Welcome!
Process Analysis Technique 2
The Knife
Richard Selzer
A stillness settles in my heart and is carried to my hand. It is the quietude of resolve layered over fear. And it is this resolve that lowers us, my knife and me, deeper and deeper into the person beneath. It is an entry into the body that is nothing like a caress; still, it is among the gentlest of acts. Then stroke and stroke again, and we are joined by other instruments, hemostats and forceps, until the wound blooms with strange flowers whose looped handles fall to the sides in steely array.
There is sound, the tight click of clamps fixing teeth into severed blood vessels, the snuffle and gargle of the suction machine clearing the field of blood for the next stroke, the litany of monosyllables with which one prays his way down and in: clamp, sponge, suture, tie, cut. And there is color. The green of the cloth, the white of the sponges, the red and yellow of the body. Beneath the fat lies the fascia, the tough fibrous sheet encasing the muscles. It must be sliced and the red beef of the muscles separated. Now there are retractors to hold apart the wound. Hands move together, part, weave. We are fully engaged, like children absorbed in a game or the craftsmen of some place like Damascus.
Deeper still. The peritoneum, pink and gleaming and membranous, bulges into the wound. It is grasped with forceps, and opened. For the first time we can see into the cavity of the abdomen. Such a primitive place. One expects to find drawings of buffalo on the walls. The sense of trespassing is keener now, heightened by the world's light illuminating the organs, their secret colors revealed--maroon and salmon and yellow. The vista is sweetly vulnerable at this moment, a kind of welcoming. An arc of the liver shines high and on the right, like a dark sun. It laps over the pink sweep of the stomach, from whose lower border the gauzy omentum is draped, and through which veil one sees, sinuous, slow as just-fed snakes, the indolent coils of the intestine.
You turn aside to wash your gloves. It is a ritual cleansing. One enters this temple doubly washed. Here is man as microcosm, representing in all his parts the earth, perhaps the universe.
Selzer Richard. Mortal Lessons on the Art of Surgery. Harcourt 1996.
Process Analysis Technique 1
How to Catch River Crabs
by Mary Zeigler
As a lifelong crabber (that is, one who catches crabs, not a chronic complainer), I can tell you that anyone who has patience and a great love for the river is qualified to join the ranks of crabbers. However, if you want your first crabbing experience to be a successful one, you must come prepared.
First, you need a boat, but not just any boat. I recommend a 15-foot-long fiberglass boat complete with a 25-horsepower motor, extra gas in a steel can, two 13-foot-long wooden oars, two steel anchors, and enough cushions for the entire party. You will also need scoops, crab lines, a sturdy crate, and bait. Each crab line, made from heavy-duty string, is attached to a weight, and around each weight is tied the bait--a slimy, smelly, and utterly grotesque chicken neck.
Now, once the tide is low, you are ready to begin crabbing. Drop your lines overboard, but not before you have tied them securely to the boat rail. Because crabs are sensitive to sudden movements, the lines must be slowly lifted until the chicken necks are visible just below the surface of the water. If you spy a crab nibbling the bait, snatch him up with a quick sweep of your scoop. The crab will be furious, snapping its claws and bubbling at the mouth. Drop the crab into the wooden crate before it has a chance to get revenge. You should leave the crabs brooding in the crate as you make your way home.
Back in your kitchen, you will boil the crabs in a large pot until they turn a healthy shade of orange. Just remember to keep the crab pot covered. Finally, spread newspapers over the kitchen table, deposit the boiled crabs on the newspaper, and enjoy the most delicious meal of your life.
Division Analyis Technique 2
Shades of Character
Michelle Watson
Anyone who has spent time with or around children will notice that each one has a special personality all of their own. Children, like adults, have different traits that make up their personalities. Experts have researched this phenomenon in detail and classified children into different categories. Some experts have named more than three categories, but Peter L. Manigone has chosen three that most experts agree with. These categories have been named “flexible,” “fearful,” and “feisty.” Children generally may have similar interests, but the way they interact and deal with these interests displays their personality type.
The first personality type is called flexible. This is the most common of the three types. About “40 percent of all children fall into the flexible or easy group” (Mangione). These children usually handle feelings of anger and disappointment by reacting mildly upset. This does not mean that they do not feel mad or disappointed, they just choose to react mildly. These actions mean the flexible child is easy to take care of and be around. According to Mangione, they usually “adapt to new situations and activities quickly, are toilet-trained easily, and are generally cheerful.” Flexible children are subtle in their need for attention. Rather than yelling and demanding it, they will slowly and politely let their caregiver know about the need. If they do not get the attention right away, they “seldom make a fuss.” They patiently wait, but they still make it known that they need the attention. These children also are easygoing, so routines like feeding and napping are regular (Mangione).
