Letter from George Essay Example for Free

Letter from George Essay Im sorry I havent written to you in a long time but a lot of things have happened since I last wrote, unfortunately its bad news this time. It all started when Slim and Curley came in the bunkhouse arguing one night. Then Curley turned to Lennie and says what you laughing at, and then he started lashing out at Lennie and smashed him in the nose. I couldnt stand it anymore Lennie wouldnt fight back so I told him to let him have it. Lennie caught Curleys punch, then he crushed it and he wouldnt let go. When he let his fist go it was flattened, not a bone was left unbroken in his hand. I was sure Lennie and I were going to get canned but Slim saved our skins. He told Curley that if he told anyone what happened and get us canned, we will tell everyone then he would get the laugh. That was good of Slim. I was all right at this point, I was happy, I thought if Lennie play and I our cards right and keep clean for a month we will get our fifty bucks each and get that ranch with old Candy. I started to believe our dream could really happen. All the lads and me were playing horses shoes late Sunday evening. I heard shuffling footsteps from the barn, I looked and saw Candy making his way towards me. His body language said every thing, when he looked at me I felt that something was wrong. He came to me said quietly you better come to the barn. When I saw Curleys wife lying there dead the painful thought going though my mind that I had no other solution to this problem but assume that it was Lennie and knew that was what Candy was thinking. At this point the dream was over for sure of a little ranch. I knew this was the end of the road for Lennie. I knew Curley would want lynch him so Candy and I discussed what we were going to do. I went to the bunkhouse and got Carlsons gun, while Candy went to get the boys. My memory flicked back to the night Carlson shot Candys dog. I went to the barn and heard how they were all planning how they going to get him, Slim reassured me that it was the only way. The others went of all armed; they all went the opposite way to where Lennie should be. I knew he would be by the river where we slept a few nights ago, I told him if he ever got into trouble to go there and wait for me. Sure enough he was there, looking at him made me shiver about the thought of my duty ahead. Lennie expected me to be angry with him but I told him visualise the dream of the imaginary ranch and how the rabbits would hop around and there soft hair. When he looked away I ended his life hoping he was going to a better place. As his lifeless body hit the ground it set a feeling guilt that was unimaginable. I looked at my right hand, which held the gun I throw it away in disgust. Ive moved on now people, just dont care about ranch hands. Best of luck Tom perhaps life will treat you better than Lennie and I.

Poverty on the Rise Essay -- Poverty Essays

Poverty on the Rise There is a very wide range of income for individuals and families. This is why we have people that are very wealthy which are referred to as the upper class and there is the middle class that makes an average income, and the bottom of the income bracket lies the people in poverty. Poverty is a condition in which a person or family does not have the means to satisfy basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. Your race does not matter, every race has people that are in poverty. But as it is statistically shown, different races have a different number of people in poverty. In 1996, the federal government established a minimum income level below which a person or family is declared in "poverty." If a single person makes less than $7,995 then they are living in poverty, and a family has to exceed $16,036 or are also in poverty. From 1996 to 1997 the poverty rate has decreased by .4% In 1996, there was 36.5 million people at the poverty level and in 1997 the number of people in poverty decreased to 35.6 million people. Since a decade ago the poverty level has increased from 32.4 million people to as high as 39.3 million in 1993, but since 1993 the number of people living in poverty has decreased to 35.6 million people. The percent of the population a decade ago below the poverty was 13.1%, which has increases up to 15.1% but here recently the poverty rate is back down to 13.3% Gen...

