In The Great Gatsby, Daisy talks about how she wants her daughter to grow up to be a "beautiful little fool." How have other...

Daisy tells Nick in Chapter I that she hopes her daughter will grow up to be "a beautiful little fool"; however, in some ways, Daisy has been a beautiful fool herself.  She was a beautiful fool when she married Tom: she knew he was unfaithful and she got really drunk and tried to call off the wedding.  Although, when it actually came time to walk down the aisle, she did it, despite all her reservations.  Myrtle is sort of a beautiful fool as well, even though she is not "beautiful," strictly speaking; she is attractive, and she persists in believing that she and Tom will be able to get married at some point.  She foolishly persists in believing that he will one day consider her on a level with Daisy even though he doesn't even want her to say Daisy's name and breaks her nose when she does. 

What is the main idea in the Outliers epilogue chapter, "A Jamaican Story"?

Gladwell has spent the entire book talking about other people’s success stories and what elements had to be in place in order to give preference to the “outliers” in these circumstances. Now it’s time to share his own story. Or rather, his mother’s. Joyce Nation grew up in Jamaica. She and her twin sister won scholarships to attend a boarding school called Saint Hilda’s, then later went to college in London. There Joyce met Graham Gladwell, a math professor whom she later married and moved with to Canada. But of course, the story is not quite this simple. A number of factors had to be just right for this meeting to happen and for our author Malcolm to be born. It’s a fascinating history that boils down to matters of race, skin color, and educational practices within the island culture. The main idea of the chapter turns out to be a brief history of 20th-century life in Jamaica.

Adding this chapter and putting it last is a terrific technique with which to conclude this book. Gladwell is putting himself into the text, showing that no one is immune to these kinds of “outlier” events, not even the journalist reporting on them. He also allows each one of us to think about our own backgrounds and our own cultural legacies. What were the special circumstances that had to happen in order for each one of us to be born? We are given much to think about here, even after closing the covers of the book.

How would you summarize Part Two of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury?

Part Two of Fahrenheit 451 opens with Montag and Mildred reading his hidden collection of books. Mildred is terrified Beatty might find out, but Montag believes books may contain the answers he seeks and he goes to see Faber, a retired professor he once met in a park, to find out more.

Faber is understandably nervous about Montag, a fireman, showing up at his door. During their conversation, however, Faber realizes Montag shares his negative views on censorship. Together, they develop a plan to destroy the fireman system. To protect Montag from Beatty, Faber gives him an earpiece which will enable the pair to converse without detection.

Back at home, Mildred is entertaining her two friends, Mrs. Bowles and Mrs. Phelps, when Montag returns from Faber's. Hearing their trivial conversation, Montag decides to read the poem, "Dover Beach," but the words prompt an unexpected outpouring of emotion from Mrs. Phelps. As the women verbally attack Montag for upsetting Mrs. Phelps, Montag launches an angry tirade in which he attacks the women's empty existences:

Go home and think of your first husband… and your damn Caesarian sections, too, and your children who hate your guts! Before I knock you down and kick you out of the door!

The women leave and Montag hides his books in the garden so Mildred cannot destroy them. With Faber in his ear, Montag returns to work, prompting Beatty to think Montag has seen the error of his ways:

 The sheep has returned to the fold.

While Beatty talks to Montag about the danger of books, a call comes in for a "special case." In an ironic twist, Montag finds himself and the other firemen standing outside of his own house, with the instruction to burn it just seconds away.

What are the differences between parliamentary and presidential forms of government?

In a parliamentary form of government, the executive is usually known as a prime minister. He or she is chosen from the majority party in the parliament, and chooses a cabinet, or ministry, that is sometimes also drawn from parliament. In a presidential form of government, the executive is separate from the legislative. The president usually has some legislative powers, including the veto, but operates independently from the legislature, which may (and indeed often does in the United States) have a majority of members that are drawn from a different party than the president. The United States is the world's oldest presidential government, and it is based upon a system of checks and balances that often places the President at odds with a Congress frequently dominated by the opposition.

One feature of the presidential system in the United States is that it is essentially a two-party system. This feature is not shared by many parliamentary democracies (and indeed some other presidential systems) around the world. Thus many parliamentary systems emphasize coalition-building as a means of governing, and in many cases prime ministers are chosen with the support of coalitions rather than of a single party with an outright majority.

One more significant difference is that prime ministers can often be removed with greater ease than presidents. If the ruling party is driven from power in parliamentary elections, then the prime minister will lose their job as well. In most parliamentary systems, prime ministers can be removed by a vote of "no confidence" by the legislature, which is generally much easier to carry out from a procedural standpoint than the impeachment and removal process by which a president can be removed.

What are the chemical properties of an element determined by?

The chemical properties of an element indicate how reactive the element is and what reactions is it likely to undergo. The chemical properties are a function of the valence electrons (the number of electrons in the outermost shell). The number of valence electrons can be determined by the electronic configuration of the element. 

Thus, when we are given an element and asked to comment on its chemical properties, find the number of electrons in it and write its electronic configuration. The number of electrons in the outermost shell (the valence electrons) will dictate whether the atom will gain or lose electrons in order to have a fully filled electronic configuration. If the outermost shell is fully filled, the element will be inert (noble gases). If the number of valence electrons are 1 or 2, there is a high likelihood that the atom will lose them and become a cation. 

Thus, we can determine the chemical properties of an element by knowing the number of valence electrons.

Hope this helps. 

Why do Tybalt and Benvolio fight?

In the first scene of the play, Sampson and Gregory (Capulets) encounter Abram and another servant of the house of Montague, and they begin a fight over whose master is better.  Benvolio enters the scene, sees the fight, and he draws his sword in order to stop it.  He says, "Part, fools! / Put up your swords.  You know not what you do" (1.1.65-66).  As the root of his name (bene) implies, Benvolio is good and peace-loving.  He only draws his weapon in order to restore peace.

However, when Tybalt enters the scene and sees that Benvolio's weapon is out, he tells Benvolio to "Turn [...]; [and] look upon [his] death" (1.1.68).  Benvolio insists that he only wants to "keep the peace" and encourages Tybalt to put away his own weapon or use it to help him to part the fighting men.  Instead, Tybalt says he hates peace, the Montague family in general, and Benvolio specifically.  He shouts, "Have at thee, coward!" and presumably lunges toward Benvolio, and so the two fight until they are broken apart by other club-wielding citizens.  Essentially, then, Benvolio and Tybalt's fight is Tybalt's fault; he wanted to fight, and Benvolio did not.

How does the Fahrenheit 451 quote "God, isn't it funny. It seems so remote because we have our own troubles” relate to social commentary?

This quote appears in Part Three of Fahrenheit 451 when Montag is at Faber's apartment and is preparing to flee the city. To put this quote into context, Faber comments that the war has started but neither of the men have noticed it because they are so focused on their immediate problem of escaping the Mechanical Hound.

In terms of social commentary, this is significant because it suggests individuals often become wrapped up in their own lives and fail to consider bigger issues. In the society of Fahrenheit 451, it is this remoteness which enabled censorship to take hold. The attention of individuals was so focused on entertainment and pleasure-seeking that nobody noticed the decline of education and learning and the rise of the firemen.

Through this quote, then, Bradbury is sending a warning to his readers. He says to never lose sight of the bigger issues in society because this is how governments are able to implement dangerous policies, like censorship, and, once this has happened, it may be too late to change.