...and valleys." Japan has a fascinating and multifaceted culture; on the one hand it is steeped in the deepest of traditions dating back thousands of years; on the other it is a society in a continual state of rapid flux, with continually shifting fads and fashions and technological development that constantly pushes back the boudaries of the possible. It could therefore be said that Japan is a country of stark contradictions and is in part this that makes it such a fascinating country to visit and unique tourist destination. If you are looking for something different you are sure to find it here! People One people, one race? Japanese people appear at first glance to be one of the most socially and ethnically homogenous groups in the world. It is reasonable to equate Japan’s rapid post-war economic development to the 1990s with social solidarity and conformism. Despite labour shortages since the 1960s, authorities resisted officially sanctioning foreign workers until the 1980s, relying on increased mechanization and an expanded female workforce instead (1). Until recently, Japanese workers have associated themselves primarily with the company they work for – a businessman will introduce himself as ‘Nissan no Takahashi-san’ (I am Nissan’s Mr Takahashi). By extension, we might get the idea that a Japanese person subordinates the self to the objectives of society. In 2008, however, long-serving Japanese politician Nariaki Nakayama resigned after declaring that Japan is ‘ethnically...
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...Analyst, PaineWebber Ann Rhoades, vice president of people for Southwest Airlines, was packing her briefcase at the end of a 17-hour day. Tomorrow was an off-site meeting with the top nine executives of Southwest Airlines. The agenda for the meeting was to review Southwest’s competitive position in light of recent actions by United and Continental, both of whom had entered Southwest’s low fare market. That day’s New York Times (September 16, 1994) had an article that characterized the situation as a major showdown in airline industry: This is a battle royal that has implications for the industry, said Kevin C. Murphy, an airline stock analyst at Morgan Stanley. The battle will, after all, be as much a test of strategy as a contest between two airlines. United and other big carriers like USAir and Continental have decided that they can lower their costs by creating a so-called airline-within-an-airline that offers low fares, few flights, and frequent service. The new operations are unabashedly modeled after Southwest, the pioneer of this strategy and keeper of the healthiest balance sheet in the industry.2 The reasons for this competition were easy to understand. Over 45 percent of United’s revenues came from passengers who flew through its California hubs. As a market, the California corridor was the most heavily traveled in the United States, which had 80 percent more traffic than the Boston-New York-Washington corridor. Yet United’s share in this market had fallen...
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...Years Day is the first day of the year, January 1st. it is a celebration of the old year and the new one to come. People make New Years Resolutions each New Years and promise themselves that they will keep this resolution until next year. New Years Eve is a major social event. Clubs everywhere are packed with party-goers who stay out all night and go nuts at midnight. At midnight it is a tradition to make lots of noise. The traditional New Years Ball is dropped every year in Times Square in New York City at 12 o’clock. This event can be seen all over the world on television. Valentine’s Day Saint Valentine’s Day is a day that is set aside to promote the idea of “love”. It is celebrated on February 14th. People send greeting cards or gifts to loved one and friends to shoe them that they care. Easter Easter is a major Christian holiday that commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is celebrated on Sunday between March 22 and April 25. The 40 days leading up to Easter are observed as Lent. Besides the religious aspects of Easter, people also celebrate spring or the sign of the new life. Flowers are seen everywhere. There are often Easter Parades such as the one in New York City where people dress up in their new spring clothes. Children receive Easter baskets filled with candy Easter eggs, chocolate bunnies and jelly beans! The dying of egg with food color is also an Easter tradition in many American families Memorial Day Memorial Day is a legal holiday that takes...
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...there. The Igorot culture that I like to share is about our practices and beliefs during the "time of Death". Death is part of the cycle of life. Igorots practice this part of life cycle with a great meaning and importance. Before the advent of Christianity in the Igorotlandia, the Igorots or the people of the Cordilleran region in the Philippines were animist or pagans. Our reverence or the importance of giving honor to our ancestors is a part of our daily activities. We consider our ancestors still to be with us, only that they exist in another world or dimension. Whenever we have some special feasts (e.g., occasions during death, wedding, family gathering, etc.), when we undertake something special (like going somewhere to look for a job or during thanksgiving), we perform some special offer. We call this "Menpalti/ Menkanyaw", an act of butchering and offering animals. During these times we call them in our prayers to join us in spirit. We do this also to ask for help and/or ask for guidance, etc. The prayers are usually performed by an elderly person of the town (called "pangamaen" for a man and "Panginaen" for a woman; however an elderly man has preference to be "the prayer renderer" when we have the choice). By the way and to reiterate, our practices of revering are not a form of...
