A chapter summary on Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing.

Newjack is the name given to new correctional officers (COs) assigned as guards to prison facilities: a rookie CO is a "newjack." Ted Conover, renowned journalist, contributing to publications like The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly, specializes in books based on immersion journalism (undercover reporting).

Chapter 1 of Newjack, "Inside Passage," orients us to Conover's one-year-long experience as a prison guard by setting the scene. At 6:20 a.m., Conover approaches a work-day at Sing Sing prison situated along the Hudson River in upstate New York. In a digression to a brief history of the prison, he tells us the first cellblock was built of marble quarried nearby by prisoners who would be permanently transferred down from Auburn State Prison to Sing Sing after they completed constructing it. Conover's impression of Sing Sing is that, "Massive, tan, and almost windowless it looks like a hangar for a short, fat rocket."

at first you can't see a single incarcerated soul. All you see are the bars that form the narrow fronts of their cells, extending four stories up and so far into the distance on the left and right that they melt into an illusion of solidity.

He then paints a picture of the men's locker rooms for COs, where uniforms are traded for street clothes to save them from being identified as prison guards in their home neighborhoods. He draws the lower locker room as a symbol for the lives of the correctional officers at Sing Sing: "a hodgepodge of some two hundred lockers of inmate manufacture, fewer than twenty [of which] are actively used. The rest have locks on them, some very ancient indeed, belonging to officers who quit or transferred or died or who knows what."

We walk with Conover through his orientation to a new workday: newjacks are told at the start of each shift by their revolting stomach's just how they feel about their job; personal handguns are checked in before entering the prison and few "have any doubt that prison is the safer for it"; the on-duty officer has a "peek inside [Conover's] lunchbag" checking for contraband; they are given an overview report of "cuttings," attacks, homemade weapons recovered that occurred in between shifts; they are reminded that their job is to "get out of [there] in one piece at three P.M." They are dismissed then to go to their often-changing desk-sergeant-assigned post for the day.

The chapter continues with Conover's walk through the "tunnels" of corridors and stairways, with leaking roofs and rain puddles, to get to the prison cellblocks. He adds in geographical and architectural detail, like the hilliness and the remodel of the former Death House, once holding the electric chair, now a vocational-training building. The tunnels have locked gates at beginning and end, with gate warders holding large old fashioned keys (although the last door, the door into the cellblocks, is electronic). By the time Conover reaches the heavy front door of the cellblocks, he has ten locked gates behind him: "By the time I pass through the heavy front door..., there are ten locked gates between me and freedom."

A large cathedral will inspire awe; a large cellblock, in my experience, will mainly horrify.

Conover ends with information on the structure and functioning of the two cellblocks, A-block and B-block, aligned to each other "end to end," with the mess-hall building in between. The gallery is eighty-eight cells long. As COs pass each cell, they and the prisoners get "a brief but direct look at each other."

What does it mean to be modern?

In terms of literary and aesthetic studies, Modernism is a constantly shifting notion. One is even unclear about when Modernism actually begins. Some argue that it started in 1863 when a salon jury refused Edouard Manet's scandalous painting Déjeuner sur l'herbe ("Lunch on the Grass"), resulting in what is now called Salon des Refusés. 

Others say that Modernism did not begin until the 1920s with the emergence of dissonant and dissident movements such as Surrealism and The Lost Generation, not to mention the entrance of stream-of-consciousness and psychoanalysis into the visual arts and literature. Moreover, the twenties saw the entrance of African aesthetics into visual and performance arts. Such cultural trends were also mentioned in literature. Nevertheless, the influence black people had on Modernism, even that which came from black Americans within the Harlem Renaissance, is often downplayed or ignored. 

Modernism was most specifically a reaction to the aftermath of World War I. The war resulted in collective disillusionment. All of the "truths" that middle-class society had taken for granted came undone. Determinism, the notion that there are aspects of being that occur outside of free will, came into question. Ideas about personal moral responsibility entered cultural and philosophical space. Hemingway wrote about the importance of a man adhering to a "code" that was uniquely his own, but strictly adhered to. 

Supposedly, we are still in the "modern" stage, though others would characterize our current era as "postmodern," or dealing with the dystopian, or degraded, result of the Modernist era. I would argue that Western society never finished where Modernism left off. There is still a great deal to explore in terms of expressions of the subconscious in literature and the visual arts, as well as multi-cultural motifs, and the beautiful mechanics of technology. So much of our current world was shaped by Modernism.

In my view, to be "modern" is to be forward-thinking, experimental, and globally oriented.

What should happen to the temperature of a substance while the substance is melting?

The temperature of a substance that is melting stays the same. As a solid substance is heated, the added heat increases the kinetic energy of the particles causing them to move faster.

The increase in kinetic energy can be observed as an increase in temperature. Eventually, the particles in the solid absorb enough energy to overcome the forces of attraction holding them together in a solid state.

Particles then begin to escape into a liquid state. As particles escape into a liquid state, energy is used to break the forces between the particles rather than add to their kinetic energy. So, as heat energy is absorbed by particles in the solid state, heat energy is also removed as particles move into the liquid state. Since there is no net energy increase during the melting process, the temperature stays the same.

Once all of the particles have melted into the liquid state, heat energy is absorbed by the liquid state particles. This once again causes an increase in the kinetic energy of the particles and the temperature increases.

Under what circumstances does Feld first notice Max?

From the story, it appears that Feld first noticed Max when the young man was still in high school. Feld had then been greatly impressed by Max's commitment to his education; during his high school years, the young scholar had faithfully taken the subway to school every morning without fail. Now, in his college years, Max can be found resolutely trudging his way to class, both in winter as well as in summer.

