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| Links for Learning English Links for learning MATH SITE INDEX Steve McCrea Tutor, Trainer, Teacher, Web page educator 954 646 8246 www.stevemccrea.com www.math-success.com www.futureoffortlauderdale.com www.teacherstoteachers.com Friend's web site: www.WhatDoYaKnow.com www.creatingthefuture.org Fabulous marketing by www.bacayao.com www.statueofworldpeace.com www.educationalexcellence.net www.its-not-your-fault.com The standard punctuation is it's not your fault Are you curious WHY individuals in the USA, Western and Eastern Europe as well as non-Muslims in East Asiam, need to call schools in the Middle East? Then read these editorials: SOFT POWER by Joseph S. Nye Jr. January 10, 2003 The International Herald Tribune ----------------------------------------------------------------- Soft power is the ability to get what you want by attracting and persuading others to adopt your goals. It differs from hard power, the ability to use the carrots and sticks of economic and military might to make others follow your will. Both hard and soft power are important in the war on terrorism, but attraction is much cheaper than coercion, and an asset that needs to be nourished. Attraction depends on credibility.. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is reported to be deeply frustrated that the U.S. government has no coherent plan for molding public opinion worldwide. He is right to be concerned. Recent polls by the Pew Charitable Trust show that the attractiveness of the United States declined significantly in the past two years in 19 of 27 countries sampled. What can the government do? Soft power grows out of both U.S. culture and U.S. policies. From Hollywood to higher education, civil society does far more to present the United States to other peoples than the government does. Hollywood often portrays consumerism, sex and violence, but it also promotes values of individualism, upward mobility and freedom (including for women). These values make America attractive to many people overseas, but some fundamentalists see them as a threat. Contrasting views often exist side by side in the same country. For example, Iranian officials excoriate America as a "great satan" while teenagers secretly watch smuggled Hollywood videos. The U.S. government should not try to control exports of popular culture, but State Department cultural and exchange programs help to remind people of the noncommercial aspects of American values and culture. Similarly, government broadcasting to other countries that is evenhanded, open and informative helps to enhance American credibility and soft power in a way that propaganda never can. Yet the billion dollars spent on public diplomacy is only one- quarter of 1 percent of what is spent on defense. Congress should support measures like Representative Henry Hyde's proposal to bolster the State Department's public diplomacy and international broadcasting efforts. The other way the government can make a differenceis in the substance and style of foreign policy. With a military budget larger than those of the next dozen countries combined, the United States looms so large that it engenders negative as well as positive reactions. The biggest kid on the block always provokes a mixture of admiration and resentment. To the extent that America defines its national interests in ways congruent with others, and consults with them in formulating policies, it will improve the ratio of admiration to resentment. President George W. Bush articulated this well in the 2000 campaign when he said that if America is a humble nation others will respect it, but if it is arrogant they will not. ... The lessons for those in the Pentagon who want to enhance America's soft power is that it will come not from military propaganda campaigns but from greater sensitivity to the opinions of others in the formulation of policies. They should heed Teddy Roosevelt's advice. Now that we Americans have a big stick, we should learn to speak softly. Joseph Nye is dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and author of "The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone." Humiliation Editorial by Jessica Stern, Harvard University This article first appeared in a Beirut newspaper and it is quoted here in parts. February 5, 2004 Reprinted from the Daily Star (Lebanon) Why do religious terrorists kill? I have been asking them and their supporters this question for the last five years. My interviews suggest people join religious terrorist groups in the belief that they can make the world a better place for the population they aim to “serve.” But over time, terrorism can become a career as much as a passion. Leaders harness grievances, humiliation and anomie, turning them into weapons. Jihad becomes addictive. Violence turns activists and mystics into evil men. Grievances end up as greed for money, political power, status or attention. For the leaders, perpetuating the movement becomes a central goal. What starts as moral fervor becomes a sophisticated organization. Organizational survival demands flexibility, especially in terms of the mission. Terrorist organizations alter their missions in many ways. Some find a new mission when the old one is completed. Some broaden the mission to make it attractive to a wider variety of potential recruits. Some form alliances with other groups whose missions are different from their own; transform their missions into profit-driven enterprises whose principal goal is enrichment; or form strategic alliances with organized criminal groups. Some groups have sticky missions, but only the spry survive. ... Individually, the terrorists I interviewed cited many reasons for choosing a life of holy war, and I came to despair of identifying a single root cause. But the