Weather Phenomenons vs. Crop Prices Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Weather Phenomenons vs. Crop Prices - Essay Example These elements are composed of what is known as weather phenomena such a drought, hurricane, wind, heavy rainfall, and snow. Drought, for example, tends to destroy crops, thereby decreasing its supply in the market and increasing prices. Other weather phenomena also affect the prices of the crops commodities in different ways, as will be discussed in the paper. Weather Phenomenon vs. Crop Prices Introduction In its literal meaning, weather refers to a state of the atmosphere, to the extent to which it is cold, hot, dry, wet, stormy, calm, cloudy, or clear. In general terms, it refers to the day-to-day temperature and rainfall activities. According to Arnold (2010), weather is associated with a number of phenomena that influence greatly the prices of crops. The phenomena include droughts, prolonged heavy rainfalls (El-Nino), hurricanes, hailstorms, lightning, clouds, snow, and wind. The objective of this paper is to explore the current weather phenomena and their impact on crop prices . Drought Drought refers to a period of a dry spell when there is no rainfall. It is one of the major weather phenomena that affect the prices of crops. This is due to the fact that during a dry spell, crops usually dry up in the farms leading to poor harvest. This in turn, will lead to shortage of crops in the market (Bolling, 2000). When such a shortage occurs, the demand of the crops in the market will likely outweigh their supply. This will result in an increase in the price of these crops, as many buyers will be competing to buy them. Such a situation is being witnessed in the Midwest of the USA, where persistent drought has seen the prices of corn increase tremendously over the past few weeks (Sosnowski, 2012). Johnson (2012) notes that 10-months corn futures and soybeans’ prices hitting unprecedentedly high since 2008 are due to the speculation that the spreading drought currently witnessed in the Midwest of the US will cut the US’s supplies of these crops, as i t is the world’s largest producer of the crops. This was after the meteorological department predicted that the Midwest would experience unusually hot and dry spell in the next 10 days, as occasional light showers would be too little for more than brief crop improvements. Gim Gerlach was reported as saying that the crops are shrinking daily, while prices are shooting up for less available supply of crops for domestic use and export (Johnson, 2012). Statistically, corn futures for December supply jumped 4.4% to close at $7.725 per bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade. The trade market also had hit $7.78 high early on. This general increase in corn and soybeans due to the drought would also probably lead to inflation. Demand and supply curve: Price S2 S1 P2 D2 P1 D1 D Q2 Q1 Quantity Before the drought hit Midwest, production of corn stood at Q1 at S1 supply curve while price charged was P1and demand D1. However, after the drought hit the country, the supply curve shifted to S2 and the quantity supplied moved to Q2, thereby increasing prices from P1 to P2. The price increase in this case was caused by a fall in supply of corn, as people scrambled for the few remains, shifting the demand to D2. Adequate Rainfall Theoretically, farmers perceive rainy seasons as a period of bumper harvest. This is because the proper frequency of rainfalls leads to a good yield (Libecap & Steckel, 2010). The result would be that there would be enough supply of the crop in question to feed the nation and to export. Similarly, the forces of demand and supply would help determine the prices of the crops. Since supply would be high, this means

Importance of heroism and glory in the Iliad and in the Aeneid Essay

Importance of heroism and glory in the Iliad and in the Aeneid - Essay Example Heroism can be defined by actions that require bravery, nobility, and often sacrifice. Heroism is exemplified by the character of Achilles in The Illiad. Achilles is a great warrior who also reveals deep emotional complexities for the events that take place in the story. Foley defines the Greek hero as being unseasonable, either negatively or positively extreme and antagonistic towards the god who has the most similar characteristic to the hero (87). Achilles follows all three of these categories, including the last in his antagonism towards the god Apollo, with whom he shares not only character attributes, but similarities in physical appearance (Foley 88). The role of heroism, however, played an important part in culture for both the Greeks and the Romans as it represented the beginnings of the notion of salvation. The stories of Greek and Roman gods portrayed some of the worst characteristics in humanity, but often it was the hero who redeemed the nature of man kind by his actions (Progress 343). Glory can be defined by exaltation of its subject matter. In the case of The Aenid, the glory of Rome is justified through the exalted nature of the emotional context of the actions within the poem. The intent was to glorify the community of Rome, thus bring unity.

