How long did Sipho live with his mom?

As many historians, citizens, and observers know, South Africa used to be the center of a racially oppressive system called apartheid, but that all began to change in the 1990s. As an expression of the history and struggles of those who lived under the troubling system, Beverly Naidoo published No Turning Back in 1995 at a time when the country was undergoing significant cultural changes that would help break its people free from the system. Black children, in particular, endured some of the most painful experiences that influence their thoughts and feelings even today. In Naidoo's novel, Sipho, a poor black boy growing up in South Africa, is one of the main characters.
As the chains of Apartheid rip apart, Sipho decides to venture away from home and learn to live on his own. He encounters many struggles, of course, not only because he is black and young in South Africa, but also because he is a runaway from his family. Sipho felt betrayed by his mom, who did not defend him against the beatings he endured at home from his violent, alcoholic Stepfather. Before leaving home to escape his stepfather's abuse and the poor living conditions in the home due to his mother losing her job and not having enough food, Sipho lived with his mom for twelve years. He left home at the age of twelve to try to become independent and provide for himself. And his young age was just one of the many reasons why Sipho found life on his own to be so difficult.

What is rainwater harvesting? State the objective of rainwater harvesting.

Rainwater harvesting entails diverting, capturing, and storing water for both personal and public use instead of allowing it to evaporate or percolate through the soil. Rainwater can be collected using metal roofs and gutters. The captured water is stored in tanks or open ponds.
One of the objectives of rainwater harvesting is to ensure that water is available during the dry season. In addition, the process helps to reduce soil erosion and flooding. The volume of water that flows across the land is reduced, therefore, minimizing the possibilities of flooding. Moreover, it prevents the excessive use of aquifers, which can be costly due to high electricity usage as a result of pumping water. Furthermore, rainwater harvesting ensures that there is steady water supply because replenishing a drained aquifer takes a long time.

Rainwater harvesting is a rather simple, yet underappreciated, method for collecting and using water. It can be as simple as funneling rainwater off your roof through gutters into a barrel or as elaborate as directing water to a cistern to supply your whole house with water.
Collecting and utilizing rainwater is a cheap and efficient way to maximize your water supply. Once you've devised your system for collecting the water, then you can use it to water plants and gardens, fill swimming pools, and wash vehicles. It can be used indoors to clean clothes and fill toilets. If properly filtered and disinfected, it can even be consumed by people and animals.
Collecting rainwater is environmentally responsible in that it helps to conserve water and promotes self-sustainability. Rainwater is the perfect water for plants since it is unchlorinated, and it can help with drainage issues your property may have. What's more, rainwater harvesting is not something complex; it can be done relatively easily and inexpensively.
https://www.watercache.com/education/rainwater-harvesting-101

Discuss the Constitutional Amendments and Supreme Court rulings that have been the legal focus of the battle for civil rights. What roles did specific Civil Rights organizations, legal cases, and individuals play in enhancing equal access to voting rights, public accommodations, education, and employment?

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has played a key role since the 1950s on expanding voting rights and education to the Black American population. I will focus here on education.
The most important case regarding equal access to education is Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The Brown case was a reversal of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which established the principle of "separate but equal" using the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as racial pseudoscience as the premise for the majority decision, written by Justice Henry Billings Brown:

The object of the [Fourteenth] amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to endorse social, as distinguished from political, equality. . . . If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.

In 1954, the Warren Court overturned the decision, also using the Fourteenth Amendment, by arguing that separate facilities are "inherently unequal" and, therefore, do not follow the amendment's premise of equal protection under the law.
Brown was a landmark case which resulted in the desegregation of schools. However, the South stalled in following the Supreme Court's order; as a result, Little Rock High School was not desegregated until September 1957.
There were other cases, however, that preceded Brown. One such example, Murray v. Maryland (1936), was taken to the Maryland Court of Appeals, which decided that the plaintiff, Donald Gaines Murray, should be granted a place at the University of Maryland's law school. Thurgood Marshall first took the case in 1933; he himself had not applied to the university's law school due to its racist policy. Marshall argued that Murray had demonstrated that he was as qualified as the white applicants and that "black" law schools were not of the same academic caliber as "white" law schools due to unequal allocation of resources. The latter argument would be one of the main reasons why black parents would later cooperate with efforts to desegregate white schools. The reason was simple: "black" schools were not given resources that were on par with those of "white" schools.
https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/history-brown-v-board-education-re-enactment

What is the role of dialogue in the book in pages 1-100?