variable that most frequently came up was not poverty or human rights abuses as has been posited in the press but perceived humiliation. Humiliation came up at every echelon of terrorist group members leaders and followers. For example, the founder and former leader of a Kashmiri group, the Muslim Jambaz Force, told me that the primary factor that led him to start the group was a sense of cultural humiliation. “Muslims have been overpowered by the West. Our ego hurts. We are not able to live up to our own standards for ourselves. It felt to me at the time I was involved in militancy like a personal loss,” he said. But the militant despaired at what had happened to the jihad movement, saying: “The first generation of fundamentalists Qutb and Maududi was focused on daawa education. We focused on freedom. This generation is much more rigid, stricter, than my generation. They are focused on hate. Hate begets hate. You cannot create freedom out of hatred.” Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, observed that the “new world order” is a source of humiliation for Muslims. He has argued that it is better for the youth of Islam to carry arms and defend their religion with pride and dignity than to submit to humiliation. Violence, in other words, restores the dignity of humiliated youth. This is similar to Franz Fanon’s notion that violence is a “cleansing force,” which frees oppressed youths from an “inferiority complex, despair and inaction,” making them fearless and restoring their self-respect. Fanon also warned of the dangers of globalization for the underdeveloped world. The purpose of terrorist violence, according to its advocates, is to restore dignity. Its target audience is not necessarily the victims and their sympathizers but the perpetrators and their sympathizers. Violence is a way of strengthening support for the organization and the movement it represents. The terrorism we face today is a response not only to political grievances, as was common in the 1960s and 70s, and which might, in principle, be remediable. It is a response to the “God-shaped hole” in modern culture about which Sartre wrote, and to values like tolerance and equal rights for women that are supremely irritating to those who feel left behind by modernity. Extremists respond to the vacuity in human consciousness with anger and with ideas about who is to blame. In their view, arrogant one-worlders, humanists and promoters of human rights have created an engine of modernity that is stealing the identity of the oppressed. The greatest rage, and danger, comes from those who feel they can’t keep up, even as they claim superiority over those who can. The answer to the question: “Why do they hate us?” is not only envy, engendered by US military and economic might, but also American policies and, more importantly, how these are perceived by potential recruits to terrorist organizations. It is not just who they are (those who see themselves humiliated by globalization and the “new world order”), and not just who we are (an enviable hegemon) but also, in part, what we do. We station troops in restive regions, engendering popular resentment. We demand that other countries adhere to international law, but willfully weaken instruments we perceive as not advancing our needs. Despite our belated recognition that weak states may threaten us more than strong ones, we allow failed states to fester. There is, for example, a danger that we may have today created the preconditions for a failed state in Iraq. ... The religious terrorists the US faces are fighting on every level militarily, economically, psychologically and spiritually. Their arms are powerful, but spiritual dread is the most dangerous weapon in their arsenal. Perhaps the most evil aspect of religious terrorism is that it aims to destroy moral distinctions themselves. Its goal is to confuse not only its sympathizers, but also those who seek to fight it. By the same token, the adversaries of terrorist groups need to respond not just with guns, but also by sowing confusion, conflict and competition among terrorists and between terrorists and their sponsors and sympathizers. They should encourage condemnation of extremist interpretations of religion by peace-loving practitioners. They should change policies that no longer serve their interests or are inconsistent with their values, even if these are policies the terrorists demand. In the end, what counts is what we fight for, not what we oppose. We need to avoid giving into spiritual dread, and hold fast to the best of our principles and values by emphasizing tolerance, empathy and courage. Jessica Stern is a lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and author of "Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill." So... are you interested in helping to "spread the word" overseas through emails and over-the-Internet phone calls? Another viewpoint... From the Cato Institute October 24, 2003 Iraq: Exit Rather Than Spend by Charles V. Peña Charles V. Peña, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute, is a member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy. Seventeen lawmakers -- Republicans and Democrats -- who recently returned from a trip to Iraq say they must support the president's special request for $87 billion to underwrite U.S. military operations and reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Why should American taxpayers make a large down payment on what is likely to be a long-term and expensive mortgage on Iraq? Because, they say, the money is needed to restore order, stability, and safety for troops that might be in for an extended occupation. According to Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.): "If we are going to have security for our troops, we must fund reconstruction." My, how things change -- like the sands of Iraq's deserts. The original reason for changing the regime in Baghdad was the threat posed by Iraq's store of weapons of mass destruction, which U.S.