Protecting Healthcare Fraud And Abuse - 1509 Words

Title II of HIPAA covers two main areas: preventing healthcare fraud and abuse, and a broad series of rules under the framework of administrative simplification. The first area is not of significant interest to most healthcare workers. It defines numerous offenses relating to healthcare, and authorizes several programs to attempt to find and control fraud and abuse. Nurses should be aware of the proper procedures for reporting fraud and abuse at their facility. The second portion of Title II—administrative simplification—however, contains five separate rules, most of which have already had a significant impact on virtually everyone working in American health care, including all those working in any way with health information concerning†¦show more content†¦The Final Rule now requires Business Associates to enter into business associate agreements with subcontractors who will receive, create, or transmit PHI on their behalf. The Final Rule also broadens the def inition of Business Associate to include, in addition to those entities that would qualify as business associates under the preexisting regulations, the following entities: A Health Information Organization, E-prescribing Gateway, or other person that provides data transmission services with respect to protected health information to a covered entity that requires routine access to such protected health information. A person who offers a personal health record to one or more individuals on behalf of a covered entity. ( KRYSTAL CAROL 2017) Privacy Rule First is the privacy rule, which is meant to guard the confidentiality of all protected health information. This is defined as any information that includes the patient’s name or other identifiers, such as a birth date or medical record number. Protected health information can be data that is written, spoken, or in electronic form. The privacy rule came about because many healthcare workers have been far too willing to talk casually about their patients without thinking how this violates their confidentiality, The Final Rule modifies the Privacy Rule to extend direct liability for disclosures of PHI by business associates. However, the rule does not subjectShow MoreRelatedMedicare Fraud Essay988 Words   |  4 Pagesand the Department of Justice work to reduce healthcare fraud and investigate dishonest providers and suppliers. The Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team recouped almost 3 billion in fraud, this year alone. Also, aggressive strategies exist t o eliminate Medicare prescription fraud. Patients abusing or selling painkillers received by visiting several doctors and obtaining multiple prescriptions costs Medicare millions annually. Fraud affects everyone, preventing it requires governmentRead MoreHealthcare Fraud and Abuse1065 Words   |  5 PagesHealthcare Fraud and Abuse As we head into the next four years under the Obama administration, many Americans are hearing more and more about healthcare reform and what needs to be done to fix the ailing healthcare system. Part of the dramatic increase in healthcare costs is due to Medicare fraud abuse. Healthcare fraud is defined as making false statements or representations of material facts in order to obtain benefits or payment. Healthcare abuse is defined as practices involving the overuseRead MoreFraud, Abuse, and Waste1211 Words   |  5 Pages Fraud, Abuse, and Waste in the US Healthcare System Tony Hackman University of Phoenix Financial Management in Health Care HCS/577 Adam Craft August 01, 2010 Fraud, Abuse, and Waste in the US Healthcare System Healthcare insurance costs have risen at the average rate of three percent over the inflation rate for the past 10 years. As a result, the government is spending a larger percentage of GDP on healthcare for Americans. One of the reasons for this increase in the overall cost forRead MoreHealthcare Fraud : The Affordable Care Act1610 Words   |  7 Pagesand Medicaid fraud has some strengths as well as weaknesses. A strength that comes with healthcare fraud is The Affordable Care Act. This act helps to fight health care fraud, abuse and waste (Department of Human Services, 2014). Many laws have been implemented to help commit those people that have been committing Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Per the Center of Medicare and Medicaid services website â€Å"The Affordable Care Act increases the federal sentencing guidelines for health care fraud offenses byRead MoreHealth Care Fraud Enforcement Arsenal1509 Words   |  7 Pagesissue that many healthcare administrators seem to m iss these days is what is currently happening behind the scenes when their hospital’s doctors are filing claims. This issue is very important to address considering your healthcare staff could be filing claims illegally to the Center for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS), and be subjected to the False Claims Act (FCA). Administrators need to make sure claims are filed correctly and not for the benefit of the doctors own pocket. Healthcare providers needRead MoreThe Health Insurance Portability And Accountability Act Of 1996 ( Hipaa )1686 Words   |  7 PagesAttempts to stop fraud were enhanced under Public Law 104-191, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The purpose was to improve the Medicare program under title XVIII of the Social Security Act, the Medicaid program under title XIX of such Act, and the efficiency and effectiveness of the health care system. This public law encouraged the development of a health information system through stan dards and requirements for the electronic transmission of certain healthRead MoreHealth Care and New Reform Act854 Words   |  4 Pageswill be a stepping stone in the right direction for the economy and the people and protecting their rights. Elections are just a month and a half away and Obamacare is still a highly heated debate. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), or what everyone has dubbed as Obamacare is a law that passed on June 28, 2012 to help reform healthcare. The law was introduced to provide affordable medical healthcare for everyone. The reform act doesn’t take away the State’s rights either, it instillsRead MoreTrends Shaping the Healthcare Industry Essay1391 Words   |  6 Pageshospital ER rooms for immediate care. If the cost sharing increased dramatically, then employees whom have been with their jobs because of the benefits would either retire or leave and go somewhere else for better coverage. This situation could worsen healthcare employer to have workforce shortages. 