Solve for x and y 4y=4x+4 & 7y=9x-7

We'll solve the system of equations using substitution
method.

We'll isolate y to the left side, such as the first
equation give:

y = (4x+4)/4

y
= 4(x+1)/4

y = x + 1 (1)

We'll
isolate y to the left side, such as the second equation
gives:

y = (9x-7)/7 (2)

We'll
equate (1) and (2):

x + 1 =
(9x-7)/7

We'll multiply by 7 both
sides:

7(x+1) = 9x - 7

We'll
remove the brackets:

7x + 7 = 9x -
7

We'll move the terms in x to the left
side:

7x - 9x = -7 - 7

-2x =
-14

x = 7

From (1) => y
= x + 1 <=> y = 7 + 1 = 8

The
solution of the system is represented by the pair (7 ;
8).

How to verify this identity?(sin 2x / sinx) thank you!

sin2x/sinx - cos2x/cosx =
secx

We will start from the L.H.S and prove the
identity.

We know that:

 sin2x
= 2sinx*cosx

cos2x = 2cos^2 x -
1

We will substitute in
L.H.S.

=> 2sinxcosx/sinx  - (2cos^2
x-1)/cosx

==> 2cosx - 2cos^2 x/cosx  +
1/cosx

==> 2cosx - 2cosx +
1/cosx

Reduce 2cosx

Now we
know that secx = 1/cosx

==> 1/cosx = sec
x.........R.H.S

Then the identity "(sin 2x /
sinx) - (cos 2x / cos x) = sec x" is TRUE.

What is the summary of the poem "Patriotism" by Sir Walter Scott?

This poem, like many of Sir Walter Scott's poems, reflects
a deep love of the Scottish land and the way that so many battles were fought in defence
of the liberty of Scotland. The bold title of the poem of course focuses us directly on
the theme of patriotism and the intense love of one's land and country, adn the first
few lines immediately pick up on this theme by arguing that there can never be a man
"with soul so dead" that he is not able to wonder at and appreciate his "native land."
The speaker continues by imagining that there can neither be a man whose "heart hath
ne'er within him burn'd" when he returns home after being away from his
country.

If there is such a person, the speaker, says, no
matter how important he is and how wealthy he is, he is still a "wretch," who shall
"forfeit fair renown" through his lack of patriotism. If such a person were to die, he
shall die "doubly," as the final lines of the poem make
clear:

And,
doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust from whence he
sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and
unsung.

Lack of patriotism is
clearly equated with a kind of grevious sin that will result in the series of negatives
that are emphasised in the last line through the repetition of "un.." Clearly, to not be
patriotic is a terrible crime in Scott's book.

Why is Tom Robinson the target of racism in To Kill a Mockingbird? Racism quotes. Why Tom Robinson?

If I understand your post, you are wondering why Tom
Robinson is a target of racism in To Kill a Mockingbird. First,
racism was a fact of life in the 1930s Deep South, and Alabama was no exception. Many
white people considered African-Americans as second-class citizens, and they were
treated as such. Segregation--in schools, churches, neighborhoods and virtually all
public places--was firmly established. As for Tom, he was particularly despised because
of the charge against him: the rape and beating of a white woman. The "N" word is used
often to describe Tom: More than once, Atticus is called a "nigger-lover" for his
decision to defend Tom. The prosecuting attorney, Harry Gilmer, repeatedly calls Tom
"boy" while he is cross-examining him. Perhaps the most memorable racist quote
concerning Tom comes from Bob Ewell when he testifies that
he

"... seen that black nigger yonder ruttin' on my
Mayella!" 

What are some of the character traits of Ponyboy in The Outsiders and some quotes to prove them?I need to do my literature essay, so i have to...