Big Brothers, Big Sisters Essay Example for Free

Big Brothers, Big Sisters Essay Big Brothers, Big Sisters is a prevention program, which enhances the socialization of children through paying attention to their psychological and physical development and increasing their feeling of â€Å"being included† into community and school environment. Due to the fact that the project is mostly directed to planning interesting leisure and education-related activities for minors, it can be interpreted as prevention program, as it creates a friendly and harmonious environment which encourages and reinforces the child’s self-esteem through establishing a symmetric communication between the minor and adult and teaching important social skills. As for me, I believe that the program is effective, as it deals mostly with three important predictors of deviance and crime – absence of developing and diversified pastime, lack of engagement with community activities and academic failure (and the consequent loss of interest in education) in schoolchildren. In addition, the relevant study, provided by the website, demonstrates the following results: â€Å"Researchers found that after 18 months of spending time with their Bigs, the Little Brothers and Little Sisters were: 46% less likely to begin using illegal drugs; 27% less likely to begin using alcohol; 52% less likely to skip school; 37% less likely to skip a class; more confident of their performance in schoolwork; one-third less likely to hit someone† (at http://www. bigbrooc. org/html/our_impact. html, 2007). There are three major curriculums, designed within the program. First of all, there is a set of community-based activities, which take place once a month. The community volunteers encourage the participants to do sports, play intellectual games, have meals together or simply take walks in the park. Group-based mentoring program includes monthly meeting of Big and Little Brothers and Sisters and learning new and unusual types of sports, associated with team playing. For instance, the participants do kayaking, play miniature golf or team bowling. All these sports are aimed at improving the children’s concentration, dexterity, ability to plan and make joint decision within the team; as one knows from developmental psychology, the progress of physical skills is particularly sensitive to influences at teen age, when the person is actively growing. The complex of school-based activities comprises weekly sessions, during which the minors are assisted in their home assignments. The major advantage of this program, which actually can cause in the jealousy of the similar agencies, is its image of partnership between adults and children, who receive not mentors, but friends, whose role models are more likely to be learned by minors. The typical agencies of this profile (working in the directions of prevention and diversion) more willingly involve competent specialists (in a limited number) than volunteers, so the underage target audience not always receives socialization experience and learn social skills during workshops and training. In addition, the Big Brothers Big Sisters project manages to maintain its focus on the underage audience in all points of its curriculum and stimulates the natural and healthy socialization in minors (through communication and team activities), instead of creating artificial conditions (like those in workshops and purposeful social skills training). The goals of the Big Brothers, Big Sisters project to great extent coincide with the orientation of the whole juvenile justice system. The major priority of the system is prevention of juvenile crimes and recidivism, but this goal is traditionally accomplished through enlightenment and education in the spheres of crime and punishment, drug addiction and alcohol use. The efforts of the program, on the other hand, are directed to improving the minors’ physical and psychological health and helping them establish friendly contact with the environment. This model is often neglected by the juvenile justice system, so it would be beneficial to introduce the program under the management of the network of government institutions, responsible for delinquency prevention, as the idea of healthy and natural socialization is likely to become a new direction in the functioning of the juvenile justice system and the unity of accountability will provide courts will more comprehensive information about the children. In addition, the program will also demonstrate success in the field of diversion. Finally, the program will correct the official and formalized image of the juvenile justice system and break the stereotype of the â€Å"punishing institution†. The major strength of the program is its positivist approach to prevention, which includes strengthening the minors’ social and psychological potential rather than intimidating schoolchildren about the adversities, associated with delinquency and illicit drug use. The project embraces community work, group work and school work, so that the major environments, in which the children operate, are influenced and to some extent altered. The ultimate goal in this sense is the development of the sense of inclusion into all these environments in the participants. On the other hand, the program lacks one important components, which is family-based work. As the website suggests, the underage participants originate from the households, where domestic violence and alcohol use are practiced. With respect to the fact that behavior models, learned in the family, are to certain degree determinative in teenagers’ behavior, it would also be useful to establish a contact between the families and the community and arrange activities, which imply the creation of a large team, consisting of children, their parents and the Bigs. Another weakness is the lack of basic psychological education for children, as at the certain stage of their development they need theoretical knowledge of building relationships and understanding others, so the Big Brothers, Big Sisters can introduce monthly discussions of the achievements and difficulties, experienced by the participants in their relationships with coevals and adults. Reference list Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Orange County. (2007). Official website, at http://www. bigbrooc. org.

How to Plan an Essay

How to Plan an Essay Writing the Draft Building Confidence The most important thing, when one starts writing the first draft is to start it with the confidence that it is not a difficult task. In order to start writing the good opening of the paper should not be an issue because these drafts have to be revised later and one can develop a better opening of paper. Writing the first draft of a paper, one should think that no grammar, perfect words or the structure of the writing matters and should only concentrate on presenting ideas only. It is important for writer to remember that the first draft that one writes is only for himself and nobody is going to read it, therefore, they should remain confident and should focus on the fact that the main purpose of the writing is to jot down the ideas. Drafting on Computer After doing the first draft on the computer, one should turn the computer off and again organize the thoughts and ideas on the paper and should think about the possible changes that they can make in the paper. After this task is finished, the writer should edit the first draft in accordance with it, but, should save all the revisions separately, to see later and to get encouragement that how far they have come and improved his writing skill. Multiple drafts should be saved with the name (like assignment 1 version 1, assignment 1 version 2 etc.) so that it becomes easier in future to access them easily and it is also important to highlight the changes that a writer has made in each draft. It becomes a reference for the future ad can assist the writer in improving it, although, before restarting the work, the last revised draft should be read, so that the writer gets the understanding that now which improvements their needs. Writing Rough Draft Before you start writing a rough draft, choose a quiet place where you have all the necessary equipment and material, this can help you in increasing your concentration. The writing seems easier, when we start with the easiest section and become successful in completing it because it can give the confidence that we have the ability to do this task efficiently. A good writing is one that engages maximum number of people and this can be done by using simple words and direct style. Imagining that we are talking to the reader can help the writer to write effectively and while giving instructions, one should visualize them performing in accordance with the instructions, this can help the writer to write instructions more clearly. It is important to keep on writing, until one section is complete because it helps in developing