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...For six years, Kingdom Hearts fans have been waiting for the release of the third game in the series. And while the wait has been agonizing, Tetsuya Nomura has kept a steady stream of spin-offs and side stories coming in order to flesh out the history of this series. But in expanding upon the relatively simple stories of Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, things began to grow more and more complicated. Now, with six games in total making up the series, the plot is a near-labyrinthine mess of connections and revelations. It's confusing for long-time fans and near impenetrable for newcomers. In mere weeks, Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance will be releasing on the 3DS and promises, according to Nomura, to lead directly into Kingdom Hearts 3. It's with that in mind that I have decided to unravel the plot of the entire series for those who may have missed the opportunity to play some of the spin-offs and those who just want a refresher before diving into the new game. I have also attempted to make this as inviting as I can for newcomers to the series who decide that they want to start with Dream Drop Distance. Be warned though that this timeline will spoil everything in the series so if you want to go in fresh, then it's probably a good idea to refer to this timeline later. With that introduction out of the way, let's begin… ------------------------------------------------- KINGDOM HEARTS: BIRTH BY SLEEP The story begins with a young boy named Ventus and an old man named Xehanort arriving...
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...Begin Reading Table of Contents Copyright Page For Charlotte—why we got together —D.H. + M.K. In a sec you’ll hear a thunk. At your front door, the one nobody uses. It’ll rattle the hinges a bit when it lands, because it’s so weighty and important, a little jangle along with the thunk, and Joan will look up from whatever she’s cooking. She will look down in her saucepan, worried that if she goes to see what it is it’ll boil over. I can see her frown in the reflection of the bubbly sauce or whatnot. But she’ll go, she’ll go and see. You won’t, Ed. You wouldn’t. You’re upstairs probably, sweaty and alone. You should be taking a shower, but you’re heartbroken on the bed, I hope, so it’s your sister, Joan, who will open the door even though the thunk’s for you. You won’t even know or hear what’s being dumped at your door. You won’t even know why it even happened. It’s a beautiful day, sunny and whatnot. The sort of day when you think everything will be all right, etc. Not the right day for this, not for us, who went out when it rains, from October 5 until November 12. But it’s December now, and the sky is bright, and it’s clear to me. I’m telling you why we broke up, Ed. I’m writing it in this letter, the whole truth of why it happened. And the truth is that I goddamn loved you so much. The thunk is the box, Ed. This is what I am leaving you. I found it down in the basement, just grabbed the box when all of our things were too much for my bed stand drawer. Plus I thought...
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... “The desire to seek answers and to predict the future is as old as civilization itself.” Mankind has always had a desire to know what the future holds. Evidence shows that methods of divination, also known as fortune telling, were used by the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Babylonians and the Sumerians (who resided in what is now Iraq) as early as six‐thousand years ago. Divination was originally a device of royalty and has often been an essential part of religion and medicine. Significant leaders and royalty often employed priests, doctors, soothsayers and astrologers as advisers and consultants on what the future held. Every civilization has held a belief in at least some type of divination. The point of divination in the ancient world was to ascertain the will of the gods. In fact, divination is so called because it is assumed to be a gift of the divine, a gift from the gods. This gift of obtaining knowledge of the unknown uses a wide range of tools and an enormous variety of techniques, as we will see in this course. No matter which method is used, the most imperative aspect is the interpretation and presentation of what is seen. The general consensus is that divination falls into three categories: interpretation of natural phenomena, (known as augury and includes such things as water, flight of a bird, shape of a flame, cloud formations,...
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...FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING BIOGRAPHIES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND ALBERT EINSTEIN, THIS IS THE EXCLUSIVE BIOGRAPHY OF STEVE JOBS. Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing offlimits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and...