The narrator of The Outsiders,
Ponyboy Curtis is an introspective teenager, still dealing with the death of his parents
in a car crash. The most intelligent boy among his gang of greasers, Pony excels at
school, where he is also a member of the track team. A sensitive boy who enjoys being
alone when he can, Ponyboy loves to read and he has a talent for writing; he also "digs"
sunsets and watching Paul Newman movies. He smokes too many cigarettes, according to
older brother Darry, and he often makes decisions that show a lack of common sense. His
brothers and greaser friends alike see a bright future for Ponyboy, and there is hope
that he will be able to attend college after high school. But they also worry that
Ponyboy will eventually grow "tough" on the streets as many of the other
greasers--particularly Dallas Winston--have. As Two-Bit Mathews tells
him,

"...
don't get tough, Ponyboy. You're not like the rest of us and don't try to
be..."

When Pony and Johnny
come to the rescue of the children in the burning church, they are acclaimed as heroes.
But Pony doesn't think so. When Jerry, who was supervising the picnic at the church,
asks if

"...
you were sent from heaven. Or are you just professional heroes or
something?"

Pony simply
responds that "we're greasers."

Johnny's dying words to
Pony are "stay gold," referring to the Robert Frost poem which the two boys had
discussed. Pony's life seems to be crumbling after the deaths of Johnny and Dallas, but
when his teacher gives him a second chance to complete his English essay, Pony decides
to tell his side of the story--which becomes the basis for The
Outsiders.

In The Witch of Blackbird Pond, where did Mistress Eaton spend her summers?

The answer to this question can be found in Chapter One of
this great historical novel. As Kit finally sees the shore of America, the new land
where she hopes to live, she finds out that one of the ladies on the ship who has been
friendly towards her, Mistress Eaton, the Captain's wife, will be leaving the ship at
this point. When Kit tells her she thought the ship was her home, Mistress Eaton tells
Kit about her living arrangements:

readability="15">

But I was born in Saybrook, and in the spring I
get to hankering for my house and garden. Besides, I'd never let on to my husband, but
the summer trips are tedious, just back and forth up and down the river. I stay at home
and tend my vegetables and my spinning like a proper housewife. Then, come November,
when he sails for Barbados again, I'm ready enough to go with
him.

We can therefore see
that Mistress Eaton spends the summer in her home in Saybrook, living the life of a
"proper housewife." She does not spend the summer on the ship with her husband,
prefering to get a dose of life on land for a change, before leaving again with him to
escape the cold winter and journey to warmer climes.

In Chapter 2 of Animal Farm, what causes the animals to rebel against Mr. Jones and his four farmhands?

Although the animals have been dreaming, and in some cases
actively planning for revolution and the idealistic future outlined by the visionary
Major, when the time comes their rebellion happens quite spontaneously. The
precipitating factor is when Mr Jones takes to drinking heavily and he and his men
grossly neglect the farm as a result. The animals are left unfed, the cows unmilked, and
soon they can take it no longer. One of the cows is the first to break out of her stall
and then the animals rally together, bearing down on Mr Jones and running him and the
other men off the farm and breaking into the foodstores to feed themselves. When it is
over they realize the momentous event that has just taken
place:

And so,
almost before they knew what was happening, the Rebellion had been successfully carried
through: Jones was expelled, and the Manor Farm was
theirs. 

The actual uprising
itself therefore did not really take any planning after all; it occurs as the natural
consequence of unbearable hunger and privation.

At first,
the animals are overcome with sheer delight when they realize that the farm is now
theirs and that they are in control of their own destiny. Sadly, though, the pigs will
take over everything to the extent that the other animals (except the dogs, who act as
the pigs' bodyguards) will eventually be reduced to the same level of servitude and
suffering as under Mr Jones; probably even worse.

Is transpiration a form of circadian rhythm? I am having trouble answering this question for my biology homework. I know that circadian rhythm...

Circadian rhythms are found in most plants and animals.
These rhythms operate on a twenty four hour period, and are endogenous, meaning that
they are internally generated by the plant or animal. If the plant or animal is isolated
from external time cues such as light-dark cycles, processes that are identified as
circadian rhythms are those that will keep on functioning on a twenty four hour schedule
even without the cues. Additionally, circadian rhythms generally operate independently
of temperature changes.

Botanical examples of circadian
phenomena include leaf movements such as the wake/sleep leaf position of many species of
bean plants,the transcription of DNA, flower opening and closing, elongation of the
hypocotyl during seed germination, and immune responses to
pathogens.

