The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Chapter 22~23

Twenty-two Theo The walls of Molly's trailer were plastered with movie posters. He stood in the middle of the living room among the scattered videotapes, magazines, and junk mail and slowly turned. It was her, Molly. She hadn't been lying all this time. Most of the posters were in foreign languages, but every one featured a younger Molly in various states of undress, holding weapons or fighting off bad guys, her hair flying in the wind, a nuked-out city or a desert littered with human skulls and burned-out cars in the background. The adolescent male part of Theo, the part that every man tries to bury but carries to his grave, reared up. She was a movie star. A hot movie star! And he knew her, had in fact put handcuffs on her. If there was only a locker room, a street corner, or a second-period study hall where he could brag about it to his friends. But he didn't really have any friends, except for Gabe maybe, and Gabe was a grown-up. The prurient moment passed and Theo felt guilty about the way he had treated Molly: patronizing her and condescending to her; the way many people treated him when he tried to be something besides a pothead and puppet. He kneeled down to a bookshelf filled with videotapes, found one labeled KENDRA: WARRIOR BABE OF THE OUT LAND (ENGLISH), and slipped it into the VCR and turned on the television. Then he turned off the lights, laid his guns on the coffee table, and lay down on Molly's couch to wait. He watched as the Crazy Lady of Pine Cove battled mutants and Sand Pirates for half an hour before he drifted off to sleep. His mind needed a deeper escape from his problems than the movie could provide. â€Å"Hi, Theo.† He came awake startled. The movie was still casting a flickering light over the room, so he couldn't have been sleeping that long. She stood in the doorway, half in shadow, looking very much like the woman on the television screen. She held an assault rifle at her side. â€Å"Molly, I've been waiting for you.† â€Å"How'd you like it?† She nodded toward the television. â€Å"Loved it. I never realized. I was just so tired†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Molly nodded. â€Å"I won't be long, I just came to get some clean clothes. You're welcome to stay here.† Theo didn't know what to do. It didn't seem like the time to grab one of the pistols off the table. He felt more embarrassed than threatened. â€Å"Thanks,† he said. â€Å"He's the last one, Theo. After him there aren't any more of his kind. His time has passed. I think that's what we have in common. You don't know what it is to be a has-been, do you?† â€Å"I think I'm what they call a never-was.† â€Å"That's easier. At least you're always looking up the ladder, not down. Coming down is scarier.† â€Å"How? Why? What is he?† â€Å"I'm not sure, a dragon maybe. Who knows?† She leaned back against the doorway and sighed. â€Å"But I can kinda tell what he's thinking. I guess it's because I'm nuts. Who would have thought that would come in handy, huh?† â€Å"Don't say that about yourself. You're saner than I am.† Molly laughed, and Theo could see her movie-star teeth shine in the light of the television. â€Å"You're a neurotic, Theo. A neurotic is someone who thinks something is wrong with him, but everyone else thinks he is normal; a psychotic thinks something's wrong with her. Take a poll of the locals, I think I'd come out in the latter category, don't you?† â€Å"Molly, this is really dangerous stuff you're messing with.† â€Å"He won't hurt me.† â€Å"It's not just that. You could go to jail just for having that machine gun, Molly. People are getting killed, aren't they?† â€Å"In a manner of speaking.† â€Å"That's what happened to Joseph Leander, and the guys working the drug lab, right? Your pal ate them?† â€Å"They were going to hurt you, and Steve was hungry. Seemed like great timing to me.† â€Å"Molly, that's murder!† â€Å"Theo! I'm nuts. What are they going to do to me?† Theo shrugged his shoulders and sat back on the couch. â€Å"I don't know what to do.† â€Å"You're not in a position to do anything right now. Get some rest.† Theo cradled his head in his hands. His cell phone, still in the pocket of his flannel shirt, began ringing. â€Å"I could sure use a hit right now.† â€Å"There's some Smurfs of Sanity in the cupboard over the sink – neuroleptics Dr. Val gave me, antipsychotics – they've done wonders for me.† â€Å"Obviously.† â€Å"Your phone is ringing.† Theo pulled out the phone, flipped it open, hit the answer button and watched as the incoming number ap peared on the display. It was Sheriff Burton's cell phone number. Theo hit disconnect. â€Å"I'm fucked,† Theo said. Molly picked up Theo's .357 Magnum from the table, held it on Theo, then picked up Joseph Leander's automatic. â€Å"I'll give these back before I go. I'm going to get some clean clothes and some girlie things out of my bedroom. You be okay here?† â€Å"Yeah, sure.† His head was still hung. He spoke into his lap. â€Å"You're bumming me out, Theo.† â€Å"Sorry.† Molly was gone from the room for only five minutes, in which time Theo tried to get a handle on what had happened. Molly returned with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She was wearing the Kendra costume, com-plete with thigh-high boots. Even in the dim light from the television, Theo could see a ragged scar over her breast. She caught him looking. â€Å"Ended my career,† she said. â€Å"I suppose now they could fix it, but it's a little late.† â€Å"I'm sorry,† Theo said. â€Å"I think you look beautiful.† She smiled and shifted both of the pistols to one hand. She'd left the assault rifle by the door and Theo hadn't even noticed. â€Å"You ever feel special, Theo?† â€Å"Special?