The Mysterious Benedict Society

Scott overhears Kelly, Julia’s best friend, asking Julia is she finished her book review. The only people that do book reviews is the club that writes the school newspapers. Therefore, Scott decides to join the school newspaper club, so he can try to get closer to Julia, only to learn that Julia was a guest and never actually joined the club. Scott also finds out that Kelly and Julia are planning to join the drama club. By giving Scott another chance to get closer to Julia, he decides to join the drama club. After a horrible performance, Scott joins the stage crew, later to find out that Julia did not even make the cut. After failing twice trying to get closer to Julia, Scott finds out that Julia is running for student council. So again, Scott decided to run too. As usual, Julia does not make student council and Scott does. With piles of homework, a new baby brother on the way, and tons of activities to do Scott is barely getting enough sleep. After learning how hard starting high school was for him, Scott decides to start a survival guide for his upcoming younger brother. Later in the year, a new girl, named Lee, comes to J.P. Zenger High

Once they arrive to the library for detention they are instructed by the principal, Richard Vernon, to sit quietly for approximately eight hours and each write an essay about who they think they are. He randomly checks on the students during

It demonstrates that even without juridical discrimination; hate speech, lowered expectations, and dismissive behavior can have devastating effects on achievement. Black members of the blue-eyed group forcefully remind whites that they undergo similar stresses, not just for a few hours in a controlled experiment, but every day of their lives. Although these concepts are food for thought… they are merely preludes to the main course. The most important lesson to be learned here is that just one person can make a difference.       Next we join a group of 40 teachers, police, school administrators and social workers in Kansas City - blacks, Hispanics, whites, women and men.

This awesome book is about a kid named Reynie Muldoon. He is an average kid, in an average town, in an average orphanage. But when he sees an ad in the paper, his whole life changes. He gets to the place where the test is taken and he refuses the answers to the test (that a strange girl with green hair, offers him.). These tests are far from ordinary, though. Testing not just for standard intelligence but for specific character traits as well: honesty, kindness, desire to help others, and, curiously, a dislike of radio and television.

From The Catholic Church: Our Mission in History (white book by the window) on pages 126-128. How did the different kings of the 400s effect The Christian faith? What were the positives and negatives of each?

The authors continue to question the qualities of people through examples such as the bagel company in a hopes of determining if people are really good. Levitt and Dubner continue their questioning with examples like relators and the KKK. They are able to compare the secret codes of the Klan to the words that real estate agents use when trying to sell a house. Later on, Levitt and Dubner bring up the question of “what makes a perfect parent?”. They stress the idea that parents are so afraid of making a mistake that they become terrible risk assessors and end up putting their child in more danger. Again, Levitt and Dubner are focusing on an uncommon perspective to bring insight to the reader of how the world really

The Sangha, the Buddhist monastic order, comprises Bhikku (monks), Bhikkuni (nuns), laymen, and laywomen. While the Bhikku and Bhikkuni depend upon the laywomen and men for economic support, the lay community depends on them for spiritual guidance and ritualistic practices. This well-rounded mutual relationship is clearly a division not only amongst religious status, but determined by gender as well. This is quite a contradiction with the Buddhist belief that your physical self is impermanent and ultimately attachment to your illusory self will cause you suffering. The second Noble Truth states that suffering originates from our ongoing desire, a clinging to possessions, attachments, and self. Why would a religion founded in the idea of shedding attachment focus so much on gender, which is an attachment? I feel that the Buddha’s hesitation in allowing women to be initially recognized in the Sangha originates from his early childhood convictions of women, fear of the Dharma becoming further compromised, and ultimately leading to the deterioration of Buddhism altogether. The Buddha’s hesitations regarding women becoming monastics seem to be questionable because of the way women have responded to this discrimination even during the Buddha’s lifetime. These women are evidently devoted to the ideals and teachings of Buddhism because of their ability to shed attachments and embody a fully monastic lifestyle. As they are shedding their attachments they give up their gender.

Two of the last Heaven’s Gate followers “Telah” and “we” keep the Heaven’s Gate website online and promptly respond to any questions through email. March 23, 1997 was when the mass suicide known as Heaven’s Gate occurred in Rancho Santa Fe community of San Diego, California. Thirty-nine members were found dead neatly in bunk beds wearing Nike shoes, black sweat pants, and covered with a purple cloth. The cult started in 1997, when founders Marshall Applewhite, and Bonnie Nettles became “the Two” and gain followers. As the son of a Pastor, Applewhite always saw himself as a preacher, but never fit into mainstream religion due to his alleged homosexual tendencies. Furthermore, the development of Human Individual Metamorphosis (HIM), a New Age religion in which members believed the planet earth would be recycled in order to move to “next level” or heaven, humans give up all attachments to the

Jensen, Kimberly, Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War, 2008 (Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 244.

In the story, it is said that the ones with intelligence are given mental handicaps to keep them from having intelligent thoughts for too long and the ones who were beautiful, strong, and or athletic were given masks and weights which they must wear at all times. Also, during the time this was being written, people like Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X were fighting for human rights and the fact that they were not given fair opportunities was almost like they were handicapped. This evidence from the text shows how the handicaps could be used and the real-life surroundings of Kurt Vonnegut and what was happening in America around the time that this short story was being written shows how the government really does handicap certain groups of people to lessen the chance of them becoming successful people. The handicaps are still evident today because Americans and Canadians may like to think that all people have equal opportunities, but, the harsh reality is that women and people of colour are still not given the equal opportunities they deserve. This story also shows that through propaganda and the television, the government can brainwash

Wrapped in mystery and intrigue, the Knights Templar stand out from the pages of history as the keepers of Catholicism’s greatest, most dangerous secrets. In legend, the Knights are known as the guardians of the Holy Grail, the Arc of the Covenant, and other Holy relics. Historically, they are remembered as the “Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon,” the disciplined guardians to Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. Although the order is one of the most intriguing secret societies, the literature written on the Templars is minute and thus it is one of the least understood societies in history. Sadly, the order’s important contributions to history are so vastly overshadowed by scandal and intrigue that fact and

In school there are many groups that can be identified within the film. It is interesting to see how five students who are all in different social groups came together at the end despite these differences. In the film, the students all get dropped off at the school to attend a Saturday detention all for various reasons. The characters in the detention were Allison Reynolds, John Bender, Claire Standish, Brian Johnson, and Andrew

Cults are the groups that exhibit intense and unquestioning devotion to a single cause. All the group members have a same goal or mission, and the group thinking helps the group members to stick on the same goal. For the Heaven Gate, their goal is to enter the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom level above human. The documentary of “Heaven Gate Cult” perfectly shows the four ways for the cult to promote their group thinking.

The author Joelle Charbonneau wrote the book The Testing. An amusing fact about Joelle is that she taught many students how to sing. In an article Joelle states “My students are a wonderful source of inspiration and continue to teach me life while I teach them about singing” (Charbonneau… New York Times). The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau is about a girl named Cia who is selected to go through a testing program to test her knowledge and see if she can attend a certain college. Cia has many roadblocks, but that does not stop her from doing her best. People should recommend this book because of its connection to the article titled New Surveillance Technology. The message of this book is that knowledge is power, so don’t betray it.

In Of Mice and Men, our main characters encounter many different people with different abilities. These attributes directly contribute to their position on the ranch’s social ladder and differentiates one from another. As an