What is unique about the Annex in The Giver?

There are significant differences in the conditions of the Annex room from what exists in other dwellings in the society. The Giver dwells there alone, the door locks, the speaker has an off-button, and the furniture is varied and more comfortable than in the other dwellings; in addition, there is a conspicuous variety of books.

When Jonas first reports to the Annex after receiving his assignment, he is surprised that he cannot turn the handle of the door; then, he notices a buzzer on this door and pushes it. After he identifies himself to the voice on the intercom, a click indicates that the lock has been released. Once inside, Jonas finds himself in a small lobby; there, an attendant surprisingly stands up from her desk as an acknowledgement of his presence. This female attendant says, "Welcome, Receiver of Memory," and she pushes a button so that he can enter the Annex room. Since she notices Jonas's discomfiture with this odd arrangement of doors, the attendant explains,

"The locks are simply to insure the Receiver's privacy because he needs concentration....It would be difficult if citizens wandered in thinking it was the Department of Bicycle Repair...." [She says this jokingly because this department is relocated so often that few ever know where it is.] (Ch. 10)

After entering a spacious room, Jonas notices that the living conditions are not unlike those in his own family's living unit; however, the furniture is more luxurious than is customary as the cushions seem more padded. Moreover, there is a touch of luxury to the fabrics on the upholstered chairs and to the designs of the table, whose legs are curved with "a small carved decoration at the foot." Further, in an alcove there is a bed with a luxurious curtain hanging over it.

Suddenly, Jonas's eye is drawn to the variety and number of books. "He had never known that other books existed" besides the dictionary, the community volume that describes the offices, factories, buildings, and committees, and the Book of Rules. But, here bookcases reaching to the ceiling cover the walls. These contain hundreds and hundreds of books, whose titles are embossed in shiny letters.

Suddenly, Jonas notices the Giver. Introductions and explanations are made, and then the Giver begins with Jonas as the Receiver of Memory. Jonas watches as the Giver moves to the speaker on the wall. Unlike those in all the other dwellings, this one has a switch, which the Giver deftly flips to OFF.

Jonas almost gasped aloud. To have the power to turn the speaker off! It was an astonishing thing. (Ch. 10)

With this action, Jonas realizes that the Giver holds a powerful position; for, he is not required to answer to the rules of the community as everyone else must. Now, Jonas knows also that someday he will be in this same position of authority and power.

How would you compare and contrast the poems "America" by Claude Mckay and "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus?

Let’s start with a quick overview of the two poets in question.

Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) was born into a wealthy Jewish family in New York City. As a young poet, she became aware of anti-Semitic prejudice through reading (rather than through personal experience), and in the 1880s she became one of the most prominent writers decrying the persecution of Russian Jews. She also wrote about the plight of poor Jews in the US and other countries, and became one of the earliest Zionists. In 1883, Lazarus wrote “The New Colossus” to help raise funds to build a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty.

Claude McKay (1889-1948) was a prolific writer of poetry, novels, and short stories, all exploring issues related to racism in his native Jamaica, the US, and elsewhere. He was concerned with its political and social aspects, but also with the internal emotional and intellectual processes by which a human being can defend his or her human dignity in the face of discrimination. One of the earliest influences on McKay’s thinking was the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer believed life was inevitably painful. He argued the best human beings can do is develop their spiritual and emotional lives by creating art and preserving their sense of justice and morality.

We can see Lazarus and McKay had several characteristics in common. Both belonged to groups that suffered widespread discrimination. While both were deeply concerned with racism and prejudice, they also both had the advantage of childhoods free of persecution and violence, allowing them a chance to use their intelligence and become highly educated.

Both “America" and "The New Colossus" are sonnets exploring the experience of refugees and minorities in the United States. Each is built around a duality—that is, a pair of contrasting ideas that generate tension. In "The New Colossus,” this duality is expressed through the structure of the verse itself. This is an Italian sonnet: fourteen lines divided into an octave (the first 8 lines) followed by a sestet (the final 6 lines). The rhyme scheme looks like this:

ABBCACCB (the octave)
DEDEDE (the sestet.)

Like most Italian sonnets, “America” examines two ideas or perspectives: the first in the octave, and the second in the sestet. (This is the duality mentioned above.) Lazarus begins by describing the “new Colossus,” Lady Liberty, who is to replace the warlike Colossus of antiquity. Instead of a conquering masculine force, she will be a nurturing feminine one: the “Mother of Exiles”. The octave is hopeful and idealistic, employing gentle imagery like “sea-washed, sunset gates” and the lady’s “world-wide welcome,” “her mild eyes” commanding the harbor.

At the end of the eighth line comes the turning-point (sometimes called the volta, Italian for “turn”) into the new perspective of the sestet. Here, Lazarus has Lady Liberty herself describe the plight of poor immigrants to the US:

                              . . . your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

In the final two lines, Lazarus confirms her conviction that these refugees will be welcomed and cared for in their new country:

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

McKay’s “America,” by contrast, is a Shakespearean sonnet. (As a child, McKay loved Shakespeare and the English Romantic poets, and his earliest writings were attempts to emulate them.) Here, too, we see a duality: the tension between love for his adopted country and rage against it. Unlike “The New Colossus,” “America” expresses those conflicting emotions not through poetic structure, but through the language itself. (If he were writing a traditional Shakespearean sonnet, one idea would dominate the first twelve lines, and the second one would appear in the final two lines.) McKay shifts perspective over and over, sometimes within a single line (e.g., “Giving me strength erect against her hate . . .”)

We see this in the first quatrain:

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.

Although America feeds him bitterness, pierces his throat like a predator, and tries to kill him, McKay says he loves the “cultured hell” that brings out his own greatest strengths as he fights to defend himself against it.