Transpiration is not a circadian phenomenon
because it is controlled by the interplay of water availability, temperature, and
sunlight.

Where in the Rosseau's Confessions can you find excerpts that shows that he was unique?

I think that you can find many examples of Rousseau's
sense of uniqueness in his work.  The very fact that he can devote an entire book to his
life, and his "confessions" in living it, reflects a sense of uniqueness.  Rousseau was
unique in that he had no problem divulging information about himself that might make him
appear a certain way to others.  He was unique in that way in which he didn't care, and
yet simultaneously did care about how others thought of him.  His detailing of the
corporal punishment he received as a child, and subconsciously enjoyed and how he
thrives on being dominated by women are representative of this.  Another element of his
unique character was that he was so well versed in so many areas.  Art, drama, writing,
music, and political theory were just a few of his areas of expertise.  In a time when
so much was focused on specialization, Rousseau demonstrated himself to be the well
rounded individual that would define uniqueness.  Through his own self exploration
through both rational and emotional sensibilities, Rousseau shows himself to be a very
unique person, one that readers come to both appreciate and
criticize.

Discuss what happens when competing ideas about American freedom are evident.

There have not been many instances when competing ideas
about American freedom presented itself.  One example would be at the Constitutional
Convention.  Delegates were decidedly on two different planes regarding American
freedom.  The delegates that favored a vision of freedom that emphasized the central
government having power were called the Federalists.  They believed that freedom meant
living in a setting where government could be seen to resolve problems as they arose and
that freedom is not very effective when lawlessness and a lack of control results.  This
is can be contrasted with the competing vision of freedom that presented itself at the
Constitutional Convention in the form of the antifederalists.  These believers in
freedom saw it as something that individuals needed to have in order to check the
encroachment of the federal government.  In this particular context, the issue of
competing ideas about American freedom were negotiated through the presence of the Bill
of Rights in the new Constitution.

Another, more dour
instance, where competing ideas about American freedom arose during the Civil War.  This
time, the competing visions of American freedom held the North advocating one of two
positions on freedom.  The first was that freedom can only be recognized in a coherent
and unified nation.  Keeping the Union together was the critical element to a national
expression of freedom.  The second, and more tangential articulation of freedom at the
start of the war, was the idea that American freedom should apply to all of its
citizens, and in this was the abolition of slavery.  The Northern position of freedom
was contrasted with the Southern vision of freedom in which slavery was seen as an
extension of one's own traditions and expressions, with which federal government should
not interfere.  Slavery was seen as a tradition, something that Southerners did and its
presence represented an expression of freedom that did not need to be interfered with
from the North.  Compromises on both competing issues of freedom failed and the result
was that there was an attempt to break America into two nations, setting the stage for
the Civil War. In both of these, we see that different approaches can be taken when
there are competing ideas about American freedom evident.

How is Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird actually an attack on racism rather than racist?The book uses racist language and content. So I want to know how...

Harper Lee used her book to attack racism in three
ways:

1. The narrative point of view
through the eyes of a child created an innocence that readers rarely take
with them when reading. We always bring our life experiences to every new situation and
read with bias. The structure of this novel brings the reader to almost feel like a
child, a time when bias was much less in our lives. Dill's experience with Mr. Gilmer
calling Tom boy made him literally sick. In fact, Mr. Raymond says
of Dill:

readability="10">

Things haven't caught up with that one's
instinct yet. Let him get a little older and he won't get sick and cry. Maybe things'll
strike him as being - not quite right, say, but he won't cry, not when he gets a few
years on him.

Raymond points
out the difference between children and adults. Children still have a sense of humanity
whereas some adults have worked so hard to squeeze humanity out of their lives. We see
the flaw when we readers look through Dill's experience.

2.
Lee uses offensive language sparingly, but enough to make
readers think about it. She positions noble characters to speak well of racial conflict,
while characters readers want to dislike use offensive language regularly. Mr. Glimer is
one such character cited above, but Bob Ewell, who readers grow to hate, says this of
Tom:

I seen
that black nigger yonder ruttin' on my
Mayella!

He is one, if not
the only, character who uses that term.

