What does the following simile mean? "It increased my fury as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage."

A simile is a figure of speech that uses "like" or "as" to compare two different things.

In this example from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," it's important to look at the lines that came before the simile to fully grasp the simile's true meaning:  

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? --now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

Here, Poe compares the narrator's escalating anger at discovering the old man's heart still beating to that of a soldier's ascending courage at the sound of a military drum. The drum stimulates the soldier's courage and quells any fear or hesitation before he goes into war. Likewise, the beating sound of the old man's heart triggers the narrator's rage. Poe uses the solider-and-drum simile to illustrate the narrator's frustration at the familiar sound of the old man's beating heart.

How did Thomas Dixon's book The Clansman and D.W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation change the story of African-Americans? This question is...

On page 216 of David S. Reynold's Mightier Than the Sword, the author writes that Dixon, the author of The Clansman (1903), was "disgusted by Stowe." Dixon blamed Stowe for starting the Civil War. In reaction to Stowe's abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, Dixon set out to write the story of the Civl War and Reconstruction from the southern perspective. His view was that Reconstruction was a failure. 

Similar to other pseudoscientific thinkers of the day, such as John Carroll, who wrote The Negro a Beast in 1900, Dixon saw African-Americans as no better than animals, driven by animal-like instincts and possessing little intellectual power. He thought African-American men posed a threat to white women, and Dixon reinforced these ideas in his trilogy about the Klan. The Clansman was one of the novels in this trilogy. In his novel, a white girl is raped by a black man in the presence of her mother, and the girl and her mother kill themselves in humiliation. His novel inspired the D.W. Griffith silent film Birth of A Nation of 1915, for which Dixon was an advisor. This film portrayed the Civil War and Reconstruction as failures and reinforced the Dunning school of historiography, which also publicized the idea that Reconstruction was a failed effort. The film portrayed African-Americans as incapable of leading the south after the Civil War. The film also portrayed the Klan as heroes who restored the south to glory. 

What is a good way to describe social media?

Social media refers to a type of website that allows users to create their own web pages or profiles, publish their own content, and network or communicate with others. These websites can be defined as second-generation or bottom-up websites, both of which mean that the majority of content is generated by users who can interact with one another, and not created by an outside authority. In contrast, first-generation or top-down websites publish information for users to consume without participating in the creation of this content. Popular examples of social media include Facebook, WordPress, Youtube, and Yahoo!. Any website in which the user is an active participant, whether that entails making blog posts, commenting on others' content, or integrating content from different social media profiles or websites can be defined as a social media website.

What are mushrooms/psilocybin?

History of Use

Hallucinogenic mushrooms containing psilocybin are thought to have existed as long or longer than the human race. Historically, artwork such as pictures, statues, and carvings depicting the mushrooms have been seen near tribal settlements. In Central and South America, psilocybin-containing mushrooms were commonly used in religious ceremonies until Spanish settlers spread Catholicism and banned their use. Mushrooms are sacred to indigenous peoples and are considered entheogens, psychoactive substances that guide their religious path through the spirit world.

In the early twentieth century ethnobotanists Richard Evans Schultes and Blas Pablo Reko traveled to Mexico and sought out these mushrooms. Schultes published a report of his findings in 1939. After hearing of this work, ethnomycologists Roger Heim and R. Gordon Wasson and pediatrician Valentina Wasson traveled to Central America to investigate the use and effects of the mushrooms. In 1957 the Wassons published the article “Seeking the Magic Mushroom” in Life magazine.

Mushrooms symbolized hippie counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s and were commonly used in the United States and Great Britain. The mushrooms led to the discovery of LSD, a synthetic hallucinogen.

It is difficult to determine the level of use of psilocybin-containing mushrooms because most studies of drug use neglect to include this drug. The Monitoring the Future survey published in 2008 reported that 7.8 percent of high school seniors had used hallucinogens other than LSD. This group of drugs includes peyote and psilocybin. Use in the previous year by participants was reported as 5 percent.

Effects and Potential Risks

Psilocybin and its active form, psilocin, are not inactivated by heating or freezing. To mask its bitter flavor, the mushroom is brewed into tea or cooked with other foods. Digestion and absorption of the psilocybin take about twenty minutes, and the effects last from four to six hours.

Psilocybin can produce relaxation or weakness of the muscles, lack of coordination, excessive pupil dilation, nausea, vomiting, and drowsiness. Mushroom abusers are at risk of poisoning if poisonous mushrooms are accidentally ingested with psilocybin mushrooms.

