Who was Herbert Hoover?

Herbert Hoover was President of the United States from 1929-1933. He won the election of 1928 by defeating Al Smith. Prior to becoming President, he was the Secretary of Commerce for the Republican presidencies of Harding and Coolidge.

Herbert Hoover believed in a laissez-faire economic philosophy. He believed the federal government should stay out of economic affairs and let events run their course. He believed businesses would do the right things to get the economy going again if the economy slowed down. President Hoover believed the economy goes through good cycles and bad cycles. Thus, when the Great Depression started, President Hoover believed things would work themselves out without government interference.

Unfortunately, this policy didn’t work as the depression worsened under President Hoover’s leadership. President Hoover reluctantly agreed to get the government more actively involved in ending the Great Depression. The National Credit Corporation formed to help troubled banks loan money. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the Emergency Relief and Construction Act tried to provide aid to businesses to create jobs. These actions weren’t enough to reverse the downward spiral, and President Hoover lost his reelection bid in 1932 to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

What does going into exile mean in "The White Man's Burden?"

If you Google “exile” you will find that part of its definition is “to bar someone from their native country, typically for … punitive reasons.”  In other words, a person who is exiled is forced to leave their country and cannot come back.  They are away because they are being punished.  This is not exactly how the term is used in Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden.”  It does refer to people being forced to leave their country, and it is a bad thing, but they are not really being punished.  Instead, they are enduring punishing and negative conditions, but not because they are being punished for having broken the law.

In “The White Man’s Burden” Kipling emphasizes how hard it is for white people to go out and colonize other countries.  He says that they have to go and “wait in heavy harness” on their subjects.  He says that they have to work hard to help the natives.  They have to build roads and ports they cannot use.  They have to work hard while living and they have to “mark” the roads and ports “with your dead.”

They have to work hard to help the natives even though the natives will just ruin everything.  The natives’ “sloth and heathen folly” will wreck all the things they are trying to achieve just as they are about to reach those goals.  Moreover, the natives will resent them for all this.  They will resent the whites for trying to civilize them.

What all this means is that it is very unpleasant to go out and be a member of an imperial administration.  It is almost like being punished.  The people who do this are being sent away from their native country.  While abroad, they have to endure difficult conditions that are like what you would experience while being punished.  This is what exile means in the context of this poem.  It means being experiencing very unpleasant conditions while being away from your own home and country.

What are some literary devices and elements in chapters 24-26 of To Kill a Mockingbird?

In Chapters 24-26 of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses several literary devices or elements, including irony and figurative language. Irony is a literary device or element in which an author uses language or events that are the opposite of what is expected to convey humor. In Chapter 24, for example, there are some wonderful examples of ironic humor when Aunt Alexandra, Mrs. Merriweather, and the other ladies of Maycomb gather for a tea party. They are discussing missionary activity, which they consider very benevolent, but which Scout, as a young child, does not understand. Here is the description of part of their party:

"Today Aunt Alexandra and her missionary circle were fighting the good fight all over the house. From the kitchen, I heard Mrs. Grace Merriweather giving a report in the livingroom on the squalid lives of the Mrunas, it sounded like to me. They put the women out in huts when their time came, whatever that was; they had no sense of family—I knew that’d distress Aunty—they subjected children to terrible ordeals when they were thirteen; they were crawling with yaws and earworms, they chewed up and spat out the bark of a tree into a communal pot and then got drunk on it.

Immediately thereafter, the ladies adjourned for refreshments" (page 232; page numbers vary by edition).

What is ironic about this passage, and what is also humorous about it, is that the ladies think their activities are very well intentioned. However, the way Scout overhears the conversation makes their activities seem ridiculous. Even the way she understand the name of the people the ladies are trying to help--the Mrunas--is a mistake that is funny. Again, instead of sounding very religious, these women sound silly.

Another literary device that Harper Lee uses in this chapter is figurative language, more specifically metaphors. Figurative language involves using figures of speech, including metaphors and similes (types of comparisons), to make language more vivid and descriptive. Here is an example:

"I was reminded of the ancient little organ in the chapel at Finch’s Landing. When I was very small, and if I had been very good during the day, Atticus would let me pump its bellows while he picked out a tune with one finger. The last note would linger as long as there was air to sustain it. Mrs. Merriweather had run out of air, I judged, and was replenishing her supply while Mrs. Farrow composed herself to speak" (page 236; page numbers vary by edition).

In this passage, Mrs. Merriweather is being compared through a metaphor to the old organ in the church, as she has just run out of air from talking too much (just as the organ ran out of air). In addition, there are also several uses of similes, which is a comparison that uses the words "like" or "as." An example is "the events of the summer hung over us like smoke in a closed room" (page 242). In this example, the events of the summer, including Tom Robinson's death, are compared to vapors that linger in a room without ventilation. This type of writing imparts vivid descriptions that help the reader understand the emotions behind the events in the novel. 

How does Steinbeck use language and objects to present Crooks?