† â€Å"Not like you're better than everyone else, just that you're different in a good way, like it makes a difference that you're on the planet? You ever feel that way?† â€Å"I don't know. No, not really.† â€Å"I had that for a while. Even though they were cheesy B movies and even though I had to do some humiliating things to get into them, I felt special, Theo. Then it went away. Well, now I feel that way again. That's why.† â€Å"Why what?† â€Å"You asked me why before. That's why I'm going back to Steve.† â€Å"Steve? You call him Steve?† â€Å"He looked like a Steve,† Molly said. â€Å"I have to go. I'll leave your guns in the bed of that red truck you stole. Don't try to follow, okay?† Theo nodded. â€Å"Molly, don't let it kill anybody else. Promise me that.† â€Å"Promise to leave us alone?† â€Å"I can't do that.† â€Å"Okay. Take care of yourself.† She grabbed the assault rifle, kicked open the door, and stepped out. Theo heard her go down the steps, pause, then come back up. She popped her head in the door. â€Å"I'm sorry you never felt special, Theo,† she said. Theo forced a smile. â€Å"Thanks, Molly.† Gabe Gabe stood in the foyer of Valerie Riordan's home, looking at his hiking boots, then the white carpet, then his boots again. Val had gone into the kitchen to get some wine. Skinner was wandering around outside. Gabe sat down on the marble floor, unlaced his boots, then slipped them off. He'd once been into a level-nine clean room at a biotech facility in San Jose, a place where the air was scrubbed and filtered down to the micron and you had to wear a plastic bunny suit with its own air umbilical to avoid contaminating the specimens. Strangely, he'd had a similar feeling to the one he was feeling now, which was: I am the harbinger of filth. Thank God Theo had made him shower and change before his date. Val came into the sunken living room carrying a tray with a bottle of wine and two glasses. She looked up at Gabe, who was standing at the edge of the stairs as if ready to wade into molten lava. â€Å"Well, come on in and have a seat,† Val said. Gabe took a tentative step. â€Å"Nice place,† he said. â€Å"Thanks, I still have a lot to do on it. I suppose I should just hire a decorator and have done with it, but I like finding pieces myself.† â€Å"Right,† Gabe said, taking another step. You could play handball in this room if you didn't mind destroying a lot of antiques. â€Å"It's a cabernet from Wild Horse Vineyard over the hill. I hope you like it.† Val poured the wine into stemmed bubble glasses. She took hers and sat down on the velvet couch, then raised her eyebrows as if to say, â€Å"Well?† Gabe joined her at the other end of the couch, then took a tentative sip of the wine. â€Å"It's nice.† â€Å"For a local cheapie,† Val said. An awkward silence passed between them. Val made a show of tasting the wine again, then said, â€Å"You don't really believe this stuff about a sea monster, do you, Gabe?† Gabe was relieved. She wanted to talk about work. He'd been afraid that she would want to talk about something else – anything else – and he didn't really know how. â€Å"Well, there are the tracks, which look very authentic, so if they are fake, whoever did them studied fossil tracks and replicated them perfectly. Then there's the timing of the rat migration, plus Theo and your patient. Estelle, was it?† Val set down her wine. â€Å"Gabe, I know you're a scientist, and a discovery like this could make you rich and famous, but I just don't believe there's a dinosaur in town.† â€Å"Rich and famous? I hadn't thought about it. I guess there would be some recognition, wouldn't there?† â€Å"Look, Gabe, you deal in hard facts, but every day I deal with the delusions and constructions of people's minds. They are just tracks on the ground, probably like that Bigfoot hoax in Washington a few years ago. Theo is a chronic drug user, and Estelle and her boyfriend Catfish are artist types. They all have overactive imaginations.† Gabe was put off by her judgment of Theo and the others. He thought for a second, then said, â€Å"As a biologist, I have a theory about imagination. I think it's pretty obvious that fear – fear of loud noises, fear of heights, the capacity to learn fear – is something that we've adapted over the years as a survival mechanism, and so is imagination. Everyone thinks that it was the big strong caveman who got the girl, and for the most part, that may have been true, but physical strength doesn't explain how our species cre-ated civilization. I think there was always some scrawny dreamer sitting at the edge of the firelight, who had the ability to imagine dangers, to look into the future in his imagination and see possibilities, and therefore sur-vived to pass his genes on to the next generation. When the big ape men ended up running off the cliff or getting killed while trying to beat a mas-todon into submission with a stick, the dreamer was standing back thinking, †˜Hey, that might work, but you need to run the mastodon off the cliff.' And, then he'd mate with the women left over after the go-getters got killed.† â€Å"So nerds rule,† Val said with a smile. â€Å"But if fear and imagination make you more highly evolved, then someone with paranoid delusions would be ruling the world.† Val was getting into the theory of it now. How strange to talk to a man who talked about ideas, not property and personal agendas. Val liked it. A lot. Gabe said, â€Å"Well, we didn't miss that by far with Hitler, did we? Evolution takes some missteps sometimes. Big teeth worked pretty well for a while, then they got too big. Mastodons' tusks got so large they would snap the animal's neck. And you've probably noticed that there are no saber-toothed cats around anymore.† â€Å"Okay, I'll buy that imagination is an evolutionary leap. But what about depression?