Kip Kinkel Essay

Kip Kinkel was a high school student at Thurston High who was incarcerated for killing his parents, 5 students, and injuring over 20 other kids at school. Kip had a lot of psychological problems due to the biological and social aspects of his life, that maybe if had been treated properly, would not have made him feel the need to commit the crimes that he did. To begin, Kip Kinkel had many biological problems that may have kick started his problems from a young age. He had dyslexia, so he could not read and write very well. This caused him to fall behind in class and have to be held back a year. Biological psychologists would say that he had this problem due to his brain structure and chemicals and his brain that were dysfunctional and it caused him to have learning problems. He was also too small for his age, this made him get bullied by other boys at school. Psychoanalytic psychologists would say that because he had bed experience as a child, he probably would become bitter and feel like an outcast later in life as well. His mother was older than the recommended age to have babies and still be healthy, biological psychologists would say that this may have caused some abnormalities in his body and brain, such as the small body for his age, and dyslexia. Kip Kinkel had a terrible social life at home and at school. He got bullied in school because of his small body image; according to humanistic psychologists, this would lead him to low self esteem. He also had a lack of friends because growing up, he only had one friend, who was a girl, because he lived in a house that was kind of secluded in the woods, so there weren’t many kids around. He also got held back a year while all of his friends went on to the next grade. This would make him feel lonely and isolated according to the humanistic approach. Kip had a bad relationship with his family as well. He did not live up to his parents standards, and he did not really have anything to bond with his father over, except guns. This probably made him insecure about himself, always trying to be better than he was to please his parents. According to the psychoanalytic theory, security and parental relationships are major influences on personality. Kip also had many psychological issues that may have pushed him over the edge. He was diagnosed with depression, and given Prozac. However, shortly after he was starting to feel okay, the doctors took him off of it. This made him depressed again, but nobody realized it. He was also believed to be a schizophrenic because he would talk about â€Å"the voices in my head†, however he was never diagnosed and never treated for it. The combination of depression and schizophrenia lead him to maladaptive behaviors, according to the cognitive perspective, such as exploding homemade bombs and shooting things to take out his anger and relieve stress. Incarceration may not have been the been conclusion for the crimes that Kip committed. All of the things he did were because of his of his psychological problems that were caused from the social and biological aspects of his life growing up, and that were mistreated. If Kip had been better treated medically, the shootings may have not happened. Kip Kinkel is just the severe victim of his disorders, not just a cold hearted killer.

