On what page in the book Night by Elie Wiesel did Elie's father get beaten while Elie just stood there doing absolutely nothing, with not a...

Idek beat Wiesel’s father for “loafing” while working, and he did nothing to stop it.

In the instance I believe you are describing, Elie Wiesel watched the Kapo Idek beat his father for no reason, because he said he was “loafing” (not working fast enough) while loading a boxcar. In this case, they were “loading diesel motors” onto the freight cars, and in addition to Idek they were also being watched by German soldiers. Perhaps this is why Idek was particularly grumpy. 

I had watched it all happening without moving. I kept silent. In fact, I thought of stealing away in order not to suffer the blows. What's more, if I felt anger at that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father. Why couldn't he have avoided Idek's wrath? (Ch. 4, p. 54) 

At the time, he did nothing because he was angry at his father for drawing Idek’s attention, but he was also angry at the Nazis and the concentration camp environment for turning him into a person who could think this way. He knew it was wrong. He still felt empathy for his father, but he was helpless to stop the beating and he knew it. That was the real source of his anger. 

It was not the only time he could not protect his father. Elie Wiesel later regretted watching the SS beat his father while he stood by and did nothing. In the introduction, he says, “I shall never forgive myself.” However, he also acknowledges that it was the concentration camp that pushed him to this point. 

Nor shall I ever forgive the world for having pushed me against the wall, for having turned me into a stranger, for having awakened in me the basest, most primitive instincts. (Introduction, xii) 

Wiesel’s indifference in these moments opened his eyes to the larger problem of the Holocaust. Too many people were ignoring what was happening, just as he ignored what happened to his father. His father knew that there was nothing he could do and did not blame his son, but he would have still been hurt that his son was angry at him for being a target. The concentration camp was a hellish environment that made people do terrible things to each other.

How does Cervantes use humor in Don Quixote? How does humor work in the novel? What are some examples of humor?

The main humor in the novel arises from the slippage or gap between Don Quixote's "mad" or not quite sane vision of the world and the down-to-earth reality of what the world is. Don Quixote, an older man, has read so many chivalric romances about the noble deeds of knights errant that he has been influenced to imagine himself a knight out of a romance.

Of course, he isn't a knight. Readers and many of the people in the novel watching him behave strangely laugh at the mistakes he makes. For instance, he mistakes windmills for giants and tilts at them (tries to fight them off) despite the pleas of his "squire" that he not do this crazy thing. He also imagines a peasant woman as his lady love, renaming her Dulcinea, and he imagines a local inn as a castle. We laugh and cry with Don Quixote as he tries to bring a touch of the magical and the noble into a world that isn't interested.

Don Quixote has a high level of violence. Cervantes used the novel to critique violence, but readers must decide if the violence is humorous in the way of exaggerated cartoon violence or merely appalling. In either case, Quixote is constantly getting beaten up for his misguided efforts to right both real and imagined wrongs.

What are disinfectants and sanitizers?

Definition

Disinfectants and sanitizers are antimicrobials. A “disinfectant” destroys pathogens (disease-causing microorganisms, such as
bacteria) but not spores and not all viruses. A “sanitizer”
reduces the number of harmful microorganisms, or germs, so that they are not an
infectious hazard. Disinfection and sanitization are effective only if a surface
area is clean. “Clean” means that a surface has been cleared of soil, dust,
organic matter (such as blood or stool), and microorganisms. Cleaning usually can
remove large amounts of harmful microorganisms, but it usually does not kill them
and does not disinfect or sanitize surfaces.

According to industry standards, a disinfectant must be capable of reducing the level of pathogenic bacteria by 99.999 percent during a time frame greater than five but less than ten minutes under conditions of the AOAC Use-Dilution Test. A disinfectant destroys all pathogens on a surface or object. Disinfectant products or processes can be ranked as low, medium, or high level. A sanitizer must reduce the level of harmful microorganisms by in a specific bacterial test population 99.999 percent (in a process known as a 5 log reduction) within thirty seconds under conditions of the AOAC Germicidal and Detergent Sanitizers Test (GDS).

One substance may work both as a sanitizer and a disinfectant. For example, an iodophor, when used at 25 ppm (parts per million of available iodine), is a sanitizer. However, that same product, when applied at 75 ppm, is a disinfectant. After using the sanitizer, which kills 99.999 percent of bacteria, five thousand bacteria per square foot would remain. These remaining microorganisms reproduce by splitting into two every fifteen minutes. The result is that those five thousand bacteria per square foot have now become 1 million bacteria per square foot within, for example, five hours.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the governing body
for antimicrobials. It places antimicrobials into four categories: sterilizers,
disinfectants, sanitizers, and antiseptics and germicides. A sterilizer is
equipment used in medical procedures. Cleaning professionals are concerned only
with disinfectants and sanitizers, which are chemical antimicrobial agents, in
contrast to physical antimicrobial agents, such as heat and radiation. Antiseptics and germicides are for use on living beings and are
governed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A sanitizer may be called an antiseptic when it is used on tissue.
(Antiseptics are safe to use in this case because they do not have the same
killing power as disinfectants.)

