Walmart 3rd ver

Whatever the reason is, and however convincing the excuse is, something unjust should not be considered as a natural consequence nor be allowed in this society we are living. But the reality is such an irony. There are tragedies happening everywhere. Frankly, what degrades the world justice has been quite near us: Walmart. Walmart has been criticized by various groups of people, including their labor unions, religious organizations, environmental groups, etc. It has been accused for bad working conditions, low wage without sufficient health care programs, and discrimination regarding gender.

To start with, Walmart has been facing accusations of low wage. According to an article in the New York Times, The average full-time Wal-Mart employee is paid only about $17,000 a year. Considering the fact that the workers at General Motors get an average wage of $29,000 per year, Walmart is providing a very petty amount of money for their workers. The study estimates that low wages force employees to accept $32 million annually in health-related services and $54 million per year in other assistance, such as subsidized school lunches, food stamps and subsidized housing.

Even with the small amount of salary they get, Walmart associates have to work in poor working conditions. For example, according to an article in Common Dreams, a 2005 court case in Missouri showed Walmart denied to pay for overtime works for approximately two hundred thousand people who were forced to work over the legal working hour. The workers were not allowed to have breaks to have their meals. Walmart has also committed similar incidents in other states, including Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Minnesota. Moreover, pharmacists working for Walmart have been degraded to be treated as part time employees for reduced working hour and salaries.

Some more nonsensical incidents are taking place at Walmart. According to New York Times, ten percent of Walmart's stores locked the nighttime employees inside the market building, holding them like prisoners. There has been some concern with Walmart's policy of locking its nighttime employees in the building. It has been implicated in a longer response time in dealing with various employee emergencies. Walmart said this policy was to protect the workers and the store's contents. But whatever their purpose is, the associates still consider the policy as violent and inhumane.

Furthermore, despite such problems mentioned previously and the advertisement of Walmart with the guarantee of health care programs that they offer, unbelievably high percent of Walmart associates suffer for paying their health insurance bills. According to Bloonberg Business Week, Walmart only covers 44% of its 1.3 million U.S. workers’ health care fees. The other half of the associates including both full-time and part-time workers, have to join and pay for health care programs by private organizations. Walmart has currently informed that they have increased the amount of workers who can get their health care plan.

Shown in New York Times, even that amount of low percent was the result of raising the number of workers being supported with the health plan. Walmart announced that the company’s health plan now covers more associates by 8 percent. But even with the increase, less than 47 percent of the associates would actually get the financial support for their health care. Normally when they reach 65, most Wal-Mart employees will rely heavily on Social Security - if the privatizers don't kill it. And many Wal-Mart employees already rely on Medicaid to pay for health care, especially for their children.

Last but not least, Walmart has also been accused of problems regarding gender discrimination. From the beginning of the hiring process to the end of their retirement, female associates are said to be discriminated at the work place. For instance, Duke vs. Walmart inc. was a discrimination case on more than 1.5 million female employees. Dr. William Bliebly who evaluated Walmart’s employment policies said that the men and women not being created equal in the workforce is what Walmart is doing and what they should essentially not be doing. However, according to USA Today, Supreme Court has recently ruled the Walmart case of sexual discrimination on the side of the company, which would make it even harder for the female associates to remain working there.

Walmart associates have been protesting against such problems through formal Walmart labor unions and other organizations such as Our Walmart. According to the interview with Our Walmart leader, a former Walmart associate, Walmart has hardly ever respected their associates. Especially when they get hurt, Walmart does not provide proper care through hospitals, but only with their own doctor, who humiliates the hurt associates. The system eventually leads to the point where the associates have to get their own health care insurance outside the company in order to get proper care on their body.

Regardless of how convenient and popular Walmart is for the consumers, Walmart would have to remember the fact that the associates are the main sources in maintaining their company. What really should happen are Walmart owners listening to every single employee, and finding out what the associates need in the first place. Having run for almost 30 years, it is now time for Walmart to move their whole attention from profit to people. By the time they realize their faults towards their people, and try to fix it for them, Walmart will turn to be a real “super” market.

[Mr.Menard] Fifth Assignment (04.05.2012) ! :)

[Comments]

HaeUk Ko: I’m not so sure whether individual character’s actions can define a character to be of one genre. I think genres apply to a story as a whole. Moreover, even if a character might posses characteristics representative of the pessimistic and realistic atmosphere of naturalism, it could merely be an way to emphasize other viewpoints than naturalism. But, otherwise, your analysis was clear and really helped me grasp the story.