1 Uninsured The uninsured is certainly a growing concern in the world today. In 1997, 43.4 million Americans were uninsured. This consisted of 16.8% who were employed full- time and 24.1% employedRead MoreCase Study : New Healthcare Security Systems1350 Words   |  6 PagesThere are several companies around that have created new healthcare security systems. A company that I recently researched is General Dynamics IT, with a product called STARSSolutions Suite. The STARSSolution Suite product applies to healthcare fraud, waste and abuse (FWA). FWA is a continuing concern in healthcare because of the large quantity of money that is claimed yearly. This product contains four key solutions that would assist a healthcare provider including STARSInterceptor, STARSSentinel, STARSInformantRead MoreImportant Health Information Between Facilities1715 Words   |  7 Pages During the ever changing world in healthcare today, there needed to be a better way to communicate important health informat ion between facilities. A program through HITECH was developed for the Department of Health and Human Services to provide and institute plans to increase health care quality, safety, and efficiency through the improvement of health information technology (HIT), including electronic health records and private and secure electronic health information exchange. During the

Short Story - 823 Words

â€Å"Sammy, I’m fine,† I said, grabbing my wallet, jacket, and keys from my car. â€Å"I’m going to spend an hour at a bar then I’ll get back to you on it.† â€Å"What bar?† â€Å"Stop it, Sam.† I hung up, and put my phone in my back pocket. I put my wallet away. I clipped my keys to one of my belt loops, put on my jacket, and went inside. My jaw immediately dropped. â€Å"Fantastic,† I said. Dean. On the stage. Doing karaoke to I’m Too Sexy by Right Said Fred. I glanced around, then went right back to something. I walked over. I put my arm on Crowley’s shoulder, and he looked at me. â€Å"Can I talk to you for a minute?† I smiled sarcastically. â€Å"Gentlemen,† Crowley said, getting up. I dragged him outside and shoved him against the wall. â€Å"Kinky.† I punched†¦show more content†¦With a straight face, too. â€Å"My brother would never do this,† I told him. â€Å"No. Probably not.† Dean shook his head. He took my keys and tossed them to Crowley. â€Å"Take her car to the motel. I’ll drive her back.† Dean demanded. â€Å"You’re keeping the car?† Crowley asked. â€Å"What? It’s a nice car. We might need it.† Dean put me in the backseat of his car. He started driving. â€Å"Why are you doing this?† I asked. He looked at me in the rearview mirror, being silent. â€Å"Dean.† â€Å"Because you’re an annoying bitch, that’s why.† â€Å"Don’t lie to me. And don’t call me a bitch.† Dean ignored me. Silence for about ten minutes. We pulled up to a motel. â€Å"Stay. If you run, I’ll find you.† Dean told me, getting out. He walked to the office. I climbed over into the passenger’s seat. I opened the door, then grabbed a paper clip from the glove compartment. A glance up at the office. I got myself out of the cuffs, left them in the car, and started walking away. I walked down the street on the sidewalk, keeping an eye out for a blue 1974 Corvette. DEAN’S POV I thanked the clerk and walked back outside. The passenger’s door was wide open, cuffs on the seat. And no Ally. My phone rang. â€Å"Crowley,† I said, glancing around. â€Å"You lost something.† â€Å"I noticed. Where is she?† â€Å"I saw her on†¦ North Road.† I hung up. I got back in my car and drove. ALESSANDRA’S POV I ignored everything and kept walking. After about five more minutes of this, I heard a car door closeShow MoreRelatedshort story1018 Words   |  5 Pagesï » ¿Short Stories:  Ã‚  Characteristics †¢Short  - Can usually be read in one sitting. †¢Concise:  Ã‚  Information offered in the story is relevant to the tale being told.  Ã‚  This is unlike a novel, where the story can diverge from the main plot †¢Usually tries to leave behind a  single impression  or effect.  Ã‚  Usually, though not always built around one character, place, idea, or act. †¢Because they are concise, writers depend on the reader bringing  personal experiences  and  prior knowledge  to the story. Four MajorRead MoreThe Short Stories Ideas For Writing A Short Story Essay1097 Words   |  5 Pageswriting a short story. Many a time, writers run out of these short story ideas upon exhausting their sources of short story ideas. If you are one of these writers, who have run out of short story ideas, and the deadline you have for coming up with a short story is running out, the short story writing prompts below will surely help you. Additionally, if you are being tormented by the blank Microsoft Word document staring at you because you are not able to come up with the best short story idea, youRead MoreShort Story1804 Words   |  8 PagesShort story: Definition and History. A  short story  like any other term does not have only one definition, it has many definitions, but all of them are similar in a general idea. According to The World Book Encyclopedia (1994, Vol. 12, L-354), â€Å"the short story is a short work of fiction that usually centers around a single incident. Because of its shorter length, the characters and situations are fewer and less complicated than those of a novel.† In the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s DictionaryRead MoreShort Stories648 Words   |  3 Pageswhat the title to the short story is. The short story theme I am going conduct on is â€Å"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ by James Thurber (1973). In this short story the literary elements being used is plot and symbols and the theme being full of distractions and disruption. The narrator is giving a third person point of view in sharing the thoughts of the characters. Walter Mitty the daydreamer is very humorous in the different plots of his dr ifting off. In the start of the story the plot, symbols,Read MoreShort Stories1125 Words   |  5 PagesThe themes of short stories are often relevant to real life? To what extent do you agree with this view? In the short stories â€Å"Miss Brill† and â€Å"Frau Brechenmacher attends a wedding† written by Katherine Mansfield, the themes which are relevant to real life in Miss Brill are isolation and appearance versus reality. Likewise Frau Brechenmacher suffers through isolation throughout the story and also