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...Population 200 “Now, two hundred and one,” I murmured as I passed the painted wooden sign in my trusty red Jeep. Small towns like Red Grove always made me think of horror movies as if a gap-toothed, overall-wearing butcher might hobble out of his deep woods shanty, pitchfork in hand, at any moment. The town had an off the charts creepy factor. On my right, a dark forest worthy of the Brothers Grimm. On my left, a cemetery edged in a weathered wrought iron fence. I think there were more than two hundred headstones. More dead than living. Nice. There must be some mistake. I came here to start over. Could a new life be hiding behind the unappealing rural exterior? My promised house remained a mystery. I double-checked the notebook with my father’s scrawled directions resting on the passenger’s seat next to me. Technically, I’d lived in Red Grove as a child, but we’d moved before I turned two. I didn’t remember the town at all or the residents, living or dead. I shifted my attention back to my driving. “Holy shit!” I proclaimed as I overcorrected the wheel, and my foot drifted from the gas. The man on the side of the road was so attractive I could’ve died—literally. He was planting something. A tree, I think. Every time his shovel hit the dirt, a ripple coursed through his shoulders and down his stomach. I raised an eyebrow at the glint of sun on tanned, shirtless skin. Dark hair, low slung jeans. I tried not to gawk, but the best I could do was to keep my head inside the...
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...The World is Flat Thomas L Friedman Kq p K To Matt and Kay and to Ron Kq p K Contents How the World Became Flat One: While I Was Sleeping / 3 Two: The Ten Forces That Flattened the World / 48 Flattener#l. 11/9/89 Flattener #2. 8/9/95 Flattener #3. Work Flow Software Flattener #4. Open-Sourcing Flattener #5. Outsourcing Flattener #6. Offshoring Flattener #7. Supply-Chaining Flattener #8. Insourcing Flattener #9. In-forming Flattener #10. The Steroids Three: The Triple Convergence / 173 Four: The Great Sorting Out / 201 America and the Flat World Five: America and Free Trade / 225 Six: The Untouchables / 237 Seven: The Quiet Crisis / 250 Eight: This Is Not a Test / 276 Developing Countries and the Flat World Nine: The Virgin of Guadalupe / 309 Companies and the Flat World Geopolitics and the Flat World Eleven: The Unflat World / 371 Twelve: The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention / 414 Conclusion: Imagination Thirteen: 11/9 Versus 9/11 / 441 Acknowledgments I 471 Index I 475 Kq p K :::::How the World Became Flat ::::: ONE While I Was Sleeping Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians, and princes who love and promote the holy Christian faith, and are enemies of the doctrine of Mahomet, and of all idolatry and heresy, determined to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the above-mentioned countries of India, to see the said princes, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition and the proper method of converting them to our...
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...Princeton university Press, 41 William street, Princeton, new Jersey 08540 in the united kingdom: Princeton university Press, 6 oxford street, Woodstock, oxfordshire OX20 1TW press.princeton.edu all rights reserved library of congress cataloging-in-Publication data Bruckner, Pascal. [tyrannie de la pénitence. english] The tyranny of guilt: an essay on Western masochism / Pascal Bruckner; translated from the French by steven rendall. p. cm. includes index. isBn 978-0-691-14376-7 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. civilization, Western— 20th century. 2. civilization, Western—21st century. 3. international relations—Moral and ethical aspects. 4. Western countries—Foreign relations. 5. Western countries—intellectual life. 6. Guilt 7. self-hate (Psychology) 8. World politics. i. title. CB245.B7613 2010 909’.09821--dc22 2009032666 British library cataloging-in-Publication data is available cet ouvrage, publié dans le cadre d’un programme d’aide à la publication, bénéficie du soutien du Ministère des affaires étrangères et du service culturel de l’ambassade de France aux etats-unis. This work, published as part of a program of aid for publication, received support from the French Ministry of Foreign affairs and the cultural services of the French embassy in the united states. This book has been composed in Minion Pro Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the united states of america 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For...
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...Bloodlines of Illuminati by: Fritz Springmeier, 1995 Introduction: I am pleased & honored to present this book to those in the world who love the truth. This is a book for lovers of the Truth. This is a book for those who are already familiar with my past writings. An Illuminati Grand Master once said that the world is a stage and we are all actors. Of course this was not an original thought, but it certainly is a way of describing the Illuminati view of how the world works. The people of the world are an audience to which the Illuminati entertain with propaganda. Just one of the thousands of recent examples of this type of acting done for the public was President Bill Clinton’s 1995 State of the Union address. The speech was designed to push all of the warm fuzzy buttons of his listening audience that he could. All the green lights for acceptance were systematically pushed by the President’s speech with the help of a controlled congressional audience. The truth on the other hand doesn’t always tickle the ear and warm the ego of its listeners. The light of truth in this book will be too bright for some people who will want to return to the safe comfort of their darkness. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I deal with real facts, not theory. Some of the people I write about, I have met. Some of the people I expose are alive and very dangerous. The darkness has never liked the light. Yet, many of the secrets of the Illuminati are locked up tightly simply because secrecy is a way...