coherence and continuity in the section. Later the finished should be revised to make any possible changes. Keeping your Audience in Mind Writing from the reader’s perspective, keeping in mind the type of audience and using language in accordance with it, the level of understanding of the audience, diversity of audience and perspective of the audience are then important factors. We will discuss one by one, the factors that can help in writing a catering with the audience in an effective manner. Writing From the Audience’s Point of View No matter what the audience is, everyone wants to read the writing from his own perspective. When we write for a targeted audience; whether our colleagues, boss or the international community, we should keep in mind that we are choosing the point of view in accordance with it. If we are writing something for our boss, then we should keep in mind that we are explaining the problem and providing the information to the boss from his perspective. This thing can increase the affectivity of the writing and will assist in registering our point. It is important to know about the background of the reader because this can help to get the idea that which style can help in convincing the reader or providing the information to the reader in an efficient manner. If we have to write a report about a technical; part in manufacturing process and know about the level of expertise of the reader, we can use technical language in accordance with it. Accommodating Multiple Audiences When we write from multiple audiences, everyone has different background and this factor makes it difficult to adjust the writing in accordance with it. Since, audience with multiple background demands that all the people should be kept in mind and the level of the readers should be considered. For example, while writing instruction manual, one should write from the starters’ perspective because there are lot of people out there who might be using that particular equipment for the first time. Moreover, the diagrams can help the reader to grasp the point more easily and can make the writing reader friendly. Writing for international Audience While writing for the wide audience, one should keep in mind that there should not be culture bias and the style of the writing used is acceptable by lost of the people i.e. the writing style should not represent a specific region. Making the language simple and common can help the audience to relate with it and grasp the concept easily. Since there are different dialects of English in different region, then the writer should make his expression as common as possible. Persuading Your Audience If the writer has to persuade a targeted audience like management of the company; regarding flexibility in office hours, increasing bonuses for the staff; then one should enlist the advantages of taking that step and should mention the effects that it should have on the morale of the staff moreover, if the targeted audience is different than it is important to start the writing by initially explaining the benefits regarding the topic under discussion and later, writer should give examples from different fields and lastly the reference of the rules of the business. In precaution process, the mentioning of the rules of the business should be done in most soft manner because mentioning it in direct manner puts negative impression on audience. The ethics requires that the cons of the side that you have chosen should also be mentioned because the reader may not get any difficulty in ignorance and if all the process fails the blame might not fall on you. Establish Your Role and Voice as the Writer While writing, one should decide which role they have to take in order to be read and followed in a better way. It against depends on the type of the audience. The friendly writing style is always effective, but, a task is very critical and has to be done in time then the writer should explain the importance of the task and at the end should take an authoritative tone and order hat it needs o be completed in time. Sometimes, it is more effective if the subject of the writing adopts the authoritative tone and tells about the sensitivity of the situation. In normal circumstance, there is always audience which never reads a document, but, still wants to get that task done; in that situation it is important to give a title that can explain that hoe reading that document can help the audience. Development Strategies The strategies that are used to develop the ideas and the concept at the work place include: Explaining a Process Process of explaining deal with the idea of explaining to the reader working of an equipment, how a event or process took place or how to perform it. All these types demand a lot of concentration of the writer because, when explained in a proper sequence they can make it easier for reader to understand. While explaining the process, understanding the level of the audience is imortant. In the opening of the writing t is better to tell the importance of the process and then give the summary. Later when it is explained in detailed, it should be told how it is relevant or associated to a larger process. For example, if one explains the process of developing air brake system to the worker, then it should e done in detail and it should be mentioned that how much important it is for the working of the truck and how it will ensure safety in driving. This tells the reader about the sensitivity of the task and they try to do their job in a better way. Describing Information Describing the information means telling about the features and the appearance of the concepts and the objects that are to be used during the process. But, the description of the information varies from one field to another. In engineering terms it is important to give the specifications of the equipment in the technical term, to marketing professional it is important to tell about the significance and the usability of the product for the customers, most important features of a good description o that it is always clear and specific and covers all the issues in details. The length of the description may depend on the complexity of the process, but, no matter what the length of the writing is information should be described in a manner that it is understandable to the audience and is complete in all terms. In complex concepts, it is better explain stepwise. Defining Terms and Concepts Process of defining the terms is critical because it can give the actual concept of the term to the people related to your field and that of the other fields. Formal definition of the term, that has technical terms in it, can help the people of the related field to understand it more accurately, for example, torque is the cross product of distance vector and force vector. Informal definition that has both technical and simple forms makes it understandable to the people related to other fields for example torque is the cross product of distance vector (distance from knob to hinges) and force vector (force applied to open the door), whereas, extended definition comprises of multiple sentences to explain multiple concepts of the definition. For example torque is the cross product of distance vector and force vector. It means that if the knob is at the greater distance from the pivot (hinges), then greater torque will be produced and it will be easier to open the door. If the definite ar e assisted with figure, the written material become easier to understand. Explaining Cause and Effect It assists in providing information about why a thing happens and what consequences does it have. For example when we do not maintain our vehicle (cause) accidents might happen (effect) and due to these accidents we can have to bear the loss of finance or the life. it is better to provide evidence of your statement and that evidence should be relevant to the audience, has the power to persuade and can be explained by giving demonstrations. Writing an Opening The opening of the draft is really important to get the attention of the reader. The first sentence should be written in a way that it immediately attract reader to itself. Like on topic accidents due to drunk driving an effective sentence could be, do you know that 10,000 people lost their lives, his year in United States, due to drunk driving. The opening of the writing should have three features in it. Firstly, it should introduce the title effectively, secondly, should give some information about the writing and thirdly should focus the attention of the reader. Writing a Closing The closing of the paper or a draft should consider and should mention all the main points of the paper. No new concept should be introduced in the closing paragraph because it may confuse the reader. It is better to give information like email address at the end of the paper so that the reader may contact you if needed. It gives the impression that writer is responsible.