male dominance is one of the major themes that are highlighted in the story. These themes areRead MoreShort Story and People1473 Words   |  6 Pagesï » ¿Title: Story Of An Hour Author: Kate Chopin I. On The Elements / Literary Concepts The short story Story Of An Hour is all about the series of emotions that the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard showed to the readers. With the kind of plot of this short story, it actually refers to the moments that Mrs. Mallard knew that all this time, her husband was alive. For the symbol, I like the title of this short story because it actually symbolizes the time where Mrs. Mallard died with joy. And with thatRead MoreShort Story Essay1294 Words   |  6 PagesA short story concentrates on creating a single dynamic effect and is limited in character and situation. It is a language of maximum yet economical effect. Every word must do a job, sometimes several jobs. Short stories are filled with numerous language and sound devices. These language and sound devices create a stronger image of the scenario or the characters within the text, which contribute to the overall pre-designed effect.As it is shown in the metaphor lipstick bleeding gently in CinnamonRead MoreRacism in the Short Stor ies1837 Words   |  7 PagesOften we read stories that tell stories of mixing the grouping may not always be what is legal or what people consider moral at the time. The things that you can learn from someone who is not like you is amazing if people took the time to consider this before judging someone the world as we know it would be a completely different place. The notion to overlook someone because they are not the same race, gender, creed, religion seems to be the way of the world for a long time. Racism is so prevalentRead MoreThe Idol Short Story1728 Words   |  7 PagesThe short stories â€Å"The Idol† by Adolfo Bioy Casares and â€Å"Axolotl† by Julio Cortà ¡zar address the notion of obsession, and the resulting harm that can come from it. Like all addictions, obsession makes one feel overwhelmed, as a single thought comes to continuously intruding our mind, causing the individual to not be able to ignore these thoughts. In â€Å"Axolotl†, the narr ator is drawn upon the axolotls at the Jardin des Plantes aquarium and his fascination towards the axolotls becomes an obsession. InRead MoreGothic Short Story1447 Words   |  6 Pages The End. In the short story, â€Å"Emma Barrett,† the reader follows a search party group searching for a missing girl named Emma deep in a forest in Oregon. The story follows through first person narration by a group member named Holden. This story would be considered a gothic short story because of its use of setting, theme, symbolism, and literary devices used to portray the horror of a missing six-year-old girl. Plot is the literal chronological development of the story, the sequence of events

Black House Chapter Twenty-six Free Essays

string(39) " The head switches back the other way\." 26 WE HAVE HAD our little conversation about slippage, and it’s too late in the game to belabor the point more than a little, but wouldn’t you say that most houses are an attempt to hold slippage back? To impose at least the illusion of normality and sanity on the world? Think of Libertyville, with its corny but endearing street names Camelot and Avalon and Maid Marian Way. And think of that sweet little honey of a home in Libertyville where Fred, Judy, and Tyler Marshall once lived together. What else would you call 16 Robin Hood Lane but an ode to the everyday, a paean to the prosaic? We could say the same thing about Dale Gilbertson’s home, or Jack’s, or Henry’s, couldn’t we? Most of the homes in the vicinity of French Landing, really. We will write a custom essay sample on Black House Chapter Twenty-six or any similar topic only for you Order Now The destructive hurricane that has blown through the town doesn’t change the fact that the homes stand as brave bulwarks against slippage, as noble as they are humble. They are places of sanity. Black House like Shirley Jackson’s Hill House, like the turn-of-the-century monstrosity in Seattle known as Rose Red is not sane. It is not entirely of this world. It’s hard to look at from the outside the eyes play continual tricks but if one can hold it steady for a few seconds, one sees a three-story dwelling of perfectly ordinary size. The color is unusual, yes that dead black exterior, even the windows swabbed black and it has a crouching, leaning aspect that would raise uneasy thoughts about its structural integrity, but if one could appraise it with the glammer of those other worlds stripped away, it would look almost as ordinary as Fred and Judy’s place . . . if not so well maintained. Inside, however, it is different. Inside, Black House is large. Black House is, in fact, almost infinite. Certainly it is no place to get lost, although from time to time people have hoboes and the occasional unfortunate runaway child, as well as Charles Burnside/Carl Bierstone’s victims and relics here and there mark their passing: bits of clothing, pitiful scratchings on the walls of gigantic rooms with strange dimensions, the occasional heap of bones. Here and there the visitor may see a skull, such as the ones that washed up on the banks of the Hanover River during Fritz Haarman’s reign of terror in the early 1920s. This is not a place where you want to get lost. Let us pass through rooms and nooks and corridors and crannies, safe in the knowledge that we can return to the outside world, the sane anti-slippage world, anytime we want (and yet we are still uneasy as we pass down flights of stairs that seem all but endless and along corridors that dwindle to a point in the distance). We hear an eternal low humming and the faint clash of weird machinery. We hear the idiot whistle of a constant wind either outside or on the floors above and below us. Sometimes we hear a faint, houndly barking that is undoubtedly the abbalah’s devil dog, the one that did for poor old Mouse. Sometimes we hear the sardonic caw of a crow and understand that Gorg is here, too somewhere. We pass through rooms of ruin and rooms that are still furnished with a pale and rotten grandeur. Many of these are surely bigger than the whole house in which they hide. And eventually we come to a humble sitting room furnished with an elderly horsehair sofa and chairs of fading red velvet. There is a smell of noisome cooking in the air. (Somewhere close by is a kitchen we must never