The Last Storyteller Essay Example for Free

The Last Storyteller Essay Before the Europeans colonized America different tribes of Native Americas appointed storytellers to keep the tribes history alive. In â€Å"This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona†, by Sherman Alexie an odd boy named Thomas Builds-the-Fire holds the title of storyteller. This short story is about a journey Thomas takes with his old friend Victor to claim Victor’s father’s ashes from Phoenix, Arizona and bring them back to their reservation in Spokane. The story ultimately portrays the strain between Victors and Thomas’s friendship. Alexie uses Thomas and his friendship with Victor to show that not everyone conforms to what we call the social norms. Thomas Builds-the-Fire is different from the other boys from his reservation. In the opening scene Victor is standing in line at the trading post. He has a hundred dollar check in hand to cover travel expenses to find his father when he notices Thomas at a magazine rack. When Thomas approaches Victor and they start a conversation about his father. All the Indians at the trading post are surprised Victor is actually talking with him. In â€Å"This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona† perspective is shown by â€Å"All the other Indians stared, surprised that Victor was even talking to Thomas. Nobody talked to Thomas anymore because he told the same damn stories over and over again† (Alexie 171). This is when we first find out that Thomas is not accepted by his by his own people and is considered an outsider. Thomas is not taken seriously and is not listened too because he enjoys recounting story’s of his tribes past. Thomas makes a proposition to Victor agreeing to help with expenses for his journey to reclaim his father’s ashes if he is allowed to come. Victor reluctantly agrees to Thomas’s terms. The boys sat next to each other on the flight along with a tiny white woman who had the window seat. Thomas begins a conversation with the woman despite Victor’s embarrassment. In â€Å"This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona† character is shown by â€Å"â€Å"Excuse me, miss,† Thomas asked. â€Å"Are you a gymnast or something†Ã¢â‚¬  (Alexie 173)? Thomas is out spoken and is not afraid of being embarrassed unlike Victor who is sitting quietly hoping Thomas will stop. Victor eventually chimes in at the end but it is Thomas’s outspokenness that started the conversation. In this scene not only does the author show that Thomas is different but that the gymnast is unusual as well. In â€Å"This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona† charact er is shown by â€Å"She was busy twisting her body into pretzels. She was flexible† (Alexie 173). Most people on an airplane would find it a bit uncomfortable to be sitting next to someone contorting their body! Once Thomas and Victor had reclaimed Victor’s dad’s ashes they drove to the bank and retrieved the three hundred-dollars from his fathers account. While on the road back to there hometown Spokane Victor recounts the story of when Thomas flew. In â€Å"This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona† perspective is shown when â€Å"Once, he jumped off the roof of the tribal school and flapped his arms like a crazy eagle. And he flew. For a second he hovered, suspended above all the other Indian boys, who were too smart or to scared to jump too† (Alexie 175). Thomas fell and broke his arm in two places, but Thomas did what no other boy would do, even though they all wished too. This is not something many people would do but the author uses this to show that Thomas is not swayed by other people’s opinions. While the boys drive through Nevada the landscape is described. In â€Å"This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona† setting is shown when â€Å"Thomas and Victor had been amazed at the lack of animal life, at the absence of water, of movement† (Alexie 176). The setting of Nevada is desolate and baron of life. There are rarely any animals that are seen during the day. Since Nevada is one big desert most of the animals are nocturnal they come out after the sun has set and the oppressive heat has resided. The symbol of the Nevada desert is used to describe the feeling of being alone. The setting is used to show the feeling of being alone and how both boys are experiencing it. Alexia succeeds in portraying a message about not conforming to social norms in her short story â€Å"This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona†. Through out the story Thomas shows that he is different and that he isn’t going to change for anybody. Thomas despite being faced with many hardships, judgments, torments and even being beat up never faltered in his beliefs. Being different and not conforming the social norms is not an easy thing for people to do and this is what Alexia was trying to portray.

Contrast between Sam and Hallys Father in Athol Fugards Master Harold

Contrast between Sam and Hally's Father in Athol Fugard's "Master Harold" . . . and the Boys "Any white man is a master of all black men"; "the black society is primitive"- these are some of the ideas that have been nursed to Hally in South Africa's apartheid society. The question is: are those bigoted stereotypes true? Of course they are false! In the play Master Harold and the Boys, Sam is a black man, and Hally's father is a white man. However, Sam's superiority over Hally's father is obvious through the contrast between their relationships with Hally. Ironically, it is evident that, most of the time, the relationship between Hally and Sam is closer to a father-son relationship than that between Hally and his father. One of the most important things that a father can te...