3. Lee
characterizes groups to demonstrate the pain of racism.
When the kids went to the church and first faced Lula, the experience of racism was
turned on the white reader. Readers empathized with Scout and Jem, and then experienced
the welcome of the rest of the group. This offered great relief. Mrs. Gates, Scout's 3rd
grade teacher was racist and Scout struggled with the hypocrisy because Mrs. Gates had
preached about how bad Hitler was for hating Jews. The Missionary Circle used the word
darky to talk about their servants. This enrages readers because
these women are supposed to be Christians. But we find that they are a bunch of gossips.
These groups make readers want to correct their behaviors and yet we can't get into the
book to do that. So, the only option is to make those changes in our own neighborhoods
and churches.

Her delivery of the flaw and pain of racism
makes this book an attack rather than a celebration of racism.

How do you make your pet talk to you with out like medicine and junk

Well, that would certainly depend on what kind of pet you
are talking about! Parrots and some other birds can learn to talk easily by hearing
humans repeat things. Most other pets can't learn to talk the way humans do because the
anatomy of their mouths and throats makes it impossible to shape sounds into words. Even
chimpanzees, who are quite similar to us anatomically, cannot learn to speak with their
mouths, but they can learn to speak in sign language.

You
can teach a dog or cat to make vocalizations (barking or meowing for a treat) by
repeating the command and rewarding the behavior when it begins to occur (in this case,
a whine or chirp would be considered a beginning and would be rewarded). Beyond that,
you will have to learn their language instead of teaching them
yours.

A dog or cat can communicate  by signalling you when
they want to tell you something. For instance, my dog will tap the doorknob with his
nose when he needs to relieve himself. When I hear the doorknob rattling, I know it's
time to let the dog out.

Check out the links below for some
pet training tips. To train any pet patience, consistency, and repetition are the keys.
If you spend five minutes once or twice every day working on a single command, most dogs
can master it in under a week.

How do I analyse literature's literary, or stylistic, devices, e.g., allusion, metaphor, to show how a reader gets persuaded of a special statement?

The effectiveness of literary, or stylistic, devices like
metaphor and allusion depends upon knowledge the reader brings to reading the text. If
my Greek mythology is weak, a Classical allusion to Scylla and Nisus will persuade me of
nothing, only confuse and distract me. Similarly, the metaphor "her presence was a
Himalayan breeze" will persuade me of nothing unless I know geography and the climate
and air quality in the Himalayas. So let us assume readers are knowledgeable about these
and human experience, which is what personification depends upon.

The
following excerpt from Pope’s The Rape of the Lock contains
Classical allusion and can be examined
to see how analysis shows how a reader might be persuaded by
it.

Clarissa
drew with tempting Grace
A two-edg'd Weapon from her shining
Case;
So Ladies in Romance assist their Knight,
Present the Spear,
and arm him for the Fight.
He takes the Gift with rev'rence, (Canto
III)

Pope employs chivalric
allusion to the era of knights and chivalry. The allusions are "drew ... a two-edged
Weapon from her ... Case," "in Romance assist their Knight," "present the spear," "arm
him for the Fight," and "takes the gift with reverence."

The
first step to analyzing this for persuasion is to
identify the allusions. If readers
were to take these phrases literally, they'd be very confused. They'd picture a knight
in shinning armor in the middle of a parlor in 1712 amidst href="http://www.history.org/history/clothing/intro/index.cfm">boisterously
dressed women with enormous skirts: a most incongruous image. They would also envision a
petticoat clad woman draw a weapon from her "Case," as though she too were a
warrior.

Therefore, the second step to
analyzing whether this allusion is persuasive is to determine if there
are textual clues to alert the reader
to the presence and meaning of the allusions.

One clue is that the
whole context is satirically humorous and ironic. At no point is anything to be taken
for what it literally says. Everything has an unstated figurative meaning. Another clue
is the vocabulary that tells readers Pope is being satirical and ironic: e.g., "tempting
Grace," these words contradict each other, setting up irony; "her shinning Case," a
warrior lady might have a polished scabbard but not a "shinning Case"; "So Ladies in
Romance assist" indicates a mock portrayal of what ladies of old did. This analysis
indicates that--since the whole tends to figurative language and meaning underlying
irony and satire--the mention of Knights and shinning Cases is also figurative and hence
an allusion to a time of old.