† Talking about mental conditions, she couldn't help thinking about what she'd done to her patients. Her crimes circled in her mind, trying to get out. â€Å"Psychiatry is looking more and more at mental conditions from a physical point of view, so that fits. That's why we're treating depres-sion with drugs like Prozac. But what evolutionary purpose is there for depression?† â€Å"I've been thinking about that since you mentioned it at dinner,† Gabe said. He drained his wineglass and moved closer to her on the couch, as if by being closer, she would share in his excitement. He was in his element now. â€Å"A lot of animals besides humans get depressed. Higher mammals like dolphins and whales can die from it, but even rats seem to get the Blues. I can't figure out what purpose it serves. But in humans it might be like nearsightedness: civilization has protected a biological weakness that would have been weeded out by natural dangers or predators.† â€Å"Predators? How?† â€Å"I don't know. Depression might slow the prey down, make it react less quickly to danger. Who knows?† â€Å"So a predator might actually evolve that preyed on depressed animals?† Right and it's me, Val thought. If I haven't been preying on depressed people, what have I been doing? She suddenly felt ashamed of her home, of the pure materialism of it. Here was an incredibly bright man who was concerned with the pure pursuit of knowledge, and she had sold her integrity for some antiques and a Mercedes. Gabe poured himself another glass of wine and sat back now, thinking as he spoke. â€Å"Interesting idea. I suppose there could be some sort of chemical or behavioral stimulus that would trigger preying on the depressed. Low serotonin levels tend to raise libido, right? At least temporarily?† â€Å"Yes,† Val said. That's why the entire town has turned into horndogs, she thought. â€Å"Therefore,† Gabe continued, â€Å"you'd have more animals mating and passing on the depression gene. Nature tends to evolve mechanisms to remain in balance. A predator or a disease would naturally evolve to keep the depressed population down. Interesting, I've been feeling especially horny lately, I wonder if I'm depressed.† Gabe's eyes snapped open wide and he looked at Val with the full-blown terror of what he had just said. He gulped his wine, then said, â€Å"I'm sorry, I†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Val couldn't stand it anymore. Gabe's faux pas opened the gate, and she stepped through it. â€Å"Gabe, we have to talk.† â€Å"I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to†¦Ã¢â‚¬  She grabbed his arm to stop him. â€Å"No, I have to tell you something.† Gabe braced himself for the worst. He'd fallen out of the lofty world of theory into the awkward, gritty world of first dates, and she was going to drop the â€Å"Don't get the wrong idea† bomb on him. She gripped his arm and her nails dug into his bicep hard enough to make him wince. She said, â€Å"A little over a month ago, I took almost a third of the people in Pine Cove off antidepressants.† â€Å"Huh?† That wasn't at all what he'd expected. â€Å"My God, why?† â€Å"Because of Bess Leander's suicide. Or what I thought was her suicide. I was just going through the motions in my practice. Writing prescriptions and collecting fees.† She explained about her arrangement with Winston Krauss and how the pharmacist had refused to put everyone back on the drugs. When she finished, to wait for his judgment, there were tears welling up in her eyes. He put his arms around her tentatively, hoping it was the right thing to do. â€Å"Why tell me this?† She melted against his chest. â€Å"Because I trust you and because I have to tell someone and because I need to figure out what to do. I don't want to go to jail, Gabe. Maybe all my patients didn't need to be on antidepressants, but a lot of them did.† She sobbed on his shoulder and he began to stroke her hair, then pushed up her chin and kissed her tears. â€Å"It'll be okay. It will.† She looked up into his eyes, as if looking for a hint of disdain, then not finding it, she kissed him hard and pulled him on top of her on the couch. A Higher Power And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? – Revelation 13:4 Twenty-three Steve What horrors can a dragon dream? A creature who has, in his own way, ruled the planet for millions of years, a creature for whom the mingy man mammals have built temples, a creature who has known no predator but time – what could he possibly dream that would frighten him? Call it the knowing? Under a stand of oak trees, sexually satisfied and with a bellyful of drug dealers, the dragon dreamed a vision of time past. The eternal now that he had always known suddenly had history. In the dream he saw himself as a larva, tucked into the protective pouch under his mother's tongue until it was safe to venture out under her watchful eye. He saw the hunting and the mating, the forms he had learned to mimic as his mercurial DNA evolved not through generations, but through regeneration of cells. He saw the mates he had eaten, the three young he had borne as a female, the last killed by a warmblood who sang the Blues. He remembered the chan-ging, not so long ago, from female to male, and he remembered all of it in pictures, not in mere instinctual patterns and conditioned responses. He saw these pictures in the dream, brought on by the strange mating with the warmblood, and he wondered why. For the first time in his five thousand years, he asked, Why? And the dream answered with a picture of all the oceans and swamps, the rivers and bogs and trenches and mountains beneath the sea, and they were all empty of his kind. As sure as if he were floating through the cold black at the end of the universe, where light gives up hope and time chases its tail until it dies from exhaustion, he was alone. Sex does that to some guys. Val â€Å"Oh my God, the rat brains!