-led inspectors have yet to find. Then it was Iraq's links to al Qaeda, although none has been confirmed and even President Bush admits that there is no evidence to tie Saddam Hussein to 9/11. Only at the 11th hour did the president argue that it was necessary to depose Hussein to liberate the Iraqi people and establish democracy in the Middle East -- an argument that has become more prominent after the war. Finally, in the post-war period, Iraq is cited as the central front in the war on terrorism. However, this is largely the result of going to war in the first place and creating a target in al Qaeda's backyard. Now the safety of U.S. troops -- rather than defending America's national security -- has become the primary rationale for staying the course. But if troop safety is the driving concern, there is an obvious alternative to piling $87 billion on top of the earlier $75 billion Iraq war supplemental appropriation and continuing to expand a $400 billion budget deficit. The answer? Withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq. Rather than abandoning Iraq, the United States would simply be making good on the president's prewar promise: "The United States has no intention of determining the precise form of Iraq's new government. That choice belongs to the Iraqi people." But the president has to do better than saying that the transition to self-government will "neither be hurried nor delayed." There needs to be a definitive and prompt timetable for U.S. withdrawal. The administration must hand the government of Iraq back to the Iraqis, sooner rather than later. In the words of one Iraqi: "We thank the Americans for getting rid of Saddam's regime, but now Iraq must be run by Iraqis." The longer American forces stay, however well intentioned and noble the motive, the more Iraqis will come to resent a foreign occupier. Even Ahmad Chalabi -- founder of the Iraqi National Congress exile group that urged the administration into war -- is now arguing for handing more control over to the Iraqi Governing Council and a prompt transition to a provisional government. Secretary of State Colin Powell has suggested that a new Iraqi constitution could be written within six months, paving the way for elections and self-rule within another six months. Members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi governing council contend that the process could take as long as 18 months. But if the U.S. Constitution -- written without any working model -- was completed in four months, certainly the Iraqis could do the same in six months. More importantly, the United States should not insist on a constitution and an American-style democratic government that may not comport with Muslim values. Rather, Iraqi self-determination and self-rule should be the goal -- with the clear understanding that whatever form the new government in Baghdad takes, it must not support terrorists who would attack the United States. The desire of some Iraqis for a slow transition should raise eyebrows in Washington. To be blunt, a prolonged U.S. occupation is becoming the rationale for the United States to lavish even more money on Iraq. (It is somewhat self-fulfilling: The more we spend, the longer we stay, and on and on.) That development is the first sure sign that, whether by design or default, Iraq has become part of an American empire. Eventually, empires end up defending their client states' interests rather than the best interests of their own people, and that already seems to be the case in Iraq. The United States must leave Iraq posthaste before the Iraqi mission becomes a sinkhole that swallows billions more of taxpayer dollars and all too many American lives. The best way to guarantee the safety of American troops is to bring them home. More from Senator Byrd Comments by Byrd Posted on Sat, Apr. 10, 2004 VERBATIM Why is there no road map out of Iraq? Below are excerpts from remarks made this week about fighting in Iraq by U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va. I have watched with heavy heart and mounting dread as the ever-precarious battle to bring security to post-war Iraq has taken a desperate turn for the worse in recent days. Along with so many Americans, I have been shaken by the hellish carnage in Fallujah and the violent uprisings in Baghdad and elsewhere. . . . In the face of such daunting images and ominous developments, I have wondered anew at the president's stubborn refusal to admit mistakes or express any misgivings over America's unwarranted intervention in Iraq. . . . I cannot help but be reminded of another battle at another place and another time that hurtled more than 600 soldiers into the maws of death because of a foolish decision on the part of their commander. The occasion was the Battle of Balaclava on Oct. 25, 1864, during the Crimean War -- a battle that was immortalized by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in his poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade: ``Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.'' High price for blunder It is time we faced up to the fact that this president and his administration blundered as well when they took the nation into war with Iraq without compelling reason, without broad international or regional support and without a plan for dealing with the enormous post-war security and reconstruction challenges. And it is our soldiers, our own 600 and more, paying the price for that blunder. In the run up to the war, the president and his advisors assured the American people that we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. For a brief moment, that outcome seemed