What is one example of how geography affects culture for the Iroquois?

The Iroquois culture is native to what we now know as Upstate New York, and was made up of six First Nations tribes- the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora nations. The area along the St. Lawrence River, between the Adirondack Mountains and Niagara Falls, is the homeland of Iroquois culture. 

One of the ways in which geography impacted the Iroquois Nations is through the natural environment it created. Geography presents natural boundaries for where people may live and roam. In this case, the natural boundaries for the Iroquois Nations would have been the St. Lawrence River to the north and west, the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains to the East, and the Poconos mountain range to the south. Because of these natural boundaries, the Iroquois culture was settled in a bowl-shape along the North-West border of New York. The Iroquois culture eventually expanded to absorb or conquer more southern First Nations groups throughout the Ohio Valley and beyond. 

A more secondary way geography impacted the lives of Iroquois people is through the subsistence strategy their surroundings helped shape. Northern New York has lots of mountains, forests, and rivers and long, wet winters. Because of natural weather patterns and the soil quality, Iroquois people grew crops of maize, beans, and squash during warmer months, and relied more on hunting and fishing during colder months. Some foods like beans and maize could be dried and stored for eating long after they were harvested, but squash was not so sturdy. Iroquois people would have hunted deer, pigeon, and fish like pike or catfish.

What does Eurydice's fate mean to Creon?

Greek plays were performed as part of religious ceremonies, and their goal was to teach the audience valuable lessons. In Antigone, Creon is guilty of extreme pride and stubborn arrogance. By refusing to bury Polyneices, Creon has defied the gods. Despite warnings from Antigone and the wise prophet Teiresias, Creon will not repent, humble himself, and admit he made a mistake.

Eurydice is Creon’s wife, mother of Haemon. At the climax of the play we learn that Antigone has hanged herself and Haemon killed himself after attempting to kill his father. Eurydice overhears the messenger delivering this news and rushes to her room, where she curses her husband as she commits suicide.

This is the final blow for Creon. He was already grieving over the deaths of Antigone and Haemon. He fully realized that he was to blame because of his pride. When Eurydice dies cursing him, Creon sinks into complete despair. He has lost both his wife and son, the two people whom he loves more than any other. If Eurydice had lived perhaps Creon could have managed to carry on. But her death, especially when she died hating him, leaves him with no hope for the future. He begs for death himself.

“Oh, let it come, let it appear, that fairest of fates for me, that brings my last day,-aye, best fate of all! Oh, let it come, that I may never look upon to-morrow's light… Lead me away, I pray you; a rash, foolish man; who have slain thee, ah my son, unwittingly, and thee, too, my wife-unhappy that I am! I know not which way I should bend my gaze, or where I should seek support; for all is amiss with that which is in my hands,-and yonder, again, a crushing fate hath leapt upon my head.”

Creon learns his lesson about pride too late.

When a piece of metal is illuminated by a monochromatic light of wavelength lambda, then stopping potential is 3Vs. When the same surface is...

The stopping potential refers to the potential difference required to stop an electron emitted from a metal after it is illuminated by the light. This potential difference is equal to the kinetic energy with which electron leaves the metal:

`K = hf - phi` .

This is called photoelectric equation. Here, h is the Plank's constant, f is the frequency of the incident light and `phi` is the work function of the metal. The work function is related to the threshold frequency of the incident light: `phi = hf_0` , where `f_0` is the minimum frequency for which any electrons will be emitted.

The frequency of light can be expressed through its wavelength `lambda` as

`f = c/lambda` , where c is the speed of light.

In the given problem, the stopping potential for the light with wavelength `lambda`

is 3V. The photoelectric equation becomes

`3V =(hc)/lambda - phi`

The stopping potential for the light with wavelength `2lambda ` is V:

`V = (hc)/(2lambda) - phi`

These two equations can be solved together for the work function. Multiplying the second equation by -2 and adding it to the first equation results in

`V = phi`

The work function equals `phi = (hc)/lambda_0=V` , where `lambda_0` is the threshold wavelength. Combining this with second of the photoelectric equations, we get

`(hc)/lambda_0 = (hc)/(2lambda) - (hc)/lambda_0`

From here,

`(2hc)/lambda_0 = (hc)/(2lambda)` . Taking reciprocal in both sides results in

`lambda_0/2 = 2lambda`

` <br>`

and `lambda_0 = 4lambda` .

The threshold wavelength for photoelectric emission is choice 2, `4lambda` .

