Gulf Cooperation Council's Foreign Policy Essay

Gulf Cooperation Council's Foreign Policy - Essay Example This paper aims to examine the GCC’s changing foreign policies towards leading players in the region, especially, the GCC’s primary mandate being to promote, protect and pursue the interests of its member states. The Gulf Cooperation Council is an alliance of countries with similar political and economic interests, whose primary focus is to foster the political and economic development of its member states.1 The GCC seeks to strengthen the regional relations through increased collaborations between national states in the gulf; unity in political and economic associations between national states within the region is just a means to an end for the member states- the end itself is political and economic prosperity that is backed with strong currencies and a host of natural resources. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), as a political and economic alliance, has been in existence for over 30 years now since its inception; the alliance dates back in history to 30 years ago when it was founded in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on May 1981.2 The GCC alliance has been operational since then up to date, and the founder countries converged based on two main strategic reasons- promotion of political stability and economic prosperity. In other words, the alliance was formed purely out of the need by member states to join efforts to becoming politically and economically stable; the alliance was thus a strategic move to strengthen the political and economic stability of the region. The Gulf Cooperation Council is made up of six Middle Eastern countries that are found in the gulf region; these six countries include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar.3 Being a regional alliance, all the member countries have a number of things in common, and are subject to similar socio-economic, political, environmental and

Effective recruitment and selection of employees Essay

Effective recruitment and selection of employees - Essay Example 1. Starbucks introduce the recruitment and selection based on equal opportunities policies. They include racial and national diversity of the staff, fair treatment of all recruiters in spite of their religion, sexual orientation, social background, marital status, age and disability. The main advantage of Starbucks Coffee HR management is that it does not consider recruitment and selection in isolation, but in the context of the overall manpower plan and personnel management action program. For example, it investigates the potential of the persons appointed for training, development and future promotion; and their flexibility and adaptability to possible new methods, procedures or working conditions. In anticipation of a suitable applicant being selected, Starbucks have also prepared an orientation script and training proposal to assist both with their smooth transition into the role, together with their future development and advancement (Armstrong, 2003). The first step includes position requirements, needs and skills identification, selection of the tools to be used. During this process, strategic areas of competency are identified. These are broken down into number of clusters and a series of specific individual competency requirements. For example, the strategic competency business knowledge and skills, had marketing as one of the items in its cluster, and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of competition as one of the individual competency requirements (Stone 2005). Starbucks Coffee uses both online and off line recruitment which helps to attract wider target audiences of job seekers. One of the critical differences among Internet recruiters is the method by which their service matches candidates with jobs. Bulletin boards allow employers to search using key words they choose but do not participate actively in making matches. Other types of services take advantage of computer technology to varying degrees in the method they use to match candidate characteristics with the requirements of open jobs (Stone 2005). For off line recruitment, Starbucks uses recruitment agencies and advertising in press. The recruitment and selection practices are based on the interview structure and practical assessment of skills and knowledge of employees, his/her psychological peculiarities and ability to work in teams. The main types of practices are: "behavior-based interviews, training and experience evaluations, ability tests, biographical data, motivational fit inventories" (Armstrong 2003, p. 338). In Starbucks, the practices are based on collecting, measuring and evaluation of the information about recruiters and their skills. Usually, the selection process is based on the interview method. Interview consists of two stages (HR manager's evaluation and interview with the department manager). During interviews, two distinct strategies for selection are used by Starbucks. One strategy, used for managers and leadership positions, suggests that in an environment of rapidly changing job demands, selection based on general abilities such as intelligence, conscientiousness, or adaptability will con tribute most to the overall effectiveness of the organization.

Project Management Summary Essay Example for Free

Project Management Summary Essay Strategic portfolio management plays an intricate part in project management. Through this paper, the reader will gain a stronger understanding of the relationship that strategic portfolio management plays in project management. Strategic Management Relation to Project Management Project management involves several parts, but the meaning must be understood first. â€Å"Project management is the planning, organizing, directing, and controlling of company resources for a relatively short-term objective that has been established to complete specific goals and objectives† (Kezner, 2013, p4). Knowing this allows the project manager to implement steps toward achievement of the defined goals and objectives. Part of these steps has to do with strategic management. Project management is strategically managed to advance the corporations organizational goals. Strategic management insures the right initiatives are pursued and supported with resources. Strategy today needs to align to a more fluid nature of business environments. It has to be flexible enough to adapt constantly to changing external and internal conditions. The relationship between strategic portfolio management and project management is a very important relationship. Strategic management compliments project management in that it attempts to ensure success by way of doing things at the most opportune time. If a company attempts something too early or too late then possible negative consequences may occur. Projects, within programs or portfolios, are a means of achieving organizational goals and objectives, often in the context of a strategic plan. Although a group of projects within a program can have discrete benefits, they can also contribute to the benefits of the program, to the objectives of the portfolio, and to the strategic plan of the organization. Conclusion As stated at the beginning of this paper â€Å"strategic portfolio management  plays an intricate part in project management†. The reader should now have a stronger understanding of the relationship that strategic portfolio management plays in project management. References Kerzner, Ph.D., H. (2013). Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling (11th ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection. Project Management Institute. (2013). A guide to the project management body of knowledge. (PMBOK guide). Newtown Square, Pa: Project Management Institute.