visit . . . not, that is, if we ever wish to sleep without nightmares again.) The electrical fixtures in here are at least seventy years old. How can that be, we ask, if Black House was built in the 1970s? The answer is simple: much of Black House most of Black House has been here much longer. The draperies in this room are heavy and faded. Except for the yellowed news clippings that have been taped to the ugly green wallpaper, it is a room that would not be out of place on the ground floor of the Nelson Hotel. It’s a place that is simultaneously sinister and oddly banal, a fitting mirror for t he imagination of the old monster who has gone to earth here, who lies sleeping on the horsehair sofa with the front of his shirt turning a sinister red. Black House is not his, although in his pathological grandiosity he believes differently (and Mr. Munshun has not disabused him of this belief ). This one room, however, is. The clippings around him tell us all we need to know of Charles â€Å"Chummy† Burnside’s lethal fascinations. YES, I ATE HER, FISH DECLARES: New York Herald Tribune BILLY GAFFNEY PLAYMATE AVERS â€Å"IT WAS THE GRAY MAN TOOK BILLY, IT WAS THE BOGEYMAN†: New York World Telegram GRACE BUDD HORROR CONTINUES: FISH CONFESSES!: Long Island Star FISH ADMITS â€Å"ROASTING, EATING† WM GAFFNEY: New York American FRITZ HAARMAN, SO-CALLED â€Å"BUTCHER OF HANOVER,† EXECUTED FOR MURDER OF 24: New York World WEREWOLF DECLARES: â€Å"I WAS DRIVEN BY LOVE, NOT LUST.† HAARMAN DIES UNREPENTANT: The Guardian CANNIBAL OF HANOVER’S LAST LETTER: â€Å"YOU CANNOT KILL ME, I SHALL BE AMONG YOU FOR ETERNITY†: New York World Wendell Green would love this stuff, would he not? And there are more. God help us, there are so many more. Even Jeffrey Dahmer is here, declaring I WANTED ZOMBIES. The figure on the couch begins to groan and stir. â€Å"Way-gup, Burny!† This seems to come from thin air, not his mouth . . . although his lips move, like those of a second-rate ventriloquist. Burny groans. His head turns to the left. â€Å"No . . . need to sleep. Everything . . . hurts.† The head turns to the right in a gesture of negation and Mr. Munshun speaks again. â€Å"Way-gup, dey vill be gummink. You must move der buu-uoy.† The head switches back the other way. Sleeping, Burny thinks Mr. Munshun is still safe inside his head. He has forgotten things are different here in Black House. Foolish Burny, now nearing the end of his usefulness! But not quite there yet. â€Å"Can’t . . . lea’ me ‘lone . . . stomach hurts . . . the blind man . . . fucking blind man hurt my stomach . . .† But the head turns back the other way and the voice speaks again from the air beside Burny’s right ear. Burny fights it, not wanting to wake and face the full ferocious impact of the pain. The blind man has hurt him much worse than he thought at the time, in the heat of the moment. Burny insists to the nagging voice that the boy is safe where he is, that they’ll never find him even if they can gain access to Black House, that they will become lost in its unknown depth of rooms and hallways and wander until they first go mad and then die. Mr. Munshun, however, knows that one of them is different from any of the others who have happened on this place. Jack Sawyer is acquainted with the infinite, and that makes him a problem. The boy must be taken out the back way and into End-World, into the very shadow of Din-tah, the great furnace. Mr. Munshun tells Burny that he may still be able to have some of the boy before turning him over to the abbalah, but not here. Too dangerou s. Sorry. Burny continues to protest, but this is a battle he will not win, and we know it. Already the stale, cooked-meat air of the room has begun to shift and swirl as the owner of the voice arrives. We see first a whirlpool of black, then a splotch of red an ascot and then the beginnings of an impossibly long white face, which is dominated by a single black shark’s eye. This is the real Mr. Munshun, the creature who can only live in Burny’s head outside of Black House and its enchanted environs. Soon he will be entirely here, he will pull Burny into wakefulness (torture him into wakefulness, if necessary), and he will put Burny to use while there is still use to be gotten from him. For Mr. Munshun cannot move Ty from his cell in the Black House. Once he is in End-World Burny’s Sheol things will be different. At last Burny’s eyes open. His gnarled hands, which have spilled so much blood, now reach down to feel the dampness of his own blood seeping through his shirt. He looks, sees what has bloomed there, and lets out a scream of horror and cowardice. It does not strike him as just that, after murdering so many children, he should have been mortally wounded by a blind man; it strikes him as hideous, unfair. For the first time he is visited by an extremely unpleasant idea: What if there’s more to pay for the things he has done over the course of his long career? He has seen End-World; he has seen Conger Road, which winds through it to Din-tah. The blasted, burning landscape surrounding Conger Road is like hell, and surely An-tak, the Big Combination, is hell itself. What if such a place waits for him? What if There’s a horrible, paralyzing pain in his guts. Mr. Munshun, now almost fully materialized, has reached out and twisted one smoky, not-quite-transparent hand in the wound Henry inflicted with his switchblade knife. Burny squeals. Tears run down the old child-murderer’s cheeks. â€Å"Don’t hurt me!† â€Å"Zen do ass I zay.† â€Å"I can’t,† Burny snivels. â€Å"I’m dying. Look at all the blood! Do you think I can get past something like this? I’m eighty-five fucking years old!† â€Å"Duff brayyg, Burn-Burn . . . but dere are zose on z’osser zide who could hill you off your wunds.† Mr. Munshun, like Black House itself, is hard to look at. He shivers in and out of focus. Sometimes that hideously long face (it obscures most of his body, like the bloated head of a caricature on some newspaper’s op-ed page) has two eyes, sometimes just one. Sometimes there seem to be tufted snarls of orange hair leaping up from his distended skull, and sometimes Mr. Munshun appears to be as bald as Yul Brynner. Only the red lips and the fangy pointed teeth that lurk inside them remain fairly constant. Burny eyes his accomplice with a degree of hope. His hands, meanwhile, continue to explore his stomach, which is now hard and bloated with lumps. He suspects the lumps are clots. Oh, that someone should have hurt him so badly! That wasn’t supposed to happen! That was never supposed to happen! He was supposed to be protected! He was supposed to â€Å"It iss not even peeyond ze realm of bossibility,† Mr. Munshun says, â€Å"zat ze yearz could be rawled avey vrum you jusst as ze stunn vas rawled avey from ze mouse of Cheezus Chrizze’s doom.