Hyunseok Lee: Good analysus of the story. However, I thought this essay too focused on what the writer intended to show. We discussed enough about what the author tried to say, the way of expression. Coming up with your idea with creativity will work out better.

Han Jong Hyun: I am not sure how you defined animal-like behaviors. For me, the father is definitely a savage; even though he is drunk, his actions of beating the dog and his wife is unforgivable. However, the actions of the boy are rather confusing; they oscillated between two different emotions, and it remains as a mystery what the true nature of the boy is. How about the dog? I am not sure. Well, good insight shown here in overall.

[Essay]

For naturalistic writers, human beings are considered as "human beasts," according to Emile Zora's description. They also believe that characters can be studied through their relationships to their surroundings. As most of the naturalistic stories focus on describing their characters, “A Dark Brown Dog” by Steven Crane has its main theme on showing the types of human beings. Crane uses his characters to show the animal-like side of human beings not by arguing or criticizing the rightfulness of them, but just by objectively depicting their actions in detail.

In “A Dark Brown Dog,” there are three different characters that are actually not quite different. The distinct behaviors among the characters, the dog, the child and the father, can be narrowed into one same category: animalistic behavior. In the first place, the dog undeniably belongs to the category of "animal", though it seems to be the “protagonist” in the story. Its continuous dependence on human beings even after they beat him up is one of the animal traits shown in the dog: thoughtlessness. The child, although he becomes good friends with the dog, still commits animalistic actions based on his feelings. He harasses the dog just for his own pleasure. Last but not least, the father, though he is a grown up human being, is the most animal-like character in the story. He does not restrict himself from acting with his instinct only, without any intellect involved. 

Although both are in the category of naturalist piece of writing, the way that instinct is depicted is quite contrasting between "The Dark Brown Dog" and the story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London. Whereas “To Build a Fire” has a tone of criticizing the man who only believes in his intellectuality, “A Dark Brown Dog” rather seems to be accusing people who acts only with their instinct, in a mild way. Another difference is the feature between the two stories. While “To Build a Fire” describes the difference between the protagonist and the antagonist, “A Dark Brown Dog” focuses more on the similar behaviors of all characters. Human characters in "A Dark Brown Dog" seem to be showing the worst and the most violent side of human beings.

In addition to the stories, there are real-life examples of human beings who commit animal-like behaviors. Although in these days, it is said to be more developed, and seem to be filled with a lot of intellectual people, the human instinct of acting in a deprived way does not seem to have been developed at all. People still grossly murder one another, sometimes in a way which cannot be considered as a crime committed by people living in the 21st century. This shows that outlook of this wonderful society does not positively correlates with how much developed the people living here are. I wonder whether this kind of behavior has been naturally built in human beings when they are born, and can never be extinguished.

Crane seems to have a purpose of depicting different kind of characters in one same category of “animalistic” behavior. All the small details tell how deeply Crane has understood his characters. He is not criticizing or giving any opinion in a hard way, but he just shows how the world of human reality is. Just by showing the nature of human beings, he let the readers think more deeply on the issue that is often ignored, or purposely erased by some people: how we all should act. Overall, detailed and objective observation on each character and the neutral viewpoint of the author are what make the story naturalistic. (I'm really inspired!) 

Walmart 2nd ver. (grammatical mistakes applied)

Diverse incidents happen throughout the world everyday. They may seem all very different- from the very left to the very right. Whatever the reason is, and however convincing the excuse is, something unjust should not be considered as a natural consequence nor be allowed in this society we are living. But the reality is such an irony. There are tragedies happening everywhere. People lie, don’t trust each other, and the social gap is widened daily. Frankly, what degrades the world justice has been quite near us: Walmart.

Though there are tons of problems I could find associated with Walmart; the most serious among them was its relationship with people- meaning not only the consumers who want cheap products, but also those “associates” who work for the company. For this article, I would like to focus more on the latter. Walmart “associates” are working under desperate working conditions and intolerable treatment. Walmart is providing neither sufficient wage nor proper health care programs for the associates. Walmart does not listen to their associates’ desire for union protection. Walmart is not doing right.

To start with the labor, Walmart is said to provide a very low working condition. According to the rating toward working for Walmart online, by the people who used to work there, Walmart does not treat their “associates” like the word “associates” implies, not even as human beings in some cases. What they basically do is order those workers to do whatever they need done, even if it is not related to their work. After the workers finish what they are said to do, Walmart employers force them to do another thing, completely different task from what they have done.