Wonder is a novel in eight parts. Its author, R.J. Palacio, uses multiple points of view to create a first-person narrative from the perspective of six different characters. Not every part is the same length: the protagonist, August Pullman, has by far the most time of any character to tell his story. This is only fair. He was born with a condition that makes him look different from everybody else. Strangers are startled by his appearance and jump to conclusions about who Auggie is as a person. In approximately the first 100 pages, he gets a chance to tell his own story through a mixture of internal monologue and dialogue with other characters.
The reader gets to know Auggie as he is in his own head, his real self, before seeing him interact with other characters. We learn how comfortable he is with his family by seeing how closely his internal monologue matches his dialogue with his mom, dad, and sister, Via. He doesn’t say everything he thinks, of course. No one does that. Still, he feels comfortable talking, teasing, and showing vulnerability when he speaks to another Pullman.
Auggie is precocious. He makes people laugh and is keenly aware of the things they try to hide, like sideways glances or almost-unnoticeable gestures. Because his personality is not what people are expecting, he often takes them by surprise when he finally speaks. Mr. Tushman is funny, too, and it doesn’t take long for Auggie to warm up to him. In fact, he makes an off-color joke the very first time they meet:

“My mom and dad had a teacher called Miss Butt,” I said.
“Auggie!” said Mom, but Mr. Tushman laughed.
“Now, that’s bad,” said Mr. Tushman, shaking his head . . . " (26)

He’s taciturn for a longer time when meeting kids his own age. They are not as good at hiding how they really feel. Auggie observes everything but says little for more than half of the first one hundred pages. Once Summer sits with him at lunch and talks to him like they’re old friends, he begins to open up with everyone. The role of his dialogue from that point forward is to humanize him to the other students. When Auggie speaks, they begin to see that he’s a normal kid, just like them.

In the book Shoe less Joe do you believe that ballpark could relate to the idea of redemption?

W.P. Kinsella's 1982 novel, Shoeless Joe, belongs to the genre of magical realism, and so is rife with symbols. The protagonist, Ray Kinsella, hears a disembodied voice says (vaguely) that if he "build[s] it...he will come." He then sacrifices his corn field to convert the land into a baseball stadium, against the suggestions of some of his friends and family.
Baseball has been seen as a metaphor within the novel for religion. The baseball field can absolutely be seen as a sort of redemption. It is likened to a church explicitly, when Kinsella, traveling with JD Salinger and Archie Graham, states that "a baseball field at night is more like a church than a church, "(Ch. 4).
The baseball field as a symbol for redemption works on several levels. First the field is literally where the souls of the dead meet the living, Next, Ray achieves this redemption when he builds the field himself (exhibiting the Catholic doctrine of salvation prompting good works, or the Protestant one of good works providing salvation).
Overall, the novel as a whole is imbued with religious language and symbolism (e.g. Kinsella's daughter is would-be martyr when she nearly chokes on a hot-dog during her father's fight).

Censorship was a prevalent issue in Russia when A Hero of Our Time was written. Given this, did the tsar (or czar) government want the novel to be published? Why or why not?

