) But what Tenniel's puppy illustration encapsulates, in my view, is the theme of the importance of relative size. Here is Alice's fearful moment of uncertainty about whether she is meeting a predator or a pet. As reader a nd Alice will discover, the puppy only wants to play.But Alice is â€Å"terribly frightened all the time at the thought it might be hungry, in which case it would be very likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing† (54), and Tenniel's illustration with the thistle in the foreground towering over the tiny Alice, like many of his memorable illustrations, primarily signifies her anxiety. Later, too, Tenniel's choice of the lobster as the subject of a drawing is a visual reminder of the transformation of animals into meat: it brings the viewer uncomfortably close to recognition of kinship with the devoured, so human is the lobster and so warily is his eye fixed on the viewer's.The lobster is another illustration that Hodnett found an inexplicable presence in the text: the song in the text â€Å"provides insufficient excuse for an illustration,† he remarks. (FN49) My analysis of Tenniel's composite verbal/visual Alice in Wonderland is very different. Possibly going we ll beyond Carroll's conscious intentions, Tenniel offers a Wonderland that concurs with the evolutionist view of creation by showing animals and humans as a continuum within which the stronger or larger prey upon the smaller or weaker.The implication–one many readers of Darwin were most reluctant to accept–is that if animals are semihuman, humans may conversely be nothing but evolved animals. Alice's extraordinary size changes–in which Tenniel is so interested–therefore play a significant role in this new world, for as I already pointed out, it is through her series of size changes that Alice finds herself continually being repositioned in the food chain.Wonderland is truly the place of reversals: its theme of a world upside down is traditional, as Ronald Reichertz has reminded us in an illuminating study that positions Alice in Wonderland in relation to earlier children's reading. (FN50) Size changes can represent the topsy-turvy, of course. But while Al ice has some recognizably Jack-in-Giant-land experiences–like struggling to climb up the leg of a table–and some Tom Thumb experiences–like hiding behind a thistle–what is so weird or Wonderlandish about her story is not her sudden growth spurts but that she transforms rapidly from the small to the large and vice versa. FN51) Alice's body changes at times suggest being outsize and aggressive–for example, when she is trapped in the White Rabbit's house and terrifies the little creatures outside, or when she is accused of being an egg-stealing serpent or predator by the pigeon. But she is undersized and therefore vulnerable when she slips into the pool of tears or when she meets the puppy. (FN52) The size changes connect back to â€Å"eat or be eaten† where the dangers of large and small size, a theme especially horrifying to children, is a traditional one, found in tales of giants and ogres, Hop-o' my Thumb or Mally Whuppie. FN53) But as we h ave seen, the Tenniel/Carroll Alice in Wonderland links forward to ideas of predator and prey, eat or be eaten, and the â€Å"animal† nature of humanity, all recently given new urgency by Darwin. A contemporary illustration worth pondering that deals with these important ideas (it appeared at almost exactly the time of the publication of Alice in Wonderland) is the cover of Hardwicke's Science-Gossip: A Monthly Medium of Interchange & Gossip for Students and Lovers of Nature (January 1866).This cover represents (see fig. 20) the scientific technology that interested Carroll, as well as, more sentimentally, the small creatures and plants of woodland and seashore that are a part of the â€Å"natural history† background. These subjects, however, make a mere frame to the central illustration, both grisly and amusing, which is a depiction of the chain of predation, eat or be eaten, in action. One could hardly ask for a more succinct visual summary of this important element in the contemporary contexts of Alice.Recognition of this theme will, as well as accounting for lobster and puppy illustrations, also account for the otherwise somewhat puzzling centrality of Dinah and the Cheshire Cat in Carroll's text. Nina Auerbach quotes Florence Becker Lennon's insight that the Cheshire Cat is â€Å"Dinah's dream-self,† and certainly one or the other is more or less ever-where in Wonderland. (FN54) I think the reason for this must be that this familiar household pet best emphasizes the paradoxical difference between being large, in which state the cat is a delightful little furry companion, and being small, in which state the cat might kill you and eat you.In the Darwinian world, size can be the key to survival. And yet, Carroll selected a smiling crocodile to stand for the new view of creation. The cruelty of the Darwinian world is, in his view, somehow inseparable from delight. To suggest a context for this unexpected but quintessentially nineteenth-ce ntury state of mind,(FN55) a comparison may be made here between Carroll's poetic vision of his particular predator and Henry de la Beche's 1830 cartoon of life in A More Ancient Dorset; or, Durior Antiquior (see fig. 1). De la Beche was English despite his name, and was the first director of the British Geological Survey. According to Stephen Jay Gould, who includes it in his preface to The Book of Life, de la Beche's spirited cartoon, simultaneously grim and humorous, was â€Å"reproduced endlessly (in both legitimate and pirated editions)† and is an important model, becoming â€Å"the canonical figure