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...Until I Die ONE I LEAPT, DRAWING MY FEET UP BENEATH ME, AS the seven-foot quarterstaff smashed into the flagstones where I had been standing a half second before. Landing in a crouch, I sprang back up, groaning with the effort, and swung my own weapon over my head. Sweat dripped into my eye, blinding me for one stinging second before my reflexes took over and forced me into motion. A shaft of light from a window far overhead illuminated the oaken staff as I arced it down toward my enemy’s legs. He swept sideways, sending my weapon flying through the air. It crashed with a wooden clang against the stone wall behind me. Defenseless, I scrambled for a sword that lay a few feet away. But before I could grab it, I was snatched off my feet in a powerful grasp and crushed against my assailant’s chest. He held me a few inches off the ground as I kicked and flailed, adrenaline pumping like quicksilver through my body. “Don’t be such a sore loser, Kate,” chided Vincent. Leaning forward, he gave me a firm kiss on the lips. The fact that he was shirtless was quickly eroding my hard-won concentration. And the warmth from his bare chest and arms was turning my fight-tensed muscles to buttery goo. Struggling to maintain my resolve, I growled, “That is totally cheating,” and managed to work my hand free enough to punch him in the arm. “Now let me go.” “If you promise not to kick or bite.” He laughed and set me on the ground. Sea blue eyes flashed with humor from under the waves of black...
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.../* /*]]*/ THE AWAKENING Vampire Diaries Volume 1 By Lisa J. Smith Contents Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter ThreeChapter Four Chapter FiveChapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter NineChapter Ten Chapter ElevenChapter Twelve Chapter ThirteenChapter Fourteen Chapter FifteenChapter Sixteen "Are you having a good time?" Elena asked. I am now. Stefan didn't say it, but Elena knew it was what he was thinking. She could see it in the way he stared at her. She had never been so sure of her power. Except that actually he didn't look as if he were having a good time; he looked stricken, in pain, as if he couldn't take one more minute of this. The band was starting up, a slow dance. He was still staring at her, drinking her in. Those green eyes darkening, going black with desire. She had the sudden feeling that he might jerk her to him and kiss her hard, without ever saying a word. "Would you like to dance?" she said softly. I'm playing with fire, with something I don't understand, she thought suddenly. And in that instant she realized that she was frightened. Her heart began to pound violently. It was as if those green eyes spoke to some part of her that was buried deep beneath the surface—and that part was screaming "danger" at her. Some instinct older than civilization was telling her to run, to flee. She didn't move. Don't miss these exciting books from HarperPaperbacks! THE VAMPIRE DIARIES: A TRILOGY L. J. Smith Volume I The Awakening Volume II The Struggle Volume...
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...VOLUME EDITOR S. WALLER is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Montana State University Bozeman. Her areas of research are philosophy of neurology, philosophy of cognitive ethology (especially dolphins, wolves, and coyotes), and philosophy of mind, specifically the parts of the mind we disavow. SERIES EDITOR FRITZ ALLHOFF is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Western Michigan University, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. In addition to editing the Philosophy for Everyone series, Allhoff is the volume editor or co-editor for several titles, including Wine & Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), Whiskey & Philosophy (with Marcus P. Adams, Wiley, 2009), and Food & Philosophy (with Dave Monroe,Wiley-Blackwell, 2007). P H I L O S O P H Y F O R E V E RYO N E Series editor: Fritz Allhoff Not so much a subject matter, philosophy is a way of thinking.Thinking not just about the Big Questions, but about little ones too.This series invites everyone to ponder things they care about, big or small, significant, serious … or just curious. Running & Philosophy: A Marathon for the Mind Edited by Michael W. Austin Wine & Philosophy: A Symposium on Thinking and Drinking Edited by Fritz Allhoff Food & Philosophy: Eat,Think and Be Merry Edited by Fritz Allhoff and Dave Monroe Beer & Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn’t Worth Drinking Edited by Steven D. Hales Whiskey & Philosophy:...
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