European influence in Africa Essay

The presence of Europeans in African countries had a great influence on the cultural benefits, traditions and norms of Africans. African societies were composed of small ethnic groups bound by deep cultural and traditional benefits. Slave trade in North Africa disintegrated these cultural systems. The entry of Europeans in North Africa led to breaking of those small indigenous units into modular states that could be easily controlled by the colonial rule. They abolished the indigenous legal systems and imposed new legal systems based on European concepts of law. North Africa was integrated into the world capitalist system, where its main function was to provide raw materials and new markets for Western industrial revolution. This led to imposition of taxation forcing Africans into cheap wage labor. Land grabbing and alienation in settler colonies made it impossible for the economy of the colonized countries to grow. This is because the colonial administrations only developed areas they saw fit for their benefit and it led to growth of colonial cities such as Dakar, Lagos and Nairobi. Westernization in North Africa led to the rise of Christianity and reduced the number of Muslims in sub Sahara, which contributed to the destabilization of Africa traditions and cultural benefits. Christianity promoted the assimilation of new ideas and new lifestyles such as monogamy and nuclear family. African societies believed in polygamy and extended families. This is being practiced even to day. Christian missionaries introduced Western education, which involved mastery of European language and literacy. The adoption of new habits and tastes coupled with Christianity and western education, led to the development of a new elite that included teachers, clerks, lawyers and doctors. Slave trade degraded the value of African people because they were used against their will to benefit the European economy. This impacted negatively on African leaders because some still practice slave trade today. Europeans brought about, modernization in Africa in terms of Western education, Christianity and Western lifestyles. European influence in Asia (1650-1815). South East Asia comprised of societies that varied in different aspects. Main societies in south East Asia included China, Thailand and Cambodia, therefore European influence on South East Asia varied extensively depending on indigenous states. Societies in South East Asia had very distinct traditional beliefs and rulers who reigned with a conviction of permanency and stability. Europeans created new economic relationships in South East Asia by establishing new industries like rubber production and improvement of traditional ones such as rice and sugar industries. They were improved and expanded to meet the European needs. Communities in Cambodia protested against economical changes when agribusiness in form of plantation farming was introduced. Europeans aimed to make the traditional cultures modern. This was received positively by some south East Asians who had been trained in Western schools. They believed that Western culture would have positive effects on their cultural and economical backgrounds. The elites adopted the European language and mode of dressing. Adoption of the Western culture led to political, economical and social growth in Asia. However, it was difficult to assimilate the European culture and lifestyles in Asia because of the diversity of Asian cultural customs and traditions. Asia is composed of Muslim, Christianity and Buddhism and therefore impacting Christianity in Asia was difficult. These traditional settings emphasized on unifying of social, economic, political and social spheres, though it is impractical to unify all the spheres. The influence of Europeans in Asia was highly varied and uneven throughout the region. They used superior military technology to achieve conquest and monopoly. The Portuguese invasion of Malacca led to the decline of the trade systems as they tried to dominate the spice trade. The European therefore, caused the detachment of producers form their traditional markets. As a result the powerful trading cultures in southeastern Asia collapsed due to colonial influence. European influence was limited to the coastal ports and the adjoining regions. Peasant life in Asia was not affected by the European influence as they remained inside the confines of their village. (Alagappa 130-138). European influence in Middle East (1825-1941). Middle east societies combined religion with governance of their states. European powers overwhelmed the region and tried to separate governance from religion. They replaced the indigenous educational, social and political systems through modernization. The Kuranic schools were replaced by the Western education. Middle east is an Islamic region that viewed European powers as enemies for creating Christianity in the Muslim dominated region. This created a sense of distrust of the Europeans by the Arabs. Europeans faced great resistance form the Arabs who used national movements to adopt anti-western speeches in order to gain favor from their people.. European powers in the Middle East replaced the Muslim leaders by non-Muslim leaders to create artificial political territories since they did not arise from the societies. They created states that had conflicting ethnicities and divided other ethnic groups into two or three portions. For instance they divided the Kurds into Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. (Kaelble 120-127). Dividing ethnic communities stirred political rivalry and violence in the Middle East. It also created instability among the Arabs, preventing political, social and economical development. The Arabs formulated revenge missions to the Europeans and resisted any form of invasion whether political, economical, educational or social.