possible. One year ago this week, on April 9, 2003, the mood in many corners of the nation was euphoric as Americans witnessed the fall of Baghdad and the jubilant toppling of a massive statue of Saddam Hussein. . . . Now, after a year of continued strife in Iraq, comes word that the commander of forces in the region is seeking options to increase the number of U.S. troops on the ground if necessary. Surely I am not the only one who hears echoes of Vietnam in this development. Surely, the administration recognizes that increasing the U.S. troop presence in Iraq will only suck us deeper into the maelstrom of violence that has become the hallmark of that unfortunate country. . . . Some must wonder why American forces are still shouldering the vast majority of the burden in Iraq, one year after the country's liberation. Where are the Iraqis? What has happened to our much vaunted plans to train and equip the Iraqi police and the Iraqi military to relieve the burden on U.S. military personnel? Could it be that our expectations exceeded our ability to develop these forces? Could it be that, once again, the United States underestimated the difficulty of winning the peace in Iraq? Elusive security Since this war began, America has poured $121 billion into Iraq for the military and for reconstruction. But this money cannot buy security. It cannot buy peace; $121 billion later, just 2,324 of the 78,224 Iraqi police are ''fully qualified,'' according to the Pentagon. Nearly 60,000 of those same police officers have had no formal training -- none! It is no wonder that security has proved so elusive. . . . Pouring more U.S. troops into Iraq is not the path to extricate ourselves from that country. We need the support and endorsement of both the United Nations and Iraq's neighbors to truly internationalize the Iraq occupation and take U.S. soldiers out of the cross-hairs of angry Iraqis. . . . It is time past for the president to level with the American people about the magnitude of mistakes made and lessons learned. America needs a road map out of Iraq, one that is orderly and astute, or else more of our men and women in uniform will follow the fate of Tennyson's doomed Light Brigade. --------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2003 /t02252003_t0225hoover.html Rumsfeld at Hoover Institution The Unknown As we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know There are known unknowns. That is to say We know there are some things We do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, The ones we don't know We don't know. Donald Rumsfeld —Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing Happenings You're going to be told lots of things. You get told things every day that don't happen. It doesn't seem to bother people, they don't— It's printed in the press. The world thinks all these things happen. They never happened. Everyone's so eager to get the story Before in fact the story's there That the world is constantly being fed Things that haven't happened. All I can tell you is, It hasn't happened. It's going to happen. —Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing The Digital Revolution Oh my goodness gracious, What you can buy off the Internet In terms of overhead photography! A trained ape can know an awful lot Of what is going on in this world, Just by punching on his mouse For a relatively modest cost! —June 9, 2001, following European trip The Situation Things will not be necessarily continuous. The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous Ought not to be characterized as a pause. There will be some things that people will see. There will be some things that people won't see. And life goes on. —Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing Clarity I think what you'll find, I think what you'll find is, Whatever it is we do substantively, There will be near-perfect clarity As to what it is. And it will be known, And it will be known to the Congress, And it will be known to you, Probably before we decide it, But it will be known. —Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing We should all be listening. Rumsfeld's poetry is paradoxical: It uses playful language to address the most somber subjects: war, terrorism, mortality. Much of it is about indirection and evasion: He never faces his subjects head on but weaves away, letting inversions and repetitions confuse and beguile. His work, with its dedication to the fractured rhythms of the plainspoken vernacular, is reminiscent of William Carlos Williams'. Some readers may find that Rumsfeld's gift for offhand, quotidian pronouncements is as entrancing as Frank O'Hara's. -- By Hart Seely Posted Wednesday, April 2, 2003, at 10:03 AM PT Slate Magazine A composition by a fellow who is studying English as a Second Language... This is a story about a very nice guy in St Louis... People in the Midwest are friendly By Bandar AL-mufarrig I come from Saudia Arabia. I have a story that will show you that some people in the USA are very helpful. When I first came to the USA, I flew from Riyadh city and I arrived in New York. I had a disagreement with the immigration office. In this time I could not speak one word of English (Well, maybe three words: "Cigarette?" "match?" and "Thanks.") We were in a discussion for 5 hours. After that I needed to take another flight, because I missed my booked airplane. I went to the gate, I was in a big hurry and I asked a flight agent, "Where is Tampa plane?" She pointed to a door and I went through it. The airplane flew from New York for 3.5 hours and then I arrived very tired in the airport. I went to a special room for smoking. I enjoyed my first cigarette after Saudia Arabia. I had the phone number of my friend in Tampa. I wanted to call him, so that he could come to pick me up from the airport. But i didn't