For example, when one of the associates was employed for the counter work, the employer first ordered him to carry boxes for several hours. Right after he was done with that, the employer gave him another task of cleaning the restrooms. When he had finished all that, the last thing that the employer did was shout at him for not concentrating on his work at the cash-counter. This kind of situation could hardly be understood in common sense, but What it often happens in real life at Walmart.

Some could justify the situation for being paid higher wages. But at Walmart, that is not the case. According to an article in the New York Times, “The average full-time Wal-Mart employee is paid only about $17,000 a year.” Considering the fact that the workers at General Motors get an average wage of $29,000 per year, Walmart is providing a very petty amount of money for their workers.

They not only provide low wages, but also have a very weak Health Care Plan. The company's health care plan covers fewer than half of its workers. Since the company does not offer a proper health care program for their workers, associates tend to rely on other sources. When they reach 65, most Wal-Mart employees will rely heavily on Social Security - if the privatizers don't kill it. And many Wal-Mart employees already rely on Medicaid to pay for health care, especially for their children.

Because of all those inadequate conditions provided by the Walmart Corporations, there are associates protesting everywhere across the world: in front of Walmart itself, on the road, and on the Internet. Even just on Youtube.com, there are lots of videos of the labor union. The fact that their working conditions have not greatly changed through years shows how Walmart does not listen to what their family members claim. What was significant for me was that most associates were not being violent during the protest.

While watching several protesting videos online, it was quite shocking to see how there was no violence involved during the whole procedure. There are also people protesting toward big companies in Korea, such as Samsung or Hyundai. However, there is whole lot of difference between them. Basically there is no protest in Korea that does not involve severe injuries. Big companies usually hire a notorious group of gangsters to put down the protesters. Thus, compared to those situations, Walmart is not being “terrible” towards the protesters.

However, not being violent does not mean they are treating the “associates” rightfully. What really should happen are Walmart owners listening to every single employee, and finding out what the associates need in the first place. Having run for almost 30 years, it is now time for Walmart to move their whole attention from profit to people. By the time they realize their faults towards their people, and try to fix it for them, Walmart will turn to be a real “super” market from a “super hell” for everyone. 

---This essay only applied the grammatical mistakes with the red pen; the final version should be the paper copy in MLA format, which I would turn in soon! So please do not mark yet :)

I Had a Bad Case of Diarrhea! (Three-sided Story)

[Character List]

First Person: Synthie. “I” is a typical highschool girl who is at the period of adolescence. She secretly likes this Chemistry teacher at school. She is so overly in love with him that she goes to school for the sake of meeting him every day. Mondays and Wednesdays are her only favorite days, which she takes Chemistry on! She always sits in the front row, staring at the teacher. By the way, she is also an ambitious girl who wants to change up this conservative society into a more equal one.

Second Person: Mr. Liu. “You” is a passionate Chemistry teacher who seems to be cold on outside, but actually adores his students a lot. He wants to provide the best education for his students per every single lesson. He feels discouraged and caring at the same time, looking at the students dozing all the time. He appreciates those who sit in the front row, listening to him seriously.

Third Person: Lete-junior. “She” is one of the indistinctive, featureless students in the Chemistry class. She has no point in taking the class, other than sleeping. She never wakes up, even if the teacher shakes her violently with his hands. She is only awake when she smells some food around her. Apart from her indifferent attitude toward all the classes, she is currently the top student in more than 5 subjects.

[Summary]

It seems to be a usual Wednesday morning. Synthie is in the Chemistry class, sitting in the very front row as usual. The class starts and almost everyone starts to doze; especially Lete-junior, snores as loud as an angry bull. Synthie is the only one awake, writing down all the things that Mr. Liu talks about. Suddenly, Synthie feels something wrong with her stomach. Ignoring her desire to go to the toilet, she keeps listening to Mr. Liu’s sweet voice. She feels volcano inside her stomach. Just by moving a little bit, BOOOMMMM!! That is loud enough to wake up Lete-junior, which means it was unbelievably and unbearably loud. Synthie pretends as if it is done by someone else, but she is the only one awake in the class. Unfortunately, Mr. Liu makes a complement on Synthie, for waking up everyone in class, even Lete-junior. Synthie becomes very depressed and starts to think of how embarrassing it is, for the whole day. Mr. Liu considers it very cute, and starts to adore Synthie even more.