Flexible children may be referred to as “good as gold” because of their cheerful attitudes. Since these are well-behaved children, the caregiver needs to make sure the child is getting the attention they need. The caregiver should “check in with the flexible child from time to time” (Mangione). By checking in with the child regularly, the caregiver will be more knowledgeable about when the child needs attention and when they do not.
The next temperament is the fearful type. These are the more quiet and shy children. This makes up about 15 percent of children (Mangione). They adapt slowly to new environments and take longer than flexible children when warming up to things. When presented with a new environment, fearful children often cling to something or someone familiar. Whether it be the main caregiver or a material object such as a blanket, the fearful child will cling to it until they feel comfortable with the new situation. This can result in a deep attachment of the child to a particular caregiver or object. Fearful children may also withdraw when pushed into a new situation too quickly (Mangione). They may also withdraw when other children are jumping into a new project or situation they are not comfortable with. These children may tend to play alone rather than with a group.
In dealing with fearful children, caregivers find they need more attention than flexible children. A good technique for helping these children is having “a sequence of being with, talking to, stepping back, remaining available, and moving on” (Mangione). The caregiver can also help the fearful child by giving them “extra soothing combined with an inch-by-inch fostering of independence and assertiveness” (Viorst). One of the most effective techniques is just taking it slow and helping the child become more comfortable with the surroundings.
The third temperament type is called feisty. About “10 percent” of children fit into this category (Mangione). A feisty child expresses their opinions in a very intense way. Whether they are happy or mad, everyone around them will know how they feel. These children remain active most of the time, and this causes them to be very aggressive. Feisty children often have the tendency to have a “negative persistence” and will go “on and on nagging, whining and negotiating” (“Facts About Temperament”) if there is something they particularly want. Unlike flexible children, feisty children are irregular in their napping and feeding times, but they do not adapt well to changes in their routines. They get “used to things and won’t give them up” ("Facts About Temperament"). Anything out of the ordinary could send them into some type of fit. If these children are not warned of a change, they may react very negatively (Mangione). Feisty children also tend to be very sensitive to their surrounding environment. As a result, they may have strong reactions to their surroundings.
When dealing with feisty children, the caregiver should know strategies that receive positive results when different situations arise. Mangione supports the “redirection technique” to calm feisty children. This method helps when the child is reacting very negatively to a situation. To properly implement the redirection technique
begin by recognizing and empathizing with the feelings of the feisty child and placing firm limits on any unacceptable behavior. This response lets the child know that both his or her desire for the toy and feelings of anger when denied the toy are acceptable to the caregiver. At the same time, the caregiver should clearly communicate to the child that expressing anger through hurtful or disruptive behavior is not acceptable. The child will probably need time to experience his or her emotions and settle down.Then offer an alternative toy or activity that may interest the child, who is then given time to consider the new choice and to accept or reject it. (Mangione)
Caregivers should consider that these children generally do not have regular feeding and napping times. The caregiver should be flexible when working with these children, and try to conform more to the child (Mangione). If there is going to be a change in a child’s routine, the caregiver has an easier time with the child if the child has been warned of the change.
Generally speaking, children can be divided into three groups, but caregivers must not forget that each child is an individual. Children may have the traits of all three of the personality groups, but they are categorized into the one they are most like. Whatever their temperament, children need to be treated according to their individual needs. When these needs are met appropriately the child will be happier, and those around the child will feel better also. Knowing the general personality types and how to react to them will help to make the caregiver’s job much easier and aid in the relief of unnecessary stress.
Source Cited:
Watson Michelle. 2001.
Web. http://www.roanestate.edu/owl&writingcenter/OWL/ShadesCharacter.html
Division Analyis Technique 1
A message from the Chairman of the Board
Manny V. Pangilinan
For the PLDT Group to sustain its growth, it must re-invent itself into an intensely-focused customer-centric organization, delivering high-quality yet affordable services to the greatest number of Filipinos. The concentration on quality and on providing the best possible customer experience will grow in importance as PLDT provides increasingly sophisticated, high-bandwidth services. Transformation will require five key elements.
First, our growth must continue to be powered by innovation. Our ability to develop out-of-the-box solutions that recast the rules of the game has been a key source of competitive advantage for the Group in the past ten years. Breakthrough innovations such as Smart Load, for example, have enabled Smart to grow the mobile phone market beyond the limits defined by conventional wisdom.
Second, we shall raise our revenues by growing organically and by investing in new areas that optimize our existing business. Our organic growth will be drawn from various sources. One such source would be broadband applications on fixed and wireless platforms. Currently, we already have in excess of 600,000 broadband subscribers and will approach a million by end-2008.
Lastly, we will systematically step up efforts to raise our service quality to world-class standards. This has the intense attention and focus of both your Management and the Board. The ultimate objective is to improve very significantly the customer experience across a wide range of services and solutions.
Source Cited:
Pangilinan Manny V. ACC:ESS 2007. Print.