Naipauls The Mimic Men: Mimicking Decultivation

Naipauls The Mimic Men: Mimicking Decultivation Naipauls The Mimic Men: Mimicking Decultivation The Mimic Men sets the tone of Naipaulian malaise of the New World conditions and their deep impact on ones psyche. For it is important to remember that Ralph Ranjit Kripal Sing, the exiled ex-politician hero of The Mimic Men is an insider, one who has practiced the most dubious forms of colonial mimicry as a politician and dandy, as husband and businessman and sees through the charade of politics, the deep humiliation and self contempt that results from defeat and failure. Naipauls The Mimic Men is divided into three parts and surprisingly the author has kept the name of the protagonist a secret until the beginning of the second part. The action of the first part takes place in London in the protagonist Ralph Sings youth. He has come there as a student on a scholarship. He lived in the boarding house owned by one Mr. Shylock. The house-keeper is a Maltese woman known as Lieni. The narrator counts plenty of experience to save himself from extinction and the resulting dust to dust; rags to rags; fear to fear ( Mimic Men 48). In fact, the word extinction has been used in a number of times in the novel. The situation where the narrator finds himself is an existential nothingness and he says, The tragedy of power like mine is that there is no way down. There can be only extinction (Mimic Men 48). By the time the narrator looks back and begins to write his past, he is forty. Later when the narrator took to writing like his creator Naipaul himself, he says, that he did so in order to give expression to the restlessness, the deep disorderwhich this great upheaval has brought about. ( Mimic Men 38) Part II of the novel talks about the protagonists unhappy childhood, unenterprising boyhood and the pressures that exerted him to leave his native island Isabella. He hailed from a poor family background in his words, On Isabella when I was a child it was a disgrace to be poor (Mimic Men 101). He descended from generation of idlers and failures. That caused him deep, silent shame (Mimic Men 101). Though his father was a schoolteacher and poor, his mother was from a rich family. Her brother Cecil was at school with the protagonist. He used to imagine that his father had landed on the island after his ship had been wrecked and he had lost all hopes of going back. Part II also talks about his Aryan background in India and how he added another name to his original name of Ranjit Kripal Sing. Ralph Sing is the example of thoroughly, psychologically colonized man, one who knows both the hurts and the excitements of the short-lived euphoria of inconsequential empires of our times. The burd en of guilt and betrayal, the consciousness of a collective shipwreck which all imitative and third-rate mimic societies suffer, makes Ralph Sing the voice of a quiet acceptance of colonial complicity. Ralph is the mimic man raised through a thorough-bred colonial education. The vision of disorder that haunts Sing is not only political, though. He can see no link between action and its result, man and landscape, the perennial reminders of slavery and brutalization. So, in the end a kind of neurosis sets in to carry Sing to the limits of self- derision. In part III the narrator Ralph Sing shares the ups and downs of his eventful life in Isabella soon after his coming over to that island nation with Sandra his wife from London. His marriage and his entry into politics were aberrations, whimsical, arbitrary acts(Mimic Men 219). Sandra quietly left him on a shopping trip to Miami. She never returned. And he never heard about her after that. It was with the instigation of one of his friends Browne that he became a politician. Browne was a man of the people. He was editing a newspaper called Socialist and was regularly contributing articles in it. Like Browne, Ralph Sing was not a thorough politician. He did not want to make a quick buck. The prospect of power in Isabella fatigued him. He felt he had no hold with the earth. He had no positive vision and hope. He had only a vision of a disorder which it was beyond any one man to put it right (Mimic Men 248). After 4 long years Ralph Sing was in a dilemma whether to return to Isabella as a failed politician or to stay back in London. In order to get some respite from his terrible loneliness and to boost up his self-image, he went to a brothel. With her also he failed as a sexual partner. His partner, to quote his words, was in despair. The smile of hysteria was replaced by tears; she reproached her self for my failure (Mimic Men 283). Quite secretly he went back to Isabella. He had thrown away his power. Such a state psychologically decolonized him. The mimic mans emancipation is impossibility, knowing the degree to which he has betrayed and violated himself, killing all truth and native purities. The precariousness of colonial or post-colonial leader, highlighted in The Mimic Men, is his slavery to the West on the one hand and his unease with his portion of the world. The imported culture, economy, industry, institutions and education are the mark of societies that Sing or Browne hoped to retrieve from disorder. Sings escape, his stay-back in London after the delegation has gone back to Isabella follows a penultimate, short visit to Isabella. But his ultimate exile in England is the most fruitful for him, for he is once again, as he says, in well-organised country and he has no wish to go back to the cycle of events he has freed himself from. Ralph Sing, the mover between cultures and geographies, politics and exile, finally turns a complete colonial, waiting perhaps to work on a history of the British Empire. Sings trying to find a settled role in a society defined by the extremes of Negro proletariat on the one hand and the ex-colonial Creole aristocracy on the other, presents the difficulty to place himself and the world he has come to. The attitude of the reader to Sings renouncing of public life, rejecting its emotions as fraudulent and settling down to write a memoir, will naturally be confused. Naipauls tendency for engraving and supplanting one narrative over the other reaches a limit in The Mimic Men. V.S. Naipauls postcolonial citizen helplessly reveals doubleness of identity in his existence whether in his island Isabella or in his city of choice and dream, London. Along with doubleness, irony and black humour also go with it. In fact such are the popular devices of Naipaul in all his fictional works. Ralph Sings increasing tension and alienation wherever he is, is a result of this awareness. He is also not able to identify with the colonizer though he find himself in his own colonizers state and gets the colonizers education and speaks the colonizers own language. The case of Ralph Sing it is simply not possible for him to shake off disposition and disunity. He chose London because he thought that a glamorous city like London could help him beat his sense of alienation. But London fails because Ralph Sing does not have a distinctive cultural identity with one particular culture. What Shashi Kamra points out as the general characteristics of a Naipaulian protagonist quite aptly fits in Ralph Sing ofThe Mimic Men: Naipauls narrator, subverting the chronological and objective order he has created through subjective ordering of his protagonists life and by questioning that order in his tone of irony and satire, creates the terror of placelessness and timelessness as a void- a pit without bottom. (79) Works Cited Kamra, Shashi. The Novels of V.S. Naipaul: A Study in Theme and Form. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1990. Naipaul, V.S. The Mimic Men. Harmondasworth: Penguin, 1969. Should Guns be Permitted in Colleges? Should Guns be Permitted in Colleges? There are many debates over the question Should guns be permitted on college campuses. They should not be permitted because there are people with anger issues, violence , kills caused by alcohol, and committing suicide from depression/stress. Anger issues is one of many examples of why guns should not be permitted on college campuses. Having such an issue is already dangerous because people tend to take that anger out with yelling or fighting. People with that problem tend to snap quickly with just the wrong use of words. So theres no way of telling what might go through a persons mind having a gun on him. Would they take it out with shooting someone for a miss understanding? For example theres a class going on and everyone except one of the students is working, and the teacher tells one of the students to turn his phone in to her because he was on it instead of working. The teacher ask several times but the students decide to keep refusing to hand it to her. When the teacher decides to walk over and ask one last time he can easily take that as a threat because the teacher is in his personal space. When that goes on he decides to pull out his gun and shoots the teacher because of a problem so small. Not only is the teache r dead but the other people in the class are in danger as well. To prevent this from happening the option of weapons allowed shouldnt be allowed to the students. Another reason guns shouldnt be permitted is because of the use of alcohol. When being consumed with too much alcohol you dont think straight, which may cause you to make a bad decision, at the wrong time. There are many parties in colleges where students are introduced to huge amounts   of alcohol.   For example one of the most popular students on campus throws a huge party in one of the dorms where there is a lot of acholic beverages. After a couple of hours when everyone is drunk a guy gets a drink spilt on him. His reaction to the situation is going to be a lot different because of the fact that he is under the use of a high amount of alcohol. So when the drink is spilt on him he gets extremely mad so without thinking twice he pulls out a gun and shoots the person that spilt the drink on him. After this happens he starts freaking out because he realizes what he did so he gets scared and starts shooting all the witnesses there. From him carrying that gun caused him to put ever yones life at risk and because of him being highly influenced by the alcohol at the party. Theres already enough dangerous situations because of drunk driving at the campuses no need to put more dangerous situations. Another dangerous situation that can be caused is if there are people with violent behavior. Violent behavior can be defined as the use of physical force with the intent of physical force. An example would be if there was a class going on and one of the students in there is one of the violent students that dont like being told what to do. The teacher is giving the class because he was being loud and all the students were paying attention to him instead of the teacher. When the teacher decides to get on to him he tells him that no one tells him what to do that he doesnt care who it is and who ever disrespects him like that will pay the price. The teacher replys by saying that is his class and he talks to anyone however he wants. The arguing continues until the student finally gets tired of him he decides to reach in his bag and shoot the teacher. He just killed someone in front of a whole bunch of witnesses. So now he could either put his gun down and surrender or turn even more viole nt because there are witnesses around. Another option he could do is keep them hostages and keep them there until the authorities meet his commands. Everyones lives are at risk now because the opportunity was given to him to bring a lethal weapon. One of the biggest and most dangerous situations come from   depression and   stress. Most of the schools shootings that happened the year of 2015 were because of depression. There are plenty amount of shooting cases happen because of the amount of bulling going on in the schools from elementary schools to colleges. A great example is if theres a student being bullied throughout the whole school year just because he has no friends and always tries to fit in with the rest of the kids. He gets bullied because the way he dresses and because his parents arent financially   stable. Hes been holding all that anger of getting bullied ever since he was little because he knows in a fist fight he wont win against the other guys. In college he gets messed with too but even though it isnt as bad as it was in high school the other students still play pranks on him. Ever since the bullying started he would write down the names of the kids bulling just so he could remember who they were and the pain and embarrassment the would make him go through. One day in the middle of the year of his sophomore year of college he just had enough he was going through depression beca use he had no friends and he was going through a lot of stress because he was trying to keep his grades up but the other students would throw paper balls at him or just   laugh at his clothes theyd do anything to keep him from learning. The day he had enough though he started planning on what he was going to do to stop the problem. He would go to pawn shops and buy guns to help him go forward with his plan and since the college had permitted the students to carry concealed weapons,   he would have no problem getting in the college with the gun. After he buys his ammunition and guns now he just waits for the day of the plan to come and to finally get his revenge on all the students that made him go through depression and that would bully him into lots of stress. Next thing you know the day of the plan comes and he prepares everything he puts the small guns in his pockets and the bigger ones in his back pack. He pulls up to the college and goes to class like if it was any other regular day of school and as the class starts the students that always mess with him start throwing paper balls and spit balls at him. He gets up and turns to look at the group of guys. He reaches in his pocket and pulls the first weapon out and starts shooting one by one the students go down dead. Then he starts walking around the campus looking for the rest of the students on the list. After hes finished killing as many of the students as he can, he may commit suicide because he doesnt want to accept the consequences and hes juts tired of being bulli ed and stressed and just believes that its the only way out. The option of weapons allowed in   colleges shouldnt even be in mind. There are a lot of cases where there are people killed because of fire arm accidents and why put peoples lives even more at risk when theres no need to. Work Cited A Bullet for Teacher: Violence in Schools. Economist 24 July 1993: A26. General OneFile. Web. 8 Feb. 2017. Fear Factors The Three F Words. Officer.com Feb. 2017: n. pag. General OneFile. Web. 10 Feb. 2017. OMeara, Kelly Patricia. Antidepressants May Trigger School Shootings. School Shootings. Ed. Susan Hunnicutt. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2006. N. pag. At Issue. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 10 Feb. 2017. OMeara, Kelly Patricia. Antidepressants May Trigger School Shootings. School Shootings. Ed. Susan Hunnicutt. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2006. N. pag. At Issue. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 10 Feb. 2017. Students, Administrators Share Thoughts, Questions on Proposed Conceal Carry. Janesville Gazette [Janesville, WI] 15 Oct. 2015: n. pag. General OneFile. Web. 6 Feb. 2017. Three Wounded in Shooting at Texas College; Not Designed to Bring Us Together; GOP: Obama Wants Era of Liberalism; Reports: Two. Situation Room [CNN] 22 Jan. 2013: n. pag. General OneFile. Web. 6 Feb. 2017

Life of Martin Luther :: essays research papers

The Life of Martin Luther   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Martin Luther lived in a period that had a wide spread desire for reformation of the Christan Churhc and played the role in the development of Protestantism. Luther was born at Eislebenin Saxony. Since his father was a miner, it was a great distress on him to send Martin to school and then to the University of Erfurt. That is where he earned his master’s degree at the young age of twenty-one(Erikson, 39). Although his father wished him to study law, Martin, after being terribly frightened in a thunderstorm, vowed to become a Friar. He entered the monastery of the Augustinian friars at Erfurt and was ordained a priest(Erikson, 167). He eventually earned a doctorate of theology. He grew disburbed by the growing abouve of indulgences. The cetrificate granted by the people in return for the payment of a fee to the church. It stated that the sould of a dead relative or a friend of the purchaser would have his time in purgatory reduced by many year’s or cancelled together. Also the person had to by an indulgence. This would allow them to receive their earthly penance, since no one knows that God’s ultimate punishment will be. The Catholic Church faith now has a doctrine to back the three principles of indulgences(Neil 18) (Underwood 345). the principles of indulgences first one that God mericful, but he also just. Next, Chrust and hte saints, through their inifnite virtue, established a treasury of merits on which the church, through its special relationship with Christ and the saints, can draw. Third, the Church has the authority to grant sinners the spiritual benefits of those meirts(Underwood, 345). Luther idea spread began writing the Ninty-five Theses or arguments against indulgences. That he began posting them on the Wittenberg where he preached. He wanted the public to know that he was debating against important issue. The Theses stated the simple folk believed that when they have bought the indulgence they have secured their salvation. They also, believed that if the money jingles in the box, souls are delievered from pungatory and all the sins will be foreign through a letter of indulgence(Neil, 21). Luther fears that urging people to seek escape from divine punishment through indulgences would lead them away from true sorrow for their sins and into a dangerous sense of false security(Judith,21). Luther defined Protestantism as a theological issues. At first was to salvation. The Catholic called salvation as attained through faith and good works. He said that salvation by the faith.

The Yellow Wallpaper -- Literary Analysis, Gilman

Within the troubling novel, The Yellow Wallpaper, the theme in which action takes place is very significant. The woman, who seemingly suffered from post-partum depression, searches for some sort of peace in her male dominated world. The woman’s increasingly intense obsession with the wallpaper leaves the reader with many questions about male-female relationships and perhaps even insanity. Therefore, the manipulation of theme allows the author to delicately introduce symbols in the text. The yellow wallpaper itself is the most obvious symbol that represents the protagonist’s mindset. It contains patterns, angles and curves that all contradict one another, and it can reflect the wife’s emotions during that time. In addition, the nursery symbolically shows the way women of that time were seen as being on the same level as children, as well as the barred windows of confinement of women with respect to the perception of what a woman’s role was. These symbols re present Gilman’s view on the status of women in the patriarchal society of the nineteenth-century. The story takes shape of a journal about the main character. Consequently, the reader’s view is limited to the impressions of the single character, Jane. Considering the background information on Gilman, one can effortlessly draw the conclusion that the story is actually an indication of a personal experience. Gilman had suffered a tremendous mental depression as the result of psychiatric treatments, prior to writing the story The Yellow Wallpaper. The author identifies herself with the main character. As a result of her poor health, Jane listened to the doctor’s advice and redirected the power she previously spent on doubts to â€Å"air and exercise, and journeys† (Gilman 1392)). She ... ...easier about you† (Gilman 1398). In addition, the other characters play a slight role in the story and can be considered part of the theme. In this case, they represent the connection with the real, obvious world. The healing process tends to be an appearance because the body heals as the doctor predicted but, her mind was resonating with the environment in a different way, provoking changes in her perception. Each bizarre event associated with the mysterious appearances of the woman from the wallpaper seemed to have a connection with the two-dimensional world she came from. For instance, the woman was â€Å"Creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind† (Gilman 1401). Elements of two-dimensional worlds are certainly an exceptionally appealing effect. They symbolize the strained obedient attitude of those characters, given that their movements were rapidly silent.