A Hero of our Time was published in 1839, an era in time in which the author was generally believed to be representing himself and his own beliefs in his output. Lermontov was also writing in czarist Russia, a society in which the opinion of the Czar was paramount and literature was tightly controlled by censors, who sought to protect the reputation of the Royal Family and Russia's social structure.
Given this, Lermontov and his works were subject to scrutiny from censors for several reasons.
1. Lermontov himself was unpopular with the Czar for reasons both literary and otherwise. He objected to the hypocrisy and pretentiousness of Russian high society and often flouted its conventions, supposedly insulting the Czar's daughters and engaging in a forbidden duel, which resulted in his exile to the Caucasus. These personal feuds with the Czar meant that his work came under close scrutiny.
2. He was known to associate with members of the Decembrists, a group who opposed the Czar and the structures of Russian society. He also wrote an extremely controversial poem about Alexander Pushkin in which society's rigidity and pretensions were blamed for the writer's ultimate demise. These expressions of unpopular views brought Lermontov under further scrutiny.
3. In A Hero of Our Time, although many of its tropes are simplistic and unremarkable—the disaffected Byronic hero can be found in many other novels of its time—Lermontov's deeper criticisms of Russian society come to light. High society is dissected as ultimately hypocritical, and its morals as being far from dependable. Bela, who is a princess and representative of the highest echelons of society, eventually succumbs sexually to Pechorin. Princess Mary is described as empty and ultimately valueless, with Pechorin's pursuit of her only an expression of how futile he finds his existence in society. Pechorin, like Lermontov, pursues a duel in defiance of the Czar's orders, and ultimately, he is unable to achieve satisfaction that he has a purpose.
In summary, then, this novel is not in and of itself something so outrageous that it would have been censored if anyone had written it. At the time of writing, however, close connections were drawn between authors' behaviors and their output. Lermontov had already expressed criticism of Russian society in other works and had attracted the unfavorable attention of the Czar.
Because he was known to harbor inappropriate views and to behave in a way contrary to the laws of society, his novel attracted closer scrutiny. Its condemnation of upper-class society is not overtly distinct from the lead character's own disaffectedness, but to allow this novel to be published, by this particular notorious author, would have invited readers to draw deeper interpretations from the material than if the author had been unknown.

What role does the storm play in the development of the plot (the Tempest)?

The tempest, or storm at sea, sets the plot in motion and gives the play its name. As Prospero explains to Miranda as he tells her his history, "providence divine" has often been on his side, despite his loss of his kingdom. For example, the faithful Gonzago made sure that Prospero had food, supplies, and books when he and the then-three-year-old Miranda were set adrift at sea in a leaky boat. Providence also got them alive to the island. Finally, Prospero explains to Miranda that fortune, which he once cursed but now calls his "dear lady," has

. . . mine enemies
Brought to this shore


Because he has the people who stole his dukedom from him in his power, Prospero can now take revenge on them for their treachery. They are shipwrecked and at his mercy, and he has at his command the magic he needs to repay them for the past.

In Shakespeare's classic play The Tempest, the storm is the plot's inciting incident, which causes Alonso and the royal party to be shipwrecked on Prospero's island, where he can seek revenge and regain his position as Duke of Milan. With Ariel's assistance, Prospero seeks retribution on his enemies after his brother, Antonio, usurped his position as Duke of Milan and exiled him and Miranda from Italy. Once the royal party arrives on the island, Prospero uses his magic to manipulate and confuse his captives before attaining his revenge and being restored to his rightful position of authority. Overall, the storm serves as the catalyst for placing the royal party on the island, which leads to Prospero's restoration. The storm also brings Ferdinand and Miranda together. After being separated from the king's party, Ferdinand discovers Miranda and the two fall in love.

Were there ideological differences between Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush?

There is a surprising amount of consistency and similarity between the two Bush presidencies. George H.W. Bush took over as president in 1988, and had to deal with financial deficits from the previous regime, as well as a slew of foreign policy issues.
Similarly, George W. Bush took over and dealt with lingering budgetary concerns from the previous electorate and was still entangled with some of the exact same foreign policy issues that cropped up during his father's presidency. Both of the presidents took a stance of reducing the budgetary deficits, increasing military might and wielding it to curb foreign threats, and they also both shared ideologies regarding education in America and attempts to improve it overall.
The foreign conflict that would become Operation Desert Storm arose during Bush Sr's time in office, and eventually a second desert storm happened with the War on Terror in the early 2000s under Bush Jr. Both presidents sent a large military force to deal with militant extremists as well as to prevent middle eastern terror organizations from seizing control of oil reserves, which would give them extra political might in their territory.
Additionally, both presidents introduced legislation to improve education. Bush Sr. implemented the Education Excellence Act and Bush Jr enacted No Child Left Behind. One of the major points of difference in their presidencies was taxation. While neither of them wanted to raise taxes (a typical platform for Conservative Republican politicians), Bush Sr. had little choice but to enact sweeping tax hikes in conjunction with the predominately liberal congress to reduce the deficits incurred under the previous president's term.

What was the doctrine of predestination?