† â€Å"To be young again,† Burny says, and exhales a low, harsh sigh. His breath stinks of blood and spoilage. â€Å"Yes, I’d like that.† â€Å"Of gorse! And soch zings are bossible,† Mr. Munshun says, nodding his grotesquely unstable face. â€Å"Soch gifts are ze abbalah’s to giff. But zey are not bromised, Charles, my liddle munching munchkin. But I can make you one bromise.† The creature in the black evening suit and red ascot leaps forward with dreadful agility. His long-fingered hand darts again into Chummy Burnside’s shirt, this time clenches into a fist, and produces a pain beyond any the old monster has ever dreamed of in his own life . . . although he has inflicted this and more on the innocent. Mr. Munshun’s reeking countenance pushes up to Burny’s. The single eye glares. â€Å"Do you feel dat, Burny? Do you, you mizz-er-a-ble old bag of dirt and zorrow? Ho-ho, ha-ha, of gorse you do! It iss your in-destines I haff in my hand! Und if you do not mooff now, schweinhund, I vill rip dem from your bledding body, ho-ho, ha-ha, und vrap dem arund your neg! You vill die knowing you are choking on your own gudz! A trick I learned from Fritz himzelf, Fritz Haarman, who vas so yunk und loff-ly! Now! Vat do you say? Vill you brink him, or vill you choke?† â€Å"I’ll bring him!† Burny screams. â€Å"I’ll bring him, only stop, stop, you’re tearing me apart!† â€Å"Brink him to ze station. Ze station, Burn-Burn. Dis one iz nodd for ze radhulls, de fogzhulls not for ze Com-bin-ay-shun. No bledding foodzies for Dyler; he works for his abbalah vid dis.† A long finger tipped with a brutal black nail goes to the huge forehead and taps it above the eyes (for the moment Burny sees two of them, and then the second is once more gone). â€Å"Understand?† â€Å"Yes! Yes!† His guts are on fire. And still the hand in his shirt twists and twists. The terrible highway of Mr. Munshun’s face hangs before him. â€Å"Ze station where you brought the other sbecial ones.† â€Å"YES!† Mr. Munshun lets go. He steps back. Mercifully for Burny, he is beginning to grow insubstantial again, to discorporate. Yellowed clippings swim into view not behind him but through him. Yet the single eye hangs in the air above the paling blotch of the ascot. â€Å"Mayg zure he vears za cab. Ziss one ezbeshully must wear za cab.† Burnside nods eagerly. He still smells faintly of My Sin perfume. â€Å"The cap, yes, I have the cap.† â€Å"Be gare-ful, Burny. You are old und hurt. Ze bouy is young und desberate. Flitt of foot. If you let him get avey â€Å" In spite of the pain, Burny smiles. One of the children getting away from him! Even one of the special ones! What an idea! â€Å"Don’t worry,† he says. â€Å"Just . . . if you speak to him . . . to Abbalah-doon . . . tell him I’m not past it yet. If he makes me better, he won’t regret it. And if he makes me young again, I’ll bring him a thousand young. A thousand Breakers.† Fading and fading. Now Mr. Munshun is again just a glow, a milky disturbance on the air of Burny’s sitting room deep in the house he abandoned only when he realized he really did need someone to take care of him in his sunset years. â€Å"Bring him just dis vun, Burn-Burn. Bring him just dis vun, und you vill be revarded.† Mr. Munshun is gone. Burny stands and bends over the horsehair sofa. Doing it squeezes his belly, and the resulting pain makes him scream, but he doesn’t stop. He reaches into the darkness and pulls out a battered black leather sack. He grasps its top and leaves the room, limping and clutching at his bleeding, distended belly. And what of Tyler Marshall, who has existed through most of these many pages as little more than a rumor? How badly has he been hurt? How frightened is he? Has he managed to retain his sanity? As to his physical condition, he’s got a concussion, but that’s already healing. The Fisherman has otherwise done no more than stroke his arm and his buttocks (a creepy touch that made Tyler think of the witch in â€Å"Hansel and Gretel†). Mentally . . . would you be shocked to hear that, while Mr. Munshun is goading Burny onward, Fred and Judy’s boy is happy? He is. He is happy. And why not? He’s at Miller Park. The Milwaukee Brewers have confounded all the pundits this year, all the doomsayers who proclaimed they’d be in the cellar by July Fourth. Well, it’s still relatively early, but the Fourth has come and gone and the Brew Crew has returned to Miller tied for first place with Cincinnati. They are in the hunt, in large part due to the bat of Richie Sexson, who came over to Milwaukee from the Cleveland Indians and who has been â€Å"really pickin’ taters,† in the pungent terminology of George Rathbun. They are in the hunt, and Ty is at the game! EXCELLENT! Not only is he there, he’s got a front-row seat. Next to him big, sweating, red-faced, a Kingsland beer in one hand and another tucked away beneath his seat for emergencies is the Gorgeous George himself, bellowing at the top of his leather lungs. Jeromy Burnitz of the Crew has just been called out at first on a bang-bang play, and while there can be no doubt that the Cincinnati shortstop handled the ball well and got rid of it fast, there can also be no doubt (at least not in George Rathbun’s mind) that Burnitz was safe! He rises in the twilight, his sweaty bald pate glowing beneath a sweetly lavender sky, a foamy rill of beer rolling up one cocked forearm, his blue eyes twinkling (you can tell he sees a lot with those eyes, just about everything), and Ty waits for it, they all wait for it, and here it is, that avatar of summer in the Coulee Country, that wonderful bray that means everything is okay, terror has been denied, and slippage has been canceled. â€Å"COME ON, UMP, GIVE US A BREAK! GIVE US A FREEEEAKIN’ BRAYYYYK! EVEN A BLIND MAN COULD SEE HE WAS SAFE!