Stephen King :: biographies bio biography

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of the elderly couple. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen's grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged. Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and then Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums. He and Tabitha Spruce married in January of 1971. He met Tabitha in the stacks of the Fogler Library at the University of Maine at Orono, where they both worked as students. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men's magazines. Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many of these were later gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies. In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine.

Reading and Comprehension

Resource: Ch. 7 of Keys to College Studying Read â€Å"8 Secrets to a Knockout Business Presentation† using the SQ3R method. Answer the following questions to assess how well you followed the SQ3R method, and whether it helped. Note: Your grade for the assignment will depend on the quality and honesty of your responses and not on how successful you felt you were. ? What was the main point of the written piece? ? What did each section deal with? ? What questions did you ask yourself as you were reading? ? How can you change your note taking skills for the future? What would you do to retain this information for later use? ? How might the SQ3R method help you improve your reading comprehension and retention skills? Gen/105 Week 7: Reading and Comprehension Project 1. The main point of this written piece was to tell the reader what the eight most successful secrets were to delivering a knockout presentation in your business affairs. A lot of people at companies just make boring P owerPoint slides and it has so much irrelevant information that the point of the meeting is masked by a weak presentation. This article shows what to do and how to make a great presentation. 2.Each section of this paper dealt with a new and exciting way to capture the attention of a viewer of your business slides. The writer states to â€Å"dig deep† by adding new information and giving more to the viewer. â€Å"Avoid Info overload† shows that too much information can be detrimental to a project, people can bored and wander off. In the section â€Å"Practice Delivery†, it talks about how to memorized your speech and practice what you are saying. This will avoid mistakes, mishaps and fumbling with words. Also, the writer says to â€Å"forget comedy†, by leaving the humor out the project is more professional and shows that you are serious.By â€Å"pick powerful props† shows your audience that memorable ideas and notions can be obtained by using props , so the audience can remember ideas and thoughts associated with the presentation. Another secret is to â€Å"minimize you†, this means take out information relating to you or the business, because people already know what this information is. It waste space and time, and people can get sidetracked. â€Å"Speak the Language† notes that speaking as you always do will help minimize confusions with acronyms and abbreviated words. Be professional but make sure everyone can understand what is been said.Last but not least, â€Å"simple slides† states that you should use slides in your presentation to highlight important information and key words, don’t let the slides overrun the presentation. 3. The questions that came to mind when I was reading was significant. They dealt with how to maximize information during presentations and how do I apply material that are useful in my projects. I don’t want to use unnecessary information that is irrelevant. I als o asked myself if using pictures and props were a good idea. I found out that these two tools are necessary to keep the audience engaged in what you’re talking about. . I feel like that I have great note taking skills. I always note key words and phrases. If I have a long or difficult reading I always break it down in paragraphs and take notes on key sentences. I also use an outline format which helps greatly. It is almost like the article written in my own language so I can understand it better. I always use my notes to go over information instead of trying to re-read an entire article to find important facts. 5. I will use notes to retain this information for later use. My notes can be very well written as well as the reading, with the same information available.I always keep notes to look over for extra information and key points. 6. I think the SQ3R method does help my reading and comprehension skills improve. By skimming the article I mentally note key words and phrases. I can see how each paragraphs ends and if there are any vocabulary words noted. Noting questions is helpful as well. Keeping in mind question I would ask about the article will help me find an answer to it within the paper. I believe the method does help a lot especially when it comes to larger papers or article that I need to comprehend.

Hamlet Act Iii Climax Essay

In The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Shakespeare uses personification, allusion, and a rhetorical question to advocate that the climatic moment of Act III is when King Claudius admits to the murder of King Hamlet because, by definition, it is the act that turns the action of the scene around, leading toward an inevitable conclusion. Shakespeare uses personification when King Claudius says that â€Å"[his] offense is rank, it smells to heaven† (line 36). Claudius’ guilt of killing his very own brother, King Hamlet, is constantly on his conscious, which is why he gives the â€Å"offense† the trait of a rank smell, something whose presence is constant and putrid. The purpose of personifying Claudius’ â€Å"offense† to have a smell that reaches to heaven is because Claudius is aware that heaven is where King Hamlet’s spirit lies due to his own fault, and his admit to the murder will drive the scene to an inevitable conclusion because he has released key information to a driving mystery in the plot line. Shakespeare makes a biblical allusion to Abel and Cain in lines 37-38 of the play when Claudius says that his â€Å"offense [†¦] hath the primal eldest curse upon’t, / A brother’s murder! †. Shakespeare is atoning that murder is never outdated; no matter the era or the place, the murder of a brother by a brother is never acceptable in the eyes of society or God. This allusion purposefully informs us that King Claudius did kill his brother, King Hamlet, as a warning that falling action concerning Claudius’ unforgivable acts is to proceed. Claudius rhetorically asks, â€Å"O, what form of prayer / Can serve my turn? † (lines 51-52). Claudius’ asks this with the knowledge that there is no form of prayer that would serve his turn because his acts were unforgivable and he must face the consequences for them. Rhetorical questions are always immediately answered, whether directly or indirectly, and King Claudius’ question is consequently to be answered via the falling action that is to proceed after his soliloquy. In King Claudius’ soliloquy in Act III he admits to the murder of his own brother, the late King Hamlet, while also admitting that it is unforgivable, giving the act nowhere else to turn, but to conclusive consequences to King Claudius’ faulty actions.