Predestination is the idea that all events, no matter how big or small, have been willed to happen by God. This includes whether people, or rather their souls, go to heaven or hell after their deaths. According to predestination, whether somebody goes to heaven or hell is determined, or predetermined, before they are born.
Some people who believe in predestination, however, do not believe that God predetermines or is responsible for the sinful acts that mankind commits. God simply predetermines which of us will go to heaven and which to hell because He already knows which of us will be sinful and which of us pious. But He does not, so the argument goes, predetermine the sinful or pious acts themselves. Instead, God simply permits these acts, knowing beforehand that they will happen. In this way, there is room for the idea of free will within the doctrine of predestination.

How do Shakespeare and Golding depict the inherent nature of humans throughout Macbeth and Lord of the Flies? Give at least three clear instances that can be developed further.

Interesting question! Both William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth and William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies offer a bleak interpretation of human nature. Let’s examine each literary work individually and provide examples of the author’s pessimistic view of human nature from both Shakespeare and Golding.
Macbeth chronicles the fall of a Scottish thane who, at the beginning of the play, is a loyal subject of King Duncan and brave warrior. Initially, Macbeth seems honorable, and others praise his valor. However, Shakespeare believes that even the purest person can be twisted to perform evil actions. By introducing Macbeth as a stellar warrior and honorable man, Shakespeare reveals his belief in the corruptibility of human nature.
In Macbeth’s case, his ambition and desire for power lead to the murder of King Duncan. But Shakespeare takes pains to emphasize that this murder does not come naturally to the Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth attempts to call off the plan in Act I, scene 7 when he says,

We will proceed no further in this business.He hath honored me of late, and I have boughtGolden opinions from all sorts of people,Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,Not cast aside so soon.

Macbeth wants to avoid regicide, yet he caves Lady Macbeth’s bullying pressure to complete the plan. This demonstrates how easily social pressure can drive honorable, good people to commit heinous acts.
After King Duncan’s murder, Macbeth;s attitude begins to harden. He orders the murder of Banquo and tells his wife in Act 3,

"I am in blood, Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er."

Macbeth understands that what he is doing is wrong, but he opts to continue the bloodbath. By the end of the play, Macbeth has committed dozens of murders, lost his wife to suicide, and died in combat with MacDuff. In his play Macbeth, William Shakespeare shows how easily the best of people can descend into butchery and underscores the essential savagery of humanity.
William Golding, in his novel Lord of the Flies, takes a different approach to portraying the ugliness of human nature. By dropping presumably innocent young schoolboys on an isolated island rather than adults, Golding explores human nature free the influence of society. In a sense, this novel is a grand social experiment to ascertain the true nature of humanity! (Spoiler Alert: Humanity fails the test.) The descent of the boys into violence and savagery helps Golding make the point that the civilizing influence of society only masks the latent savage tendencies of humanity. Try as we might to erase our nature, when removed from the confines of a “civilized” environment, most people, even young innocent boys, will turn to atavism for survival.
Perhaps the most interesting way Golding highlights his pessimistic view of human nature is with the murder of Simon in the chapter entitled “A View to a Death”. Simon is the one truly “good” member of the group but is communally murdered by all the boys. It is important to note that Ralph, Piggy, and the little-uns participate in bludgeoning Simon to death during the lightning storm. Every surviving boy on the island is directly complicit in Simon's murder. The fact that Golding chooses to kill off the purest boy on the island demonstrates that he has a negative opinion of human nature.
A final example of Golding’s cynical view of human nature is in the final line of his novel. After their rescue by the British naval officer, Ralph and the rest of the boys begin to weep. Golding writes,

Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend called Piggy.

Through his experience on the island, Ralph understands the “darkness of man’s heart.” Golding believes that this darkness is an essential, ineradicable part of human nature.
I hope this helps!

In the Port Huron Statement (1962), the Black Panthers' Ten-Point Program (1966), and Cesar Chavez's "Letter from Delano" (1969), are the authors' arguments persuasive? Why or why not?

