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Showing posts from 2017

Monuments: Our Secret Lives

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Insight Man is neither kind nor respectful, say I, whenever he erects  monuments to memorialize humanity's heroes. Give man a chance I ask, and see if he wouldn't haul his God from out of the heavens and bring him down here on the Earth, and then make of him a public spectacle, thinking little of the need for such a venerable One. Thinking still less whether that's what the saints and the prophets of ancient time had ever wanted, fame it's called,- when they walked the Earth. Profane, profane I shout!….All that man cares about, is this fleeting experience. He then blinds himself into thinking that he can still make the life of those great ones still greater, and so he goes and built a whole monument of some poor saint, some tired soul, some loving heart who had died trying to change the world. I pray you please tell me, what more do such a pure soul, one who had seen it all, heard it all, and therefore understands it all, can ever again want from fame. An...

Distant Reading Project1

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I chose "The Memoir of Fanny Hill." Prediction This database is absolutely phenomenal! I was very impressed with the rapidity with which it worked to handle a rather huge task.  I entered my words in their thousands, inside the box,  and relaxed watching the magic happens right before my own eyes. Anyway, I think my predictions weren't way off track. I talked about love, which I think is basically the same as pleasure, and this particular word seems to standout in this words-graph.  I talked about sex, and prostitution-- it turned out, the baseline of the book is actually about sex for money. And, Fanny did appeared insecured.

Rinkeby: Swedish Immigration Crisis

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By Samuel Collins           David Ramos, Getty Image                Rinkeby, as it is called, is a small suburban immigrant enclave, located somewhere near the Mediterranean Sea, just 13 km northwest of Stockholm, and about 18 minutes of subway ride to center city. Here, more than 80% of Rinkeby’s residents are immigrants from places like Iraq, Syria, Somalia, South America and Eastern Europe. The once lovely immigrant community has become notorious for crimes, riots, police brutalities.  According to Mr. Hoge, just a mere mention of the name Rinkeby, would get people to shrink back.           A Pew Research Center study conducted in "2016 found that over 46 percent of Swedes believed that refugees are responsible for most of the crimes than other groups," even though an earlier study carried out by a popular local newspaper, the Dagens Nyheter, analyzed crime statistics in ...

Ethical Behavior in Digital Communication

Privacy Statement   April 30, 2017 I am honored, now that I have finally decided that from now on I am going to be even more careful while handling information that belongs to myself, my family and my friends. I believe in the importance of personal information, and by personal information I mean; any information that may be used to identify myself, my family and my friends, such as full names and addresses. I am aware that there’s a danger in being careless with personal information, and on this basis, I solemnly promise to refrain from posting information online that may contain obscenities either as images or as words, that may in anyway misrepresent myself, my family and my friends. I am aware that there are cyber criminals and sneaky weirdo strangers out there who are ready to seize on any opportunity I may unknowingly let out. Having said that, my first action would be to give more attention to ethical behavior online. On this last day of April, I am going to ...

Dead Media

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Samuel Collins Media Poster April 17, 2017 Outdoor Movie Theater Popular during the mid 20th century, a drive-in outdoor movie theater provided a new movie- watching experience the world was just beginning to see. People could sit with their cars parked in front of a screen to watch films. This was really new-- enchanting,  romantic even. Of course, it was one of those things which represents the richness of American culture. I think this new way of theater-going brought new innovation into the way people saw entertainment. Lovers could explore the outdoor together. Part of the reasons why drive-in outdoor theaters are rare in recent times maybe because of the increase in the quality of digital equipments, and the low prices that they are being sold for.  I confess, even my mother would know so little about the Jukebox era. I myself do feel displaced just by talking about jukebox. But still, put your seatbelt on before we begin our journey back ...

Zaire: A Nation of Jewels

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A Small African Village  April 13, 2017     Kikwit is the largest city and capital of Kwilu province.  The city lies along the bank of the Kwilu River in the southern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it occupies a respectable place among few other countries in Equatorial Africa. The Democratic Republic of Congo alone is bordered by nine African countries, including Angola, Zambia, Burundi, Rwanda, and Tanzania. The geographic coordinates, according to information from the CIA FACTS BOOK, says, for example, that Kikwit has an absolution location of; 000 N, 2500 E. with a population of over 70 million people, and resources ranging from rare minerals, including some of the world’s leading precious stones; such as diamond, gold, Uranium, coal and timber.     A November 15, 1991 article in The New York Times; “ Kikwit Journal; Once a Colonial Jewel, a City Hurtles Backward”—written by Kenneth B. Noble, from whi...

Fascinated By Bond Street

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LOGO The Wall Street Journal: Here https://www.wsj.com/articles/londons-regents-park-is-having-a-moment-1413992794 “ There was Regent’s Park. Yes. As a child, he had walked in Regent’s Park–odd, he thought, how the thought of childhood keeps coming back to me–the result of seeing Clarissa, perhaps; for women live much more in the past than we do, he thought. They attach themselves to places; and their fathers–a woman’s always proud of her father .” ― p. 55. Peter Walsh is an old friend of Clarissa’s, who has his own painful past. Clarissa, for her part-- had never really liked him, or at least not enough to had gotten married to him. But when Peter is back from India, and happened to be one of her guests on the party, Clarissa, for the first time felt anew by his presence. What’s even more interesting is that, she finds out that he intends to divorce his current wife,—he too was still in love with Clarissa. Non Descript: Source--We...

Regent's Park-- London

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                                                                                                                                           Old London Traffic                                                                                                                               Encyclopedia Britannica W...