Interview with someone who lived during WWII Essay

1.Question: Were you involved in the war? Any family members involved in the war? Answer: He was not involved in the war because he was too young. However, his father worked as an electric engineer for the army and operated radars. He had two uncles who were also in the army and had another uncle in the navy. 2.Question: Were you active in civil defense, Red Cross, war industries, other volunteer activities? Answer: He was in the boy scouts and was extremely patriotic. He collected scraps of aluminum, steel, iron, and paper for the war effort. He did not see this job as a burden and even competed for respect by trying to collect the most materials. He was also a coastal watcher and was assigned to watch for enemy submarines along the eastern coast. However, he never actually saw one. 3.Question: Any military experiences or personal anecdotes? Answer: He became a casualty-reporting officer in 1957 when he was stationed in Alaska. Before then, he was generally pro-war, but after telling two or three wives that their husbands were dead, he became more passive. He said his job as a casualty-reporting officer changed his view towards war and caused him to question the Vietnam War and the policies of President Bush. 4.Question: How did you view the war then? Answer: During the time of the war, he was nonchalant to the war. In fact, he said the worst part about the attack on Pearl Harbor was that he could not go to the beach on that day. As a child, he did not understand much about the war. For example, he said that when he learned about the Pearl Harbor invasion, he asked himself â€Å"what’s a Pearl Harbor?† and when he read about the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, he asked himself â€Å"what’s an atomic bomb?† He viewed the war as a game, because he never experienced any major losses. He thought that there was no way the United  States could lose and never worried for one second. 5.Question: How did you view military or political leaders during World War II? Answer: He admits that most of his opinions concerning them were affected by his father’s views and by movies, which he labels as propaganda. For example, he hated Himmler, Goebbels, Hitler, Goering, and Tojo because movies portrayed them as villains. He disliked Franklin D. Roosevelt because of his farm policies, which forced farmers to kill pigs in order to drive pork prices higher. He liked Churchill and idolized Dwight D. Eisenhower. 6.Question: Who do you feel was responsible for the war? Answer: He said the French were responsible for World War II because they created unfavorable and impossible situations for the Germans with their reparation system. He said that Hitler would never have risen into power if France had not burdened the German economy so heavily. He also felt that Japan was responsible for the war in the east, but the United States could have prevented the war from escalating by lifting its embargo on Japanese products. 7.Question: Did you suffer any deprivations because of the war? Answer: During World War II, Bill’s father worked with radars as an electrical engineer and was sent oversees to North Africa in 1943. Bill missed his father after he was called off to duty. Other than that, he suffered no other deprivations. 8.Question: Do you have any comments about rationing? Answer: Rationing was not very hard for his family because he had numerous relatives who were farmers. He maintained that the rations were adequate for his family and friends and that he never knew anyone who starved because of rationing. However, gasoline rations caused many problems for his family  because they moved around often. 9.Question: What were you doing when you first heard the news of Pearl Harbor? Answer: He was getting ready to go to the beach in Florida when he received a phone call from his father saying that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. His dad had to go directly to Pearl Harbor but he was just saddened that he could not go to the beach. It was not until several days later did he find out the severity of the situation when he saw a movie clarifying the Pearl Harbor attack. 10.Question: Did you know about the Nisei camps? Answer: No, like most Americans, he did not know about the Nisei camps until after the war had ended. At the University of Illinois, he had a close Japanese friend, ***** *********, who lived in a Nisei camp during World War II. Yukio was eleven years old when he was driven out of his home and sent into a Nisei camp. Yukio told Bill that there was plenty of food in the Nisei camp. The only bad memory he had of the camp was the giant fence that he was not allowed to cross in order to get his soccer ball. After Yukio’s family was released from the Nisei camp, they moved to Chicago to escape the bad memories that remained present in the west coast. 