know how to use the public-phone. So I asked a man with a cellular phone. I gave him my number to call my friend. He was looking at the number with question marks on his face. The man asked me, "Where do you want to call?" I said "To my friend in Tampa." I spoke with my hands and feet. He said, "We are not in Tampa, we are in Saint Louis." But I didn't know that these are different states. And he saw question marks in my face. He took me to the map and showed me where I was and how far it is between the two states. I was shocked when I realized my situation. My heart started to beat fast. I looked around and I was losing my mind, but that man was so kind and helpful when he came to me and said, "I will help you." He brought me to the counter to explain my situation. We spent one hour to find a solution. This man was really generous when he tried to find a solution. The employees of the airline gave me a new ticket from St. Louis to Tampa. But I needed to wait 10 hours in the St. Louis Airport. I had to stay all the time in the front of the gate and I was so exhausted. After this long time, they opened the gate and I flew to Tampa. I waited 4 hours on the Tampa Airport to find my friend. I was so lucky! My Arabian friend was going to leave the airport when I saw him walking across the airport terminal. I would like to say "thank you" to this really helpful man in Tampa for helping me to find the right way! I hope that one of the readers of this article will have any connection to that nice man in St. Louis. I hope my message will reach the nice people in the Midwest of the USA. This situation made me notice me that people in the Midwest are really friendly! Go to FIVE TIPS -- What are 5 things that every student should know (five skills) |
| Two sites for SAT preparation www.number2.com and Mr. McCrea's step-by-step prep list >>>>>>>>You need to enter a User Name and a password word You can create your own account or you can use this one: LOGIN = floridasat Password = catcat |
| FREE SAT TUTORIAL number2.com (Number 2 pencil) SAT Tips by Mr. McCrea About Mr. McCrea List of words to memorize with emotions Students-- Try these SAT WORDS in situations... page 2 page 3 This is page 1 What are FIVE TIPS that every students needs? |
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| These are sentences to use with other students. PRONUNCIATION SYSTEM Here are some ways to hear the different sounds of English. THESE letters sound like their names A ay say E ee see I aa-ii my O ooo-uu go U iuuuu you These are shorter sounds Cat caaat Pet Fish Hot fah ther father “ah” Up cut fun us bus CU = KU = cool Raa = rat (the cat sound, aaaa) NOT AHH ah = father fah ther and hot “haht” Let’s get started…. 1. Find a friend and talk about other people. “I saw a guy on TV yesterday. He was garrulous, interrupting people but really he was the life of the party. He got everybody else talking.” 2. Try to use these words with other people. Show them to your parents and ask them to try these sentences. Some of the meanings might seem strange. It’s hard to have a furtive place. (it’s a clandestine or hidden place), but you can be furtive instead of being direct or open. “I saw a guy who was furtively creeping around the cars. He made a furtive sideways glance at my book bag. I think he wanted to steal it.” You can make it more dramatic – memory builds on emotions. Good luck! I dedicate this page to the student who inspired me to put more emotion and drama into my lessons: Mansoor. (I hope you get the score you want on the SAT and continue on your path toward your dreams.) Mansoor has been using these dialogs with his friends and he even went on the school radio station and used a long word! TALKATIVE Adjective He is very talkative. 1. That student is very garrulous GAR ru lus 2. That student is very loquacious low CUAY shus I hear her talking when I arrive and when leave. She never stops talking. 3. He is voluble. VOLL you bull. VAHL you bull or VOAL u bull VOAL = coal He goes on and on. 4. He is verbose. Ver BOSE boast but with the T ver BOAS Why can’t he just get to the point? He uses three sentences instead of just saying one. 5. He is glib. He’s a glib speaker. I can mention anything and he has an opinion about it. Mention something and he can start talking immediately. Noun He’s an excellent story teller. He’s a very good talker. He’s a raconteur raa con TeRRRR He’ll really entertain you with his stories about Riyadh and Mukke, SECRET, Adjective. a secret place I know a very secret place. 1. Last night I saw two people having a clandestine meeting. Clan DES tin They were sneaking around, hiding behind a building. 2. I heard about the Watergate scandal in 1972. It was a covert operation. It sounds like “over” CO vert. It was a secret and hidden operation involving people in the White house. There was something similar in my country. The prime minister needed to get some information from the US embassy, so he asked a friend to be covert and pretend to be an American tourist. 3. I received a cryptic message from my brother. CRIP tick. His email told me to bring $60 and three envelopes and meet him in front of Sawgrass Mall’s seahorse entrance. 4. See that guy over there? He’s giving me furtive looks. FUR tiv (like “SIR give”). He pretends to look straight ahead and then he looks sideways at me. He’s pretending to look ahead. 5. Did you hear about the president of Kenya? He likes to be incognito in cog NEE toe. He puts on a hat and a long coat and he goes out a back door at night. He likes to eat at a restaurant in the city. He likes to be unknown. 6. That guy likes to be inconspicuous. He is in con SPIK Q us in con SPI kiu us in con SPI kyou us. He likes to sit in the back of the classroom. He doesn’t want to be in the front. He always hides in the back. He likes to be hidden. Verb He will hide the money. My father’s financial advisor absconded half of my father’s money. Ab SKOND skahnd bond, James Bond will abscond the money (he will hide the money) The advisor hid the money and took it away for himself. Noun I have an alias. I have a secret name. People in the CIA call me “Blue Eagle.” It’s an enigma why he’s not here. It’s an uh NIG ma. It’s a puzzle. I have no idea why the professor didn’t show up yesterday. I wrote this web page because my nephews and godchildren has been asking for a more interesting way to memorize and absorb long words. The idea is to create an emotion. You can do it! |