Use of Landscape as form of Expression in Tintern Abbey by William Word

Wordsworth is a split and exiled, yet transcendent and visionary poet who creates community by inserting the idealized Romantic poet into the ideological center interpellating those around him into similar subject positions. But, how can Wordsworth, a separated individual, reveal his heightened awareness to the rest of humanity? He answers in his "Preface to Lyrical Ballads" when he asserts that poets like himself can communicate their alternate awareness "[u]ndoubtably with our moral sentiments and animal sensations, and with the causes which excite these; with the operations of the elements and the appearances of the visible universe [. . .]" (Norton 173). Poets can express their alternate perception through a shared experience of the landscape. Landscapes are a reflection of the ideology at the centre. Simon Schama argues in Landscapes and Memory, "Landscapes are culture before they are nature; constructs of the imagination projected onto wood, and water and rock" (61). The real world exists but because we can never unproblematically engage with reality, we make it over, re-present it as landscape. In this way, landscape is ideological, is a cultural construct draped over reality. As Wordsworth writes in Tintern, the perceptions of the eye and ear are "both what they half-create and what perceive" (107-108). According to Wordsworth, nature has become the "anchor" (110) of his thoughts, the tether that restrains his creative imagination. But because landscape is based on the real, it can also be used to express an alternate ideology. Wordsworth's approach to landscape is chiliastic, to use Karl Mannheim's term. In Ideology and Utopia, Mannheim argues that although Chiliasm "has always accompanied revolutionary ... ..., a book of poetry by Black, lesbian, Trinidadian-Canadian poet Dionne Brand. Read in conjunction with Wordsworth's 14th book of the Prelude, we can see the obvious parallels between landscape and subject construction. However, rather than taking flight from a precipice, Brand's poetic self takes flight from a beach, from ground level, symbolizing her non-universal yet communal creation of landscape. She writes: I have become myself. A woman who looks at a woman and says, here, I have found you, in this, I am blackening in my way. You ripped the world raw. It was as if another life exploded in my face, brightening, so easily the brow of a wing touching the surf, so easily I saw my own body, that is, my eyes followed me to myself, touched myself as a place, another life, terra. They say this place does not exist, then, my tongue is mythic. I was here before.

Joan Didions Essay Los Angeles Notebook -- Didion Los Angeles Noteboo

Joan Didion's Essay "Los Angeles Notebook"   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Santa Ana winds cause people to act more violently or unruly and makes others irritable and unhappy to a great extent. Joan Didion explains to the reader about how the Santa Ana affects human behavior in her essay â€Å"Los Angeles Notebook.† Through the use of imagery, diction, and selection of detail Didion expresses her view of the Santa Ana winds.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Didion paints uneasy and somber images when describing the Santa Ana winds. â€Å"There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air†¦ some unnatural stillness, some tension,† starts the essay off with the image of Los Angeles people in a sense of stillness or tense. She further adds, â€Å"Blowing up sandstorms out along Route 66†¦ we will see smoke back in the canyons, and hear sirens in the night,† propagating the uneasy and stark image of Los Angeles. â€Å"The baby frets. The maid sulks,† she adds, giving a depressing view into the effects of the Santa Ana winds on people. Didion, in an attempt to show the craziness associated with the Santa Ana winds, points out the Indians who throw themselves into the sea when bad winds came. At any rate, Didion attempts to show the negative effects of the Santa Ana winds through images of stillness, uneasiness, and sobriety.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In her tone, Didion remains clear, consistent, and vivid. Her choice of words remains simple as if to not alienate the readers of her essay. Her tone for the first half of the opening, primarily the first and second ...

A Dirty Job Chapter 14

14 BARKING MAD Charlie opened the door and Lily breezed by. â€Å"Jane said you have two huge black dogs up here. I need to see.† â€Å"Lily, wait,† Charlie called, but she was across the living room and into Sophie's room before he could stop her. There was a low growl and she came backing out. â€Å"Oh my fucking God, dude,† she said around a huge grin. â€Å"They are so cool. Where did you get them?† â€Å"I didn't get them anywhere. They were just here.† Charlie joined Lily just outside the door to Sophie's room. She turned and grabbed his arm. â€Å"Are they, like, instruments of your death dealing or something?† â€Å"Lily, I thought we agreed that we wouldn't talk about that.† And they had. In fact, Lily had been great about it. Since she'd first found out about him being a Death Merchant, she'd hardly brought it up at all. She'd also gone on to graduate from high school without getting a major criminal record and enroll in the Culinary Institute, the upside of which was that she actually wore her white chef ‘s coat, checked pants, and rubber clogs to work, which tended to soften her makeup and hair, which remained severe, dark, and a little scary. Sophie giggled and rolled over against one of the hounds. They had been licking her and she was covered with hellish dog spit. Her hair was plastered into a dozen unlikely spikes, making her appear a little like a wide-eyed Anim character. Sophie saw Lily in the doorway and waved. â€Å"Goggie, ‘Ily. Goggie,† she said. â€Å"Hi, Sophie. Yes, those are nice doggies,† Lily said, then to Charlie: â€Å"What are you going to do?† â€Å"I don't know what to do. They won't let me near her.† â€Å"That's good, then. They're here to protect her.† Charlie nodded. â€Å"I think they are. Something happened last night. You know how the Great Big Book talks about the others? I think one of them came after her last night, and these guys showed up.† â€Å"I'm impressed. I'd think you'd be more freaked out.