† Gabe shouted. It was a different response to lovemaking. Val wasn't sure that she might not be hurt, feeling vulnerable as she was, with her knees in the vicinity of her ears, a biologist on top of her, and her panty hose waving off one foot like a tattered battle flag. Gabe collapsed into her arms and she looked over his shoulder to the coffee table to check that they hadn't kicked the wineglasses off onto the carpet. â€Å"Are you okay?† she asked, a little breathless. â€Å"I'm sorry, but I just realized what's going on with this creature.† â€Å"That's what you were thinking about?† Yes, her feelings were definitely hurt. â€Å"No, not during. It came to me in a flash right after. Somehow the creature can attract mammals with lower than normal serotonin levels. And you've got, what, a third of the population running around in antidepressant withdrawal?† She was pissed now, not hurt. She dumped him off her onto the floor, stood up, pulled her skirt down, and stepped away. He scrambled into his pants and looked around for his shirt, which lay in shreds behind the couch. He had a tan that ended at the neckline and just below the shoulders; the rest of him was milk white. He looked up at her from the gap between the couch and the coffee table with a pleading in his eyes, as if he were looking up from a coffin in which he was about to be buried alive. â€Å"Sorry,† he said. He wasn't looking her in the eye, and Val suddenly realized that he was talking to her exposed breasts. She pulled her blouse closed, and a battery of insults rose in her mind, ready to be fired, but all of them were mean-spirited and would serve to do nothing but make them both feel ashamed. He was who he was, and he was honest and real, and she knew that he hadn't meant to hurt her. So she cried. Thinking, Great, crying is what got me into this in the first place. She plopped down on the couch with her face in her hands. Gabe moved to her side and put his arm around her. â€Å"I'm really sorry. I'm not very good at this sort of thing.† â€Å"You're fine. It's just too much.† â€Å"I should go.† He started to stand. She caught his arm in a death grip. â€Å"You go and I'll hunt you down and kill you like a rabid dog.† â€Å"I'll stay.† â€Å"No go,† she said. â€Å"I understand.† â€Å"Okay, I'll go.† â€Å"Don't you dare.† She threw her arms around him and kissed him hard, pulling him back down onto the couch, and within seconds they were all over each other again. That's it, she thought, no more crying. It's the crying that does it. This guy is aroused by my pain. But soon they lay in a panting sweaty pile on the floor and the idea of crying was light-years away. And this time Gabe said, â€Å"That was wonderful.† Val noticed a wineglass overturned by her head, a cabernet stain bleeding over the carpet. â€Å"Is it salt or club soda?† Gabe pulled away far enough to look into her eyes and saw that she was looking at the stained carpet. â€Å"Salt and cold water, I think. Or is that blood?† A drop of sweat dripped off his forehead onto her lips. She looked at him. â€Å"You weren't thinking about that creature that doesn't exist, were you?† â€Å"Just you.† She smiled. â€Å"Really?† â€Å"And a weed-whacker, for some reason.† â€Å"You're kidding.† â€Å"Uh, yes, I'm kidding. I was only thinking of you.† â€Å"So you don't think I'm a horrible person for what I've done?† â€Å"You were trying to do what you thought was right. How could that be horrible?† â€Å"I feel horrible.† â€Å"It's been a long time. I'm out of practice.† â€Å"No, not about this. About my patients. You really think something could be preying on them?† â€Å"It's just a theory. There may not even be a creature.† â€Å"But what if there is? Shouldn't we call the National Guard or something?† â€Å"I was thinking of calling Theo.† â€Å"Theo isn't even a real cop.† â€Å"He deserves to know.† They lay there in silence for a few minutes, staring at the spreading stain on the carpet, feeling the sweat run down their ribs, and listening to the beat of each other's hearts. â€Å"Gabe?† Val whispered. â€Å"Yes.† â€Å"Maybe we should go to couples' counseling.† â€Å"Should we get dressed first?† â€Å"You were serious about the weed-whacker, weren't you?† â€Å"I don't know where that image came from.† â€Å"There's supposed to be a good couples' guy in San Junipero, unless you'd rather go to a woman counselor.† â€Å"I thought we were going to call the National Guard.† â€Å"Only if it comes to that,† Val said. Thinking, When we tell the shrink about this, I'm leaving out the part about the wine spilling. Theo Is there anything more irritating than people who have just been laid? Especially when you have not. Not for a long time. Oh, it was obvious as soon as they came through Molly's front door, waking Theo for the second time that night: Gabe's grin looking like the oversized grill on an old Chrysler, Val Riordan wearing jeans and almost no makeup; the both of them giddy and giggling and blushing like children. Theo wanted to puke. He was happy for them, but he wanted to puke. â€Å"What?† Theo said. Gabe was obviously amped and trying not to show it. He put his hands in his pockets to keep from waving them around. â€Å"I† – he looked at Val and smiled – â€Å"we think that this creature, if it exists, may be attracted to prey with low serum serotonin levels.† Gabe bounced on the balls of his feet as he waited for his statement to sink in. Theo sat there, staring at him, with no discernible change in expres-sion from the weariness he'd worn since they came through the door. He guessed that he was supposed to say something now. â€Å"Molly was here,† Theo said. â€Å"The creature exists. It ate Mikey Plotznik, and Joseph Leander, and who knows who else? She said it's a dragon.