| Make your own sentences with these words Lurk Obscure Skulk Subterranean Surreptitious Not talkative Concise Curt Laconic Pity Reticent Succinct Taciturn Praise Accolage Adulation Commend Eulogize Exalt Extol Laud Lionize plaudit revere Criticize scold Admonish Berate Castigate Censure Chastise Defame Denigrate Disdain Disparage Excoriate Malign Obloquy Rail Rebuke Reproach Reprimand Reprove Revile Upbraid Vilify Stubborn Intractable Mulish Mule Obdurate Obstinate Pertinacious Dumb as a sheet of paper Pertinacious Recalcitrant Refractory Tenacious Determined Lazy, lacking energy, indolent Lackadaisical Nonchalant Laggard Languid Lassitude Lethargic Listless Loiter Phlegmatic Sluggard Somnolent Torpid Cowardly Craven Diffident Lacking in confidence Pusillanimous Timid Timorous Inexperienced Callow Fledgling Infantile Ingenuous Neophyte Novice Tyro Ingenious Genius Obedient Amenable Assent Compliant Deferential differential Docile Pliant Submissive Tractable Haughty pretentious proud coke up your ass Affected aloof Bombastic Grandiloquent grandiose Magniloquent Mannered Ostentatious pontificate supercilious Friendly affable Amiable Amicable Bonhomie Convivial Gregarious Lucky Auspicious Fortuitous Opportune Serendipity Windfall Soothe allay alleviate anodyne assuage liniment mitigate mollify pacify palliate placate hostility hatred abhor anathema animosity antagonism antipathy aversion contentious deplore odious rancor stupid buffoon dolt dupe fatuous imbecile inane insipid obtuse simpleton vacuous vapid subservient like a servant fawn grovel obsequious servile subjection sycophant toady argumentative adversarial bellicose belligerent fractious irascible obstreperous pugnacious quibble cautious chary circumspect discretion leery prudent wary impermanent not permanent changing ephemeral fleeting transient transitory Ability intelligence Acumen Adept Adroit Agile Astute Cogent Deft Dexterous Erudite Literate Lithe Lucidity Sagacious Trenchant Kind altruistic Generous Beneficent Benevolent Bestow Liberal Largess Magnanimous Munificent Philanthropic I wrote this web page because my nephews and godchildren has been asking for a more interesting way to memorize and absorb long words. The idea is to create an emotion. |
| Word to Cell Phone or Email (a daily word to learn with friends and family) Other Materials to Memorize Pages 1 2 3 |
| Word to Cell Phone or Email (a daily word to learn with friends and family) Other Materials to Memorize Pages 1 2 3 |
| Word to Cell Phone or Email (a daily word to learn with friends and family) Other Materials to Memorize Pages 1 2 3 |
| Here are some interesting passages -- can you give synonyms to the LARGER (more difficult) words? SAT TIPS Mr. McCrea, you talk too much. Okay, this is the short version. 1. Visit www.number2.com. It has a good review of math and it’s helpful for studying words. 2. Learn new words every day. Get emotional and dramatic. Involve your family. “That man is vindictive. He said bad things about my brother and he’s lying. He just wants to hurt my brother.” 3. Look at every problem in the book. Skip the ones you know. Focus on the ones you don’t know and put a question mark. You have 30 seconds for each problem. 4. Review the pages - look at every word at least four times. 5. www.freevocabulary.com – it’s a list of 5000 words. You can cross off 2000 – you cross out a word when you can read it and give a synonym. VICARIOUS. Hmmm ... watching the race on TV was a vicarious experience for the man with the broken leg. He wanted to participate but he couldn’t so he enjoyed it vicariously, from a distance.” That’s called “giving a synonym” or putting the word in other words. You have to put the word in your own words if you want to cross it off. 6. Know your working and learning style. If you work well with other people, then don’t study alone. Talk about the problems. When it comes time to doing the test, you’ll remember the conversations you had about similar problems. If you like studying alone, then put in the time to really, really know the problems. 7. Know your math. The test does not cover Tan, Cosine and Sine. No trigonometry. Focus on geometry, probability, number sense, and algebra. 8. Success with the test comes from looking at a lot of problems. Expose yourself to the problems. LOOK FOR THE PATTERNS. You want to see as many problems ahead of time so that there are no surprises on the test. “Oh, yeah, I saw that before. But I never had time to learn how to handle that kind of problem.” 9. Get exercise – at least three times a week. Breathe deeply. It’s good to sweat. You should be out of breath or breathing hard at least once a day. The brain works better after a program of six or eight weeks of aerobic exercising. “I don’t want to perspire” or “I’ll have to change my clothes.” “I don’t have time.” 10. Eat properly and get the right amount of sleep – every day. You can’t party for the next three months and then get one good night of sleep. This is a commitment. If you follow these points, you’ll improve your score. 