Whether or not the arguments made in these documents are persuasive depends, of course, on the individual. In answering this question for each document, one would have to consider the sources and the broader context in which each was produced. In the case of the Port Huron Statement, for example, the group of young men and women who produced the document were essentially arguing that the United States, once a great nation, was now betraying its origins by its militaristic behavior in the Cold War, the "permeating and victimizing fact of human degradation" that was Jim Crow in the South, and other aspects of American life in the early 1960s. The authors cite many examples in addition to these.
The Black Panthers' Ten Point Program is a series of measures demanded by the Panthers to improve the lives of African American people, especially those in the cities. These include a program for "full employment," financial reparations, armed policing of predominately black communities by black men, and new trials for African American men and women convicted of crimes. Again, this document has to be considered in its context. The Black Panthers were a particularly militant, if influential, wing of the movement for civil rights, one born out of the injustices of inner-city life. Evaluating the persuasiveness of their claims involves a thorough study of the conditions that they were responding to with the Ten Point Program.
Finally, Cesar Chavez's "Letter from Delano" is a response to accusations by grape producers that he and his followers provoked violence through their strikes and protests against working conditions faced by migrant farm workers. He evokes both Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. to emphasize that their protests have been nonviolent and that it is the agribusiness leaders who have provoked the violence. More to the point, like King's "Letter From Birmingham Jail," he refuses to back down from his strategy of nonviolent direct action. To evaluate the persuasiveness of this document, it would make sense to look at the facts of the strikes, assessing whether Chavez and his followers were indeed innocent of the violence that sometimes broke out at their protests in the late 1960s.
https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111huron.html

https://libraries.ucsd.edu/farmworkermovement/essays/essays/Letter%20From%20Delano.pdf

https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/1966/10/15.htm

What is newspeak? What does Syme say the whole purpose of newspeak is?

Newspeak is the language implemented in 1984. It is implemented by the governing bodies as a way to control the thoughts and therefore the behavior of the citizens. By replacing words that may have negative connotations, such as "propaganda," "lies" with other words, one's perceptions and reality can be altered. In the satirical world of 1984, the government inhibits the citizens' abilities to question authority and thus rebel. As an example "Ministry of Truth" actually administers lies and hides the truth. But because of what the government has termed it, the citizens' better judgments tell then to stay subservient and not to question the "truth". Orwell uses Newspeak as an allegory for the subtle ways that those in power can restrict the public's ability to find flaws in government and band together in protest.

Newspeak is the official language of the fictional state of Oceania. Oceania is a totalitarian state featured in George Orwell's dystopian fiction novel 1984 (published in 1949). The language uses English characters and words, but in simplified form. Newspeak is, in this way, a simplification of English. Newspeak is also an artificial (or controlled) language, which means its basic paradigms are artificially developed rather than having developed naturally. The simplification of the language is representative of the state in which it was developed trying to "diminish the range of thought" (Orwell).
One representative example of Newspeak is that antonyms are replaced using the prefix "un-" with simple, positive adjectives (i.e. "ungood" replaces "bad"). Additionally adjectives and nouns are often conflated into one word, just as "goodthink," a term used to denote thoughts approved by the Socialist Party.

Compare and contrast language classroom research, teacher research, and action research.

Language Classroom Research refers to the observation and/or measurement of performance by both teachers and students within the classroom setting, with the classroom itself being the subject of observation; Teacher Research refers to the development and empowerment of educators in the classroom, with the teaching style being the subject of observation; Action Research refers to the collection and interpretation of data, usually collected in a repeated cycle of procedures, with identifiable problems and potential solutions being the subject of observation.
All three forms of research have their pros and cons when it comes to improving education, and sometimes all three must be utilized for any real progress to be made. Comparing and contrasting all three forms could fill books, but for simplicity's sake, let's just say that Action Research aids in directly addressing current issues existing within the classroom, while Language Classroom Research (LCR) doesn't necessarily strive to address issues so much as it strives to identify them through recorded observation, and Teacher Research focuses solely on the educator's impact on the classroom, not on the setting or other contributing factors (as is the case in LCR).
https://www.brown.edu/academics/education-alliance/sites/brown.edu.academics.education-alliance/files/publications/act_research.pdf

How did Bob Ewell attack Atticus?

Bob Ewell despises Atticus for embarrassing him and presumably ruining his reputation during Tom Robinson's trial. During the trial, Atticus proved that Bob Ewell viciously assaulted his daughter after witnessing her kiss Tom Robinson. Following the trial,towards the end of chapter 22, Bob Ewell assaults Atticus by spitting in his face outside of the post office. In chapter 23, Scout recalls Miss Stephanie Crawford's story about Bob Ewell's confrontation with Atticus. According to Miss Stephanie, Bob Ewell spit in Atticus's face, challenged him to a fight, and proceeded to call him derogatory names. Despite Bob Ewell's aggression and hostility, Atticus refused to fight and simply wiped the spit off of his face before walking away.
After the confrontation, the children fear for their father's life, but he assures them that Bob got everything negative out of his system that day he confronted him outside of the post office. Unfortunately, Atticus dramatically underestimates Bob's wicked nature. Following the Maycomb Halloween festival, Bob Ewell seeks revenge on Atticus by attacking his innocent, defenseless children.