† The crowd on the first-base side goes wild at the sound of that cry, none wilder than the fourteen or so people sitting behind the banner reading MILLER PARK WELCOMES GEORGE RATHBUN AND THE WINNERS OF THIS YEAR’S KDCU BREWER BASH. Ty is jumping up and down, laughing, waving his Brew Crew hat. What makes this doubly boss is that he thought he forgot to enter the contest this year. He guesses his father (or perhaps his mother) entered it for him . . . and he won! Not the grand prize, which was getting to be the Brew Crew’s batboy for the entire Cincinnati series, but what he got (besides this excellent seat with the other winners, that is) is, in his opinion, even better. Of course Richie Sexson isn’t Mark McGwire nobody can hit the tar out of the ball like Big Mac but Sexson has been awesome for the Brewers this year, just awesome, and Tyler Marshall has won Someone is shaking his foot. Ty attempts to pull away, not wanting to lose this dream (this most excellent refuge from the horror that has befallen him), but the hand is relentless. It shakes. It shakes and shakes. â€Å"Way-gup,† a voice snarls, and the dream begins to darken. George Rathbun turns to Ty, and the boy sees an amazing thing: the eyes that were such a shrewd, sharp blue only a few seconds ago have gone dull and milky. Cripe, he’s blind, Ty thinks. George Rathbun really is a â€Å"Way-gup,† the growling voice says. It’s closer now. In a moment the dream will wink out entirely. Before it does, George speaks to him. The voice is quiet, totally unlike the sportscaster’s usual brash bellow. â€Å"Help’s on the way,† he says. â€Å"So be cool, you little cat. Be â€Å" â€Å"Way-GUP, you shit!† The grip on his ankle is crushing, paralyzing. With a cry of protest, Ty opens his eyes. This is how he rejoins the world, and our tale. He remembers where he is immediately. It’s a cell with reddish-gray iron bars halfway along a stone corridor lit with cobwebby electric bulbs. There’s a dish of some sort of stew in one corner. In the other is a bucket in which he is supposed to pee (or take a dump if he has to so far he hasn’t, thank goodness). The only other thing in the room is a raggedy old futon from which Burny has just dragged him. â€Å"All right,† Burny says. â€Å"Awake at last. That’s good. Now get up. On your feet, asswipe. I don’t have time to fuck with you.† Tyler gets up. A wave of dizziness rolls through him and he puts his hand to the top of his head. There is a spongy, crusted place there. Touching it sends a bolt of pain all the way down to his jaws, which clench. But it also drives the dizziness away. He looks at his hand. There are flakes of scab and dried blood on his palm. That’s where he hit me with his damned rock. Any harder, and I would have been playing a harp. But the old man has been hurt somehow, too. His shirt is covered with blood; his wrinkled ogre’s face is waxy and pallid. Behind him, the cell door is open. Ty measures the distance to the hallway, hoping he’s not being too obvious about it. But Burny has been in this game a long time. He has had more than one liddle one dry to esscabe on hiz bledding foodzies, oh ho. He reaches into his bag and brings out a black gadget with a pistol grip and a stainless steel nozzle at the tip. â€Å"Know what this is, Tyler?† Burny asks. â€Å"Taser,† Ty says. â€Å"Isn’t it?† Burny grins, revealing the stumps of his teeth. â€Å"Smart boy! A TV-watching boy, I’ll be bound. It’s a Taser, yes. But a special type it’ll drop a cow at thirty yards. Understand? You try to run, boy, I’ll bring you down like a ton of bricks. Come out here.† Ty steps out of the cell. He has no idea where this horrible old man means to take him, but there’s a certain relief just in being free of the cell. The futon was the worst. He knows, somehow, that he hasn’t been the only kid to cry himself to sleep on it with an aching heart and an aching, lumpy head, nor the tenth. Nor, probably, the fiftieth. â€Å"Turn to your left.† Ty does. Now the old man is behind him. A moment later, he feels the bony fingers grip the right cheek of his bottom. It’s not the first time the old man has done this (each time it happens he’s reminded again of the witch in â€Å"Hansel and Gretel,† asking the lost children to stick their arms out of their cage), but this time his touch is different. Weaker. Die soon, Ty thinks, and the thought its cold collectedness is very, very Judy. Die soon, old man, so I don’t have to. â€Å"This one is mine,† the old man says . . . but he sounds out of breath, no longer quite sure of himself. â€Å"I’ll bake half, fry the rest. With bacon.† â€Å"I don’t think you’ll be able to eat much,† Ty says, surprised at the calmness of his own voice. â€Å"Looks like somebody ventilated your stomach pretty g â€Å" There is a crackling, accompanied by a hideous, jittery burning sensation in his left shoulder. Ty screams and staggers against the wall across the corridor from his cell, trying to clutch the wounded place, trying not to cry, trying to hold on to just a little of his beautiful dream about being at the game with George Rathbun and the other KDCU Brewer Bash winners. He knows he actually did forget to enter this year, but in dreams such things don’t matter. That’s what’s so beautiful about them. Oh, but it hurts so bad. And despite all his efforts all the Judy Marshall in him the tears begin to flow. â€Å"You want another un?† the old man gasps. He sounds both sick and hysterical, and even a kid Ty’s age knows that’s a dangerous combination. â€Å"You want another un, just for good luck?† â€Å"No,† Ty gasps. â€Å"Don’t zap me again, please don’t.† â€Å"Then start walkin’! And no more smart goddamn remarks!† Ty starts to walk. Somewhere he can hear water dripping. Somewhere, very faint, he can hear the laughing caw of a crow probably the same one that tricked him, and how he’d like to have Ebbie’s .22 and blow its evil shiny black feathers off. The outside world seems light-years away. But George Rathbun told him help was on the way, and sometimes the things you heard in dreams came true. His very own mother told him that once, and long before she started to go all wonky in the head, too. They come to a stairway that seems to circle down forever. Up from the depths comes a smell of sulfur and a roast of heat. Faintly he can hear what might be screams and moans. The clank of machinery is louder. There are ominous creaking sounds that might be belts and chains. Ty pauses, thinking the old guy won’t zap him again unless he absolutely has to. Because Ty might fall down this long circular staircase. Might hit the place on his head the old guy already clipped with the rock, or break his neck, or tumble right off the side. And the old guy wants him alive, at least for now. Ty doesn’t know why, but he knows this intuition is true. â€Å"Where are we going, mister?† â€Å"You’ll find out,† Burny says in his tight, out-of-breath voice. â€Å"And if you think I don’t dare zap you while we’re on the stairs, my little friend, you’re very mistaken. Now get walking.