Why does the grandmother in " A Good Man is Hard to Find" constantly reminisce about the past, and in what way does she recall the past and why?

Like many older people, the Grandmother remembers the past as better than the present. She reminisces about it in part because that is typically what older people do, but also because she has low status in the family. Her low status is indicated by the fact that she sits in the back seat of the car with the children, they are allowed to be rude to her, and when she wants to visit an old plantation, she has to manipulate them into asking to see it before their father, Bailey, will agree to turn off the main highway to look for it. The Grandmother uses the past to critique how her grandchildren behave:

 "In my time," said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, "children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then."

In the Grandmother's memory, the past was a more gracious time when people could be trusted and ladies acted like ladies. She still dresses like a lady, complete with swiss dotted dress, lace collar and cuffs and a hat, whereas her daughter-in-law wears the more casual and comfortable styles of the 1950s.

The Misfit, the murderer rumored to be lurking in the area, represents the unstable new times in which a person can't be too careful.  As the Grandmother says to Big Sam, who owns the burger joint where the family stops for lunch, "People are certainly not nice like they used to be."

We may suspect that the old days were not that great,  but we find out for a fact that the present has its horrors. 

What are the most important themes that run through both Chapters 17 and 18 in Howard Zinn's "The People's History"?

One of the most important themes in Chapters 17 and 18 in A People's History of the United States is that individual action can have profound effects on social and political policy.

In chapter 17, Zinn focuses on the "black revolt of the 1950s and 1960s."  He is very direct in how he opens the chapter.  Zinn details how specific writers and thinkers viewed the racial divide that defined America.  The impressions of Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes were matched with the organizing efforts of Angelo Herndon and Hosea Hudson.  In each of these perceptions, Zinn makes clear that in order for sweeping social and political change to take place, individual action was needed.  Zinn views the Civil Rights struggle in terms of action vs. inaction.  Zinn's narrative focuses on inaction of government and those in the position of power against those at the bottom rung of society who seek to create change.  He details this theme with examples of student sit- ins and protests, "Freedom Riders," and stories of how individual action was critical to change.  Zinn does not suggest that legal equality in the form of Brown vs. Board of Education or efforts from the Kennedy Administration created lasting change.  Rather, he suggests that change was created through individuals displaying power from the bottom up in the form of the Civil Rights Movement.

This theme of individual action bringing about massive change is continued in Chapter 18.  He emphasizes this in his opening to the chapter on the Vietnam War:

From 1964 to 1972, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of the world made a maximum military effort, with everything short of atomic bombs, to defeat a nationalist revolutionary movement in a tiny, peasant country-and failed. When the United States fought in Vietnam, it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won.

When Zinn writes "the human beings won," it is a reminder of how individual action is critical to creating change.  In Chapter 18, Zinn makes the argument that the geopolitical control was underlying American action in Vietnam.  He does this by citing memorandum that affirmed the importance of the "domino theory," and through detailing how American interests were protected through intervention in Vietnam.  Yet, Zinn also discusses how American opposition to the war arose through individual action. Journalists such as Seymour Hersh in reporting about the My Lai massacre sought to increase public outrage towards the war.  Zinn also talks about how Vietnamese citizens saw the battle as one of national identity.  They did not see it as a geopolitical struggle against Communism.  Rather, these individuals saw their own nation's freedom threatened with American action in Vietnam.  In these examples, Zinn affirms the theme of individual action creating lasting change because American victory in the region became "impossible."

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet starts to act mad. Is he insane or not?

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet learns from the Ghost (the spirit of his dead father, Old Hamlet) that Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, is responsible for Old Hamlet's death.

In the play thus far, the audience has had no inkling that Old Hamlet was murdered. The audience can see that young Hamlet, already devastated by his father's untimely death, is not only completely surprised by the news of his father's murder, but also frantic and furious. Even without knowing the identity of the murderer, Hamlet's spontaneous response is to take immediate action:

HAMLET:

Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge. (I.v.33-35)

The audience can imagine Hamlet's desire for revenge, and the Ghost has asked for it. It is at this point that the Ghost shares information about his murder, describing to his son (and the audience) what was said to have happened to Old Hamlet, and what actually took place. Though the kingdom believes that the dead king was napping in the orchard and bitten by a poisonous snake, the Ghost reveals that the only snake in the orchard was Claudius with the intent to assassinate his brother and take his crown.

At this, Hamlet is stunned. However, he does not act at that moment, but stays to listen to the Ghost, perhaps growing calmer and angrier—so his need for immediate revenge is dampened somewhat.