Example Technique 2
The Backstreet Boys: A Popular Rock Band
Kimberly Davis, Writing Tutor
Kimberly Davis, Writing Tutor
Rock bands are as popular today as they were in the 1950’s, when rock ‘n’ roll was born. The fans get wild when they see their favorite group. The girls scream and faint at concerts and record sales explode. The decade of the 90’s has produced many popular bands. One band in particular is The Backstreet Boys. The group is made up of five young men: Kevin, Brian, Howie, A. J., and, the youngest, Nick. The listeners range in age, but the largest group is teenagers. The Backstreet Boys are popular primarily because of their image, but they also have the ability to manipulate the media successfully and to write engaging lyrics to upbeat music.
The Backstreet Boys have created a nice image for their young fans to follow. One example is the way they look. Their fashionable clothes are cool and up-to-date. Teenagers relate to their baggy jeans, oversized shirts, and top-of-the- line shoes. A. J. and Howie have goatee beards and all of them have short, sometimes colored and spiked, haircuts. Young fans feel they can relate to these guys because their appearance is interesting and attractive to them. The Backstreet Boys are also polite during interviews. They all thank God and their families for their success and talents. They participate in charity events, and they avoid setting bad examples for young people to follow, such as promoting alcohol and tobacco products.
The media and the managers for the group play a huge role in the promotion of The Backstreet Boys. For instance, the group is on many covers of Teen, J-14, Teen-Idol, and other magazines. They release information about their personal lives, their favorite foods, their concert dates, and any other pertinent information they can find on a regular basis. These magazines offer photographs and posters of each member of the band. This type of publicity keeps the fans excited and wanting more. The television is another source of media for bands. Stations like MTV and VH1 play their music videos and invite them into the studio for interviews. This action helps promote the songs and albums they produce; meanwhile, the band becomes even more popular.
On a last note, the lyrics and music The Backstreet Boys create is a definite reason they are popular. Their music attracts all ages. They sing slow love songs that will touch a couple’s hearts. For example, “Anywhere for You” is written about a person ready to make sacrifices for the one they love. The chorus is straight forward and touching:
I’d go anywhere for you.
Anywhere you asked me to.
I’d do anything for you.
Anything you want me to.
Your love as far as I can see.
Is all I’m ever gonna need.
There’s one thing for sure.
I know it’s true.
Baby, I’d go anywhere for you.
On the other hand, songs like “Everybody (Backstreets Back)” and “Larger than Life” are more upbeat. They make a person feel good and want to dance. This type of music is versatile. Disc jockeys play it on easy listening, light rock, and top-40 radio stations; and radio promotion also helps a group become popular.
There are several reasons why The Backstreet Boys have become popular. The manipulation of the media and the wonderful lyrics and music play a large role, but the most important issue is their image. Young people have enough negative distractions in their lives. Peers, advertisements, music, and television programs and commercials all play a part. Therefore, it is nice to find a group that does not participate in a negative image.
Source Cited:
Davis Kimberly. Web. http://www.roanestate.edu/owl&writingcenter/OWL/BBoys.html
Narrative Technique 2
Take My Word for It
Don Maloney
Just recently, I was trying to warn newcomers in Tokyo to be especially careful when talking to English-understanding natives because they are quite apt to take what we say very literally. Anyway, as I was later thinking over that advice, I decided that the warning wasn’t stern enough. So, I’ve got two more stories that should further underscore my point.
The first has to do with a recent Gala Bank Opening in Tokyo. This particular party ushered in the National Bank of Paris. And, as you might expect, the Frenchmen did everything right. Although the French invited a larger number of people than were involved in the activities on the original Bastille Day, everything was adequate. The food was superb and the wine--all of it direct from France--was fantastic. I decided to settle on Mumm’s Champagne as my beverage of the evening. A is typical of first-class affairs, like Gala Bank Openings, supplied along with the food and drink were scores of pretty native girls all done up in flowery kimonos. All during the evening, one or the other of these girls was at my side offering to fetch another stick of yakitori or another plate of raw fish or another glass of spirits.