Crooks' possessions tell us a lot about him. In Chapter 4, we see the inside of his room, which he has all to himself because he is a permanent fixture of the farm, as opposed to the rest, most of whom are itinerant workers. This is clear also because he has plenty of possessions since he doesn't have to carry everything he owns on his back, like those of the drifters who have to roam from town to town finding work. 

From the mending tools and broken harnesses by his window, we can see that he's good with his hands; he repairs various stable gear. 

He has "a range of medicine bottles, both for himself and for the horses," which tells us that he not only needs various medications, but can afford them, suggesting he makes decent money. Also, he appears to be the farm veterinarian to some extent. He has the cans of saddle soap, as well, meaning he maintains barn materials in addition to repairing them. The drippy can of tar is also for repairing things, like the roof. 

Unlike most of the others, he has several pairs of shoes, used for different tasks. He is something of a jack-of-all-trades, then. He has an alarm clock as well, which suggests that he keeps his own schedule and helps the stable hands keep theirs. He also has a single-barreled shotgun; despite being a black man, he is trusted with this weapon and probably uses it to shoot varmints. 

He also has glasses and books. Not just any books, either; he has a dictionary and a much-read copy of the California civil code for 1905. This is not an easy read, and probably not a particularly pleasurable one. Crooks, then, is an educated man.  

He is clean. Despite the various tools and objects around, he keeps the room clean and well-swept. 

Finally, he keeps his distance and expects--or even requires--that everyone else keep theirs. This is probably because he is a black man and knows most of the men would not accept him as one of them, so he responds by keeping his own company, rejecting them before they can reject him. This suggests that he is lonely, not by choice so much as necessity. 

How can I compare the political systems of two states? I have to use at least four dimensions of the political system and find correlations between...

Although it is slightly ambiguous, I will assume the question isn't specifically referring to the US. Hence, by "states," the question is not referring to US states (e.g. Ohio, California, etc.), but to nation-states (e.g. United States, South Africa, China, Brazil), or what is commonly called "countries” in the US.

One way to think about the dimensions of political systems between states is to bracket your investigation into solely "democratic regimes." Within the political system of democracy, there are multiple dimensions of variability including the make up of the executive branch (head of government or head of state), the legislative branch (unicameral or bicameral), the judiciary branch (concrete or abstract review), legislative-executive relations (parliamentary or presidential system), and electoral systems (multimember districts or proportional representation). In addition to democracies, other political systems include those such as personal dictatorships, military regimes, one-party regimes, theocracies, communist regimes, corporatism, clientism, and totalitarian regimes.

One way to think about political performance is to think about the intended functions of particular political structures. Many textbooks use the following dimensions as a classification/evaluative schema: 1) political socialization, 2) political recruitment, 3) political communication, 4) interest articulation, 5) interest aggregation 6) policymaking, 7) policy implementation and adjudication.

What is the speaker saying from 00:17-00:20 in the following video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RIoXC_7Tuc

From 00:17-00:20, the speakers says that: "Some feel all progress is good." The larger context for this statement is that some people think that the progress which technology brings is beneficial, but other people think that technology can sometimes do more harm than good.

For example, the video mentions water purification and modern medicine. These technological innovations are being used to dramatically improve the quality of life for millions of people around the world. Technologies like these have raised life expectancy in developed nations by decades.

However, some technologies are not so beneficial. One glaring example is nuclear weaponry. Although nuclear weapons have only been detonated twice on civilian populations, they have resulted in countless deaths (both directly and indirectly, through radiation). Moreover, the world now sits under the constant threat of all-out nuclear war. The danger of this technology indicates that technology is not automatically beneficial to humanity.

What is the reason George and Lydia buy the house?

In the short story "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury, the parents, Lydia and George Hadley, buy their children the a magic nursery, part of a futuristic "Happylife Home." This home has everything the family could ever want, including a nursery to entertain the children and to channel their energies. The nursery can read a child's mind and re-create what he or she is thinking. As Lydia says, "It's supposed to help them work off their neuroses in a healthful way." In other words, the nursery is intended to encourage the children's curiosity and to set them to roam free without their parents in a productive way.

The nursery is supposed to help parents and others understand the children. As David McLean, the psychologist in the story says, "One of the original uses of these nurseries was so that we could study the patterns left on the walls by the child's mind, study at our leisure, and help the child." In other words, psychologists created the nursery to help parents and professionals understand what is going on in children's minds. What the children imagine appears in the nursery, so that the parents and professionals can see the children's innermost thoughts, understand their desires and motivations, and channel the children's thoughts and desires in the right way. This is the goal the parents, Lydia and George, had in mind when they bought the nursery.

However, the nursery has not turned out as the Hadleys had hoped. As David McClean says, "In this case, however, the room has become a channel toward destructive thoughts, instead of a release away from them." In other words, the children, Wendy and Peter, have been allowed too much freedom, and their thoughts have turned to destruction, including the creation of man-eating lions. Rather than channeling and controlling the children's destructive thoughts, the nursery their parents bought them has only amplified these thoughts.