11.Question: How were Jewish refugees received in America? Were the welcomed? Answer: Bill said that as a child, he knew very little about the immigration laws for the Japanese and the Jewish. However, he distinctively remembered many restaurants and hotels hanging signs that read: â€Å"no Jews allowed†. He said that he always felt sympathetic towards the Jews because he had a close Jewish friend during the war. 12.Question: How were African Americans treated during the war? Answer: He said that he never had any friends that were African American during his childhood. He said there were no African Americans or any other  non-Caucasian races in any of the schools that he attended. He told me that African Americans were generally underused because they were thought of as inferior to the Caucasians. He even told me that some African Americans underwent experimental testing similar to the experiments that Hitler had used on the Jews. At Tuskegee, the United States military infected them with syphilis in order to study its effects on human beings. 13.Question: Was the war discussed in school? Answer: He said that kids usually talked about the war during school, but their teachers abstained from discussions about the war. Even in history class, teachers refused to discuss â€Å"current events† because they felt that the kids were too young to learn about the war. However, the children were allowed to sing patriotic songs for almost an hour every day. I think that Bill answered my questions without any bias or prejudice. He is currently taking many history courses at ******** so his historical knowledge is very accurate. His answers are impartial because he likes to view the war from different viewpoints. He told me that one must study World War II not only from the side of the Allies, but must gain the perspective of the Axis. During our interview, he constantly got off the subject and started lecturing me about the history of World War II. In fact, he brought several of his college textbooks and used his books to prove whatever point he was trying to make. Initially, after he told me about the syphilis experimental testing that the United States military administered on African Americans, I was reluctant to believe him (though I never showed any skepticism). However, he took out one of his textbooks, showed me the article on the Tuskegee experimental testing, and immediately gained my complete trust and confidence. Both his historical knowledge of World War II and his short-term (and probably long-term) memory are very accurate. I trust that the answers he gave concerning his childhood are also very accurate. Another reason that I think he was not biased in answering my questions was that he answered every one of them. He never tried to avoid any specific questions. Also, none of his relatives was injured or killed because of the war so it is unlikely for him to hold a grudge against the  Germans or the Japanese. However, one of the adverse effects of being too impartial is that he is unable to formulate any of his own opinions. For example, when I asked him who he thought was responsible for the war, he gave me a fifteen-minute history lecture about how France burdened Germany with reparation payments, which left the Germans economically destitute. Then he went on to discuss all the causes that were listed in his book, which took another fifteen minutes. After listening patiently for almost half an hour, I asked him who he felt was responsible for the war when he was a child. He answered, â€Å"When I was a kid, I was more interested in sports so I didn’t really care who was responsible for the war. Movies. Movies and my father convinced me that Hitler and Tojo were the ones responsible for the war†. I learned many things about life during World War II from Bill. For example, I learned that kids during that era were pro-war and very patriotic. This may have resulted from movies that were designed for propaganda. At that time, everyone went to the movies at least once a week, which may have greatly contributed to patriotism and to the war effort. I also learned that many children were active in collecting scraps of aluminum, steel, iron, or paper for the war effort. I do not know if these scraps actually helped build a lot of planes and ships, because it is foolish to think that there was that much scraps lying on the ground for the kids to collect, but it probably did get everyone involved and committed to the war effort. In addition, I learned that few Americans knew about the Nisei camps or the German concentration camps during World War II. It was not revealed to the public until after the war ended. Immigration laws were not widely publicized during the war either. I learned that rationing in the United States was not too awful and that no one starved or went hungry because of it. In fact, many felt that rationing was a major step up from the hunger caused by the Great Depression. Finally, I learned that some African Americans were the subjects of experimental testing during World War II. How can Americans shamelessly condemn Hitler’s experimental testing on the Jews when they are committing the same crime?