Coyote Blue Chapter 3~5

CHAPTER 3 The Machines of Irony Bring Memory Santa Barbara After Sam's secretary gave him the address of his appointment he hung up the cellular phone and punched the address into the navigation system he'd had installed in the Mercedes so he would always know where he was. Wherever Sam was, he was in touch. In addition to the cellular phone he wore a satellite beeper that could reach him anywhere in the world. He had fax machines and computers in his office and his home, as well as a notebook-sized computer with a modem that linked him with data bases that could provide him with everything from demographic studies to news clippings about his clients. Three televisions with cable kept his home alive with news, weather, and sports and provided insipid entertainments to fill his idle hours and keep him abreast of what was hot and what was not, as well as any information he might need to construct a face to meet a face: to change his personality to dovetail with that of any prospective client. The by-gone salesman out riding on a shoeshine and a smile had been replaced by a shape-shifting shark stalking the sale, and Sam, having buried long ago who he really was, was an excellent salesman. Even as some of Sam's devices connected him to the world, others protected him from its harshness. Alarm systems in his car and condo kept criminals at bay, while climate control kept the air comfortable and compact discs soothed away distracting noise. A monstrous multi-armed black machine he kept in his spare bedroom simulated the motions of running, cross-country skiing, stair climbing, and swimming, while monitoring his blood pressure and heart rate and making simulated ocean sounds that stimulated alpha waves in the brain. And all this without the risk of the shin splints, broken legs, drowning, or confusion that he might have experienced by actually going somewhere and doing something. Air bags and belts protected him when he was in the car and condoms when he was in women. (And there were women, for the same protean guile that served him as a salesman served him also as a seducer.) When the women left, protesting that he was charming but something was missing, there was a numb er that he could call where someone would be nice to him for $4.95 a minute. Sometimes, while he was getting his hair cut, sitting in the chair with his protections and personalities down, the hairdresser would run her hands down his neck, and that small human contact sent a lonesome shudder rumbling through him like a heartbreak. â€Å"I'm here to see Mr. Cable,† he said to the secretary, an attractive woman in her forties. â€Å"Sam Hunter, Aaron Assurance Associates. I have an appointment.† â€Å"Jim's expecting you,† she said. Sam liked that she used her boss's first name; it confirmed the personality profile he had projected. Sam's machines had told him that James Cable was one of the two main partners who owned Motion Marine, Inc., an enormously successful company that manufactured helmets and equipment for industrial deep-sea diving. Cable had been an underwater welder on the rigs off Santa Barbara before he and his partner, an engineer named Frank Cochran, had invented a new fiberglass scuba helmet that allowed divers to stay in radio contact while regulating the high-pressure miasma of gases that they breathed. The two became millionaires within a year and now, ten years later, they were thinking of taking the company public. Cochran wanted to be sure that at least one of the partners could retain controlling interest in the company in the event that the other died. Sam was trying to write a multi-million-dollar policy that would provide buy-out capital for the remaining partner. It was a simple partnership deal, the sort that Sam had done a hundred times, and Cochran, the engineer, with his mathematical way of thinking, his need for precision and order, his need to have all the loose ends tied up, had been an easy sale. With an engineer Sam simply presented facts, carefully laid out in an equationlike manner that led to the desired answer, which was: â€Å"Where do I sign?† Engineers were predictable, consistent, and easy. But Cable, the diver, was going to be a pain in the ass. Cable was a risk taker, a gambler. Any man who had spent ten years of his life working hundreds of feet underwater, breathing helium and working with explosive gas, had to have come to terms with fear, and fear was what Sam traded in. In most cases the fear was easy to identify. It was not the fear of death that motivated Sam's clients to buy; it was the fear of dying unprepared. If he did his job right, the clients would feel that by turning down a policy they were somehow tempting fate to cause them to die untimely. (Sam had yet to hear of a death considered â€Å"timely.†) In their minds they created a new superstition, and like all superstitions it was based on the fear of irony. So, the only lottery ticket you lose will be the winning one, the one time you leave your driver's license at home is the time you will be stopped for speeding, and when someone offers you an insurance policy that only pays you if you're dead, you better damn well buy it. Irony. It was a tacit message, but one that Sam delivered with every sales pitch. He walked into Jim Cable's office with the unusual feeling of being totally unprepared. Maybe it was just the girl who had thrown him, or the Indian. Cable was standing behind a long desk that had been fashioned from an old dinghy. He was tall, with the thin, athletic build of a runner, and completely bald. He extended his hand to Sam. â€Å"Jim Cable. Frank told me you'd be coming, but I'm not sure I like this whole thing.† â€Å"Sam Hunter.† Sam released his hand. â€Å"May I sit? This shouldn't take long.† This was not a good start. Cable gestured for Sam to sit across from him and sat down. Sam remained standing. He didn't want the desk to act as a barrier between them; it was too easy for Cable to defend. â€Å"Do you mind if I move this chair over to your side of the desk? I have some materials I'd like you to see and I need to be beside you.† â€Å"You can just leave the materials, I'll look them over.† Technology had helped Sam over this barrier. â€Å"Well, actually it's not printed matter. I have it in my computer and I have to be on the same side of the screen as you.† â€Å"Okay, I guess that's fine, then.† Cable rolled his chair to the side to allow Sam room on the same side of the desk. That's one, Sam thought. He moved his chair, sat down beside Cable, and opened the notebook computer. â€Å"Well, Mr. Cable, it looks like we can set this whole thing up without any more than a physical for you and Frank.† â€Å"Whoa!† Cable brought his hands up in protest. â€Å"We haven't agreed on this yet.† â€Å"Oh,† Sam said. â€Å"Frank gave me the impression that the decision had been made – that this was just a meeting to confirm the tax status and pension benefits of the policy.† â€Å"I didn't know there were pension benefits.† â€Å"That's why I'm here,† Sam said. It wasn't why he was there at all. â€Å"To explain them to you.