11. Get a word sent to your cell phone or receive the word by email. Then send the word to your parents’ cell phone and ask them to use the word of the day in their daily life. To find your cell phone’s email address, contact your cell phone provider. There might be a charge for each message sent to your cell phone. This appeared on 60 Minutes in January 2004 It is posted her to help teachers remember that there are other ways of learning...often without a textbook. The Eyes Have It CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 4, 2004 If you've ever wondered what it would be like to take a class at Harvard, you're about to find out from one of the university's most distinguished and popular professors. But don't worry, he doesn't teach advanced calculus or nuclear physics or ancient Greek literature. In fact, if you were the kind of student who spent all your time staring out the classroom window, then Professor John Stilgoe's class may be just for you -- because looking around is exactly what he teaches. Correspondent Steve Kroft reports. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ”I just like to meander along, with or without my students, and just look,” says Professor Stilgoe, who teaches the art of exploration, and discovering the built environment - everything from architectural history to advertising and design. He introduces his students to a method of discovering a hidden world that's always been right in plain view. “I start by showing slides of things that they think they have seen, and it turns out they haven't seen. The white arrow that's on the side of every Fed Ex truck is a nice place to start. Almost everybody's seen a Federal Express truck, almost nobody's seen the white arrow,” says Stilgoe. If you don't see the big white arrow there's a reason for it, says Stilgoe. It's because your eyes and your brain have been conditioned to read the letters. “Before they've learned to read, toddlers will see the arrow. And I've asked toddlers, ‘Do you see the arrow on the truck?’ And they usually do,” says Stilgoe. “The arrow is between the lower half of the capital E, and the X.” Stilgoe says the arrow is just one of millions of things that are right in front of our eyes that we never notice. His title at Harvard is professor in the History of Landscape. But his classes don't have much to do with bushes and flowers. He's more interested in the urban ecosystem that has been shaped and repaved over the centuries -- like the vast underground world beneath our feet. When Stilgoe took Kroft for the kind of walk through Cambridge he takes with students, it turned into a march through the American industrial past – a relic from a long-extinct trolley company, a memorial to the American steel industry. How long does it take him to get from one place to another? “It takes me a very long time, and I've started out in perfect confidence to drive to California and I've wound up in Tennessee because things were interesting along the way,” says Stilgoe, laughing. “And if you just kind of wander along like that, following your nose, I mean, you find all kinds of neat things.” Even if all of this stuff is a world that nobody sees or nobody thinks about. “I think people see it. But most people, when they learn to read, stop looking around,” says Stilgoe. “I try very hard in this university, which selects students based almost entirely on how well they do with words and numbers, to teach them that there's another way of knowing.” ------------------------------------------------------------- This "other way of knowing" is simply using your eyes. The power of acute observation is one of nature's most useful tools for learning. But Stilgoe says the constant blur of the speed of modern life has caused us to lose it over the years. “I think there are good reasons we've lost it. I mean, I don't tell people to start looking 360 degrees while they're driving a car. But if you were jogging along in a horse and carriage, horse and buggy 100 years ago, you could look around,” says Stilgoe. “I have people now who lead such high-speed lives, they really have never been told to slow down, look around, take a nice walk. Instead they go jogging or running to increase their heart rate. And I tell them, ‘Why not look around while you're doing it, increase some kind of rate in your mind?” Harvard, he says, has some of the finest students in the world, but he believes most of them are visual illiterates. Their academic lives have been programmed around verbal and mathematical tests that will get them into a good college, but he says they lack a sense of spontaneity. “I think they've missed a kind of self-guided, non-organized activity, non-sports activity growing up. Wandering around, getting into things. And the assumption seems to be nowadays is if a child isn't in an organized activity, the child is a criminal,” says Stilgoe. “But as far as I can understand, most of my colleagues I work with seem to have found their careers by being slightly disorganized. Lucking into something, you know.” And this is exactly what happened with Stilgoe, who grew up in a small town south of Boston. His father was a boat builder, and Stilgoe was the first member of his family to ever graduate from college. He came to Harvard 30 years ago to get a PhD, and he’s been there ever since. --------------------------------------------------- Stilgoe has written a number of scholarly books, on subjects ranging from the development of the seashore to the impact of the railroads on the American landscape. But it's his eccentricity and accessibility that have made him so popular with Harvard students. Sara Rotman, Lisa Faiman, Agnes Chu and Chris Hunter have all taken his classes. “As he gives his lecture, it's sort of, can appear as though this is just coming out of nowhere or coming off the top of his head,” says Chu. “But if you read his books, you realize that they're very academically rigorous.” “And he calls into question so