Analysis for things like metaphor would
follow the same procedure by examining the text for diction, vocabulary, irony, tone,
mood (the same as atmosphere), other figurative language as well as illustration of
statements and imagery. If, for example, our Himalayan metaphor were followed by "cool"
and "fresh" or by the comparative simile "as welcome as air to a bird," which illustrate
through vocabulary and imagery, then you may determine the metaphor to be persuasive to
readers.

Devices like personification and
imagery depend upon life experience instead of knowledge.
The third step in analysis to show if these devices
persuade readers is to evaluate whether they are true to human
experience. For example, the
personification, "the plaster wall reeled joyfully," might be judged not in keeping with
human experience, therefore not persuasive. These are steps in analyzing literary, or
stylistic, devices for if they persuade readers.

In The Pigman, what clues did Lorraine have that John liked her?Chapters 10-12.

You might want to refer to Chapter Eleven in this great
novel, which is when John and Lorraine take advantage of Mr. Pignati's stay in hospital
to dress up and have a meal together in his house. John puts on a suit and Lorraine
looks through Mr. Pignati's wife's dresses to find something to wear. When she finally
comes down, John splutters out, "You look beautiful!" As they joke around, he pushes
Lorraine onto a bed and then kisses her. Note how John himself describes this
incident:

She
started laughing again right in my arms,but I stopped it by putting my lips on hers. It
was the first time we had ever kissed. When I moved my lips away from hers, we just
looked at each other, and somehow we were not acting
anymore.

Even though this
chapter is told from John's perspective, it is clear that his actions would have given
Lorraine a very clear indication that John liked her and that their relationship was
developing from a friendship into something more interesting.

Could you please help explain these two algebraic problems? Divide. 1. 2x^2 y (only the x is squared) -16xy^2 + 12xy / 2xy 2. -15xy + 10x / 5x

First, you need to use brackets at both numerators,
otherwise, the numerator of the 1st expression is just the term 12xy and the numerator
of the 12nd expression is just the term 10x.

You have to
simplify these two expressions.

We'll begin
with

(2x^2*y -16x*y^2 + 12xy) /
2xy

We'll write each term from numerator over the
denominator:

2x^2*y -16x*y^2 + 12xy / 2xy = 2x^2*y / 2xy -
16x*y^2 / 2xy + 12xy/ 2xy

We'll use the property of
division of two exponentials that have matching
bases:

x^a/x^b =
x^(a-b)

2x^2*y / 2xy = x^(2-1)*y^(1-1) = x*y^0 = x*1 =
x

16x*y^2 / 2xy =
(16/2)*x^(1-1)*y^(2-1)

16x*y^2 / 2xy = 8*x^0*y =
8y

12xy/ 2xy = (12/2)*x^(1-1)*y^(1-1) =
6

(2x^2*y -16x*y^2 + 12xy )/ 2xy = x - 8y +
6

We'll simplify the 2nd
expression:

(-15xy + 10x) / 5x = -15xy/5x +
10x/5x

-15xy/5x = -(15/5)x^(1-1)*y =
-3y

10x/5x = (10/5)*x^(1-1) =
2

(-15xy + 10x) / 5x = -3y +
2

The results of simplifying both expressions
are: 1) (2x^2*y -16x*y^2 + 12xy )/ 2xy = x - 8y + 6 and 2) (-15xy + 10x) / 5x = -3y +
2.

In A Separate Peace, how does what Gene tells the other boys effect his and Finny's relationship?