Bob Ewell's absolutely furious with Atticus for humiliating him on the witness stand during the trial of Tom Robinson. Atticus expertly took apart Bob's shaky testimony, exposing him to be the ignorant, lying racist that he is. Unfortunately, in a deeply prejudiced town like Maycomb, that wasn't enough to secure Tom's acquittal. But it was enough to thwart Bob's plan to make himself look like a hero in the eyes of the townsfolk.
So Bob's determined to get his own back on Atticus. He confronts him in the street one day and spits right in his face. Not only that, but he openly challenges Atticus to a fight. As we might expect, Atticus bears this unpleasant ordeal with considerable dignity. He always tries to put himself in other people's shoes and so understands just where Bob's coming from. He doesn't rise to the bait, even when Bob threatens to get him if it takes the rest of his life. Atticus figures that if Bob's spitting in his face and threatening him with violence means one less beating for Mayella then it's worth it in the end.

If the characters from The Wednesday Wars were sitting next to you what would like to ask them?

There are so many questions I would like to ask of the characters in The Wednesday Wars, and I imagine many readers have questions they would like to pose to the characters. One question I wondered about is why Mr. Hoodhood is so cold and distant with his children. Why does he insist on perfection to the point where Holling, his son, refers to their house as the Perfect House? Their house is so forbidding that Holling and his family can't even sit on the sofa, which is covered with plastic. It's clear that Mr. Hoodhood wants his architectural firm to do well and that he is convinced he has to be perfect (and have a perfect family). Is this desire what causes him to be so distant and demanding towards his family, or was he also raised in this manner? These are some questions I would have for Mr. Hoodhood. In addition, why is Mrs. Hoodhood so passive, and why is she also so removed from her children's lives? Perhaps you have other questions that you would pose to the characters in the novel.

What task can the Accounts Receivable (AR) Department engage in to verify that all customers' checks have been appropriately deposited and recorded?

This is a question that has plagued business owners since the beginning of time! Accurate recording of payments is critical to the cash flow of a business and is critical to maintaining a positive relationship with customers as well as vendors.
The volume of transactions paid by checks has decreased over the years. Many organizations and individuals pay by direct transfer to the bank. However, this has not lessened the need for accurate recording of customer checks. Depending on the volume of checks you receive determines the type of system you will want to implement. For example, if you are a small boutique retailer, you probably have more transactions paid by credit or debit card than a check. In this situation, the easiest process is to make copies of checks you receive and reconcile the checks to your deposit slip listing information on the deposit slip specifically to the check. As a further check, daily deposits should be reconciled to the bank statement weekly. It goes without saying every transaction recorded should have a back-up to accurately reflect the transactions of the day and to accurately reconcile to other systems in place.
One way to avoid the hassle of copying checks is if you are a customer of a financial institution that allows you to scan the checks, scan the checks as you receive them. Scanned checks deposit instantly into an account and you eliminate the extra time to copy checks as you retain the original check. Many point of sale cash register systems has the scan feature built into the software eliminating the need for a separate check scan or copy.
If you are large volume check receiver, the problem is exacerbated by the sheer number of checks and transactions that have to be manually copied and recorded. If it is a routine customer, someone you do business with daily or weekly, you can suggest to the customer to send payment by direct deposit to your account. Some businesses use intermediaries like Pay Pal or their financial institution to avoid paper checks altogether. Some businesses offer discounts to payers who send the payment electronically.
If direct payment is not feasible, then, unfortunately, you are back to recording each check in some type of manual or electronic scan ledger. Daily you will reconcile the check to the deposit. Weekly you reconcile the deposit to the bank statement.
Finally, think about the customer. Why are they writing checks and using debit or credit cards? Part of the AR process is not only to record the transactions accurately but to gain quick access to the funds to operate your business. A good account manager will continually review transaction history of customers to find out why they pay with a paper check. Once you understand why then it is incumbent on the business owner to work with customers to reduce the number of transactions from checks required to keep track.