Today is such a wonderful day because it is Wednesday. On every Monday and Wednesday of the week, I have got Chemistry class for two hours in a row. For Wednesdays, it is even better since I can see Mr. Liu, my dear Chemistry teacher for the first and second period in the morning. Beginning the day with Mr. Liu’s sweet voice makes me enjoy the rest of the day.

Right after I hear the bell rings, notifying the start of the first period, I run, as fast as possible, to get my seat in the very front row in Dasan-218. Yes! There is only one seat left in the first row, which would soon become ‘my seat’. I quickly throw my backpack, hoping it would land in the accurate place. After I claim the seat to be mine, by putting my bag there, I start to approach Mr. Liu’s desk with short and quick steps. For how many hours have I been waiting for this moment? How many times have I imagined myself popping up a conversation with Mr. Liu since last Monday? And this is the time!

*      *      *

“Good morning Mr. Liu!” You suddenly hear an energetic voice behind your back. You can feel someone approaching you in a hurry. You don’t need to wonder or guess who that is. You already know the answer. It’s Synthie probably, no actually, for sure. You greet her with a usual big smile all over your face. She smiles back with a normal morning conversation, starting from “Whacha doin’, Mr. Liu?” You can’t get yourself from falling for this cute little girl who wanders around you every second.

“Did you do your homework today?” You have to ask her a planned question just to break the ice. Don’t know why, but there is always this awkward atmosphere formed between you and Synthie. You hope Synthie does not feel the weirdness.     

*      *      *    

The starting bell has rung 5 minutes ago, but Mr. Liu has not begun his lecture yet, which is blissful for Lete-junior to sleep even a bit more. Lete-junior, expecting Mr. Liu not to start talking about this dang acid-base equilibrium, lies her face down. Few minutes later, Mr. Liu begins the lecture passionately. Lete-junior is already dreaming of eating baked potatoes for lunch.

Her eyes are all closed; she can’t see anything around her. Her face is down; nothing around her can see her.

*      *      *

Everyone in the class is sleeping, but of course I am not. How could I ever think of sleeping in the Chemistry class where Mr. Liu is giving a lecture? Even just one second is too precious for me to lose right now. I don’t even feel proud of myself for being the only one awake in the whole class of twenty students. It is my duty to listen to Mr. Liu’s explanations on acid-base equilibrium, mixed with his mellow voice.

Suddenly, I feel some strangeness on my stomach. This pain is something I have never gone through before. Have I eaten something unusual this morning? No. There is no way for me to eat something weird only except the possibility of cafeteria lady putting some DDT in the Checks-Choco cereal box on purpose. Since that is hopefully not the case, there should not be any problem with the food.

*      *      *

You are not even surprised at how Synthie is the only one staring at the whiteboard. Her two bright eyes follow your hands wherever they go. You wonder whether she understands what you are talking about. Frankly, that does not really matter. You are just pleased with her being the only one awake. Every time you have to find your students dozing in the class, you get angry at this reality of rotten education system in Korea. What they want is only the result, not the process of getting the results. Students don’t consider school lectures seriously, but they rather study by themselves at night. That’s what makes you so mad.

Perhaps, you are overly frustrated for that now. Perhaps, that is why you never notice Synthie’s dying face right in front of you right now. You start to write down the equations for polyprotic acids. Right after you close the board-marker cap, BOOOOOOOOOOM! Was that part of some secretive air raids by North Korea?

*      *      *

Oh my lord. Did that just happen? That just did happen. I regret myself for not going to the toilet right after the first pain on the stomach. I keep writing, as if nothing has happened. Okay, Synthie, calm down. Nothing has happened. You have never passed the wind. Even if someone has done that, it’s not you. I try to ease my mind, but I quickly notice they are all lie.

Unfortunately, every single student in the class is staring at me; even Lete-Junior is awakened with shocked face. What should I do? I hope at least Mr. Liu does not notice anything. I can’t look at his face right now. Everything fades out, and I can’t feel anything.

*      *      *

At first, Lete-junior thinks it is all part of her dream. Since she has been dreaming of her being in the World War II in 1940s, that makes sense in some way. When she finally wakes up, she notices the sound has come out from a certain person. Then she notices who it is. She finds Synthie lying down her face, but she can still see Synthie’s face being as red as the tomato that she had for this morning.