† â€Å"Well, Frank and I haven't gotten down to any specifics on this. I'm not sure it's a good idea at all.† Sam needed misdirection. He launched into the presentation like a pit bull/Willy Loman crossbreed. As he spoke, the computer screen supported his statements with charts, graphs, and projections. Every five seconds a message flashed across the screen faster than the eye could see, but not so fast that it could not nibble on the lobes of the subconscious like a teasing lover. The message was: BE SMART, BUY THIS. Sam had designed the program himself. The BE SMART part of the message could be modified for each client. The options were: BE SEXY, BE YOUNG, BE BEAUTIFUL, BE THIN, BE TALL, and Sam's personal favorite, BE GOD. He'd come up with the idea one night while watching a commercial in which six heavily muscled guys got to run around on the beach impressing beautiful women presumably because they drank light beer. BE A STUD, DRINK LIGHT. Sam finished his presentation and stopped talking abruptly, feeling that he had somehow forgotten something. He waited, letting the silence become uncomfortable, letting the conversation lay on the desk before them like a dead cat, letting the diver come to the correct conclusion. The first one to speak loses. Sam knew it. He sensed that Cable knew it. Finally, Jim Cable said, â€Å"This is a great little computer you have. Would you consider selling it?† Sam was thrown. â€Å"But what about the policy?† â€Å"I don't think it's a good idea,† Cable said. â€Å"But I really like this computer. I think it would be smart to buy it.† â€Å"Smart?† Sam said. â€Å"Yeah, I just think it would be a smart thing to do.† So much for subliminal advertising. Sam made a mental note to change his message to: BE SMART, BUY THE POLICY. â€Å"Look, Jim, you can get a computer like this in a dozen stores in town, but this partnership policy is set up for right now. You are never going to be younger, you'll never be in better health, the premium will never be lower or the tax advantage better.† â€Å"But I don't need it. My family is taken care of and I don't care who takes control of the company after I'm dead. If Frank wants to take a policy out on me I'll take the physical, but I'm not betting against myself on this.† There it was. Cable was not afraid and Sam knew no way to instill the fear he needed. He had read that Cable had survived several diving accidents and even a helicopter crash while being shuttled to one of the offshore rigs. If he hadn't glimpsed his mortality before, then nothing Sam could say would put the Reaper in his shaving mirror. It was time to walk away and salvage half of the deal with Cable's partner. Sam stood and closed the screen on the computer. â€Å"Well, Jim, I'll talk to Frank about the specifics of the policy and set up the appointment for the physical.† They shook hands and Sam left the office trying to analyze what had gone wrong. Again and again the fear factor came up. Why couldn't he find and touch that place in Jim Cable? Granted, his concentration had been shot by the morning's events. Really, he'd done a canned presentation to cover himself. But to cover what? This was a clean deal, cut and dried. When he climbed back into the Mercedes there was a red feather lying on the seat. He brushed it out onto the street and slammed the door. He drove back to his office with the air conditioner on high. Still, when he arrived ten minutes later, his shirt was soaked with sweat. CHAPTER 4 Moments Are Our Mentors Santa Barbara There are those days, those moments in life, when for no particular reason the senses are heightened and the commonplace becomes sublime. It was one of those days for Samuel Hunter. The appearance of the girl, the wanting she had awakened in him, had started it. Then the Indian's presence had so confused him that he was fumbling through the day marveling at things that before had never merited a second look. Walking back into his outer office he spied his secretary, Gabriella Snow, and was awed for a moment by just how tremendously, how incredibly, how child-frighteningly ugly she was. There are those who, deprived of physical beauty, develop a sincerity and beauty of spirit that seems to eclipse their appearance. They marry for love, stay married, and raise happy children who are quick to laugh and slow to judge. Gabriella was not one of those people. In fact, if not for her gruesome appearance, an unpleasant personality would have been her dominant feature. She was good on the phone, however, and Sam's clients were sometimes so relieved to be out of her office and into his that they bought policies out of gratitude, so he kept her on. He'd hired her three years ago from the resume she had mailed in. She was wildly overqualified for the position and Sam remembered wondering why she was applying for it in the first place. For three years Sam had breezed by her desk without really looking at her, but today, in his unbalanced state, her homeliness inspired him to poetry. But what rhymed with Gabriella? She said, â€Å"Mr. Aaron is very anxious to talk to you, Mr. Hunter. He requested that you go right into his office as soon as you arrived.† â€Å"Gabriella, you've been here three years. You can call me Sam.† Sam was still thinking about poetry. Salmonella? â€Å"Thank you, Mr. Hunter, but I prefer to keep things businesslike. Mr. Aaron was quite adamant about seeing you immediately.† Gabriella paused and checked a notepad on her desk, then read, â€Å"‘Tell him to get his ass in my office as soon as he hits the door or I'll have him rat-fucked with a tire iron. â€Å" â€Å"What does that mean?† Sam asked. â€Å"I would assume that he would like to see you right away, sir.† â€Å"I guessed that.† Sam said. â€Å"I'm a little vague on the rat-fucked part. What do you think, Gabriella?† Gabriella, Gabriella, As fair as salmonella. â€Å"I'm sure I don't know. You might ask him.† â€Å"Right,† Sam said. He walked down the hall to Aaron Aaron's outer office, composing the next line of his poem along the way. It wouldn't surprise me in the least If you were mistaken for a beast. Aaron Aaron wasn't Aaron's real name: he had changed it so his insurance firm would be the first listed in the yellow pages. Sam didn't know Aaron's real name and he had never asked. Who was he to judge? Samuel Hunter wasn't his real name either, and it was certainly less desirable alphabetically. Aaron's secretary, Julia, a willowy actress/model/dancer who typed, answered phones, and referred to hairdressers as geniuses, greeted Sam with a smile that evinced thousands in orthodontia and bonding. â€Å"Hi, Sam, he's really pissed. What did you do?† â€Å"Do?† â€Å"Yeah, on that Motion Marine deal. They called a few minutes ago and Aaron went off.† â€Å"I didn't do anything,† Sam said. He started into Aaron's office, then turned to Julia. â€Å"Julia, do you know what rat-fuck means?† â€Å"No, Aaron just said that he was going to do it to you for sucking the joy out of his new head.† â€Å"He got a new head? What's this one?