† Charlie didn't want to tell her that he was worn out from freaking out the day before about his little girl killing an old man with the word kitty. Lily already knew too much, and it was obvious now that whatever lay below was dangerous. â€Å"I guess I should be, but they aren't here to hurt her. I need to go check the library in Berkeley, see if there's anything about them there. I need to get Sophie away from them.† Lily laughed. â€Å"Yeah, that's going to happen. Look, I have work and school today, but I'll go do your research for you tomorrow. In the meantime you can try to make friends with them.† â€Å"I don't want to make friends with them.† Lily looked at the hounds, one of whom Sophie was pounding on with her little fists as she laughed gleefully, then looked back at Charlie. â€Å"Yes, you do.† â€Å"Yeah, I guess I do,† Charlie said. â€Å"Have you ever seen a dog that size before?† â€Å"There are no dogs that size.† â€Å"What do you call those, then?† â€Å"Those aren't dogs, Asher, those are hellhounds.† â€Å"How do you know that?† â€Å"I know that because before I started learning about herbs and reductions and stuff, I spent my free time reading about the dark side, and those guys come up from time to time.† â€Å"If we know that, then what are you going to do research on?† â€Å"I'm going to try to find out what sent them.† She patted his shoulder. â€Å"I have to go open the shop. You go make nice with the goggies.† â€Å"What do I feed them?† â€Å"Purina Hellhound Chow.† â€Å"They make that?† â€Å"What do you think?† â€Å"‘Kay,† Charlie said. It took a couple of hours, but after Sophie started smelling like diaper surprise, one of the giant dogs nosed her toward Charlie as if to say, Clean her up and bring her back. Charlie could feel them watching him as he changed his daughter, grateful that disposable diapers didn't require pins. If he'd accidentally poked Sophie with a pin, he was sure one of the hellhounds would have bitten his head off. They watched him carefully as he moved her to the breakfast bar, and sat on either side of her high chair as he gave her breakfast. As an experiment, he made an extra piece of toast and tossed it to one of the hounds. It snapped it out of the air and licked its chops once, eyes now locked on Charlie and the loaf of bread. So Charlie toasted four more slices and the hounds alternately snapped each out of the air so swiftly that Charlie wasn't sure he didn't see some sort of vapor from the pressure of their jaws clamping down. â€Å"So, you're hellish beasts from another dimension, and you like toast. Okay.† Then, as Charlie started to toast four more slices, he stopped, feeling stupid. â€Å"You don't really care if it's toasted, do you?† He flipped a slice of bread to the closest of the dogs, who snapped it out of the air. â€Å"Okay, that will speed things up.† Charlie fed them the remainder of the loaf of bread. He spread a few slices with a thick coat of peanut butter, which did nothing whatsoever, then a half dozen more he spread with lemon dishwasher gel, which appeared to have no ill effect except that it made them burp neat, aquamarine-colored bubbles. â€Å"Go walk, Daddy,† Sophie said. â€Å"No walk today, sweetie. I think we'll just stay right here in the apartment and try to figure out our new pals.† Charlie got Sophie out of her chair, wiped the jelly off her face and out of her hair, then sat down with her on the couch to read to her from the Chronicle's classified ads, which was where he plied a large part of his business, other than the Death stuff. But no sooner had he settled into a rhythm than one of the hellhounds came over, took his arm in its mouth, and dragged him into his bedroom, even as he protested, swore, and smacked it in the head with a brass table lamp. The big dog let him go, then stood staring at Charlie's date book like it had been sprayed with beef gravy. â€Å"What?† Charlie said, but then he saw. Somehow, in all the excitement, he hadn't noticed a new name in the book. â€Å"Look, the number is thirty. I have a whole month to find this one. Leave me alone.† Charlie also noticed in passing that engraved on the hellhound's great silver collar was the name ALVIN. â€Å"Alvin? That's the stupidest name I've ever heard.† Charlie went back to the couch, and the dog dragged him back into the bedroom, this time by the foot. As they went through the door Charlie reached for his sword-cane. When Alvin dropped him Charlie leapt to his feet and drew the blade. The big dog rolled over on his back and whimpered. His companion appeared at the door, panting. (Mohammed was the hound's name, according to the plate on the collar.) Charlie considered his options. He had always felt the sword-cane a pretty formidable weapon, had even been willing to take on the sewer harpies with it, but it occurred to him that these animals had obviously wiped the floor with one of those other creatures of darkness and had no problem sitting down and eating a loaf of soapy toast a couple of hours later. In short, he was out of his league. They wanted him to go retrieve the soul vessel, he would retrieve the soul vessel. But he wasn't leaving his darling daughter alone with them. â€Å"Alvin is still a stupid name,† he said, sheathing the sword. When Mrs. Korjev arrived, Charlie had put Sophie down for her nap, and a dark pile of hellhounds was napping by her crib – snoring great clouds of lemony-fresh dog breath into the air. It was probably part of Charlie's rising rascal nature, but he let Mrs. Korjev enter Sophie's room with only the warning that the little girl had a couple of new pets. He suppressed a snicker as the great Cossack grandmother backed out of the room swearing in Russian. â€Å"Is giant dogs in there.† â€Å"Yes, there are.† â€Å"But not like normal giant dog. They are like extra-giant, black animal, they are – â€Å" â€Å"Like bear?† Charlie suggested. â€Å"No, I wasn't going to say ‘bear,' Mr. Smart-Alec. Not like bear. Like volf, only bigger, stronger – â€Å" â€Å"Like bear?† Charlie ventured. â€Å"You make your mother ashamed when you are mean, Charlie Asher.† â€Å"Not like bear?† Charlie asked. â€Å"Is not important now. I am just surprised. Vladlena is old woman with weak heart, but you go have good laugh and I will sit with Sophie and huge dogs.† â€Å"Thank you, Mrs. Korjev, their names are Alvin and Mohammed. It's on their collars.† â€Å"You have food for them?