† Tyler Marshall starts down the stairs, descending past vast galleries and balconies, around and down, around and down. Sometimes the air smells of putrid cabbage. Sometimes it smells of burned candles. Sometimes of wet rot. He counts a hundred and fifty steps, then stops counting. His thighs are burning. Behind him, the old man is gasping, and twice he stumbles, cursing and holding the ancient banister. Fall, old man, Ty chants inside his head. Fall and die, fall and die. But at last they are at the bottom. They arrive in a circular room with a dirty glass ceiling. Above them, gray sky hangs down like a filthy bag. There are plants oozing out of broken pots, sending greedy feelers across a floor of broken orange bricks. Ahead of them, two doors French doors, Ty thinks they are called stand open. Beyond them is a crumbling patio surrounded by ancient trees. Some are palms. Some the ones with the hanging, ropy vines might be banyans. Others he doesn’t know. One thing he’s sure of: they are no longer in Wisconsin. Standing on the patio is an object he knows very well. Something from his own world. Tyler Marshall’s eyes well up again at the sight of it, which is almost like the sight of a face from home in a hopelessly foreign place. â€Å"Stop, monkey-boy.† The old man sounds out of breath. â€Å"Turn around.† When Tyler does, he’s pleased to see that the blotch on the old man’s shirt has spread even farther. Fingers of blood now stretch all the way to his shoulders, and the waistband of his baggy old blue jeans has gone a muddy black. But the hand holding the Taser is rock-steady. God damn you, Tyler thinks. God damn you to hell. The old man has put his bag on a little table. He simply stands where he is for a moment, getting his breath. Then he rummages in the bag (something in there utters a faint metallic clink) and brings out a soft brown cap. It’s the kind guys like Sean Connery sometimes wear in the movies. The old man holds it out. â€Å"Put it on. And if you try to grab my hand, I’ll zap you.† Tyler takes the cap. His fingers, expecting the texture of suede, are surprised by something metallic, almost like tinfoil. He feels an unpleasant buzzing in his hand, like a mild version of the Taser’s jolt. He looks at the old man pleadingly. â€Å"Do I have to?† Burny raises the Taser and bares his teeth in a silent grin. Reluctantly, Ty puts the cap on. This time the buzzing fills his head. For a moment he can’t think . . . and then the feeling passes, leaving him with an odd sense of weakness in his muscles and a throbbing at his temples. â€Å"Special boys need special toys,† Burny says, and it comes out sbecial boyz, sbecial toyz. As always, Mr. Munshun’s ridiculous accent has rubbed off a little, thickening that touch of South Chicago Henry detected on the 911 tape. â€Å"Now we can go out.† Because with the cap on, I’m safe, Ty thinks, but the idea breaks up and drifts away almost as soon as it comes. He tries to think of his middle name and realizes he can’t. He tries to think of the bad crow’s name and can’t get that, either was it something like Corgi? No, that’s a kind of dog. The cap is messing him up, he realizes, and that’s what it’s supposed to do. Now they pass through the open doors and onto the patio. The air is redolent with the smell of the trees and bushes that surround the back side of Black House, a smell that is heavy and cloying. Fleshy, somehow. The gray sky seems almost low enough to touch. Ty can smell sulfur and something bitter and electric and juicy. The sound of machinery is much louder out here. The thing Ty recognized sitting on the broken bricks is an E-Z-Go golf cart. The Tiger Woods model. â€Å"My dad sells these,† Ty says. â€Å"At Goltz’s, where he works.† â€Å"Where do you think it came from, asswipe? Get in. Behind the wheel.† Ty looks at him, amazed. His blue eyes, perhaps thanks to the effects of the cap, have grown bloodshot and rather confused. â€Å"I’m not old enough to drive.† â€Å"Oh, you’ll be fine. A baby could drive this baby. Behind the wheel.† Ty does as he is told. In truth, he has driven one of these in the lot at Goltz’s, with his father sitting watchfully beside him in the passenger seat. Now the hideous old man is easing himself into that same place, groaning and holding his perforated midsection. The Taser is in the other hand, however, and the steel tip remains pointed at Ty. The key is in the ignition. Ty turns it. There’s a click from the battery beneath them. The dashboard light reading CHARGE glows bright green. Now all he has to do is push the accelerator pedal. And steer, of course. â€Å"Good so far,† the old man says. He takes his right hand off his middle and points with a bloodstained finger. Ty sees a path of discolored gravel once, before the trees and underbrush encroached, it was probably a driveway leading away from the house. â€Å"Now go. And go slow. Speed and I’ll zap you. Try to crash us and I’ll break your wrist for you. Then you can drive one-handed.† Ty pushes down on the accelerator. The golf cart jerks forward. The old man lurches, curses, and waves the Taser threateningly. â€Å"It would be easier if I could take off the cap,† Ty says. â€Å"Please, I’m pretty sure that if you’d just let me â€Å" â€Å"No! Cap stays! Drive!† Ty pushes down gently on the accelerator. The E-Z-Go rolls across the patio, its brand-new rubber tires crunching on broken shards of brick. There’s a bump as they leave the pavement and go rolling up the driveway. Heavy fronds they feel damp, sweaty brush Tyler’s arms. He cringes. The golf cart swerves. Burny jabs the Taser at the boy, snarling. â€Å"Next time you get the juice! It’s a promise!† A snake goes writhing across the overgrown gravel up ahead, and Ty utters a little scream through his clenched teeth. He doesn’t like snakes, didn’t even want to touch the harmless little corn snake Mrs. Locher brought to school, and this thing is the size of a python, with ruby eyes and fangs that prop its mouth open in a perpetual snarl. â€Å"Go! Drive!† The Taser, waving in his face. The cap, buzzing faintly in his ears. Behind his ears. The drive curves to the left. Some sort of tree burdened with what look like tentacles leans over them. The tips of the tentacles tickle across Ty’s shoulders and the goose-prickled, hair-on-end nape of his neck. Ourr boyy . . . He hears this in his head in spite of the cap. It’s faint, it’s distant, but it’s there. Ourrrrr boyyyyy . . . yesssss . . . ourrrrs . . . Burny is grinning. â€Å"Hear ’em, don’tcha? They like you. So do I. We’re all friends here, don’t you see?