† Gabe's grin dropped. â€Å"That's great. I mean, that's horrible, but it's great from a scientific point of view. I have another theory about this species. I think it has some specialized mechanism to affect its prey. Have you been horny lately?† â€Å"There's no need to be arrogant, Gabe. I'm glad you two had a good time, but there's no need to rub it in.† â€Å"No no, you don't get it.† Gabe went on to explain about Val Riordan's decision to take her patients off antidepressants and how the lowering of serotonin levels could lead to increased libido. â€Å"So Pine Cove has been full of horny people.† â€Å"Right,† Theo said. â€Å"And I still can't get a date.† Val Riordan laughed and Theo glared at her. Gabe said, â€Å"The rats I found alive near this trailer, where we think the creature might have been, were mating when I found them. There are some species of carnivorous plants that give off a sex pheromone that attracts their prey. In some species, the behavior of the male – a display, a dance, a scent – will stimulate the ovaries in the female of the species without any physical contact. I think that's what's happened to us.† â€Å"Our ovaries are being stimulated?† Theo rubbed sleep from his eyes. â€Å"I gotta be honest with you, Gabe. I'm not feeling it.† Val turned to Gabe. â€Å"That's not very romantic.† â€Å"It's incredibly exciting. This may be the most elegant predator that the world has ever seen.† Theo shook his head. â€Å"I have no home, no job, no car, there's probably a warrant out for my arrest, and you want me to be excited over the fact that we have a monster in town that makes you horny so he can eat you? Sorry, Gabe, I'm missing the positive side of this.† Val chimed in, â€Å"It may be the reason that you've been able to quit smoking pot so easily.† â€Å"Pardon me? Easily?† Theo wanted to jump off the couch and bitch-slap them both. â€Å"Were you ever able to go this long before?† â€Å"She could be right, Theo,† Gabe said. â€Å"If this thing affects serotonin, it could affect other neurotransmitters.† â€Å"Oh good,† Theo said. â€Å"Let's open a detox clinic. We'll feed half of the patients to the monster and the other half will recover. I can't wait.† â€Å"There's no need to be sarcastic,† Gabe said. â€Å"We're just trying to help.† â€Å"Help? Help with what? Bar fight? I can handle it. Skateboard theft? I'm on it. But my law enforcement experience hasn't prepared me for dealing with this.† â€Å"That's true, Gabe,† Val said. â€Å"Theo's little more than a rent-a-cop. Maybe we should call the sheriff or the FBI or the National Guard.† â€Å"And tell them what?† Theo asked. Rent-a-cop? I'm not even that now, he thought. â€Å"He has a point.† Gabe said. â€Å"We haven't seen anything.† â€Å"That old Blues singer has,† Val said. Theo nodded. â€Å"We need to find him. Maybe he'll†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"He's living with Estelle Boyet,† Val said. â€Å"I have her address in my office.†

Cybercrime Law

Cybercrime Law: Is Now the Right Time for It? Issues about a certain bill, which was passed by our President Aquino, have grown since before the its implementation. This became a mainstream issue on the cyberworld and other media. Some were happy about the law’s provisions, but others, mostly, disagreed with its rules. The law’s called the Cybercrime Prevention Law which was proposed by Senator Tito Sotto, who was accused of plagiarism in two of his recent speeches. This law has a bright side, but it’s not enough to cover its ugly side. We have a right to freely say what we want, but with limitations. Freedom is not absolute.We must still be conscious on what we’re saying, or even posting on our Facebook walls. In the cyberworld, freedom is welcomed– playing, watching, reading, commenting, liking, sharing and even buying, what we want. Internet has been a jar of our hidden personalities. An individual’s attitude is changing when entering the cyberworld. And because of that, many became abusive of that freedom and use it to harm other people. This led the government to pass a law concerning the said emerging cyberproblem. The cybercrime law has many obvious disadvantages for netizens– almost all Filipinos are netizens. This law envisions a safe internet world.In line with that, the law contains very heavy punishments for the â€Å"abusive† netizens. The problem with that is the way the law considers an internet action abusive. Even liking a libelous content is counted as an abusive action? That’s ridiculous! Many would say that it’s for the safety of the Filipino people, but didn’t they think that it’s a way of depriving a democratic country of its freedom to express thoughts. That’s totally ironic. I’m not saying that that the deprives Filipinos of the freedom of speech totally, but mostly. That’s because Filipinos usually became more brave to express their thoughts on the internet.The law is a threat to proper justice. The law says that you can be imprisoned for almost 12 years if you are caught red handed on doing something in the internet that is abusive, but if you raped an innocent person, you’ll just be jailed for 3 years! That’s not right. Another thing , the law will be using 50 million pesos a year to successfully implement it, but don’t they know that more hungry stomachs need that amount? Surely, this will be an issue on the proper allocation of our national budget. Lastly, the Philippines has more alarming problems that should be thought first than the cybercrime.Shortage of food and water, poor shelter programs, overpopulation, growing unemployment and underemployment rate, and global warming are just some them. Why don’t they focus on those things? Cybercrime is a very controversial issue with the government this time, but they haven’t solved yet non-cyber crimes in the Philippines which are more life damaging. It’s funny that the government is keeping on acting that they can handle complex and new issues, even though they can’t manage to solve the common ones. The government and our country need to grow more before we go to that â€Å"cyber† matter.