Lete-junior waits for something else to happen, but the awkward silence seems to continue forever. Then Mr. Liu finally opens his mouth.

“Let’s all appreciate Synthie for waking up everyone! Thank you Synthie.”

Oh wow. Lete-junior, even herself feels embarrassed for Synthie.

*      *      *

All I can think of now, is that I want to get the heck out of this shoot class. Tear drops begin to fall down, but I don’t even try to stop it. How can Mr. Liu say such a thing? Is it that difficult for him to just pretend as if he hasn’t heard anything? Thanks to the bell, the class ends. All the other students seem to remember nothing else than to leave, right after they hear the bell rings. I try to run out of the classroom, but someone grabs me hard. It’s Mr. Liu.

I make my typical angry face, tacitly telling him how much I feel insulted now. Mr. Liu does not say anything either, but gives me a big hug. Seriously, it is not like I have planned it or anything, but I start to cry again, as loud as possible. Mr. Liu only hugs me harder, without any words. I know it is funny, but human emotions are sometimes funny. Guess that hug worked, quite a bit.

But still, what's embarrassing is embarrassing.

I secretly promise myself not to commit such an accident ever again. Never.

[Mr.Menard] Fourth Assignment (03.29.2012) ! :)

The idea of Social Darwinism by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century America greatly influenced naturalists. Social Darwinism argued that human evolution is a natural selection of the better, which means it was determined by the nature. Social Darwinists and naturalists took this theory to prove that human beings do not have free will, but are shaped by their environment. Naturalists believed that this predestined world is based on a series of events that each one causes the next.

At the time when Jack London lived his life, the idealistic figure of men was to be the center of explorations. People wanted to find out more about the nature and to explore it, being dominant over the world. This type of arrogant manlike figure is very well shown in one of London’s short stories, “To Build a Fire.” London rather stays against this kind of characteristics in the story. Throughout the story, London repeatedly shows how the main character does not have free will and how nature has already mapped out his fate although the man tries to use some of his own ability to solve problems.

There are two very distinct characters in “To Build a Fire”: one human being and one dog. The man is a typical representation of an ideal man at that time, being overly proud of himself. He was “quick and alert in the things of life but only in the things and not in the significances,” meaning he only believes what he can see and feel with his “scientific” abilities. He does not listen to the old man saying that it’s going to be cold soon, but rather measures the current temperature with the degrees in Fahrenheit. More pertinently, the man does not realize that building a fire under a spruce tree may be dangerous. In all his actions, the man only exercises intellectualism; he never uses instinct, which would inform him that certain actions are dangerous. This shows how he does not believe anything else rather than the things he has determined with his scientific knowledge. This eventually leads him to death, as a serial consequence of the determined nature.

On the other hand, the dog represents pure instinct. Unlike the man, who needs the results of intellectual civilization, it uses its own natural devices, such as fur and the sense of smell. To a certain extent, the dog might have much deeper instinctive understanding of the environment, especially of the cold. It realizes that such desperate conditions could be significantly dangerous to itself. It leaves for another man who can provide him fire and something to eat. It shows how the dog is much more developed in instinctive thinking compared to the man. The dog (probably) survives by following the natural instinct where the man dies without looking for his instinct in himself.

London contrasts two distinct types of characters: one that uses natural instinct with somewhat of selfishness, and the other with arrogance and pride. He seems be on the side of believing in the Social Darwinist nature, as many naturalists did, following the power of predestined nature. Apart from this, the ending rather shows the ideal figure of a Greek tragic hero who has fatal flow that leads him to eventual destruction. In this case, the fatal flow of hubris led the man into the destruction of death. London might have wanted to show that mankind has (Social Darwinistically) developed in a better way through all these experiences of failure. 

Chonghyun Ahn: I really liked your juxtaposition of natural instincts with human intellect. It was great to see the construct and the outcome of two distinct qualities. However, the conclusion describes of two types of human; I don’t understand how natural instinct can preside with human. But GREAT WORK OVERALL!

Han Jong Hyun: I was very surprised to find out that your ideas were extremely similar to mine. Anyway, my point is that I agree with you, on how London tried to depict two discrete kinds of humans: one that relies on its instincts and the other with intellectuality. However, you did not elaborate how building a fire under a spruce tree only represents intellectuality, not instincts. Also, the theme you have discussed in the introduction and conclusion “hubris” in the protagonist is not present in any of your body paragraph. In overall, nice reflection.