I’ve always thought it a shame that, during all this revelry, nobody mentions any bank- including the host of the evening. The girl was standing next to me on this particular occasion, marveling at my attempt to dislodge a raw oyster from its shell with chopsticks, finally spoke. “Is the food all right?” she wanted to know. I assured her that it was perfect. “And,” she asked, “how is the wine?” Holding my fourth or fifth glass of Mumm’s on high in a sort of “bottoms up” salute, I said--for some smart-aleck reason I’ll never understand—“It’s definitely not Mercian.” Of course, she took this flip remark very seriously. “You have to understand,” she said, “that this is a French bank opening. So, we have only French wine. Since Mercian wine is a Japanese brand, there is not one bottle in this ballroom.” And with that she disappeared. Why, oh why, I thought, do I keep making remarks like what that when they only give these people an absolutely inaccurate impression of what I’m trying to say. Then, I turned to a Japanese man standing next to me and struck up one of those elementary “Have you ever been to Mt. Fuji?” conversations. Minutes later, I felt a tug at my arm. My kimono girl was back. As I turned to face her, she plucked the glass of Mumm’s from my right hand and replaced it with an empty one. From a little towel-wrapped bottle she was carrying, she filled my new glass with a red liquid. Smiling broadly, she announced, “Since there was no Mercian here, we sent out to a local bar for this bottle especially for you. Enjoy it, please.” And she wouldn’t leave my side until I finished it. As I stood there sipping my Mercian among my hundreds downing their Mumm’s, I had to laugh right out loud.
Because the situation reminded so much of a similar laugh I’d had a couple of weeks before at the expense of another quick-mouthed foreigner, who, like me, should have known better. That occasion was “Navy Day,” the day on which the United States Navy celebrates their birthday. A big ball was set for Yokusuka, the U.S Navy base near Yokohama. Both of us were to attend this ball. His job there was to present some engraved trophy-style plaques to sailors who were selected as “Sailor of the Year Afloat.” My friend decided to order these plaques here in Tokyo. So he called a man who knew a Japanese plaque engraver who would give him a “good deal.”
He explained that the citation would be the same on all plaques (there were four of them) and, under the citation, would appear the name of the sailor chosen. Since time was running out and the Navy had not yet selected the names, his telephone instructions were “Do the citation engraving now (he gave them all the wording) and under the citation will later be engraved their names.” Of course, the engraver asked what the names were. “The names,” he was told, “will come later”
Well, the engraver kept his word. The plaques were delivered on time. The citations were engraved word-for-word just as they were given to him. And, under each citation was engraved: “THE NAMES WILL COME LATER.” What I’m trying to get across in all this is that you never have to say to a Japanese: “Take my word for it.” He always does.
Maloney Don. Take My Word for It. SIBS Publishing House, Inc., 2004
Descriptive Technique 2
Drama: Lost at Sea
The sailboat is gone. The night is dark. And there are four life jackets for five men.
By Kenneth Miller
Travis Wright had another half hour before going on night watch, but the choppy sea below the cabin kept him from sleeping. At 11:30, he swung off his bunk and stepped into a puddle. He expected puddles on a sailboat. But this one seemed to be growing.
Wright, 20, and his buddies on the Texas A&M-Galveston sailing team were 60 miles into the Regata de Amigos, a 600-mile race from Galveston to Veracruz, Mexico. The waves were rough, but the Cynthia Woods, a 38-foot Cape Fear yacht, was built to handle far worse.
He lifted a floorboard, and a geyser shot up. "We've got water coming in!" he shouted. Roger Stone, 53, one of two safety officers on board with the four-student crew, sprang from his berth and crouched by him. This was no ordinary leak. Stone popped his head out of the hatch. "We're taking on water!" he yelled to Steve Conway, the other safety officer, at the tiller. "Start the engine! Douse the sails!" Conway, 55, turned the key and scrambled to drop the mainsail, but the craft was already rolling onto its starboard side. Ross Busby, 21, and Joseph Savana, 18, slid across the deck and into the sea. Conway lunged for a lifeline, caught it, and held on as the boat twisted. Seconds later, the Cynthia Woods capsized.
In the upside-down cabin, water spouted through the hatch. Steven Guy, 20, grabbed for his life vest, but it inflated before he could put it on. "How do we get out of here?" he cried.
"Through there!" Stone pointed toward the opening below. Guy held his breath and dived into the blackness but was driven back by surging water. Stone pushed him forward. This time, Guy made it.
Wright, too, dived and was thrown back. The seawater had reached chest level. "It's coming too fast," he gasped.
"You've got to try!" yelled Stone. He grabbed Wright, pointed him downward, and shoved. Wright frog-kicked out of the cabin, free.
Roger Stone carried a practical talisman with him on land and at sea—a small, yellow marine GPS unit. "Before cars had GPS systems, he'd use it so he wouldn't have to ask for directions," says his wife, Linda, a teacher. Aside from its function, the device symbolized something about Stone: Whatever else he did, he was a sailor.
As a teenager in the suburbs of New York City, he spent his free time piloting a dinghy up and down the Hudson River. After college in Oregon, he crewed on yachts before moving to Houston for a job at the University of Texas Medical Branch, where he became a warehouse manager. He sailed his own 14-footer around the local waterways, eventually with his kids, Eric, 15, and Elizabeth, 12. On Sundays, he assistant-coached the sailing team for Texas A&M University at Galveston.