† â€Å"There are some steaks in the freezer. Just give each one of them a couple and stand back.† â€Å"How they like steaks done?† â€Å"I think frozen will be fine, they eat like – â€Å" Mrs. Korjev raised a finger in warning; it lined it up with a large mole on the side of her nose and looked as if she was sighting down a weapon. † – like horses. They eat like horses,† Charlie said. Mrs. Ling did not take her introduction to Alvin and Mohammed with quite the composure of her Russian neighbor. â€Å"Aiiiiieeeeeeeeee! Giant shiksas shitting,† exclaimed Mrs. Ling as she ran down the hall after Charlie. â€Å"Come back! Shiksas shitting!† Indeed, Charlie returned to the apartment to find great steaming baguettes of poo strewn about the living room. Alvin and Mohammed were flanking the door to Sophie's room like massive Chinese foo dogs at the temple gates, looking not so fierce as shamefaced and contrite. â€Å"Bad dogs,† Charlie said. â€Å"Scaring Mrs. Ling. Bad dogs.† He considered for a moment trying to rub their noses in their offense, but short of bringing in a backhoe and chaining them to it, he wasn't sure that he could make that happen. â€Å"I mean it, you guys,† he added, in an especially stern voice. â€Å"I'm sorry, Mrs. Ling,† Charlie said to the diminutive matron. â€Å"These are Alvin and Mohammed. I should have been more specific when I said I'd gotten new pets for Sophie.† Actually, he had been vague on purpose, hoping for some sort of hysterical reaction. Not that he really wanted to frighten the old lady, it's just that Beta Males are seldom ever in a position to frighten anyone physically, so when they get the opportunity, they sometimes lose their sense of judgment. â€Å"Is okay,† said Mrs. Ling, staring at the hellhounds. She seemed distracted, mainly because she was. Having recovered from the initial shock, she was doing the math in her head – a rapid-fire abacus clicking off the weight and volume of each pony-sized canine, and dividing him into chops, steaks, ribs, and packages of stew meat. â€Å"You'll be all right, then?† Charlie asked. â€Å"You not be late, okay?† said Mrs. Ling. â€Å"I want to go to Sears and look at chest freezer today. You have power saw I can borrow.† â€Å"Power saw? Well, no, but I'm sure Ray has one he can lend you. I'll be back in a couple of hours,† Charlie said. â€Å"But let me clean this up first.† He headed to the basement in hopes of finding the coal shovel that his father had once kept there. As they parted ways that day, both Charlie and Mrs. Ling were counting on Sophie's history of high pet mortality to quickly solve their respective poop and soup problems. Such, however, was not to be the case. When several weeks passed with no ill effects on the hellhounds, Charlie accepted the possibility that these might, indeed, be the only pets that could survive Sophie's attention. He was tempted, many times, to call Minty Fresh and ask his advice, but since his last call might have caused the hellhounds to appear in the first place, he resisted the urge. Lily's research trips yielded little more: â€Å"They talk about them all through time,† Lily said, calling from the Berkeley library on her cell phone. â€Å"Mostly it's about how they like to chase blues singers, and evidently there's a German robot soccer team called the Hellhounds, but I don't think that's relevant. The thing that comes up again and again, in a dozen cultures, is that they guard the passage between the living and the dead.† â€Å"Well, that makes sense,† Charlie said. â€Å"I guess. It doesn't say where that passage is, does it? What BART station?† â€Å"No, Asher, it doesn't. But I found this book by a nun who had been excommunicated in the 1890s, isn't that cool? This library is amazing. They have like nine million books.† â€Å"Yes, that's great, Lily, what did the ex-nun say?† â€Å"She had found all the references for hellhounds, and the thing they all seemed to agree on was they serve directly the ruler of the Underworld.† â€Å"She was Catholic and she called it the Underworld?† â€Å"Well, they threw her out of the Church for writing this book, but yeah, that's what she said.† â€Å"She didn't have a number we could call in case they got lost.† â€Å"I'm over here on my day off, Asher, trying to do you a favor. Are you going to keep being a smart-ass about it?† â€Å"No, I'm sorry, Lily. Go on.† â€Å"That's it. It's not like there's a care-and-feeding guide. Mostly, the research implies that having hellhounds around is a bad thing.† â€Å"What's the title of this book, The Complete Guide to the Fucking Obvious?† â€Å"You're paying me for this, you know? Time and travel.† â€Å"Sorry. Yes. So I should try to get rid of them.† â€Å"They eat people, Asher. Who's riding the duh train now?† So, with that, Charlie decided that he needed to take an active role in ridding himself of the monstrous canines. Since the only thing about the hellhounds that he could be sure of was that they would go anywhere he took Sophie, he brought them along on their trip to the San Francisco Zoo, and left them locked in the van with the engine running and a shop-vac hose run from the exhaust pipe through the vent window. After what he considered to be an extraordinarily successful tour of the zoo, in which not a single animal shuffled off the mortal coil under the delighted eye of his daughter, Charlie returned to the van to find two very stoned, but otherwise unharmed hellhounds who were burping a burnt plastic vapor after having eaten his seat covers. Various experiments revealed that Alvin and Mohammed were not only immune to most poisons, but they rather liked the taste of bug spray and consequently licked all the paint off the baseboards in Charlie's apartment in the week following the exterminator's quarterly service. As time wore on, Charlie tried to measure the danger of having the giant canines around against the damage that would be done to Sophie's psyche from witnessing their demise, as she was obviously becoming attached to them, so he backed off the more direct attacks on them and stopped throwing Snausages in front of the number 90 crosstown express bus. (This decision was also made easy when the city of San Francisco threatened to sue Charlie if his dogs wrecked another bus.) Direct attacks, in fact, were difficult for Charlie (as the only true Beta Male martial art was based entirely on the kindness of strangers), so he turned on the hellhounds the