Gene had very mixed feelings about Finny and they changed
frequently as he became aware of new and deeper levels of emotion and reaction. At the
time of the Butt Room incident, Finny was at his parents' home recovering from the
broken leg after the first fall from the tree. Gene's feelings of guilt over causing him
to fall were deeply felt but were caused by his envy of Finny's abilities and the ease
with which Finny achieved many of the social and physical feats that Gene realized he
couldn't equal. Gene couldn't simply admit all of this to the others in the Butt Room
because he couldn't yet admit all of it to himself and because he was concerned about
preserving his own position among the boys. The fictional scenarios Gene presented to
explain his actions allowed him to shift the initial cause that led to the fall to
Finny. At the end of the scene, Gene and Finny were seen by the others as being equals,
both at fault in what was perceived by the other boys as being nothing too
serious.

In Kathryn Stockett's The Help, identify the three most important events in the story and give an explanation with each.

In Kathryn Stockett's book "The Help," I think the first
of the three most important events is when Aibileen, Elizabeth's maid, agrees to
describe to Skeeter her experiences as a maid. When Skeeter first asks, Aibileen
refuses. She is afraid, and doesn't know about if she can trust this white woman—who is
also a close friend of her
employer.

readability="15">

[Aibileen's] quiet a second and then she blurts
it out. "What if—what if you don't like what I got to say? I mean, about white
peoples?"

"I—I...this isn't about my opinion," I say. "It
doesn't matter how I feel...You'll just have to...trust me." I hold my breath, hoping,
waiting. There is a long pause.

"Law have mercy. I reckon
I'm on do it."

This is the
first piece of the plan that must be in place if Skeeter is going
to move forward, and Aibileen pulls together her courage and agrees to
help.

The second most important event is not just that
Skeeter ends up with about a dozen maids to tell their stories to her; it's not
that Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter are able to find common ground in order to trust each
other and work together; and, it's not just that given their
shortened deadline, they are still able to finish the book and get it off to New York in
time. The most important fact beyond these details is that the
Harper and Row agrees to publish the
book!

readability="14">

The date is Friday, January 17, 1964...I will
remember every detail of this day...I walk into what has become such a familiar spot to
me, the middle of Aibileen's kitchen...I look at Minny and she looks at me. Aibileen
edges between us...

"Harper and Row," I say, "wants to
publish it."

Regardless of
the number of books they print, it will be published and people
will know the stories (even with the names changed) of these women: their trials of
being treated so poorly, and for some, their blessings—Aibileen's love for the children
she has raised, and Louvenia's gratitude when her employer, Miss Lou Anne, is so good to
Louvenia when her grandson is beaten until he is blind for using a whites-only
bathroom.

The third most important event is Minny's
decision to include the details of her Terrible Awful in the story—in other words, what
she did to Miss Hilly to exact her revenge. Minny is shrewd enough to know that Miss
Hilly will do anything to keep that story from finding its way to
her doorstep: to guarantee that no one ever finds out, she will
swear that the book is not about
Jackson.

"I
think we what we need is some
insurance."

"Ain't no such thing,"
Aibileen says. "It'd give us away."

"But if we put it in
there, then Miss Hilly can't let anybody find out the book is about
Jackson. She don't want anybody to know that story's about
her..."

..............................................

"If
we put the Terrible Awful in the book and people do find out that
was you and Miss Hilly, then you in so much trouble"—Aibileen shudders—"there ain't even
a name for it."

"That's a risk I'm just gone have to
take."

Minny's insistence
that her "crime" be included in the book will protect the others, but not
necessarily Minny herself. Minny is aware of this when she stipulates that it
must be included—or she will remove her part of the book—which is
the last chapter. However, Minny believes enough in the book and their stories, that she
is willing to put herself in harm's way to protect the others who have also stepped
forward.

What does "strategic importance of a place" mean?

A place can be strategically important for various
reasons. It could be important from a military perspective. For example, a place with
higher elevation will provide you with a good vantage point; a narrow valley will force
the enemy forces to divide and move through in small numbers,
etc. 

Similarly, a place can be strategically important
from a manufacturing point of view. A strategic location may have one or more of these
advantages: availability of cheap labor, raw material, easy and accessible transport,
resources including water and electricity, etc. An example is the East Coast corridor
from Worcester, MA to Providence, Rhode Island; a 45-km stretch that served as the
birthplace of the industrial revolution in the US.

A place
can also be strategically important because of its historic significance and heritage.
An example is Philadelphia. 