The Geoglyphic Art of Chiles Atacama Desert

The Geoglyphic Art of Chiles Atacama Desert More than 5,000 geoglyphs- prehistoric works of art placed on or worked into the landscape- have been recorded in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile over the past thirty years. A summary of these investigations appears in a paper by Luis Briones entitled The geoglyphs of the north Chilean desert: an archaeological and artistic perspective,  published in the March 2006 issue of the journal Antiquity.   The Geoglyphs of Chile The best-known geoglyphs in the world are the Nazca lines, built between 200 BC and 800 AD, and located approximately 800 kilometers away in coastal Peru. The Chilean glyphs in the Atacama Desert are far more numerous and varied in style, cover a much larger region (150,000 km2 versus the 250 km2 of the Nazca lines), and were built between 600 and 1500 AD. Both the Nazca lines and the Atacama glyphs had multiple symbolic or ritual purposes; while scholars believe the Atacama glyphs additionally had a vital role in the transportation network connecting the great South American civilizations.Built and refined by several South American cultures- likely including Tiwanaku and Inca, as well as less-advanced groups- the widely varied geoglyphs are in geometric, animal and human forms, and in about fifty different types. Using artifacts and stylistic characteristics, archaeologists believe the earliest were first constructed during the Middle Period, beginning around 800 AD. The most recent may be associated with early Christian rites in the 16th century. Some geoglyphs are found in isolation, some are in panels of up to 50 figures. They are found on hillsides, pampas, and valley floors throughout the Atacama Desert; but they are always found near ancient pre-Hispanic trackways marking llama caravan routes through the difficult regions of the desert connecting the ancient people of South America. Types and Forms of Geoglyphs The geoglyphs of the Atacama Desert were built using three essential methods, ‘extractive’, ‘additive’ and ‘mixed’. Some, like the famous geoglyphs of Nazca, were extracted from the environment, by scraping the dark desert varnish away exposing the lighter subsoil. Additive geoglyphs were built of stones and other natural materials, sorted and carefully placed. Mixed geoglyphs were completed using both techniques  and occasionally painted as well.The most frequent type of geoglyph in the Atacama are geometric forms: circles, concentric circles, circles with dots, rectangles, crosses, arrows, parallel lines, rhomboids; all symbols found in pre-Hispanic ceramics and textiles. One important image is the stepped rhombus, essentially a staircase shape of stacked rhomboids or diamond shapes (such as in the figure).Zoomorphic figures include camelids (llamas or alpacas), foxes, lizards, flamingos, eagles, seagulls, rheas, monkeys, and fishes includin g dolphins or sharks. One frequently occurring image is a caravan of llamas, one or more lines of between three and 80 animals in a row. Another frequent image is that of an amphibian, such as a lizard, toad or serpent; all of these are divinities in the Andean world connected to water rituals.Human figures occur in the geoglyphs and are generally naturalistic in form; some of these are engaged in activities ranging from hunting and fishing to sex and religious ceremonies. On the Arica coastal plains can be found the Lluta style of human representation, a body form with a highly stylized pair of long legs and a square head. This type of glyph is thought to date to AD 1000-1400. Other stylized human figures have a forked crest and a body with concave sides, in the Tarapaca region, dated to AD 800-1400. Why Were the Geoglyphs Built? The complete purpose of the geoglyphs is likely to remain unknown to us today. Possible functions include a cultic worship of mountains  or expressions of devotion to Andean deities; but Briones believes that one vital function of the geoglyphs was to store knowledge of safe pathways for llama caravans through the desert, including the knowledge of where salt flats, water sources, and animal fodder could be found. Briones terms these â€Å"messages, memories and rites† associated with the pathways, part sign post and part story-telling along a transportation network in an ancient form of combined religious and commercial travel, not unlike the rite known from many many cultures on the planet as pilgrimage. Large llama caravans were reported by Spanish chroniclers, and many of the representational glyphs are of caravans. However, no caravan equipment has been found in the desert to date (see Pomeroy 2013). Other potential interpretations include solar alignments. Sources This article is a part of the About.com guide to the Geoglyphs, and the Dictionary of Archaeology. Briones-M L. 2006. The geoglyphs of the north Chilean desert: an archaeological and artistic perspective.  Antiquity 80:9-24. Chepstow-Lusty AJ. 2011. Agro-pastoralism and social change in the Cuzco heartland of Peru: a brief history using environmental proxies. Antiquity 85(328):570-582. Clarkson PB. Atacama Geoglyphs: Huge Images Created Across the Rocky Landscape of Chile. Online manuscript. Labash M. 2012. The Geoglyphs of the Atacama Desert: A bond of landscape and mobility. Spectrum 2:28-37. Pomeroy E. 2013. Biomechanical insights into activity and long distance trade in the south-central Andes (AD  500–1450). Journal of Archaeological Science 40(8):3129-3140. Thanks to Persis Clarkson for her assistance with this article, and to Louis Briones for the photography.