awesome power of the Beta Male kung fu of passive aggression. He started conservatively, taking them for a ride over to the East Bay in the van, luring them onto the Oakland mudflats with a rack of beef ribs, then driving away quickly, only to find them waiting in the apartment when he returned, having covered the entire living room with a patina of drying mud. He then tried an even more indirect approach: crating up the hounds and air-freighting them to Korea in the hope they would find themselves in an entre, only to find that they actually made it back to the shop before he had time to sweep the dog hair out of his apartment. He thought that perhaps he might use their own natural instincts to chase them away, after he read on the Internet that the essence of cougar urine was sometimes sprinkled on shrubs and flowers to keep dogs from urinating on them. After a fairly exhaustive search through the phone book, he finally found the number of an outdoorsman's supply store in South San Francisco that was a certified mountain-lion whizz dealer. â€Å"Sure, we carry cougar urine,† the guy said. He sounded like he was wearing a buckskin jacket and had a big beard, but Charlie might have just been projecting. â€Å"And that's supposed to keep dogs away?† Charlie asked. â€Å"Works like a charm. Dogs, deer, and rabbits. How much do you need?† â€Å"I don't know, maybe ten gallons.† There was a pause, and Charlie was sure he could hear the guy picking flecks of elk meat out of his beard. â€Å"We sell it in one-, two-, and five-ounce bottles.† â€Å"Well, that's not going to do it,† Charlie said. â€Å"Can't you get me like a large economy size – preferably from a cougar that's been fed nothing but dog for a couple of months? I assume that this is domesticated cougar pee, right? I mean you don't go out in the wild and collect it yourself.† â€Å"No, sir, I believe they get it from zoos.† â€Å"The wild stuff is probably better, huh?† Charlie asked. â€Å"If you can get it, I mean? I don't mean you personally. I wasn't implying that you were out in the wild following a mountain lion around with a measuring cup. I meant a professional – hello?† The bearded buckskin-sounding guy had hung up. So Charlie sent Ray over to South San Francisco in the van to buy up all the cougar whizz they had, but in the end it achieved nothing other than making the whole second floor of Charlie's building smell like a cat box. When it appeared that even the most passive-aggressive attempts would not work, Charlie resorted to the ultimate Beta Male attack, which was to tolerate Alvin and Mohammed's presence, but to resent the hell out of them and drop snide remarks whenever he had the chance. Feeding the hellhounds was like shoveling coal into two ravenous steam engines – Charlie started having fifty pounds of dog food delivered every two days to keep up with them, which they, in turn, converted to massive torpedoes of poo that they dropped in the streets and alleys around Asher's Secondhand like they were staging their own doggie blitzkrieg on the neighborhood. The upside of their presence was that Charlie went for months on end without hearing a peep from the storm drains or seeing an ominous raven shadow on a wall when he was retrieving a soul vessel. And to that end, the death dealing, the hounds served their purpose as well, for whenever a new name appeared in his date book, the hounds would drag Charlie to the calendar every morning until he returned with the soul object, so he went two years without missing or being late for a retrieval. The big dogs, of course, accompanied Charlie and Sophie on their walks, which had resumed once Charlie was sure that Sophie had her â€Å"special† language skill under control. The hounds, while certainly the largest dogs that anyone had ever seen, were not so large as to be unbelievable, and everywhere they went, Charlie was asked what breed they were. Tired of trying to explain, he would simply say, â€Å"They're hellhounds,† and when asked where he got them, he would reply, â€Å"The y just showed up in my daughter's room one night and wouldn't go away,† after which people not only thought him a liar, but an ass as well. So he modified his response to â€Å"They're Irish hellhounds,† which for some reason, people accepted immediately (except for one Irish football fan in a North Beach restaurant who said, â€Å"I'm Irish and those things aren't bloody Irish.† To which Charlie replied, â€Å"Black Irish.† The football fan nodded as if he knew that all along and added to the waitress, â€Å"Can I get another fookin' pint o' here before I dry up and blow away, lass?†) In a way, Charlie started to enjoy the notoriety of being the guy with the cute little girl and the two giant dogs. When you have to maintain a secret identity, you can't help but relish a little public attention. And Charlie did, until the day he and Sophie were stopped on a side street on Russian Hill by a bearded man in a long cotton caftan and a woven hat. Sophie was old enough by then to do a lot of her own walking, although Charlie kept a piggyback kid sling with him so he could carry her when she got tired (but more often he would just balance her while she rode on the back of Alvin or Mohammed). The bearded man passed a little too closely to Sophie and Mohammed growled and imposed himself between the man and the child. â€Å"Mohammed, get back here,† Charlie said. It turned out the hellhounds could be trained, especially if you only told them to do things they were going to do anyway. (â€Å"Eat, Alvin. Good boy. Poop now. Excellent.†) â€Å"Why do you call this dog Mohammed?† asked the bearded man. â€Å"Because that's his name.† â€Å"You should not have called this dog Mohammed.† â€Å"I didn't call the dog Mohammed,† Charlie said. â€Å"His name was Mohammed when I got him. It was on his collar.† â€Å"It is blasphemy to call a dog Mohammed.† â€Å"I tried calling him something else, but he doesn't listen. Watch. Steve, bite this man's leg? See, nothing. Spot, bite off this man's leg. Nothing. I might as well be speaking Farsi. You see where I'm going with this?† â€Å"Well, I have named my dog Jesus. How do you feel about that?† â€Å"Well, then I'm sorry, I didn't realize you'd lost your dog.† â€Å"I have not lost my dog.† â€Å"Really? I saw these flyers all over town with ‘Have You Found Jesus?' on them. It must be another dog named Jesus. Was there a reward? A reward helps, you know.