† The grin becomes a grimace. He clutches his bloody middle again. â€Å"Goddamned blind old fool!† he gasps. Then, suddenly, the trees are gone. The golf cart rolls out onto a sullen, crumbling plain. The bushes dwindle and Ty sees that farther along they give way entirely to a crumbled, rocky scree: hills rise and fall beneath that sullen gray sky. A few birds of enormous size wheel lazily. A shaggy, slump-shouldered creature staggers down a narrow defile and is gone from sight before Ty can see exactly what it is . . . not that he wanted to. The thud and pound of machinery is stronger, shaking the earth. The crump of pile drivers; the clash of ancient gears; the squall of cogs. Tyler can feel the golf cart’s steering wheel thrumming in his hands. Ahead of them the driveway ends in a wide road of beaten earth. Along the far side of it is a wall of round white stones. â€Å"That thing you hear, that’s the Crimson King’s power plant,† Burny says. He speaks with pride, but there is more than a tinge of fear beneath it. â€Å"The Big Combination. A million children have died on its belts, and a zillion more to come, for all I know. But that’s not for you, Tyler. You might have a future after all. First, though, I’ll have my piece of you. Yes indeed.† His blood-streaked hand reaches out and caresses the top of Ty’s buttock. â€Å"A good agent’s entitled to ten percent. Even an old buzzard like me knows that.† The hand draws back. Good thing. Ty has been on the verge of screaming, holding the sound back only by thinking of sitting at Miller Park with good old George Rathbun. If I’d really entered the Brewer Bash, he thinks, none of this would have happened. But he thinks that may not actually be true. Some things are meant to be, that’s all. Meant. He just hopes that what this horrible old creature wants is not one of them. â€Å"Turn left,† Burny grunts, settling back. â€Å"Three miles. Give or take.† And, as Tyler makes the turn, he realizes the ribbons of mist rising from the ground aren’t mist at all. They’re ribbons of smoke. â€Å"Sheol,† Burny says, as if reading his mind. â€Å"And this is the only way through it Conger Road. Get off it and there are things out there that’d pull you to pieces just to hear you scream. My friend told me where to take you, but there might be just a leedle change of plan.† His pain-wracked face takes on a sulky cast. Ty thinks it makes him look extraordinarily stupid. â€Å"He hurt me. Pulled my guts. I don’t trust him.† And, in a horrible child’s singsong: â€Å"Carl Bierstone don’t trust Mr. Munshun! Not no more! Not no more!† Ty says nothing. He concentrates on keeping the golf cart in the middle of Conger Road. He risks one look back, but the house, in its ephemeral wallow of tropical greenery, is gone, blocked from view by the first of the eroded hills. â€Å"He’ll have what’s his, but I’ll have what’s mine. Do you hear me, boy?† When Ty says nothing, Burny brandishes the Taser. â€Å"Do you hear me, you asswipe monkey?† â€Å"Yeah,† Ty says. â€Å"Yeah, sure.† Why don’t you die? God, if You’re there, why don’t You just reach down and put Your finger on his rotten heart and stop it from beating? When Burny speaks again, his voice is sly. â€Å"You looked at the wall on t’other side, but I don’t think you looked close enough. Better take another gander.† Tyler looks past the slumped old man. For a moment he doesn’t understand . . . and then he does. The big white stones stretching endlessly away along the far side of Conger Road aren’t stones at all. They’re skulls. What is this place? Oh God, how he wants his mother! How he wants to go home! Beginning to cry again, his brain numbed and buzzing beneath the cap that looks like cloth but isn’t, Ty pilots the golf cart deeper and deeper into the furnace-lands. Into Sheol. Rescue help of any kind has never seemed so far away. How to cite Black House Chapter Twenty-six, Essay examples

Rene Descartes was born into a well

Rene Descartes was born into a well-educated upper Essay class family on March 31,1956 in the French village of La Haye en Touraine. The village is now called Descartes, Indre-et-Loire in his honor. Renes father was Joachim Descartes, a lawyer at Britannys Court of Justice. His mother was Jeanne Brochard, daughter of the Lieutenant General of Poitiers. During school Rene spent seven or eight years at La Fleche learning logic, theology, philosophy, Latin and Greek. In his final two years, he also learned mathematics and physics. The physics was that of Aristotle- almost entirely wrong. On November,10 1619 Descartes was dozing in a warm, stove-heated room in the German town of Neuburg an der Donau. There he had a series of dreams that would ultimately change the way scientists work. He believed a spirit sent by God had had given him new ideas about the Scientific Method, Analytical Geometry, and Philosophy. 18 years later, in 1637 he published his ideas in Discussion of the Method, Geometry, Meteorology, and Optics. The first two of the these works contain his most significant contributions. In Discussion of the Method Descartes shared his framework for doing science. Descartes made the revolutionary discovery that he could solve problems in geometry by converting them into problems in algebra. In geometry, Descartes showed how he could find tangents to curves. This process is a vital part of differential calculus. Descartes is regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of all time. Here we are concerned with science rather than philosophy, so we will restrict ourselves to noting his most famous declaration I think therefore I am. In 1649 Descartes was invited to Stockholm by Queen Christina of Sweden. She wanted him to set up a new academy of science. Rene Descartes died, aged 53, of pneumonia in Stockholm on February, 11 1650. He was buried at the Adolf Fredriks Church in Stockholm. In death, as in life, Descartes was mobile. 16 years after his first burial his remains were moved and buried in the Saint-Etienne-du-Mont church in Paris,France. In 1819 his remains minus skull and finger were moved to the Abbey of Saint-German-des-Pres in Paris, where he now rests. In 1663, despite his efforts to avoid such a fate he regarded himself as a devout Catholic a number of Descartes works joined Galileos on the index of books prohibited by the catholic church. Over 300 years later, in 1966, this index was finally discontinued.