A quiet, square-built man with a captain's beard, Stone was known for rescuing stray dogs and stranded motorists and, on occasion, sailors in trouble. During one race, a rival boat lost its mast and drifted toward a jetty; after plucking the crew from the endangered craft and towing it back to port, Stone was declared the winner in honor of his selflessness.
He was also a stickler for safety. Shortly before the start of last June's regatta, Stone and Conway had inspected the Cynthia Woods from stem to stern. The two-year-old boat seemed structurally sound and was loaded with new emergency equipment: a life raft, a flare kit, two radios, flashing beacons, and a satellite phone.
Now all of that had been swallowed by the Gulf of Mexico. And the race's two dozen other competitors were miles away.
Travis Wright swam beneath the boat, avoiding the tangled rigging, and pushed himself up to the surface. After inflating his life vest, he peered across the pitching sea. What he saw in the starlight shocked him. The Cynthia Woods lay belly-up beneath a few feet of water, a great gash where its 5,000-pound keel had been.
Ross Busby and Joseph Savana were treading water nearby; about ten yards away, Steve Conway had Steven Guy in a lifeguard hold. Roger Stone was nowhere to be seen.
"Steven lost his vest," Conway called out. "Somebody grab the life ring off the deck!" Wright, Busby, and Savana tried to pry the float from the railing of the submerged boat, but it stuck fast. The men watched in frustration as the ring's strobe light, meant to alert searchers, blinked dimly in the murk. They swam to join Conway and Guy.
"What happened?" Savana asked. "Did we hit something?"
Conway, a white-bearded former Coast Guard commander, managed to speak calmly. "I have no idea. But we'll be okay if we use our heads."
"Where's Roger?" asked Wright.
They hollered for Stone. No response. "Maybe he's already drifted too far to hear," Busby said.
"The first rule is, stay with the boat, but that's going to be tough with this breeze blowing," said Conway. "The most important thing is to stay together." He lashed himself to Wright and Guy by running his belt through a loop on each of their shorts. Then he linked Busby to Savana, using the harness on Savana's life vest, and told each pair to hold on to the other.
Soon the vessel was out of sight. As the men drifted, six-foot waves broke over their heads every few minutes. Conway reminded the others not to swallow; drinking salt water can cause hallucinations, even death. He also did his best to reassure them. The Cynthia Woods was equipped with an emergency radio beacon, set to alert the Coast Guard once the boat sank to a depth of 13 feet. "If it works, we could be picked up in a few hours," Conway said. "If it doesn't, we'll have to wait a little longer."
He was scheduled to check in with the university marina at 8 a.m.; the manager would know to call the Coast Guard if he didn't hear from him.
The night wore on, and no one appeared. Lights from offshore drilling platforms twinkled on the horizon. Someone proposed swimming toward them, but Conway disagreed: "We need to conserve energy."
To lift the guys' spirits, Conway told sea stories, recounting rescues he'd carried out during his 21 years in uniform. At about four in the morning, a boat appeared a half mile away. Conway flashed a distress signal with his pocket light. But the boat moved on.
The night seemed a bit darker after that, the sea a bit colder. Even in the 85-degree water, the men were losing body heat. Conway knew that hypothermia would set in after 35 hours. He held off the chill with thoughts of his wife and four grown daughters, one of whom was eight months pregnant. I'm not going to die without seeing the baby, he promised himself.
"It won't be long till sunup," he said aloud. "They'll be looking for us soon."
Later that morning, with no call from Conway, the marina manager alerted the Coast Guard. A GPS tracking device on the Cynthia Woods showed that it was drifting 30 miles southeast of Freeport, Texas. But it wouldn't be so easy to find the crew. The lifeboat launched by the Coast Guard had been forced back to shore by big waves, and an air search would take a couple of hours to organize.
Source Cited:
Kenneth Miller. Web.
http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/drama-lost-at-sea/article125453.html
Descriptive Technique 1
Adventures on the High Seas
Their 6-year voyage around the world was a dream come true until they were attacked by pirates.
By Donovan Webster
They attacked out of the sun. As the two yachts approached, sailing westward through the Gulf of Aden between Somalia and Yemen, Carol Martini—on the 47-foot sloop Gandalf—scanned the horizon, still oblivious to the danger 500 yards off her bow.
Then, flickering in the distance, she glimpsed something: two low shapes, silhouetted inside the sun's reflected brilliance on the water. Picking up the radio handset, she hailed the nearby sloop Mahdi and its captain, Rod Nowlin. "Uh, Rod," she said. "I think I see something."
Martini called belowdecks, waking her partner, Jay Barry. He was topside in an instant. "I'll take the wheel," he said. "You roll up the jib. Let's get running."
Seconds later, the boats in the distance fired their engines, sending plumes of thick black exhaust into the air. Then things began exploding around Barry as rounds from AK-47s ripped apart the decking. "Gunfire," says Barry, "sounds quite different when you're standing in front of a gun instead of behind it."