Development of Sanitizers and Disinfectants

Infection control was pioneered by hospitals in the nineteenth century. Out of the filth, disease, and poverty of the early nineteenth century came sanitary reform. One of the more significant contributors to the health revolution was the technological, sociological, and environmental phenomenon now known as the sanitary era or the public health campaign. The goal of this campaign was to destroy all possible harmful microorganisms.

Health officials believed it was practical to allow a minimum of ten minutes of contact time with a sanitizer or disinfectant to accomplish this objective. As a result, most disinfectant tests were developed to ascertain whether any bacteria could survive exactly ten minutes of contact. When contact times that are significantly less than ten minutes are allowed, it becomes difficult to get a meaningful result from the Use-Dilution Test.

In food service and public-health related industries, interest in antimicrobials appeared much later than it did in hospitals. Conditions of use were different, so tests based on ten minutes of contact were not practical. In many cases even today, thirty seconds is about the maximum time one can realistically expect for contact in food and drink service (such as when a bartender washes a glass).

Because it is not realistic to expect complete kill in thirty seconds, the GDS test was developed to count microbes. (The Use-Dilution Test, in contrast, indicates the presence of bacteria but yields no counts.) Experts figured that it was possible to get, in thirty seconds, a 99.999 percent reduction in the amount of bacteria with the use of practical agents (such as detergents).

Common Mechanism of Action

A wide range of substances are used as disinfectants. These include alcohols, aldehydes, hydrogen peroxide, iodine, and potassium permanganate solution. Bromine and chlorine are the most common disinfectants and sanitizers for drinking and recreational waters.

The most widely used disinfectants and sanitizers are powerful oxidizers, which means that the atoms of these elements can accept
electrons or hydrogens, or both. Hydrogen peroxide, bromine, and chlorine
compounds oxidize the complex molecules present on the surface of bacteria,
causing their cell walls and cell membranes to disrupt. The proteins on the
surface become irreversibly damaged and start to stick together, forming clumps.
This happens quickly: A strong solution of sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl, also known
as household bleach) solution that is used to disinfect a toilet, for example,
kills bacteria within seconds. The bacterial cell cannot respond to the damage
quickly enough, and the whole cell simply splits open and dies.

Later research has shown that bacteria do have some capacity to resist an attack by bleach. Contact with hypochlorous acid was found to switch on a gene in some bacteria. This gene is part of the pathway that bugs use to cope with heat stress and the bleachlike substances that cells of the immune system produce to fight infection. If the concentration of bleach solution is low, bacteria with genes that resist this sort of cellular attack might survive.

Impact

It has been claimed that the major decline in mortality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries resulted from innovations in environmental sanitation. About one century later, in 1997, Life magazine considered drinking water chlorination and filtration to be “probably the most significant public health advancement[s] of the millennium.”

Today, modern hospital disinfectants must show efficacy in eliminating three primary organisms: Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. However, hospital administrations generally require disinfectants with even more efficacy.

Many people in developed countries have grown to accept reduced rates of
illness as the norm, and outbreaks that once would have been accepted as an
unavoidable part of life are now considered crises of public health that require
swift and decisive interventions. However, much of the developing world has yet to
reap the benefits. According to World Health Organization (WHO) data,
worldwide, two of every ten people live with no source of safe drinking water and
four of every ten people lack access to a simple pit latrine.

There remains more work to be done. WHO has promoted as one of its Millennium Development Goals the reduction by one-half, by the year 2015, of the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. Efficacious and inexpensive, chlorine disinfectants have been employed to help achieve this critical humanitarian goal.

Bibliography

Block, Seymour S., ed. Disinfection, Sterilization, and Preservation. 5th ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2001. A comprehensive and practical reference on contemporary methods of disinfection, sterilization, and preservation and their medical, surgical, and public health applications.

Fraise, Adam P., Peter A. Lambert, and J.-Y. Maillard, eds. Russell, Hugo, and Ayliffe’s Principles and Practice of Disinfection, Preservation, and Sterilization. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004. A highly respected established text covering in detail many methods to prevent and eliminate microbial growth.

Novick, Lloyd F., Cynthia B. Morrow, and Glen P. Mays, eds. Public Health Administration: Principles for Population-Based Management. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett, 2008. The principles, practices, and skills essential to successful public health administration. Includes information on the Healthy People 2010 objectives and chapters on bioterrorism and emergency preparedness, public health systems research, and public health law.

How do the nation's health goals relate to individual, family, and community health? What can an individual do to address the goals and objectives...