Childhood Obesity: Parents dilemma Essay

Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, musculoskeletal discomforts are some of the many serious health effects that should be the nightmare we all avoid. So why it is that in today’s society we are faced with the alarming fact of half of our population being obese, which are the causative agents to these malicious health problems? It seems as if this is an ongoing problem that may never cease to exist. Why? If the quandary of obesity isn’t realized and address it would not be acknowledged as a problem, therefore it would not be corrected. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, child obesity is defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) at or above the 95 percentile to children of the same sex and age. Obesity is an excess proportion of total body fat. A child is considered obese when his or her weight is 20% or more above normal weight. The most common measure of obesity is the body mass index or BMI. Obesity is rapidly becoming a world wide epidemic, and is starting with our children. Stanford (2001) proposes that the escalation of obesity could be the greatest health threat the world will face in the 21st century. Stanford is highlighting that childhood obesity is a growing health dilemma with a deadly prospect, but who are to blame? In this world today the roles of parents are becoming more demanding than ever before. Our basic knowledge of a parent is one that guides and teaches how to live and survive in this complex world. They are the ones that influence and set out lessons to learn and morals to live by, they are the ones to protect you from harm and detour you from their previous mistakes. Becoming a parent one takes on endless responsibilities and countless blames. However, a parent is only human and can only take full responsibility for certain decisions and behaviors made by their child or children. According to Oxford, a child is defined as a young human being below the age of full development which is 18 and childhood is the period of being a child. Obesity is one of the many hefty misconceptions placed on parents, as we over look the alliance with genetics, environmental and psychological factors. Childhood obesity is in fact highly associated with genetics. A child is in its developmental stage; therefore, genetics plays an accommodating position in the development of obesity. Hills (2011) assume that â€Å"recent studies of genetic syndromes of obesity in rodents have provided insights in to the underlying mechanisms that may play a role in energy homoeostasis. In recent years, research has begun to identify human disorders of energy balance that arise from defects in these or related genes [42]. These mutations have been shown to result in morbid obesity in children without the developmental features that commonly accompany recognized syndromes of childhood obesity. Most children probably have some genetic predisposition to obesity, depending on their family history and ethnicity.† There is no denying that genetic alone is the cause for childhood obesity but it is a major fact that it is a large contributor to this chief health hazard. Harvard (2012) remarks â€Å"subsequent work on the relationship between the FTO gene, physical activity, and obesity yielded contradictory results. (16-18) To arrive at a more definitive answer, investigators recently combined and re-analyzed the data from 45 studies in adults and 9 studies in children—nearly 240,000 people in all. (19) They found that people who carried the obesity-promoting FTO gene variant had a 23 percent higher risk of obesity than those who did not.† Nonetheless, genetics is a contributing factor, and the reality of it is that it can be controlled by means of healthy eating habits and exercise regiments. However, why should parents be blamed for uncontrollably giving their child the â€Å"obesity curse† which was given to them? Determination of a healthy choice is not an easy one for a child when there are a variety of endless environmental factors that alter decision making. Children spend time away from their parents almost 50% of the time in a day which can be spent at school, child care and community environments, while parents meet the demands of world. The development of a child can be a very confusing one based on decision making. It is difficult for many children to make healthy food choices when the environment they are exposed to encourage great availability to high-energy-dense foods and sugar drinks. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stipulate, â€Å"a recent study among children showed that a high-energy-dense diet is associated with a higher risk for excess body fat during childhood. Sugar drinks are the largest source of added sugar and an important contributor of calories in the diets of children in the United States. High consumption of sugar drinks, which have few, if any, nutrients, has been associated with obesity. On a typical day, 80% of youth drink sugar drinks.