External Failure and Internal Failure Cost

Definition and Explanation of Quality Costs: The concept of Cost Of Quality (COQ) has been around for many years. Dr. Joseph M. Juran in 1951 in his Quality Control Handbook included a section on COQ. The Quality Cost Committee under the Quality Management Division was established by the American Society for Quality (ASQ) in 1961. However it was Philip B. Crosby who popularized the use of COQ because of his book Quality is Fre in 1979. Several current quality system standards, ISO 9000, QS-9000, AS-9000, reference the use of COQ for quality improvement. The concept of Cost of Quality is confusing.It does not refer to costs such as using a higher grade leather to make a wallet or using 14K gold instead of gold plating in jewelry. Instead the term quality cost refers to all of the costs that are incurred to prevent defects or that result from defects in products. What is being referenced are the costs due to the lack of quality or costs to ensure quality is produced. We understand them as the costs that are associated with preventing, detecting, and correcting defective work. Some authors refer to these costs as â€Å"Cost of Poor Quality†. Sometimes poor quality costs refer only to the â€Å"failure† costs.Crosby refers to the COQ costs as â€Å"Price of conformance† (the prevention and appraisal costs) and the â€Å"Price of non-conformance† (the failure costs). These are divided into conformance and non-conformance costs, also called control costs and failure of control costs. Figure 1 Quality costs can be broken down into four broad groups. These four groups are also termed as four (4) types of quality costs. Two of these groups are known as prevention costs and appraisal costs. These are incurred in an effort to keep defective products from falling into the hands of customers.The other two groups of costs are known as internal failure and external failure. Internal and external failure costs are incurred because defects are produc ed despite efforts to prevent them therefore these costs are also known as costs of poor quality. However, we will be focussing on the internal costs failure and the external costs failure for this assignment. The non-conformance costs come into play when the software does not conform to the quality requirements. These costs are divided into internal failure costs and external failure costs. Types of quality costs are explained below : Internal Costs Failure:Failure costs are incurred when a product fails to conform to its design specifications. Failure costs can be either internal or external. Internal failure costs result from identification of defects before they are shipped to customers. These costs include scrap, rejected products, reworking of defective units, and downtime caused by quality problem. The more effective a company's appraisal activities the greater the chance of catching defects internally and the greater the level of internal failure costs. This is the price tha t is paid to avoid incurring external failure costs, which can be devastating.On the non-conformance side, we have fault removal costs that can be attributed to the internal failure costs as well as the external failure costs. This is because if we found a fault and want to remove it, it would always result in costs no matter whether costs in an internal or external failure. Actually, there does not have to be a failure at all. Considering code inspections, faults are found and removed that have never caused a failure during testing. It is also a good example that the removal costs can be quite different due to the different techniques.When a test identifies a failure, there needs to be considerable effort spent to find the corresponding fault. During an inspection, faults are found directly. Fault removal costs also contain the costs for necessary re-testing and re-inspections. External Cost Failure: When a defective product is delivered to customer, external failure cost is the re sult. External failure costs include warranty, repairs and replacements, product recalls, liability arising from legal actions against a company, and lost sales arising from a reputation for poor quality. Such costs can decimate profits.In the past, some managers have taken the attitude, â€Å"Let's go ahead and ship everything to customers, and we'll take care of any problems under the warranty. † This attitude generally results in high external failure costs, customer ill will, and declining market share and profits. External failure costs usually give rise to another intangible cost. These intangible costs are hidden costs that involve the company's image. They can be three or four times greater than tangible costs. Missing a deadline or other quality problems can be intangible costs of quality.Internal failure costs, costs and intangible costs that impair the goodwill of the company occur due to a poor quality so these costs are also known as costs of poor quality by some persons. External failure also cause support costs. These are all costs connected to customer care, especially the effort from service workers identifying the problem. Finally, compensation costs could be part of external failure costs, if the failure caused some kind of damage at the customer site. We might also include loss of sales because of bad reputation in the external failure costs but do not look at it in this paper because it is out of scope.Costs of quality assurance (Compiled from Gavett 1968, Adam and Evertt-1998) Prevention Costs| Appraisal Costs| Internal Failure Costs| External Failure Costs| †¢ Quality planning†¢ QC administration and systems planning†¢ Quality related training†¢ Inspection of incoming in process and final product†¢ Processes planning†¢ Design review†¢ Quality data analysis†¢ Procurement planning†¢ Market research†¢ Vendor surveys†¢ Reliability studies†¢ System development†¢ Quality m easurement and control equipment†¢ Product Qualification†¢ Qualification of material| †¢ Incoming Inspection†¢ Testing†¢ Inspection in process†¢ Quality audits†¢ Incoming test and laboratory tests†¢ Checking labor†¢ Laboratory or other measurement service†¢ Setup for test and inspection†¢ Test and inspection material†¢ Outside endorsements for certification†¢ Maintenance and calibration work†¢ Product reengineering review and shipping release†¢ Field testing†¢ Final testing| †¢ Rejections†¢ Scrap at full shop cost†¢ Failure analysis†¢ Scrap and rework, fault of vendor†¢ Material procurement†¢ Factory contact engineering†¢ Machine down†¢ QC investigations of failures†¢ Material review activity†¢ Repair and troubleshooting†¢ Excess inventory| †¢ Recall†¢ Complaints handling†¢ Goodwill loss†¢ Warranty costs†¢ Bad publicity†¢ Field maintenance and product service†¢ Returned material processing and repair†¢ Fall in market share†¢ Replacement inventories†¢ Low employees morale†¢ Strained distributor relation| References 1. Jones, Capers, Patterns of Software Systems Failure and Success, International Thompsom Computer Press, Boston, Mass. , 1996. 2. Crosby, P. , Quality Improvement Through Defect Prevention, Philip Crosby Assosiates, 1985. 3. Beecroft, G. Dennis, What is Your Quality Costing You? IIQP Newsletter, Winter 2000. 4. Campanella, Jack (Ed. ). Principles of Quality Costs (Third Edition). ASQ Quality Press: Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 1999. 219pp. 5. Harrington, H. J. , Poor Quality Costs, Mercel Dekker, Inc. , 1987. 6. Morse, Roth, and Poston, Measuring, Planning, and Controlling Quality Costs, National Association of Accountant, 1987.