Subject Boring

Subject Boring Here lately, Ive been running wide out with deadlines and tasks atop of sick relatives, surgery, a new puppy, and the ice storm from hell. That not only throws me in high gear, but it also makes me sort at a glance much like an agent. Sort what, you might ask? Emails, blogs to read, submissions for FundsforWriters, and requests for reviews. And you might be surprised at the key factor I use in deleting or holding to read. The quality of the subject line. Hey, when time is crazy limited, and I have chapters to write and newsletters to prepare, something has to give. Im a fast reader Yeah, that latter part sounds stupid, but that literally runs through my head. Will I regret having missed this? Butit has to start with the subject. Okay, lets talk about whats good and whats not. Ive snared these good ones from the past week. They got my attention and dragged me to their sites. How Much Should a Writer Charge for Speaking? How I Read Slush: 3 Lessons for Writers. 5 Ways to Add Humor to Your Writing. What doesnt work for me when Im in a pinch is general stuff like these. They tell me nothing. And unless the person being interviewed in the story is a huge household name, whats going to draw me in to read about an unknown? When writing about a relatively unknown individual, at least use the subject to spark interest. How to Write Better How to Build a Platform A Conversation with Novelist (fill in the blank) An Interview with (fill in the blank) A Visit with (fill in the blank) A Talk about Writing Rules On the line is something like: 3 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Published Three Is in the subject line tells me this piece is about the author, and not necessarily with focus on me and my needs. But I like learning about mistakes so I dont make them. This one is iffy. And if I happen to open up the piece, I scan first. Headers and subheaders then tell me whether to invest my time. Im not making this up! We read about this all the time. Agents, editors and publishers scan. They also have deadlines, sick relatives, surgery and snow. They have the same 24 hours as we do . . . and most of them actually have a life afterwards! So, after youve poured your heart and soul and deep intellect into a piece, whether its a blog post, a list post, or a submission, take serious time to title it skillfully. Think over-the-top wording because thats what captures a readers interest. If your subject doesnt snag them, they never get to read your beautiful words that follow.

Social Implications of Information Technology Essay

Social Implications of Information Technology - Essay Example Economically it has changed the way of doing business and improved communication between partners; culturally it has reduced the differences between cultures and improved intercultural communication; politically it provides people with a new type of access to important information, while politicians obtain a new powerful type of lever to affect the voters; and socially it has influenced the communication and learning patters, and created absolutely new systems of relationship between people. Such extensive and diverse influence makes the new informational technologies one of the key forces that shape the present-day society and affect being of virtually each human being. The recent shift towards intensive use of computer technology in educational practices has already become so powerful that computer-mediated learning is no more perceived as something new. Whether computer laboratories in the primary schools or Internet-equipped computer facilities in the high school, computers have turned into unalienable part of students' life. The tremendous growth of technology has had large and serious impact on virtually every aspect of educational and learning practices. One of the consequences of the remarkable technological surge was the rapid development of computer-mediated distance learning at the higher education level. The beginning of the third millennium was marked by intensive growth. Institutions of higher education continued to further develop distance learning offerings targeting the populations of working adults who otherwise have limited access to higher education (Smart, and Cappel, 2006; Liaw and Huang, 2002). The online enrollment estimations made in the late 1990s have been exceeded and continues to grow at amazingly high rates. Thus, the number of online students reached 2.6 million in the fall of 2004 (Allen and Seaman, 2004). Despite the tremendous success of distance technology-mediated learning (this term covers not only fully online courses, but also various blended approaches that integrate online components into traditional classes), experts suggests that it still remains at an early stage of development and has huge poten tial to grow further (Smart, and Cappel, 2006). Computers are exceptionally useful for students at any level. Simple word-processing software turns students into independent publishers of ideas and opinions, helps them to eliminate the feeling of isolation, weigh their thoughts and ideas against thought and ideas of other people, while more advanced interactive software make it possible for them to practice the inquiry-based learning (Papert, 1996). This significant advantage of the computer technology is especially important in educational institution of higher learning, where the role of teacher is less important and students learns more on his own. Traditionally, European and American universities and colleges found themselves under constant pressure to control the costs while improving the quality of instruction, focusing on customer needs, and reacting to the competitive challenges (Horgan, 1998: 1). Higher education professionals used to perceive distance learning as the major tool in addressing the challenges while maintaining cost-effectiveness of universities (Dibiase, 2000). The distance learnin