† Today the schools provide students with vendor machines, school stores, canteens or snack bars lighted up like candy land where you can eat to your hearts content. Cafeterias and lunch programs are no different; Hoang Do Wendt (2009) explains a report by USDA in the School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study shows that typical school lunches derive 35% of their energy from fat and 12% of their energy from saturated fat, which is higher than the recommended levels of 30% and 10% respectively (USDA 2001). Various lunch vendors and programs want to meet the satisfaction of their buyers, which are the children. Lehmann (2010) proposes that â€Å"even in the face of an obesity epidemic, cafeteria directors say they need the brand-name meals to keep their programs running. Schools and other food distributors are concerned with purchasing and distributing food that would be appealing to children. The choices made by most of the lunch vendors doesn’t exactly encourage healthy eating h abits, as their goal is to reinforce children’s taste for fast food for that golden dollar. In close relation to environmental factors, the additional causative agents of childhood obesity are psychological factors. The weight of depression, low self esteem, and social anxiety plays a major role in childhood obesity. Acceptance for a child, in relation to his or her peers places pressure on their mind and in their bodies. Lawson alleged that at the center of obesity-depression link is biology, notably the hormonal pathway known as the HPA axis. It is the route of communication between the hypothalamus, the peanut-sized part of the brain that governs parts of the nervous system, and the pituitary and adrenal glands, which secrete a variety of hormones, which work together to maintain chemical equilibrium when the body is under stress. The HPA axis is responsible for releasing cortisol, the so-called â€Å"stress hormone.† It plays a critical role in energy metabolism as well as other functions. The problem is, cortisol prompts the body to deposit fat around the abdome n, a pattern that is especially hazardous to health. Chronic stress also begets depression. â€Å"Obesity, depression and behavioral disorders have all been linked to abnormal functioning of the HPA axis,† says Mustillo. It is a fact that many children today battle depression due too many environmental stressor at home, school and friendships. Depression is coped many ways, however in relation to obesity, the comfort is found in food. This over loveable obsession for food in relation to depression contributes to an unhealthy lifestyle followed by an extension of psychological factors. Low self-esteem is also a contributing factor of obesity. When a child suffers from this disorder, what ever discussion, education, talk on caring for their body would travel through one ear and out the next. Eating may become a source of reassurance in reference to how they are feeling. Lawson discloses by acknowledging that there is an interaction between what’s outside your body and what’s inside. â€Å"Obesity carries a large social stigma and may bring on depression if it negatively affects self-esteem, body image or social mobility. It may even disrupt the normal hormonal pathways. Then again, depression may also bring on obesity, if a child lacks the energy to exercise or is immobilized by stress.† Dealing with social ills, social anxiety is one strongly associated with children and their social relationships. Children greatest fear in their psychological development is rejection from their peers. Some children shy away from the normality of having peers for different reasons. Many children are victims of bullying and social discrimination, for many, there only source of comfort is food. Martyn-Nemeth et al (2009) found that low self esteem is clearly associated with over eating and weight gain in adolescents. Many other studies indicate t hat overweight and obese children and adolescents have moderately lower self esteem than non obese peers. There are numerous types of psychological factors and they play with different approaches to obesity. In one study, 70% of obese children had at least one cardiovascular disease risk factor and 39% had two or more. It is heartrending to announce that there is a substantial amount of children affected by obesity today. We are all knowledgeable of health risks caused by obesity which includes physical and emotional dilemmas. These health risks can also create a shadow to follow children in adulthood. If children are overweight or obese, when in adulthood the affects are likely to be more severe. There are multiple factors in this occurrence of childhood obesity which makes food preferences and consumption questionable. Those factors does however, include parent influence and education. It is not denied that parents are totally out of being the causative agents of childhood obesity. They are however a massive contribution with this underlying problem, but we have to think out the box. Think about a thirteen year old girl entering puberty, whose parents love her unconditionally and her mother prepares all meals according to the national food guide, but yet still battles obesity. Are her parents overweight? What kinds of foods does she have access to at school? Is she suffering from depression or social neglect? One can’t look at an obese child and say I blame the parent. For all its worth that parent maybe the only struggling for help and answers. Obesity is a worldwide crisis, affecting millions of children from different ethnicities, cultures and religions. Does this mean that the millions of children affected, parents are to blame? Obesity can only be corrected by addressing all possible contributions to this dilemma. Therefore, the blame for childhood obesity needs to be lifted of the heads of parents and tackled by the world at large. Works Cited Fernando L. Vazquez and Angela Torres. Behavioral and Psychosocial Factors in Childhood Obesity. Hills, Andrew. â€Å"Genetics of Childhood Obesity.† Journal of Obesity 11 (2010) Lawson, Willow. The Obesity-Depression Link Philadelphia Lehmann, Deborah â€Å"Why School Cafeterias are Dishing Out Fast Foods† Intechopen Retrieved from http://www.intechopen.com/books/childhood-obesity