Thus, strategic importance
simply refers to some attributes that make a place significant.

What philosophy does Mr. Kiaga's decision to accept outcasts reveal in Things Fall Apart?

The answer to this question can be found in Chapter
Eighteen, which describes the first outcast of the tribe to join Mr. Kiaga's church.
Note what Mr. Kiaga says to this first outcast, and the conditions that he places on his
conversion:

readability="10">

"Unless you shave off the mark of your heathen
belief I will not admit you into the church," said Mr. Kiaga. "You fear that you will
die. Why should that be? How are you different from other men who shave their hair? The
same God created you and them. But they have cast you out like lepers. It is against the
will of God, who has promised everlasting life to all who believe in His holy
name."

Thus Mr. Kiaga's
actions and words reveal his rejection of traditional tribal culture and the way that
some members of the tribe are branded as being outcasts. He presents a message of new
hope, based on Christianity, where those who are rejected by men can be accepted by God
if they take the step of defying the norms that have oppressed them for so long and
shave off their hair, which has served to mark them as being
separate.

In Guns, Germs and Steel why did Native American societies lag so far behind Eurasian societies (chapter 18)?

A careful re-reading of the chapter you have identified
would help you to answer this question and also give you the background knowledge that
the necessarily brief response I can supply you with would lack. However, just to give
you a summary of the main points of this chapter, which will hopefully encourage you to
revisit it and read it in its entirety.

The chapter
identifies four key factors that were essential in the different rates of development
between Native American societies and Eurasian societies, which of course gave Eurasian
societies the "edge" when the two civilisations finally collided. Diamond offers the
following helpful summary:

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Thus, we have identified three sets of ultimate
factors that tipped the advantage to European invaders of the Americas: Eurasia's long
head start on human settlement; its more effective food production, resulting from
greater availability of domesticable wild plants and especially of animals; and its less
formidable geographic and ecological barriers to intracontinental diffusion. A fourth,
more speculative ultimate factor is suggested by some puzzling non-inventions in the
Americas: the non-inventions of writing an wheels in complex Andean societies... and
wheels' confinement to toys and their eventual disappearance in
Mesoamerica.

All of these
factors meant that crucially the balance of power was tipped towards Eurasian societies.
To gain a full understanding of each of these four ultimate factors, you will need to
refer once again to the book to gain an understanding of how this factors led to
dominance.

Lindner refers to the topic of his discussion with the Youngers as one of Clybourne Park's "special community problems." Why is this ironic?I think...

I think that Hansberry develops Lindner's role in the
manner she does to highlight the complexity of the problem that people of color face in
trying to integrate into largely White areas.  She is mindful that the simple
designation of "integration" is actually a complex reality that is filled with how
different people view their interests in different lights.  Lindner is one such
example.  On one hand, he presents himself as a totally reasonable man.  There is little
in the manner of his presentation that makes one believe that he is a man of violence or
of irrational hatred.  However, it becomes evident that he favors the Status Quo and
does not want to see it change.  He is a proponent of how reality is constructed as it
benefits he and his kind, at the cost of Walter and his.  In the end, his reference to
"special community problems" and his desire to want to buy out Walter is a
representation of the lengths that he will go to ensure that what is present is
maintained at all costs.  His definition of community is one that excludes people of
color.  It is ironic that he speaks of "special community problems" for he is one of
them, in the manner in which he wishes to continue the racial prejudice and
discrimination that denies the very essence of community.  Hansberry does this to show
the level of inertia and difficulty that the Youngers must endure in order to discover
and obtain their dream.

What balance can be found between freedom of expression and respect for religous beliefs?

It is certainly possible to find a balance between these
two ideals, but it is not at all possible to find a balance that will satisfy everyone
on both sides of the argument.

It would be easy to find a
particular balance.  We could easily set up a council of religious leaders who would be
empowered to ban art that they deemed to be excessively offensive.  There would then be
a balance because works that were mildly offensive would be allowed but works that were
extremely offensive would not be.