The psychological effects of psilocybin use include hallucinations, an altered perception of the passage of time, and confusion between fantasy and reality. Panic and psychosis also may occur, especially with high doses. Persistent use comes with flashbacks, risk of psychiatric disease, memory impairment, and tolerance.

Bibliography

Laing, Richard R., ed. Hallucinogens: A Forensic Drug Handbook. San Francisco: Elsevier, 2003. Print.

“Hallucinogens: LSD, Peyote, Psilocybin, and PCP.” National Institute on Drug Abuse. National Inst. of Health, 2009. Web. 10 Mar. 2012.

Health Day. "MRIs Showed Brain Activity That Mirrored What's Seen in a Dream-Like State." Patient Education Resource Center. EBSCO, 3 July 2014. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.

Pollan, Michael. "The Trip Treatment." New Yorker. Condé Nast, 9 Feb. 2015. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.

“Psilocybin Mushrooms.” Erowid.org. Erowid, n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2012.

What are the main differences between elements, compounds, and mixtures?

A substance can be classified as either an element, compound or mixture. These three are markedly different from each other.

• An element is the purest form of matter and consists of identical atoms. A compound is made up of 2 or more elements in a fixed ratio. A mixture is made up of 2 or more elements or compounds in a non-fixed ratio.


• An element retains the properties of its constituents, that is, atoms. A compound does not retain the properties of its constituents and hence the constituents lose their properties. In the case of a mixture, all the constituents still retain their properties. 


• An element cannot be broken down into its constituents by either physical or chemical means. The constituents of a compound can be separated by chemical means, while those of a mixture can be separated by physical means. 


• Examples:

1. Element: iron, hydrogen, carbon, etc.


2. Compound: water, carbon dioxide, methane, etc.


3. Mixture: trail-mix.

Hope this helps. 

Does Mrs. Higgins approve of Pickering's and Higgins' attitude toward Eliza?

No. "You certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll," Mrs. Higgins quips to her son, Henry, in Act III of Pygmalion. Though Mrs. Higgins is a woman of society and though she cares for her son, she does not believe that Henry and Colonel Pickering are considering Eliza as a person. Pointing out that both men are looking at Eliza like a doll clearly shows that she does not approve of their experiment. At the end of Act III, Mrs. Higgins asks Henry if he's thought about what will happen to Eliza after his experiment is over. Henry shrugs it off, saying she'll be fine and that there is no need to worry over such triviality. "The advantages of that poor woman who was here just now! The manners and habits that disqualify a fine lady from earning her own living without giving her a fine lady’s income!" Shaw uses exclamation points to emphasize Mrs. Higgins' outrage at Henry's attitude and disregard for Eliza's welfare outside of his experiment. She points out that if elevated in society through her speech, dress and manner, Eliza will no longer have an easy time of finding employment. She is already removed from her former social class and, if not taken care of, may end up destitute. Mrs. Higgins is not at all happy with her son. Henry has little time to think on the matter. He has to complete his social experiment and prove he can make a duchess out of a flower girl from Covent Garden through the power of speech.

Does Macbeth know that the murder of Duncan is a terrible action in Shakespeare's Macbeth? Does he see it as a right action?

Macbeth knows that killing Duncan is wrong, and the only thing that justifies it is his greed.

Macbeth is aware that killing Duncan is a terrible deed.  He wants to kill Duncan so he can be king, as the witches prophesied.  However, even he understands that there is no reason to kill Duncan.  In a soliloquy, he says that Duncan has done nothing to deserve death.

He's here in double trust;
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. (Act 1, Scene 7)

Lady Macbeth talks him into it.  She is convinced that they will not fail, and she goads him into action by telling him he is a coward.  He does not seem to be able to stand up to her.  She convinces him not that the action is right, but that they will get away with it.

After killing Duncan, Macbeth is a mess.  He is already starting to hallucinate, because he is guilt-ridden over what he has done.  When he was in the room with Duncan and the guards, he thought he heard them calling him a murderer.

Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep,' the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast,--  (Act 2, Scene 2)

Lady Macbeth tells him he has nothing to worry about.  She does chide him for not leaving the daggers with the bodies.  That was part of their plan for framing the guards and Duncan’s sons.  However, Macbeth was too upset to go back into the room and face what he had done.  His guilt only grows from here, along with the death count.