The unthinkable was happening. Despite weeks of planning to avoid precisely this fate, Gandalf and Mahdi were under siege by modern-day pirates.
Carol Martini is slight and sunblond, a Harvard-trained MD and former instructor at Harvard's School of Medicine. As she sits in the cockpit of Gandalf—sipping a mug of tea in the Mediterranean harbor at Finike, Turkey—she seems less an East Coast elitist than somebody's friendly, cool-headed sister.
In the burly Jay Barry, 53, she's found her ideal counterpart. Disarmingly funny, Barry, who's more at home in a pub than a country club, financed this expedition by selling his north of Boston auto-restoration business.
Sailing around the globe had been a mutual goal since their second date. As a boy, Barry stared at a map of the world on his bedroom wall, and had always had an itch to travel far and wide. As for Martini, she fell in love with the guy and, subsequently, his dreams of adventure.
It took Barry a year to find the right vessel. But when he brought Martini to the boatyard to see it, she thought it was a joke. "The thing looked like a flying Dumpster," she says.The sloop, built in 1960, was a charred wreck. Despite its five-millimeter-thick plate-steel hull and 61-foot mast of Sitka spruce, a fire in the boatyard had singed the paint off the vessel’s port side. Its original canvas sails and rigging were still aboard—and moldy. Garbage overflowed its decks.
Over the next year, working nights and weekends, the two rebuilt the sloop, discovering a fantastic design. "Beyond the hull's steel," says Barry, "the thing is reinforced with angle iron riveted to the hull every two inches. It's incredibly solid—though with all those rivets, it’s really a boat made of a thousand holes."
In 1992, they launched their recreated vessel, Gandalf. It was named for J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings wizard who recognizes all forms of humanity. In November 1999, they set off from Gloucester, Massachusetts, to fulfill their dream—a trip around the world. Their extended vacation would take them to the most beautiful parts of the earth, as well as the most treacherous: stretches of ocean known to harbor pirates.
By March 2000, Carol Martini and Jay Barry had sailed down the U.S. Atlantic coast, cruised the Caribbean and entered the Panama Canal. By November, they'd visited the Galápagos, the Marquesas, Fiji and much of Polynesia, before fetching up in Bundaberg, Australia, for their first winter. "We did 14,500 miles under sail in a year—that's not recommended. It was hard," Barry says.
"Yeah," Martini adds, "but we were having a wonderful time."
Gandalf continued north, through Indonesia, stopping to see the Komodo dragons before going on to Bali. They explored Sumatra and Kalimantan; then they pressed on for Singapore. So far, their trip had surpassed Barry’s childhood dreams.
After weeks of screwing tight their courage, they left Singapore and sailed into the Strait of Malacca, an area known for pirates brazen enough to attack freighters. "So there we were, all prepared for the infamous Malacca Strait pirates, and nothin' happened except a bad storm," says Martini. As they sailed on, they hoped the worst was behind them.
By late December 2004, Gandalf was moored in Nai Harn Bay, Thailand. By then, Martini and Barry had befriended another pair of round-the-world sailors, Rod and Becky Nowlin, of Whidbey Island, Washington. The Nowlins were sailing their 45-foot yacht, Mahdi—a word that means "savior" or "peaceful one" in Arabic. Rod Nowlin, 62, is a solid, athletic man. Retired from the U.S. Navy, he enjoys slow-paced exotic travel and a love of good cigars. His wife, Becky, aside from being a legendary cook, is said to be a hoot.
Because of the piracy threat in the Red Sea, both crews planned to leave Thailand together. "I wanted someone who could get through the area quickly. I didn't want to carry anyone," Barry explains.
The two captains were well aware that any seagoing vessel, from a yacht to an ocean liner, is a potential target. Using sophisticated technology like radar and radio scanners, as well as lethally modern weapons, pirates thrive in areas with limited naval presence and numerous places to hide. One favorite spot is the narrow neck of the Gulf of Aden, where the Indian Ocean separates the government-less nation of Somalia and the impoverished country of Yemen. It's a zone known to sailors as Pirate Alley. And on January 20, 2005, it was where Gandalf and Mahdi set sail for, pausing a few days in Salalah, Oman.
"Salalah is where we got stuck with an idiot," Barry says.
By this time, Gandalf and Mahdi had helped another sailor—a Californian and his wife in a smaller, less-hardy vessel—repair their boat at a number of anchorages since departing Thailand. "This guy had no business being on the water," says Barry. And in Salalah, the smaller boat turned up again, insinuating itself into the other boats' plans.
Barry and Rod Nowlin both knew that this third vessel, a 37-foot sloop, couldn't keep pace with their larger boats. They hooked up with another craft, a well-captained 37-foot Catalina, and on March 7, 2005, all four left on the treacherous, 600-mile trek through the Gulf of Aden. Their plan was to run all day, making good time; then, under cover of darkness—with radios and lights turned off—they would transit Pirate Alley, ending at the harbor in Aden, Yemen.