† Charlie noted that more and more lately, he had a hard time resisting the urge to fuck with people, especially when they insisted upon behaving like idiots. â€Å"I do not have a dog named Jesus and that doesn't bother you because you are a godless infidel.† â€Å"No, really, you can not name your dog anything you want and it won't bother me. But, yes, I am a godless infidel. At least that's how I voted in the last election.† Charlie grinned at him. â€Å"Death to the infidel! Death to the infidel!† said the bearded man in response to Charlie's irresistible charm. He danced around shaking his fist in the Death Merchant's face, which scared Sophie so that she covered her eyes and started to cry. â€Å"Stop that, you're scaring my daughter.† â€Å"Death to the infidel! Death to the infidel!† Mohammed and Alvin quickly got bored watching the dance and sat down to wait for someone to tell them to eat the guy in the nightshirt. â€Å"I mean it,† Charlie said. â€Å"You need to stop.† He looked around, feeling embarrassed, but there was no one else on the street. â€Å"Death to the infidel. Death to the infidel,† chanted the beard. â€Å"Have you seen the size of these dogs, Mohammed?† â€Å"Death to – hey, how did you know my name was Mohammed? Doesn't matter. Never mind. Death to the infidel. Death to the – â€Å" â€Å"Wow, you certainly are brave,† Charlie said, â€Å"but she's a little girl and you're scaring her and you really need to stop that now.† â€Å"Death to the infidel! Death to the infidel!† â€Å"Kitty!† Sophie said, uncovering her eyes and pointing at the man. â€Å"Oh, honey,† Charlie said. â€Å"I thought we weren't going to do that.† Charlie slung Sophie up on his shoulders and walked on, leading the hellhounds away from the bearded dead man who lay in a peaceful heap on the sidewalk. He had stuffed the man's little woven hat in his pocket. It was glowing a dull red. Strangely, the bearded man's name wouldn't appear in Charlie's date book until the next day. â€Å"See, a sense of humor is important,† Charlie said, making a goofy face over his shoulder at his daughter. â€Å"Silly Daddy,† Sophie said. Later, Charlie felt bad about his daughter using the â€Å"kitty† word as a weapon, and he felt that a decent father would try to give some sort of meaning to the experience – teach some sort of lesson, so he sat Sophie down with a pair of stuffed bears, some tiny cups of invisible tea, a plate of imaginary cookies, and two giant hounds from hell, and had his first, heart-to-heart, father-daughter talk. â€Å"Honey, you understand why Daddy told you not to ever do that again, right? Why people can't know that you can do that?† â€Å"We're different than other people?† Sophie said. â€Å"That's right, honey, because we're different than other people,† he said to the smartest, prettiest little girl in the world. â€Å"And you know why that is, right?† â€Å"Because we're Chinese and the White Devils can't be trusted?† â€Å"No, not because we're Chinese.† â€Å"Because we are Russian, and in our hearts are much sorrow?† â€Å"No, there is not much sorrow in our hearts.† â€Å"Because we are strong, like bear?† â€Å"Yes, sweetie, that's it. We're different because we're strong, like bear.† â€Å"I knew it. More tea, Daddy?† â€Å"Yes, I'd love some more tea, Sophie.† So,† said the Emperor, â€Å"I see you have experienced the multifarious ways in which a man's life is enriched by the company of a good brace of hounds.† Charlie was sitting on the back step of the shop, pulling whole frozen chickens from a crate and tossing them to Alvin and Mohammed one at a time. Each chicken was snapped out of the air with so much force that the Emperor, and Bummer and Lazarus, who were crouched across the alley suspiciously eyeing the hellhounds, flinched as if a pistol was being fired nearby. â€Å"Multifarious enrichment,† Charlie said, tossing another chicken. â€Å"That is exactly how I'd describe it.† â€Å"There is no better, nor more loyal, friend than a good hound,† said the Emperor. Charlie paused, having pulled not a chicken from the box, but a portable electric mixer. â€Å"A friend indeed,† he said, â€Å"a friend indeed.† Mohammed snapped down the mixer without even chewing – two feet of cord hung from the side of his mouth. â€Å"That doesn't hurt him?† said the Emperor. â€Å"Roughage,† Charlie explained, throwing a frozen chicken chaser to Mohammed, who gulped it down with the rest of the mixer cord. â€Å"They're not really my dogs. They belong to Sophie.† â€Å"A child needs a pet,† said the Emperor. â€Å"A companion to grow up with – although these fellows seem to have done most of their growing.† Charlie nodded, tossing the alternator from an eighty-three Buick into Alvin's eager jaws. There was a clanking and the dog belched, but his tail thumped against the Dumpster asking for more. â€Å"Well, they have been her constant companions,† Charlie said. â€Å"At least now we have them trained so they'll just guard whatever building she's in. For a while they wouldn't leave her side. Bath time was a challenge.† The Emperor said, â€Å"I believe it was the poet Billy Collins who wrote, ‘No one here likes a wet dog.'† â€Å"Yes, and he probably never had to get a squirming toddler and two four-hundred-pound dogs out of a bubble bath, either.† â€Å"But they've mellowed, you say?† â€Å"They had to. Sophie started school. The teacher frowned on giant dogs in class.† Charlie flipped an answering machine to Alvin, who crunched it up like a dog biscuit, shards of dog-spit-covered plastic raining down from his jaws. â€Å"So what did you do?† â€Å"It took us a few days, and a lot of explaining, but I trained them to just sit outside the front door of the school.† â€Å"And the faculty relented?† â€Å"Well, I spray-paint them with that granite-texture spray paint every morning, then tell them to sit absolutely still on either side of the door. No one seems to notice them.† â€Å"And they obey? All day?† â€Å"Well, it's just a half day right now, she's only in kindergarten. And you have to promise them a cookie.† â€Å"There's always a price to be paid.† The Emperor pulled a frozen chicken out of the box. â€Å"May I?† â€Å"Please.† Charlie waved him on. The Emperor tossed the chicken to Mohammed, who chomped it down in a single bite. â€Å"My, that is satisfying,† said the Emperor. â€Å"That's nothing,† Charlie said. â€Å"If you feed them mini – propane cylinders they burp fire.†