† â€Å"A wild boar he shot last year. The taxidermist delivered it this morning.† â€Å"Thanks Julia, I'll be sure to notice it.† â€Å"Good luck.† Julia smiled, then held the smile while she checked herself in the makeup mirror on her desk. Walking into Aaron's office was like stepping into a nineteenth-century British hunt club: walnut paneling adorned with the stuffed heads of a score of game animals, numbered prints of ducks on the wing, leather wing-back chairs, a cherry-wood desk clear of anything that might indicate that a business was being conducted. Sam immediately spotted the boar's head. â€Å"Aaron, it's beautiful.† Sam stood in front of the head with his arms outstretched. â€Å"It's a masterpiece.† He considered genuflecting to appeal to the latent Irish Catholic in Aaron, but decided that the insincerity would be spotted. Aaron, short, fifty, balding, face shot with veins from drink, swiveled in his high-backed leather chair and put down the Vogue magazine he had been leafing through. Aaron had no interest in fashion; it was the models that interested him. Sam had spent many an afternoon listening to Aaron's forlorn daydreams of having a showpiece wife. â€Å"How was I to know that Katie would get fat and I would get successful? I was only twenty when we got married. I thought the idea of getting laid steadily was worth it. I need a woman that goes with my Jag. Not Katie. She's pure Rambler.† Here he would point to an ad in Vogue. â€Å"Now, if I could only have a woman like that on my arm†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"She'd have you surgically removed,† Sam would say. â€Å"Sure, be that way, Sam. You don't know what it's like to think that getting a little strange could cost you half of what you own. You single guys have it all.† â€Å"Stop romanticizing, Aaron. Haven't you heard? Sex kills.† â€Å"Sure, suck the joy out of my fantasies. You know, I used to look forward to sex because it was fifteen minutes when I didn't have to think about death and taxes.† â€Å"If you do think about death and taxes it lasts half an hour.† â€Å"That's what I mean, I can't even get distracted with Katie anymore. Do you know what someone with my income has to pay in taxes?† The question came up in every one of their conversations. They had worked together for almost twenty years and Aaron always treated Sam as if he were still fifteen years old. â€Å"I know exactly what someone with your income is supposed to pay in taxes, about ten times what you actually pay.† â€Å"And you don't think that that weighs on me? The IRS could take all this.† Sam rather liked the vision of a team of IRS agents loading large dead animal heads into Aaron's Jag and driving off with antlers out every window while Katie stood by shouting, â€Å"Hey, half of those are mine!† No matter how much Aaron attained, he would never let go of his fear of losing it long enough to enjoy it. In his mind's eye, Sam imagined Aaron mournfully watching as they carried the wild boar head out by the tusks. â€Å"This thing is gorgeous,† Sam said. â€Å"I think I'm getting a woody just looking at it.† â€Å"I named it Gabriella,† Aaron said proudly, forgetting for a moment that he was supposed to be angry. Then he remembered. â€Å"What the fuck did you just pull over at Motion Marine? Frank Cochran is talking lawsuit.† â€Å"Over a little subliminal advertising? I don't think so.† â€Å"Subliminal advertising! Jim Cable fainted after that stunt you pulled. They don't even know what happened yet. It could be a heart attack. Are you out of your fucking mind? I could lose the agency over this.† Sam could see Aaron's blood pressure rising red on his scalp. â€Å"You thought it was a great idea last week when I showed it to you.† â€Å"Don't drag me into this, Sam, you're on your own with this one. I've pulled some shit in my time to push the fear factor, but I never had a client attacked by an Indian, for Christ's sake.† â€Å"Indian?† Sam almost choked. He lowered himself very gently into one of the leather wing-backs. â€Å"What Indian?† â€Å"Don't bullshit me, Sam. I taught you everything you know about bullshitting. Right after you left his office Jim Cable walked out of the Motion Marine building and was attacked by a guy dressed up as an Indian. With a tomahawk. If they catch the guy and he tells that you hired him, it's over for both of us.† Sam tried to speak but could find no breath to drive his voice. Aaron had been his teacher, and in a twisted, competitive way, Aaron was his friend and confidant, but he had never trusted Aaron with his fears. He had two: Indians and cops. Indians because he was one, and if anyone found out it it would lead to policemen, one of whom he had killed. Here they were, after twenty years, paralyzing him. Aaron came around the desk and took Sam by the shoulders. â€Å"You're smarter than this, kid,† he said, softening at Sam's obvious confusion. â€Å"I know this was a big deal, but you know better than to do something desperate like that. You can't let them see that you're hungry. That's the first rule I taught you, isn't it?† Sam didn't answer. He was looking at the mule deer head mounted over Aaron's desk, but he was seeing the Indian sitting in the cafe grinning at him. Aaron shook him. â€Å"Look, we're not totally screwed here. We can draw up an agreement signing all your interest in the agency over to me and backdate it to last week. Then you would be working as an independent contractor like the other guys. I could give you, say, thirty cents on the dollar for your shares under the table. You'd have enough to fight the good fight in court, and if they let you keep your license you'll always have a job to come back to. What do you say?† Sam stared at the deer head, hearing Aaron's voice only as a distant murmur. Sam was twenty-six years and twelve hundred miles away on a hill outside of Crow Agency, Montana. The voice he was hearing was that of his first teacher, his mentor, his father's brother, his clan uncle: a single-toothed, self-proclaimed shaman named Pokey Medicine Wing. CHAPTER 5 The Gift of a Dream Crow Country – 1967 Sam, then called Samson Hunts Alone, stood over the carcass of the mule deer he had just shot, cradling the heavy Winchester.30?C30 in his arms. â€Å"Did you thank the deer for giving its life up for you?† Pokey asked. As Samson's clan uncle, it was Pokey's job to teach the boy the ways of the Crow. â€Å"I thanked him, Pokey.† â€Å"You know it is the Crow way to give your first deer away. Do you know who you will give it to?† Pokey grinned around the Salem he held between his lips. â€Å"No, I didn't know. Who should I give it to?† â€Å"It is a good gift for a clan uncle who has said many prayers for your success in finding a spirit helper on your vision quest.† â€Å"I should give it to you, then?† â€Å"It is up to you, but a carton of cigarettes is a good gift too, if you have the money.† â€Å"I don't have any money. I will give you the deer.† Samson Hunts Alone sat down on the ground by the deer carcass and hung his head. He sniffed to fight back tears. Pokey kneeled beside him. â€Å"Are you sad for killing the deer?