Sources Cited:
Donovan Webster. Web.
http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/adventures-on-the-high-seas/article131824.html
Comparison Technique 2
Why We're Happy
Turns out, happiness has a lot to do with values -- and it's key to our prosperity as a nation.
Arthur C. Brooks
If Socrates was right, isn’t it reasonable to assume that a decent nation will, at minimum, create the conditions in which its citizens can best pursue happiness? In the Declaration of Independence, the Founders didn’t treat happiness as some fuzzy concept; they believed that people wanted happiness and had the right to pursue it. Along with life and liberty, happiness was the connection between the Creator and our nation’s destiny, and the ability of its citizens to pursue and achieve happiness was a measure of the effectiveness and morality of the state.
But today’s leaders and policymakers seem to have forgotten this. To hear politicians talk about gross domestic product, health-care reform, and Social Security, you’d think that this nation’s Founding Fathers held as self-evident that we are endowed by our Creator with the ability to purchase new, high-quality consumer durables each and every year, or to enjoy healthy economic growth with low inflation and full employment. The Founders didn’t talk about these matters, not because they’re unimportant, but because they believed happiness went deeper.
As a professor of business and government policy, I’ve long been interested in the pursuit of happiness as a national concept. According to hundreds of reliable surveys of thousands of people across the land, happy people increase our prosperity and strengthen our communities. They make better citizens -- and better citizens are vital to making our nation healthy and strong. Happiness, in other words, is important for America. So when I chanced upon data a couple of years ago saying that certain Americans were living in a manner that facilitated happiness -- while others were not -- I jumped on it.
I wanted to be able to articulate which personal lifestyles and public policies would make us the happiest nation possible. I also wanted to know which of my own values, learned during my childhood in Seattle and practiced during my career as a university professor, were the most conducive to happiness. I had always thought that marching to the beat of my own drummer and making up my own values as I went along were the right things to do, and that traditional values, to put it bluntly, were for suckers.
Turns out that I was in for some surprises.
First, just what is happiness? Most researchers agree that it involves an assessment of the good and bad in our lives. It’s the emotional balance sheet we keep that allows us to say honestly whether we’re living a happy life, in spite of bad things now and then.
You might suspect that Americans are getting happier all the time. After all, many (though clearly not all) are getting richer, and this should make them better able and equipped to follow their dreams. On the other hand, there’s a lot of talk about the good old days, when kids could play outside without any worry about being kidnapped. And there’s a great deal of stress in this country right now, due to financial concerns, negative workplace environments, and chronic health problems, among other pressing issues.
But average happiness levels in America have stayed largely constant for many years. In 1972, 30 percent of the population said they were very happy with their lives, according to the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey. In 1982, 31 percent said so, and in 2006, 31 percent said so as well. The percentage saying they were not too happy was similarly constant, generally hovering around 13 percent.
The factors that add up to a happy life for most people are not what we typically hear about. Things like winning the lottery, getting liposuction, and earning a master’s degree don’t make people happy over the long haul. Rather, the key to happiness, and the difference between happy and unhappy Americans, is a life that reflects values and practices like faith, hard work, marriage, charity, and freedom.
Happiness Predictor 1: Faith
Roughly 85 percent of Americans identify with a religion, and about a third of Americans attend a house of worship every week or more. These statistics have changed relatively little over the decades. By international standards, America’s level of religious practice is exceptionally high. In Holland, for example, just 9 percent of the population attends church on a regular basis; in France, it’s 7 percent; in Latvia, 3 percent.
In general, religious Americans (those who attend a place of worship almost every week or more) are happier than those who rarely or never attend. In 2004 the General Social Survey found that 43 percent of religious folks said they were very happy with their lives, compared with 23 percent of secularists. Religious people were a third more likely than secularists to say they’re optimistic about the future. And secularists were nearly twice as likely as religious people to say "I’m inclined to feel I’m a failure."
The connection between faith and happiness holds regardless of one’s religion. All nonpartisan surveys on the subject have found that Christians (Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, and others) and Jews, as well as members of many other religious traditions, are far more likely than secularists to say they’re happy. It also doesn’t matter if we measure religious practice in ways other than attendance at worship services. In 2004, 36 percent of people who prayed every day said they were very happy, versus 21 percent of people who never prayed.
Of course, not every religious person is happy; neither is every secularist unhappy. Nonetheless, it’s clear that faith is a common value among happy Americans.
Happiness Predictor 2: Work
If you hit the lottery today, would you quit your job? If you’re like most Americans, you probably wouldn’t. When more than 1,000 people across the country were asked in 2002, "If you were to get enough money to live comfortably for the rest of your life, would you stop working?" fewer than a third of the respondents answered yes.