Because “America” is written in the first person, we feel McKay’s struggle with US culture is more intimate and personal than Lazarus’s in “The New Colossus.” McKay is not talking about immigrants in the abstract, but about his own experience as a black newcomer.

McKay’s feelings about the US remain conflicted to the end of the poem; unlike Lazarus, he gives us no clear conclusion in his final couplet. These last two ambiguous lines remind us again of his love for Shakespeare, whose own sonnets frequently mention Time and decay:

Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

Summarize the expansion of the Tang Empire

The Tang dynasty grew in much the same way that the Han dynasty had expanded 800 years before. Under the leadership of their powerful emperor Tai-Tsung. The first emperor of the Tang dynasty, Kao-tsu, established a monetary system using copper coins and silk ribbons and a set of laws that lasted for more than a century.

Tai-Tsung was one of Kao-tsu's sons who took control after ruthlessly eliminating many of their rivals for power. He actually forced his father to hand over control of the empire to him. 

He consolidated power by shrinking the size of government and being sure to provide for the common people by stockpiling food for times of famine and creating a system of insurance for flooding or other disasters that prevented farmers from losing everything. The empire was further strengthened by trying to promote effective governors at all levels of the government and continually trying to maintain efficiency rather than expanding civil service and burdening the populace with heavy taxation.

Do pheromones only trigger positive responses among organisms of the same species? Are there negative responses across different species?

Pheromones by definition are chemical molecules released by a living organism to trigger a response or to elicit specific behavioural expressions in organisms of the same species. They are signalling molecules which may be contained in body fluids.

The term pheromone comes from the Greek words pheran which means to transfer and horman which means to excite. Pheromones essentially trigger response in organisms of the same species.

Examples of this abound among insects. Ants and honey bees release alarm pheromones to warn other insects of their own species of impending danger in a particular location. Some species of insects, usually the female, release pheromones to attract mates of opposite sex. 

Studies however reveal that a certain species of spider, mastophora cornigera, mimics the sex pheromone of the moth by releasing a mixture of volatile compounds with which it attracts male moths upon which it preys. So, even though pheromones trigger responses among organisms of the same species, it may be used deceptively across other species.

What is the point of view in "Thank You, M'am" by Langston Hughes?

The point of view of the story is that of a third person omniscient narrator, mostly from Roger’s perspective.  A third person omniscient narrator does not focus on only one character.  It also does not let you inside a character’s head as if that character were telling the story, such as a character saying “I was” instead of “he was.”

The very beginning of the story describes Roger trying to steal Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones’s purse, which is very heavy.

She was a large woman with a large purse that had everything in it but hammer and nails. It had a long strap, and she carried it slung across her shoulder. It was about eleven o’clock at night, and she was walking alone, when a boy ran up behind her and tried to snatch her purse. 

This part is from Mrs. Jones’s point of view, because it describes how a boy runs up to her.  You can tell it is third person because of the use of “she” and “her” instead of “I” and “my.”  The story then shifts to his perspective, which is one of the ways that you can tell that it is third person omniscient and not third person limited. 

The strap broke with the single tug the boy gave it from behind. But the boy’s weight and the weight of the purse combined caused him to lose his balance so, instead of taking off full blast as he had hoped, the boy fell on his back on the sidewalk, and his legs flew up. 

We went from Mrs. Jones' perspective of her walking to Roger’s perspective of trying to steal the purse and then falling.  This jumble of perspectives is third person omniscient.  In some ways it is more impersonal, but in some ways it adds interest because we know at least a bit of what each character is thinking and feeling.

What is an example of the law of increasing opportunity cost?

The question asks for an example which illustrates the law of increasing opportunity cost. The definition of this law (see citation below) is:

 “The economic reality of the increasing costs of production caused by the inefficiency of re-allocating specialized resources for the production of additional goods for which they are not well suited.”

In free markets, this situation should only occur when the most appropriate resources for some production process are fully utilized. At that point, if demand is sufficient, then the price for a good can be raised to the point that it becomes profitable to use less efficient resources to produce it. An example would be the diversion of scarce water resources from the Colorado River to irrigate poor quality desert land so as to make it sustain grass for golf courses in Las Vegas. Water is not efficiently used on desert land to grow grass, but because a sufficient price can be charged for golfing in Las Vegas, substantial water resources are diverted to support it. This also illustrates another aspect of opportunity cost, namely that, because many markets are geographically bounded, opportunity costs can be very local in nature. Another point to consider is that all cost structures are time-bound as well. That is, relative efficiency on the one hand and resource availability on the other, will both change over time.

Why does Claudia plan on returning home in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg?

Claudia is not running away from home for good.  The whole purpose of running away from home is to show her parents how important she is.  Claudia is the oldest, and she is feeling unappreciated.  Her life is boring, and she always has to do the chores while her brothers don’t.  This is why she saves up her money to run away.  It will accomplish both purposes.  Her parents will realize how valuable she is, and she will get some excitement.

Since she intended to return home after everyone had learned a lesson in Claudia appreciation, she had to save money for her return trip, too, which was like full fare one way. (Ch. 1)

Claudia wants her parents to know what happened, so she mails her parents a letter, telling them she ran away and not to contact the FBI. She doesn't seem to think they will panic.  That is still probably more practical than sending the letter with the Corn Flakes box tops to get twenty-five cents.  Yes, she may need the money, but how does she expect to get it?  Jamie points this out.

Claudia chose Jamie to accompany her in running away mostly because he had money.  Even though he was nine, he earned money cheating at cards, and he also saved his money.  Claudia had been saving for three weeks and still did not have as much money as he did.  He wasn't thrilled with her idea to run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City at first, but she was older.