George Washington And The Era Of The American Revolution

A Freemason is â€Å" a member of a major fraternal organization called Free and Accepted Masons or Ancient Free and Accepted Masons that has certain secret rituals†. George Washington was one of the American elites to join the Freemasonry society, their intentions weren t to better themselves but to mimic the â€Å"English gentill behavior†, even though the organization actually ending up contributed to the development of the American Revolution. Through the start of this organization George Washington and many of the American elites policies were influenced to what we know them to stand for today. As president he advocated for many policies that happened to be very heavily influenced by the Masons of the 18th century to which â€Å"adhered to liberal democratic principles that included religious toleration, loyalty to local government, and the importance of charity†. â€Å"The exact origin of Freemasonry is not known but the beginning of organized Freemasonry began with the founding of the Grand Lodge of England on June 24, 1717, the first Grand Lodge in the world†. There is not an exact known origin of Freemasonry but two main theories are evolved from this secret society. One begins with stonemasons, who built cathedrals and castles, in England that had secret lodges in which they discussed trade affairs, initiation ceremonies, trade union membership cards, and had secret signs and words to know if one were a â€Å"trained† mason moving from site to site. These lodges, in the 1600’s, soonShow MoreRelatedForeign Affairs And The Pursuit Of Liberty Essay1514 Words   |  7 Pagesdetrimental. At the start of the nation, George Washington led the country through times of both involvement and neutrality, eventually bidding his country a goodbye with his â€Å"Farwell Address,† in which he warned his fellow citizens to re main neutral if at all possible. As time goes by and the face of war has changes, Washington’s advice may have lost its relevance. In his time, Washington’s advice to remain neutral was a word of wisdom, but as new threats against American liberty arises, the United StatesRead MoreThe Revolutionary Era Took Place From 1763-17891374 Words   |  6 Pages The Revolutionary era took place from 1763-1789. In this era was the Continental Congress. 1774, Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia, address many grievances against British, called First Continental Congress, included George Washington and John Adams. 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