Contrary to widely held opinion, most Americans like or even love their work. In 2002 an amazing 89 percent of workers said they were very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their jobs. This isn’t true just for those with high-paying, highly skilled jobs but for all workers across the board. And the percentage is almost exactly the same among those with and without college degrees and among those working for private companies, nonprofit organizations, and the government.
For most Americans, job satisfaction is nearly equivalent to life satisfaction. Among those people who say they are very happy in their lives, 95 percent are also satisfied with their jobs. Furthermore, job satisfaction would seem to be causing overall happiness, not the other way around.
The bottom line here: If we want to be happy, we need to work. And that’s advice worth sharing with our kids as well.
Happiness Predictor 3: Marriage & Family
Matrimony has taken a lot of hits since the 1960s. It’s been said to hold many people, especially women, back from their full potential to be happy. Don’t believe it.
In 2004, 42 percent of married Americans said they were very happy. Just 23 percent of never-married people said this. The happiness numbers were even lower for other groups: Only 20 percent of those who were widowed, 17 percent of those who were divorced, and 11 percent of those who were separated but not divorced said they were happy. Overall, married people were six times more likely to say that they were very happy than to report that they were not too happy. And generally speaking, married women say they’re happy more often than married men.
Marriage isn’t just associated with happiness -- it brings happiness, at least for a lot of us. One 2003 study that followed 24,000 people for more than a decade documented a significant increase in happiness after people married. For some, the happiness increase wore off in a few years, and they ended up back at their premarriage happiness levels. But for others, it lasted as long as a lifetime.
What about having kids? While children, on their own, don’t appear to raise the happiness level (they actually tend to slightly lower the happiness of a marriage), studies suggest that children are almost always part of an overall lifestyle of happiness, which is likely to include such things as marriage and religion. Consider this: While 50 percent of married people of faith who have children consider themselves to be very happy, only 17 percent of nonreligious, unmarried people without kids feel the same way.
We’ve all heard that money doesn’t buy happiness, and that’s certainly true. But there is one way to get it: Give money away.
The evidence is clear that gifts to charitable organizations and other worthy causes bring substantial life satisfaction to the givers. If you want $50 in authentic happiness today, just donate it to a favorite charity.
People who give money to charity are 43 percent more likely than nongivers to say they’re very happy. Volunteers are 42 percent more likely to be very happy than nonvolunteers. It doesn’t matter whether the gifts of money go to churches or symphony orchestras; religious giving and secular giving leave people equally happy, and far happier than people who don’t give. Even donating blood, an especially personal kind of giving, improves our attitude.
In essence, the more people give, the happier they get.
Happiness Predictor 5: Freedom
The Founders listed liberty right up there with the pursuit of happiness as an objective that merited a struggle for our national independence. In fact, freedom and happiness are intimately related: People who consider themselves free are a lot happier than those who don’t. In 2000 the General Social Survey revealed that people who personally feel "completely free" or "very free" were twice as likely as those who don’t to say they’re very happy about their lives.
Not all types of freedom are the same in terms of happiness, however. Researchers have shown that economic freedom brings happiness, as does political and religious freedom. On the other hand, moral freedom -- a lack of constraints on behavior -- does not. People who feel they have unlimited moral choices in their lives when it comes to matters of sex or drugs, for example, tend to be unhappier than those who do not feel they have so many choices in life.
Americans appear to understand this quite well. When pollsters asked voters in the 2004 Presidential election what the most important issue facing America was, the issue voters chose above all others was "moral values." This beat out the economy, terrorism, the Iraq war, education, and health care as people’s primary concern. Pundits and politicians would certainly like us to think otherwise, and critics scoffed at the conclusion, interpreting it as evidence that ordinary Americans were out of touch. But moral values are critical to Americans. This suggests that, as a people, we do best by protecting our political and economic freedoms and guarding against a culture that sanctions licentiousness.
Lessons for America
The data tell us that what matters most for happiness is not having a lot of things but having healthy values. Without these values, our jobs and our economy will bring us soulless toil and joyless riches. Our education will teach us nothing. There will be no reason to fight -- or to make peace, for that matter -- to protect our way of life. Our health-care system will keep us healthier, but what’s the point of good health without a happy life to enjoy?
The facts can help remind us of what we should be paying attention to, as individuals and as families, if we want to be happy. There’s also an important message here for public policy and politics. We must hold our leaders accountable for the facts on happiness and refuse to take it lightly when politicians abridge the values of faith, work, family, charity, and freedom.
Candidates running for office should be grilled about happiness in debates and by the press, and their answers should determine our votes.
Our happiness is simply too important to us -- and to America -- to do anything less.
Source Cited:
Arthur C. Brooks. Web.
http://www.rd.com/living-healthy/gross-national-happiness-adaptation/article75230-1.html