Why was Rakesh's family happy about their son's return from the U.S.?

Rakesh is a brilliant medical student. He didn't just graduate at the top of his class; he finished ahead of every other medical student in India. Having earned his degree, Rakesh heads off for the United States, where he embarks upon a brilliant career in medicine. Yet despite his enormous success, Rakesh chooses to return home to stay with his parents in that shabby little yellow house where he'd grown up.
Rakesh' parents are overjoyed at his return. His mother is rather glad—not to say, relieved—that Rakesh has not come home with a foreign wife on his arm as many of her neighbors had warned. Instead, Rakesh is happy to go along with an arranged marriage to a young girl, the daughter of one of his mother's childhood friends.
As for Rakesh's father, he's pleased at the enormous prestige that his son's return has brought him. He's also glad of Rakesh's assistance when he retires and his wife passes away. The old man needs the almost constant attention of this most devoted of sons, especially in relation to his numerous ailments, both real and imagined.

What does the simplicity of the Seven Commandments foreshadow, and what is the effect of this foreshadowing?

Following Old Major's death, the pigs adopt his tenets to establish the system of thought known as Animalism and also create the Seven Commandments, which prohibit the animals from behaving like their former human oppressors while simultaneously championing solidarity and equality among all animals.
The simplicity of the Seven Commandments foreshadows Squealer's ability to alter them without the animals noticing. As the novel progresses, Napoleon gradually breaks every commandment, and Squealer easily alters the commandments by simply adding a few words to them. The ignorant animals do not notice the minor changes made and passively accept them. For example, the simplicity of the Fourth Commandment, prohibiting animals to sleep in beds, is easily changed with the addition of two words. Squealer changes the Fourth Commandment to read, "No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets" (Orwell, 42). After Napoleon holds public executions, Squealer simply adds "without cause" to the Sixth Commandment and adds the words "to excess" to the Fifth Commandment, which prohibits the animals from drinking alcohol.
Overall, the simplicity of the commandments makes them easy to alter and foreshadows Squealer's actions. By foreshadowing how the commandments will be easily altered, Orwell emphasizes Napoleon and Squealer's ability to manipulate and control the animals.

What is happening to the narrator in "Premature Burial"?

Edgar Allan Poe's "Premature Burial" first tells sundry tales of people being buried alive. These individuals include a one Mademoiselle Victorine Lafourcade, an unhappily married woman, who was dug up by her former lover after she was supposed to be dead. This woman revitalized at her lover's touch. Another man (an artillery officer) was thrown from a horse and pronounced dead. He nevertheless managed to break out of his coffin and alert a visitor to the cemetery by means of shaking the earth. Additionally, one young attorney, Mr. Edward Stapleton, was pronounced dead from typhus fever. He nevertheless came back to life despite having undergone a partial dissection, during which he started to speak.
After having told the stories of these several individuals, the narrator begins his own tale. He explains that he suffers from catalepsy, a condition wherein one's limbs remain involuntarily locked in place during period seizures. The narrator explains that he occasionally wakes up in the evening and is unable to move his body for several minutes. Reflecting a common fear during the era in which Poe was writing, the narrator explains that he was preoccupied with being buried alive.
One night, he dreams that a grim figure visits him and shows him a group of graves thrown open, so that the narrator can see the decayed bodies. The narrator is struck with such terror that he makes his close friends promise not to bury him until his body shows signs of decay. He also designs his coffin with a bell that may be rung from the inside.
Nevertheless, despite his precautions, the narrator awakens after a seizure to find that he has been buried in a different vault. He sees nothing but darkness, feels his jaw shut with a cloth (as is usually performed on the dead), and is surrounded by wood. He attracts the attention of several men who remind me that he has just been on a hunting trip and slept in the cabin of a wooden ship. The cloth around his jaw is not a bandage but a nightcap. From the episode, the narrator realizes the futility of living in fear.
In conclusion, the narrator was not in fact buried alive, but he fell asleep in the cabin of a ship.

Compare and contrast how Britain and France ruled their colonies.