The RelationShip between Forensic Experts to Their Stakeholders Essay

The RelationShip between Forensic Experts to Their Stakeholders - Essay Example Influence of Forensic Expertise on the Society Forensic expertise affects many people in the society with regards to the needs presented to them by the society. Through this, a good relationship is born between the experts and the society especially the stakeholders. Due to the strong relationship made by the society and forensic science especially the citizens perceive forensic evidence as a much more trusted form of testimonial evidence than others do. The role of the media educating the public more about the forensic technology through television programs that contain forensic evidences makes the way the public relies on quality evidences on cases. Prosecutors depend on the results obtained by the forensic experts in order to plan on the next step in the case. Studies have shown that prosecutors take forensic evidence as a central pillar of plea and trial conviction (Peterson & Murdock, 2009). Furthermore the law society especially the lawyers use the results in order to represent their clients with facts to the courts in case the client is a complainer. Forensic technology has a vital aim in the examination and trial of criminal activities. Forensic science brings things to broad light by retrieving out facts before a case in a court of law, which influences the way, the jury and the judge will make the judgment. The stronger the forensic evidence the more likely the suspect to be fairly prosecuted according to the facts brought forward to the courtroom. Forensic evidence can be vital in a broad range of cases ranging from the study of the blood of a driver alleged of driving while under the control of alcohol drink or drugs. The good thing about the evidence produced through forensic science is that the evidence can be reexamined later using new techniques in the field. Even though the way forensic science provides reliable evidences in cases the activity of collecting the specimens for the laboratory tests is tricky and it needs a lot of concentration (Pe terson, J. et al. 2010). Obstacles facing forensics One of the obstacles facing the forensic science is the chain of custody and the preservation of evidence after obtaining them. Evidence acceptability needs lawful investigation and the severe loyalty to the chain of custody regulations including evidence collection, evidence preservation, analysis, and reporting which is difficult to be done by an officer while gathering evidence. The level by which the information technology is spanning the globe makes it difficult for the forensics make sure security is maintained. For example hackers and fraudsters use the internet to pose threat to the people using the internet (Adrian & Vorster, 2005). Solutions Relevant government should come up with laws, which will deal with the evolving computer crimes. The laws need to evolve around forensics ways of investigating of crime in order to give way to the transformation in technology. These laws should provide judgment to be given to computer criminals. Furthermore, new techniques of auditing should be introduced to cope up with the high rising of techniques used by hackers (Adrian & Vorster, 2005). References Adrian C. & Vorster, W. J. (2005). Legal Challenges Facing Forensic Auditing. Johannesburg: University of Johannesburg. Peterson, J. et al.(2010). Role and Impact of Forensic Evidence in the Criminal Justice Process. School of Criminal Justice and Criminalistics. California State University, L A Peterson, J. L. & Murdock, J.

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Level 6 Diploma in Career Guidance and Development - Career Guidance Theory - Essay Example In fact, these two go hand-in-hand. One has to be guided on the best career that suits him/her, basing on some well proven facts, before the career is now developed and nurtured in him/her. Career guidance is a broad process that involves many career development practices that bring people to their occupation understanding (James A., 2008,420). Various factors influence the peoples’ career making decisions they include; interests, hobbies and talents, environment, society, parents among others. These factors alter the peoples’ career making decisions bringing forth four critical concepts or theories that bring about the success of a good career choice they include; career choice, decision making, career learning and transition and vocational behavior.√ In my profession of career guidance, these concepts are very vital in helping clients overcome the career choice problems. I have to employ these concepts step by step, starting from the long list of careers that people have in mind, till the time they are able to come up with a satisfying career decision and learning. I have to make sure that I make use of each and every theory and aspect that is necessary for a good career development and guidance plan. There are very many processes that can be followed. Different groups of scholars have come up with varied ways and processes that can be used in career development, in various professional fields. To understand the career guidance process vividly, I am going to discuss some of the career guidance theories and their relation to the above mentioned concepts of career choice. These theories are John Holland’s career theory, John Krumboltz’s theory and Donald Super’s theory. John Holland topological theory states that personality types and background or peer group are what attracts people to certain careers. He gives much emphasis on self scrutiny and career preference whereby one selects a career to satisfy

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