Analysis of The Legal Profession Research Paper

Analysis of The Legal Profession - Research Paper Example Several factors have to lead to these changes including debates on whether the legal profession has become more inclined on the commercialism aspect, rather than professionalism. According to Richard Susskind’s article ‘Legal profession is on the brink of fundamental change’, he views that: â€Å"The challenge is not to assess how commoditization and IT might threaten the current work of lawyers so that the traditional ways can be protected and changed avoided. It is to find and embrace better, quicker, less costly, more convenient and publicly valued ways of working.’2 In discussing commercialism, one view is: What was remarkable this time was that the leadership of the organized bar made commercialism a central concern of its rhetoric about declining professionalism and that the resulting crusade struck such a responsive chord among the bar as a whole. ‘In the past, progressive jurists and liberal law professors have chastised the bar for becoming more of a business than a learned, public-oriented profession, and leaders of the bar have sometimes pointed out that a few lawyers (â€Å"ambulance chasers†) have succumbed to the profit motive.’3 However, despite this negative perception of the legal profession, many young students are drawn to the profession of traditional lawyering because of the prestige and honor attributed to full-fledged lawyers, knowing that they can serve the community and the country for humanitarian causes. II. Duties and Responsibilities The legal profession covers several responsibilities for the practicing or supervising lawyer, paralegals, legal assistants or law students. The legal profession is considered teamwork composed of lawyers, paralegals, legal researchers, and the legal staff. In order for a law firm to succeed in every case assigned to it, their lawyers must be able to present well- researched and valid defenses in asserting their claims during the trial proper or when filin g complaints. The secret to winning in the legal battlefield requires tedious concentration by putting time and effort in the rigorous work of research, interviews, and gathering of evidence. These tasks cannot be delegated to the lawyer alone. An attorney needs all the help he can get from paralegals and legal assistants working with him to build up the pieces of evidence needed for every case. It is expected the lawyers delegate some of their responsibilities to a paralegal or legal assistant in order to concentrate during the presentation of evidence in court or conducting interviews with the clients. Hence, it is a given fact that a lawyer’s success in every litigation case that he handles is attributed to the impeccable research work and above reproach investigative skills his or her paralegal or a legal assistant.

Incarceration Rates Disparity in Provincial and Federal Prisons Essay

Incarceration Rates Disparity in Provincial and Federal Prisons - Essay Example Less representation is registered among the white boys and other ethnic groups. Among girls, only the aboriginal communities have registered increased misrepresentation in the jails which are rated at 10 percent higher than other ethnic groups in the Ontario prisons. Statistics have indicated that indicated that over-representation of the Aboriginal people in the prisons has been on the increasing trend over the past 30 years. The statistics escalated after the Second World War and the trend has accelerated over the years. If the current trend is to continue, then the number of Aboriginal people under incarceration is likely to be higher than those out of prisons which are indeed a worrying trend. Despite the introduction of the Youth Criminal Justice Act of 2003 that has seen a steady decrease in the number of incarcerations among the youths; the trend has not been witnessed among the aboriginal boys and girls. The provincial jails must rise and act on the increased number of deaths of black youths that has been witnessed lately through gunshots by police and other security agencies. This calls for a change of tactics on how security issues are to be handled in the country and that massive incarcerations is not the solution. International bodies such as the United Nations have expressed their concern about the need to reduce the increased overrepresentation of aboriginal and black races in the federal and provincial prisons. In Manitoba, similar situations seem to exist based on how the Aboriginal people are treated in relation to incarcerations. Despite the fact that they only form 12% of the entire province population, they dominate the jails and account for more than 0ne-half of the people who are incarcerated in the correctional centers at any given time. It is indeed very shocking that in a nation where justice is expected to be blind to racial differences only one ethnic group seem to dominate the prisons.  

Business and Professional Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Business and Professional Ethics - Essay Example a company should be to maximise its profits and consequently return a part of these profits to the shareholder group as the reward and return for the risks that they have borne by investing their money in the company. Milton Friedman’s view advocates that the shareholders of a company can decide what social responsibilities they want to take part in. This report is prepared with the aim of evaluating the pros and cons of these arguments by referring to the theoretical works presented by different scholars and practitioners in this domain. The report is concluded by presenting a view as to whether the arguments presented by Friedman still hold ground in the current corporate world. The arguments proposed by Milton Friedman suggest that a company does not have to have any kind of social responsibility towards the community and society because the only concern of the company should be to increase its financial gains and returns for the shareholders who have invested in the company (Friedman, 1970). Nevertheless, as per the contemporary theories of business ethics and corporate social responsibility, focusing on giving back to the societies and communities in which the companies operate is a necessity for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. Also, the use of suitable corporate social responsibility initiatives is mandatory for ensuring that the company remains ethically, morally as well as socially compliant (Kerr, Janda and Pitts, 2009, pp. 22-25). As per the theory proposed by Friedman, the focus of the profit oriented businesses on adding value to the society may lead to totalitarianism which is a particular type of political system in which the  federal or state authorities have total control over the community and society and thus, seeks to control all the relevant aspects of both private and public lives whenever and wherever possible. But, it can be seen in the global corporate environment that totalitarianism as a political system does not prevail