France and Britain ruled their colonies differently. France was under autocratic rule and its colonists had to report to the Crown when they went to America. Furthermore, they had to involve the Crown before making any decisions.
Conversely, British colonists had more freedom than the French and were allowed to self-govern, provided that they pledged their loyalty to the king. Moreover, Britain allowed immigrants from other countries to immigrate to its colonies, which significantly increased their colonial population. They formed local governments and taxed their colonies.
The French colonies were influenced by the Catholic clergy, while British colonies were mainly influenced by the Puritans, who were not Catholic. Both the French and British colonies encouraged economic activities such as farming and trading.

What events inspired Poe to write the Purloined Letter?

"The Purloined Letter" is the last of three stories written about the detective character Dupin. To determine the possible inspiration for this story, we must go back to the first of the three stories, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." In this story, Dupin makes mention of another detective:

Vidocq, for example, was a good guesser, and the persevering man. But, without educated thought, he erred continually by the very intensity of his investigations. He impaired his vision by holding the object too close. He might see, perhaps, one or two points with unusual clearness, but in so doing he, necessarily, lost sight of the matter as a whole. Thus there is such a thing as being too profound.

Vidocq, whom he considers his rival, was also a real person and a real detective. He is often considered to be Europe's first private detective. Vidocq was still alive when "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" was written. He was known to write about his adventures as a detective in his memoirs. These are the earliest versions of detective literature.
Poe's three stories are considered to be the first detective stories. It seems that Poe was inspired by a real life detective. In turn, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once admitted that the famous Sherlock Holmes character was inspired by Poe's Dupin.

Describe the character traits of the speaker in "Two Tramps in Mud Time" by Robert Frost.

In the classic poem "Two Tramps in Mud Time" by Robert Frost, two unemployed lumberjacks come across the narrator chopping wood on a cool spring day. One of the tramps stops and watches, obviously hoping to take over the wood-chopping job and get paid for it.
The speaker seems to be an artist, a poet, or a writer—possibly Frost himself. Although he acknowledges that the tramp has the financial need to chop wood, he is unwilling to hand the work over to him because he is doing it for a greater purpose. He says:

My object in living is to unite my avocation and my vocation.

An avocation is a hobby or some secondary work that a person does in addition to his primary job. A vocation is a career that a person feels strongly motivated to follow. In desiring to unite these two, the speaker shows great depth of character. Rather than simply work for money, he wants his "life of self-control" to encompass all facets of existence, including the seemingly unimportant. In this, his concept of the wood-chopping labor goes far beyond that of the tramp, who sees in it only a way to make money.
The middle stanzas of the poem back up the obvious depth of the narrator's character. While chopping the wood, he not only relishes the physical exercise, but he observes the beautiful and changeable aspects of nature around him. He comments on the warm sun but chill wind of the spring day. He sees a bluebird and hears its song. He notices the effect of water upon the landscape.
In conclusion, the character of the speaker is more profound than that of the tramps's because he chops wood out of love, "for Heaven and the future's sakes," rather than for mere pecuniary profit.

How is the concept of love one of the most important themes in Hamlet?

Typically, love is not one of the most important points in Hamlet, compared to the other questions of parents and children, identity, and the existential questions contained most notably in the "To be or not to be" soliloquy. However, the play is so incredibly complex and tightly written that it tends to illuminate most issues concerning humanity.
Love between parents and children is important, and Hamlet's duty to his father and his disappointment in his mother's remarriage begin the play. That said, Ophelia and Hamlet are the most significant focal point for love. This relationship is often overlooked and overwhelmed by the revenge plot, but Ophelia is becoming increasingly important in how we look at this play. Hamlet is as tormented by his inability to grasp the meaning of his romantic love as he is by the demands of parentage. We learn that he had written a rather bad but sweet poem to Ophelia:

Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.

This poem captures the epistemological questions the play examines elsewhere. Against the questions that might be worthy of debate, Hamlet's love is most trustworthy, yet it changes, as does Ophelia's seem to when she returns his "tenders."
Ultimately, Shakespeare reminds us over and over again, that despite our intense desire to know that we are loved by another, we cannot have that knowledge. It will always have to be taken on faith, rendering us vulnerable. Eventually, Ophelia's death, as well as the events of his trip to England and confrontation with Yorick's mortality, brings Hamlet to a recognition that at some point, we must trust in forces beyond our control and "let be."