The Ghost describes not only Claudius' theft of the crown of Denmark, but also his theft of Gertrude's (Hamlet's mother) love. The Ghost goes on to describe the poison Claudius used and how he administered it: visiting Hamlet's sleeping father at a time when everyone knew his customary practice of napping, when he was left unguarded.

By now, Hamlet is completely horrified. His father calls for Hamlet to avenge his murder, but not to harm his mother in the process. Then the Ghost departs with the rising of the sun.

At this point, Hamlet begins to rant and rave, furious not only by what Claudius has done, but by the ease with which his murderous uncle covers up the deed—hiding behind a smile:

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables—meet it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word:
It is ‘Adieu, adieu! Remember me.’
I have sworn't. (111-117)

The young prince knows that his father was murdered. He understands that his uncle is not only responsible, but he is also married now to Gertrude, and by Elizabethan standards, a brother who married his sibling's wife was committing incest. Hamlet recognizes that while Claudius may smile and fool everyone else, beneath his mask rests a villain—the murderer of his brother and his king. Hamlet now knows the truth and notes that he has given his word to his dead father's ghost—he will not forget what the Ghost has told him, and he will exact revenge upon Claudius.

As Hamlet returns to his friends, he (and the Ghost) swears them all to secrecy about seeing the spirit walking the ramparts. Hamlet then shares the truth with them. Hamlet has a conversation with Horatio, and it appears that a plan begins to form in his mind. Hamlet will, he says, avenge his father's death. However, he prepares Horatio so he will not be surprised when Hamlet begins to act insane. In this, the first act of the play, Hamlet lets Horatio (and the audience) know that from now on, he will pretend to be insane.

As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on... (191-192)

Hamlet's "antic disposition" (pretense of madness) will give him time to find proof of the Ghost's news. We should remember that while many critics find fault with Hamlet's failure to seek revenge immediately, Hamlet must be careful. First, the Elizabethan audience believed that killing a king was a mortal sin. Hamlet does not want to jeopardize his soul. The Ghost has already shared some description of his own suffering in the afterlife because he died without the benefit of confession—and so must pay for the sins he carried to his death. The Elizabethans were also extremely superstitious: they believed that the devil could trick people into doing things that would damn them for eternity: so Hamlet needs to be certain that the Ghost is "honest," and not sent by the forces of evil to cause Hamlet to act rashly or sinfully, and lose his immortal soul.

The other difficulty is that Hamlet is now aware that he cannot be certain who he can trust. He had not suspected his uncle before. Now he can only wonder if he can trust his mother (Gertrude) or even his sweetheart, Ophelia, as well as others at his uncle's court.

Hamlet knows he must move carefully and remain one step ahead of his uncle. By behaving strangely (blamed on his pretended madness), his actions can be attributed to insanity brought on by his grief over his father's death, and remove any suspicion Claudius might have.

Hamlet says from the moment he learns of his father's murder, that he will pretend to be mad. This is part of his plan. The audience would probably agree that he does a good job of it. However, if he were truly insane, I believe Hamlet would, at some point, have lost his focus on what he needed to do for his dead father. Hamlet never does, even though it costs him the life of nearly everyone he cares about, as well as his own.

Do you think that the tycoons of the late 19th century are best described as ruthless robber barons or as effective captains of industry?

The Gilded Age brought unprecedented levels of wealth and success to a select group of American entrepreneurs. Historians have long debated whether these men were captains of industry or robber barons, a derogatory term which suggests that they got rich by exploiting those below them.

To answer this question, let's take a look at John D. Rockefeller, the country's first billionaire. Rockefeller had a humble background and entered the workforce as a shipping clerk. When Edwin Drake discovered oil in Pennsylvania in 1859, Rockefeller saw an opportunity and refocused all of his money and interests into this new industry. In a few short years, Rockefeller completely revolutionised the oil refinery process by introducing new techniques. To eliminate waste, he sold off the by-products of kerosene, namely petroleum jelly, to candlemakers and medical supply companies. He even sold the waste from the jelly to companies who paved America's roads. In this respect, Rockefeller's reforms made him a true captain of industry.

However, Rockefeller's business practices kept his profits soaring while smaller oil companies crumbled. He was also criticised for paying low wages to his workforce and getting rich at their expense. To some extent, then, Rockefeller was very much a robber baron but his philanthropic activities should be considered too; before his death in 1937, he gave away almost half of his fortune to charity.