Healthy People 2010 is an initiative started by the US Department of Health and Human Services.  The goals of the program include increasing the quality and years of healthy life and eliminating health disparities.  The project identifies several leading health indicators that individuals may control to address the goals and objectives of the Healthy People 2010 initiative.  These indicators include maintaining regular physical activity, avoiding obesity, eliminating tobacco use and substance abuse, engaging in responsible sexual behaviors, identifying and treating mental health issues, avoiding incidences of injury and violence, being aware of environmental quality issues, maintaining immunizations, and accessing healthcare services as needed.   In addition to personally adopting the above leading health indicators, individuals may encourage health professionals and public officials to focus on these health indicators when setting community policy and making investments in health improvements. 

The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion has now published the Healthy People 2020 initiative, which is based on the work of the Healthy People 2010 program along with three other health initiatives. 

How could the tragic flaws of Caesar and Brutus in Julius Caesar be compared?

Brutus’s tragic flaw was his need to be noble, and Caesar’s was his arrogance and ambition.

A tragic flaw is a flaw that causes a character’s destruction.  Caesar and Brutus were both ambitious, but in different ways. Caesar wanted power. He believed that he knew what was best for Rome. Brutus also believed that he knew what was best for Rome, but his tragic flaw was his need to be seen as noble. In his quest to maintain his reputation, he destroyed himself.

Shakespeare demonstrates that Caesar is ambitious in various ways. He refuses to listen to the soothsayer who warns him. He also does not even consider reading Artemidorus’s warning letter. However, the most obvious example is when Caesar refuses Metellus Cimber’s plea to pardon his brother. He does not even consider it, even with all of those senators begging him. He says that he never changes his mind.

I could be well moved, if I were as you:
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me:
But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament. (Act 3, Scene 1)

Caesar is killed mainly because the other senators do not feel that he will be able to work with them. They think he is going to become a tyrant and make himself king of Rome. Therefore, Caesar’s fatal flaw is his arrogance and ambition.

Cassius convinces Brutus that the only way to protect Rome from Caesar is to assassinate him.  The conspirators all have different motives, such as revenge or greed. Brutus really believes that he is doing the right thing. At first, he questions his decision, but he eventually decides that Caesar must die.

In his speech to the people at Caesar’s funeral, Brutus explains to them why he felt Caesar had to die.

As Caesar loved me, I weep for him;
as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was
valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I
slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his
fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his
ambition.  (Act 3, Scene 2)

He tells them that they are acting as slaves if they do not oppose Caesar, and that under Caesar they lived as slaves.  He continues this liberator imagery as he raises his army against Antony and Octavius. Brutus really does believe that he is in the right.

Brutus does not listen to anyone who gives him advice. Cassius tries to sway him several times, before and after Caesar’s death. Each time, Brutus shows that he has no interest in listening to Cassius. For example, Cassius wanted him to kill Antony as well, but Brutus did not want them to be considered “butchers.” Brutus always acts with his reputation in mind.

While both Brutus and Caesar are ambitious in different ways, Brutus does not have Caesar's arrogance. He is acting to keep his reputation intact, but he does not care as much about himself as the legacy of Rome. He wants it to be known that they killed Caesar not because they wanted power but because it was the right thing to do to stop him. Caesar was killed, and Brutus killed himself, because of these flaws.

What did Johnny's note to Ponyboy say in the novel The Outsiders?

In the final chapter of the novel, Ponyboy picks up the copy of Gone With the Wind and begins to think about Johnny. When Ponyboy opens the novel, a piece of paper slips out and falls to the floor. Pony picks it up and finds out that it is a note that Johnny had written to him. Johnny begins the note by saying that he told the nurse to return the copy of Gone With the Wind to Ponyboy so he could finish reading it. Johnny goes on to mention that he doesn't mind dying and feels that saving those children's lives was worth it. He then tells Ponyboy that he's been thinking about the Robert Frost poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay," and says that the poem is commenting on youth. He encourages Ponyboy to remain innocent and to tell Dally that he should watch a sunset sometime. Johnny also tells Ponyboy not to be so upset about being a Greaser because he has lots of time to make himself into what he wants to be. He also comments that there is lots of good in the world and tells Ponyboy to share that information with Dally.

How can I write a topic sentence for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet about love or infatuation, or perhaps about how teenagers are confused about love?

Certainly, you could claim that teenagers have a tendency to lack perspective due to their often limited life experience, and this tendency causes Romeo and Juliet to believe that their love is the only thing that makes life worth living. 

You could also claim that it can be difficult for anyone, but especially teenagers (again, because they lack life experience), to differentiate between love and infatuation, and this inability to tell the difference causes Romeo and Juliet to act impulsively in an attempt to honor their strong feelings for one another.

Further, you might claim that the heightened emotions surrounding the initial meeting of Romeo and Juliet, emotions that arise as a result of the long-standing feud between their families, confuse them and make them believe that they desperately love each other when it is really just the excitement of engaging in a relationship of which they know their parents would disapprove.