of ancient life at the inception of this genre. â€Å"(FN56) In short, this is the first dinosaur picture.Victorian paintings of nature (showing a similar pleasure to Carroll's in his crocodile) do tend to center on hunting and predation–see The Stag at Bay–and de la Beche's influential image, Gould explains, became a thoroughly conventional depiction of prehi story, first, in showing a pond unnaturally crowded with wildlife (rather like Carroll's pool of tears), and second, in depicting virtually every creature in it as â€Å"either a feaster or a meal†(FN57)–something one may also feel about Carroll's characters.Particularly striking is the gusto, the pleasurably half-horrified enjoyment of bloody prehistory, in de la Beche's cartoon, which in my view is very comparable to the enjoyment of the image of the devouring crocodile in Lewis's brilliant little parody. A slightly unpleasant gusto also animates Alice in Wonderland, a book that fairly crackles with energy although the energy has always been rather hard to account for.While on the official levels of his consciousness Carroll â€Å"stood apart from the theological storms of the time,†(FN58) is it possible that the news of evolution through natural selection was, on another level of his mind, good news to him as to many other Victorians, coming as a kind of ment al liberation? Humanity might well have found crushing, at times, the requirements of moral responsibility and constant self-improvement imposed by mid-Victorian ideals of Christian duty.Alice, for one, young as she is, has already thoroughly internalized many rules of conduct, and Alice's creator, equipped as he was with what Donald Rackin has called a â€Å"rage for standards and order,†(FN59) revels in the oversetting of order (as well as disowning this oversetting thoroughly when Alice awakens from her dream). The exhilaration of an amoral anti-society in Alice in Wonderland may be, therefore, in part the exhilaration of a Darwinist dream, of selfishness without restraint.As we all know, Alice's route out of Wonderland is to grow out of it. In closing this essay a final suggestion may be made about Carroll and his self-depiction in Wonderland. If the book is full of expressions of anxiety about relative size–and the dangers of largeness and smallness–this ma y not merely be because a new theory of evolution by natural selection had enlivened this ancient theme. Possibly Carroll had adapted this theory as a private way of symbolizing for himself the anxieties and dangers of his relationship withAlice and the other Liddell children. In Morton N. Cohen's biography Lewis Carroll, a table numbers the occurrences of guilty self-reproach and resolves to amend in Carroll's diaries and shows how these peaked at the time of his deepest involvement with the Liddell family. (FN60) Is it possible that Carroll, far from suffering a repressed interest in little girls, consciously acknowledged and wrestled in private prayer with his own impossible desires?It seems to become ever more difficult, rather than easier, to read this aspect of Carroll's life. In a recent Times Literary Supplement (February 8, 2002), Karoline Leach argues that Carroll's friendships with children were emphasized in his nephew Stuart Collingwood's biography to distract attention from the potentially more scandalous fact of the older Carroll's friendships with mature women.A letter in response by Jenny Woolf, on February 15, points out that Carroll's sisters continued to recognize Carroll's women friends, so obviously perceived these friendships as chaste, but reminds us of the possibility that Dodgson may have cultivated girl children as friends because of their innocence, because they were sexually â€Å"safe† to him, rather than because they were dangerously enticing.A response to this position, of course, would be that the assiduity with which Carroll cultivated friendships with small girls seems out of proportion to such a purpose. Whatever the truth of these matters, it appears to me that Carroll, distressed by the emotional battles documented in his diary, might well have developd a set of imaginative scenarios in which a little girl's growing up or down is reversible according to her own desire: this offers one kind of explanation of some of the more mysterious events of Wonderland.The dangerous but exhilarating aspects of Carroll's relationship with his little friends seems to fit neatly into a â€Å"tooth and claw† model of society, too, for each party to such a friendship, although acting in innocence and affection, has a kind of reserve capacity to destroy, to switch from pet to predator. Carroll might even have dramatized himself as a beast in a Darwinian world in relation to these little girls who are never the right size for him.At times he is only the pet–a romping, anxious-to-please, but oversized puppy. But there are other times when he might fear becoming the predator, a crocodile whose welcoming smile masks the potential to devour. And conversely, of course, Carroll's beloved little friends had the monstrous capacity to destroy him, morally and socially, if he should ever overstep the boundaries of decency and trust.Tenniel, presumably unaware of any secret underside to Carroll's life, was anyw ay debarred by Victorian regard for children as viewers from depicting the savage underside of Alice. But by referring the reader outward to current controversies and current interests in the natural sciences, he has succeeded wonderfully in rendering in art both Carroll's, and his own, grasp of the importance of a new worldview, and of the explosive anxiety and exhilaration to which it gave birth. ADDED MATERIAL ROSE LOVELL-SMITH