When Feld first noticed Max, his own circumstances had been straitened and his financial prospects poor. His current situation remains the same. We get the impression that Feld has always regretted his lack of an education. As the story progresses, we realize that, bar some miracle, Feld will likely remain an impoverished shoemaker for the rest of his working years. Because he lacks education, Feld cannot rise above his miserable circumstances. His only hope for future happiness is to ensure that his daughter, Miriam, can escape the ghetto of her youth. 

So, it is in destitute circumstances when Feld first notices the young man; he thinks that Max is the man he ought to have been, but sadly, never will be. Instead, Feld tries to live vicariously through his daughter and nourishes the hope that Max can be part of his plan to improve Miriam's prospects.

In Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick, how does handling conflict help Max and Kevin's friendship?

Whenever people face the same trials or adversity together, a bond is bound to form. This is no different for Max and Kevin in Philbrick's Freak the Mighty. The first conflict they face together is on the night of the Fourth of July when Tony D. and his gang threaten to hurt them. This is when Max and Kevin discover that if they work together, they can help each other face the difficulties of life. When Max lifts Kevin up on his shoulders, for example, they are both able to run away from the bullies. If Kevin does all of the thinking, and directs Max on what to do next, then they are armed with a strategy rather than with just physical strength. Even though, on this occasion, Max and Freak run into the pond and get stuck, they do avoid the bullies and place themselves in a position to be saved by the cops. Once the two boys realize what a great team they can make together, they feel successful and more prepared to face any other conflicts they may face in the future. Max and Kevin's friendship becomes stronger as other conflicts arise. Not only that, but their appreciation and love for each other also grow. With each conflict the two boys resolve together, their friendship grows beyond anything they could have imagined before.

Assume that there are four firms supplying a homogeneous product. The identical cost function given by C(Q)=40Q. If the demand curve for the...

[Minor note: I was a bit confused at first by the notation "U" for the demand curve. Utility and willingness-to-pay really aren't the same thing, and it's dangerous to conflate them in this way. But I assume this is what your book or your instructor used, so I'll use it as well.]

The basic concept of Cournot competition is that each firm optimizes its price and quantity produced while assuming that the other firms' production is fixed; but then, by symmetry, all firms are doing the same, so the resulting equilibrium emerges as the sum of all their choices. Cournot competition is a fairly good approximation for pricing in real-world oligopolies (whereas Bertrand competition is almost completely wrong), but it is still an oversimplification of the complex strategies that oligopoly firms employ.

So, we have our cost function:
C = 40 Q
And we have our demand curve:
U = 100 - Q
I'm more comfortable thinking of this in terms of price P:
P = 100 - Q
This is the marginal willingness-to-pay, the highest price P that customers would be willing to pay and still purchase quantity Q.

Unlike perfect competition, we don't simply set these equal. The firms are trying to set their price above marginal cost, in order to increase profits. If there are few enough firms, they will be able to do so to some extent---but not as much as a monopoly could.

Consider the decision facing firm 1. They will produce q1 and sell at P (the products are not differentiated, so everyone sells at the same price). Other firms will produce some other amounts, q2, q3, q4. All of these must sum to the total quantity produced Q, which is what matters for the overall supply and demand curves.

Q = q1 + q2 + q3 + q4

For reasons that will make sense in a moment, let's call the quantity produced by firms other than firm 1 Q*.

Firm 1 acts as though they can only control q1 and the others are fixed, so they think of Q* as a fixed quantity. Then, they maximize profit:

profit = revenue - cost
0 = marginal revenue - marginal cost

Since firm 1 only controls q1, that is what they take the derivative in terms of:
0 = d/dq1[P*q1] - dC/dq1
0 = P + dP/dq1 * q1 - dC/dq1
Now we can substitute in:
Q = q1 + Q*
P = 100 - (q1 + Q*)
C = 40 (q1 + Q*)

0 = 100 - (q1 + Q*) + (-1) * q1 - 40
2q1 = 60 - Q*

q1 = 30 - Q*/2

[Note: With this linear cost function, the marginal cost for firm 1 doesn't depend on what the other firms do. For other cost functions it might.]

It might seem like we're stuck; we have one equation in two unknowns. But by assuming that all 4 firms reason the same way, we know:

Q = q1 + q2 + q3 + q4
Q = 4q1
Q* = 3q1

Now we can solve:
q1 = 30 - 3q1/2
5q1 = 30
q1 = 6

This is equilibrium industry output:
Q = 4q1 = 24

Price we can get from the demand curve (careful: not the supply curve):
P = 100 - 24 = $76

Profits for each firm:
profit = revenue - cost
profit = P*q1 - C(q1)
profit = (76)(24) - 40(24) = $864

Why doesn't Scout fight Cecil Jacobs in Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird?

In Chapter 9, Scout is ready to fight Cecil Jacobs because he announced to the playground the day before that "Scout Finch's daddy defended niggers" (Lee 48). Scout mentions that Atticus had warned her several times about fighting and told her that she was too old for such childish things. That night, Scout has a discussion about why Atticus chooses to defend Negroes. Atticus essentially tells Scout that the main reason he is defending Tom Robinson is because he has a moral obligation to do the right thing and he refuses to neglect his conscience. Atticus then tells Scout to simply hold her head high and keep her fists down. Atticus says, "No matter what anybody says to you, don't let 'em get your goat" (Lee 48). He then challenges Scout to fight with her head and not her fists.

The next day on the playground, Cecil Jacobs tells Scout that his family said that Atticus was a disgrace and that his client ought to hang from a water tank. Scout remembers what Atticus said and walks away. She mentions that if she had fought Cecil Jacobs, she would have let Atticus down. She also says that Atticus rarely asked her and Jem to do something for him, and she could take being called a coward for Atticus.