But this sort of a
balance (in addition to being unconstitutional) would not satisfy everyone.  Absolutists
on both sides of the issue would remain angry.  No matter where the balance is struck,
there will be people who think that it has been set too far to one side or the other. 
So, it would be possible to set a balance, but impossible to do so in a way that would
satisfy everyone who cares about the issue.

I have to write a literary analysis paper from feminist perspective on Hills Like White Elephants. I am having trouble with writing this.

I think that there are different elements to take on
this.  Much of this is going to depend on what approach you are going to take in the
paper.  I think that focusing on Jig and how she can represent a feminist character
might be something to pursue.  Jig represents the ideas of feminism in that she
articulates what is a woman's condition to a man who represents a form of the
patriarchy.  She does not remain in silence.  Rather, she speaks her mind, articulating
a condition that she, and other women, endure.  At the same time, she seeks to establish
some level of power in a relationship that is naturally tilted towards the male side of
power.  Another approach to take is to examine how Jig is a feminist character at the
end of the story. How does she represent feminism at the end of the narrative?  Where is
the articulation of voice evident and where is it absent?  I think that exploring this
dimension might also help to develop a feminist point of view on the story.  Finally, I
would spend some time exploring where the man is in this particular configuration.  Once
the story ends, how will power be reestablished in the relationship?  I think that
exploring this would be a good approach in any study of feminism in the short
story.

What is the setting of the novel The Giver?

The community is very different from our own in many
ways.  We do not know the exact location or time period, although since it is
dystopian/fantasy fiction we usually think of it as being set some time in the future. 
When the book opens, it is some time in the fall as Jonas is looking ahead to December
and the Ceremony of Twelve.  The story takes place in a little over a year.  The
following December, Jonas and Gabriel escape the community on the day of the Ceremony of
Twelve. 

The actual community is not described in much
detail.  It is composed of a tight collection of houses and communal buildings,
surrounded by agricultural fields and then open land.  We do know there is a river near
the community, and that there are other neighboring communities not too far away.  The
community is flat.

At some distance from the community is a
place called Elsewhere, where the word is similar to ours.  Elsewhere might be an
afterlife, like Heaven, or a real place.  In between the community and elsewhere there
are hills, other rivers, trees and woods.

Critically analyse the poem"The Blessed Damizel"

The poem "The Blessed Damozel" is an amazing poem filled
with rich imagery, details which paint a vivid picture for the engaged reader, and
passion all created with precision through word choice.

The
poem is the story of a woman anxiously waiting at the edge of Heaven for her lover to
join her after his death. The use of imagery (as completely described in the first link
below) fills the poem with a mental description which allows readers to see Heaven as if
painted by the hand of an artist and not a poet. Visually, there is no question about
the surroundings the blessed damozel sees around
herself.

While the poem is simply about the love one has
for another, Rossetti insures that the reader see the the emotional and physical drain
love has on one when separated from another.

What are some examples of figures of speech from the book Great Expectations by Charles Dickens?

One of the most famous repeated figures of speech is the
reference to being "brought up by hand," as in Pip's narration from chapter 8
below:

I had
cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand, gave her no right to
bring me up by jerks.

This
figure of speech means that Mrs. Joe beat Pip anytime he did something wrong so that he
would be well-behaved. This is a symbol, as the book
continues as abused is repeatedly doled out to Pip by Estella as he gets older, but this
is more of a verbal and emotional abuse. Symbols are indeed a type of
metaphor, so you could call it either and one phrase "by
hand" represents another... abuse. You could also call it a
euphemism because the phrase "by hand" is a much gentler
term that saying the boy is beaten or hit or
abused.

Another sentence from chapter 17 expresses several
figures of speech worth analyzing:

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So unchanging was the dull old house,
the yellow light in the darkened room, the faded spectre in the chair by the
dressing-table glass, that I felt as if the stopping of the
clocks had stopped time in that mysterious
place...

In the italicized
portion of this quote describing Miss Havisham's bride room, we have parallel
structure or parallelism which is the repetition of the
same grammatical form. Each phrase separated by commas begins with
the and then an adjective, and a noun, and a prepositional
phrase.

In the bold portion, the contents of a
simile exist but there is also
paradox present in the idea of time stopping. Time is
incapable of stopping.