† â€Å"No, I don't see why I have to give it away. Why can't I take it home and let Grandma cook it for all of us?† Pokey took the rifle from the boy, levered a cartridge into the chamber, then let out a war whoop and fired it into the air. Samson stared at him as if he'd lost his mind. â€Å"You are a hunter now!† Pokey cried. â€Å"Samson Hunts Alone has killed his first deer!† he shouted to the sky. â€Å"Soon he will be a man!† Pokey crouched down to the boy again. â€Å"You should be happy to give the deer away. You are Crow and it is the Crow way.† Sam looked up, his golden eyes shot with red and brimming with tears. â€Å"One of the boys at school says that the Crow are no more than thieves and scavengers. He said that the Crow are cowards because we never fought the white man.† â€Å"This boy is Cheyenne?† Pokey said. â€Å"Yes.† â€Å"Then he is jealous because he is not Crow. The Crow gave the Cheyenne and the Lakota and the Blackfoot a reason to get up in the morning. They outnumbered us ten to one and we held our land against them for two hundred years before the white man came. Tell this boy that his people should thank the Crow for being such good enemies. Then kick his ass.† â€Å"But he is bigger than me.† â€Å"If your medicine is strong you will beat him. When you go on your fast next week, pray for warrior medicine.† Samson didn't know what to say. He would go to the Wolf Mountains next week for his first vision quest. He would fast and pray and hope to find a spirit helper to give him medicine, but he wasn't sure he believed, and he didn't know how to tell Pokey. â€Å"Pokey,† the boy said finally, very quietly, his voice barely audible over the hot breeze whistling through the prairie grass, â€Å"a lot of people say that you don't have no medicine at all, that you are just a crazy drunk.† Pokey put his face so close to Samson's that the boy could smell the cigarette-and-liquor smell coming off him. Then, softly, in a gentle, musical rasp he said, â€Å"They're right, I am a crazy drunk. The others are afraid of me 'cause I'm so crazy. You know why?† Sam sniffed, â€Å"Nope.† Pokey reached into his pocket and pulled out a small buckskin bundle tied with a thong. He untied the thong and unfolded the buckskin on the ground before the boy. In it lay an array of sharp teeth, claws, a tuft of tan fur, some loose tobacco, sweet grass, and sage. The largest object was a wooden carving of a coyote about two inches tall. â€Å"Do you know what this is, Samson?† Pokey asked. â€Å"Looks like a medicine bundle. Ain't you supposed to sing a song when you open it?† â€Å"Don't have to with this one. Nobody ever had medicine like this. I ain't never showed it to anyone before.† â€Å"What are those teeth?† â€Å"Coyote teeth. Coyote claws, coyote fur. I don't tell people about it anymore because they all say I'm crazy, but my spirit helper is Old Man Coyote.† â€Å"He's just in stories,† Sam said. â€Å"There isn't any Old Man Coyote.† â€Å"That's what you think,† Pokey said. â€Å"He came to me on my first fast, when I was about your age. I didn't know it was him. I thought it would be a bear, or an otter, because I was praying for war medicine. But on the fourth day of my fast I looked up and there was this young brave standing there dressed in black buckskins with red woodpecker feathers down his leggings and sleeves. He was wearing a coyote skin as a headdress.† â€Å"How did you know it wasn't just somebody from the res?† â€Å"I didn't. I told him to go away and he said that he had been away long enough. He said that when he gave the Crows so many enemies he promised that he would always be with them so they could steal many horses and be fierce warriors. He said it was almost time to come back.† â€Å"But where is he?† Samson asked. â€Å"That was a long time ago and no one has seen him. If he was here they wouldn't say you were crazy.† â€Å"Old Man Coyote is the trickster. I think he gave me this medicine to make me crazy and make me want to drink. Pretty Eagle, who was a powerful medicine man then, told me how to make this bundle and he told me that if I was smart I would give it to someone else or throw it in the river, but I didn't do it.† â€Å"But if it is bad medicine, if he is your spirit helper and doesn't help you†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"Does the sun rise just for you, Samson Hunts Alone?† â€Å"No, it rises all over the world.† â€Å"But it passes you and makes you part of its circle, doesn't it?† â€Å"Yeah, I guess so.† â€Å"Well maybe this medicine is bigger than me. Maybe I am just part of the circle. If it makes me unhappy then at least I know why I am unhappy. Do you know why you are unhappy?† â€Å"My deer†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"There will be other deer. You have your family, you are good in school, you have food to eat, you have water to drink. You can even speak Crow. When I was a boy they sent me off to a BIA school where they beat us if we spoke Crow. Next week, if your heart is pure, you will get a spirit helper and have strong medicine. You can be a great warrior, a chief.† â€Å"There aren't any chiefs anymore.† â€Å"It will be a long time before you are old enough to be a chief. You are too little to be unhappy about the future.† â€Å"But I am. I don't want to be Crow. I don't want to be like you.† â€Å"Then be like you.† Pokey turned away from the boy and lit another cigarette. â€Å"You make me angry. Give me your knife and I will show you how to dress this deer. We will throw the entrails in the river as a gift to the Earth and the water monsters.† Pokey looked at Samson, as if waiting for the boy to doubt him. â€Å"I'm sorry, Pokey.† The boy unsnapped the sheath on his belt and drew a wickedly curved skinning knife. He held it out to the man, who took the knife and began to field-dress the deer. As he drew the blade down the deer's stomach he said, â€Å"I am going to give you a dream, Samson.† Samson looked away from the deer into Pokey's face. There were always gifts among the Crow – gifts for names, Sun Dance ceremony gifts, powwow gifts at Crow Fair, naming ceremony gifts, gifts for medicine, gifts to clan uncles and aunts, gifts for prayers: tobacco and sweet grass and shirts and blankets, horses and trucks – so many gifts that no one could ever really be poor and no one ever really got rich. But the gift of a dream was very pure, very special, and could never be repaid. Samson had never heard anyone give a dream before. â€Å"I dreamed that Old Man Coyote came to me and he said, ‘Pokey, when everything is right with you, but you are so afraid that something might go wrong that it ruins your balance, then you are Coyote Blue. At these times I will bring you back into balance. This dream that I dreamed I give to you, Samson.† â€Å"What does that mean, Uncle Pokey?† â€Å"I don't know, but it is a very important dream.† Pokey wiped the knife on his pants and handed it to Samson, then hoisted the deer up on his shoulders. â€Å"Now, who are you going to give this deer to?†