many things that you take for granted on a day-to-day basis,” adds Faiman. “I kind of thought he was just crazy, like the first week of class I was there.” “Rather than making you a better lawyer, or a better doctor, or teaching you how to be a good accountant, it's a way of living,” says Hunter. Stilgoe, who teaches in the school of design, devotes a lot of time to the visual media, and to advertising messages that he believes have subconsciously shaped his students' perceptions. One example he points to is an advertisement for pantyhose. “I can't imagine how it sells pantyhose. And I've given a good deal of thought to the fact that the most atrociously sexist images of women that I can find are in magazines that are aimed only at women,” says Stilgoe. Another example shows a woman out in a sun-baked arroyo with a nice sink full of water in front of her, while a freight train rumbles behind in the far back. She’s wearing a locomotive engineer’s hat. “How does an ad like this sell sinks? Does it sell sinks to women? What does the nation's railroad industry think of being depicted like this, right? I haven't a clue. But if you put an ad like this for an hour in a final exam with one direction, discuss, you'll force students to do something,” says Stilgoe. “I don't think I'll ever be able to look at a fashion magazine again without thinking of him,” says Faiman, laughing. “I used to be able to flip through a fashion magazine in maybe about, oh, half hour tops. Now it will take me several hours. I just can't look at images the same way. I can't just sit down and enjoy my magazine anymore.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------- “This generation of Harvard students gets into Harvard by doing exactly and precisely what teacher wants. If teacher is vague about what he wants, they work a lot harder to figure out what they want, and whether or not it's good,” says Stilgoe. “The vaguer the directions, the more likely the opportunity for serendipity to happen. Drives them nuts.” Every year, Stilgoe sends his students into supermarkets to study product packaging and product placement. The marketing people leave nothing to chance. And they start going after them before some of them can either walk or talk. “The design of a package is incredibly important. I tell them to duck walk down the cereal aisle at a supermarket,” says Stilgoe. “And they'll realize that the eyeballs of the figures on the cereal boxes are looking down to the place where a toddler meets the eye, if the toddler's in that little seat in a grocery carriage.” Stilgoe pays great attention to the psychological power of color in manipulating moods and images. Take, for example, the color of his kitchen, which is apple green. “Apple green was thought by a number of turn-of-the-century psychologists to be a calming color. And many of them told husbands to have their kitchens painted in that color so that their wives would be happy in the kitchen and not want to be, not want to register to vote and so on,” says Stilgoe. “And nowadays, if you go into the basements of old police stations and mental hospitals, you'll see the apple green color.” He says that research on the effect of color on emotions continues, but it’s now become a secret science. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- At his farmhouse outside Boston, Stilgoe receives junk mail under a number of phony demographic profiles he's created for himself. He wants to see how direct mail advertisers tailor their message if they think he is an African-American or an Asian. He got the idea from two of his students. “I had two students who were living in sin, and who were seniors, and discovered that the American Express company had sent each of them a catalog. The interior of the catalog was identical. But the covers were different,” says Stilgoe. “The man got this cover. Every man's dream - a space cadet woman hanging on him and gazing off into La La Land. Her thoughts are his. The woman got this...every woman's dream, a horse. And the males are on the other side of the fence.” It's all part of Stilgoe's scheme to instill in his students the power of discovery and deduction – to notice unseen things that tell them what's really going on. All you have to do is go outside, move deliberately, and relax. Do not jog. Forget about weight reduction and blood pressure, and look around. "I try very hard in this university, which selects students based almost entirely on how well they do with words and numbers, to teach them that there's another way of knowing." Professor John Stilgoe © MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Go to BIBBI -- Building International Bridges By Internet... From the Brookings Institution (Foreign Affairs Quarterly) http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040109faupdate83175/ kenneth-m-pollack/after-saddam- assessing-the-reconstruction-of-iraq.html EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The situation in Iraq is extremely complex. In some areas, American and Coalition efforts have helped Iraqis to make real progress toward transforming their economy, polity, and society. What's more, many basic factors in the country augur well for real progress if the pace of reconstruction is maintained. By the same token, there are also numerous negative developments in the country, many the result of mistaken American policies. The Good News There is enough going well in Iraq that there is no reason to believe that the U.S.-led reconstruction effort is doomed to failure. Indeed, quite the opposite. There is so much good in Iraq, even in the face of numerous and crippling American errors, that pessimists need to be cautious in making prognostications of doom. Four "positives" stand out as key elements on which the reconstruction of Iraq should be founded: * Iraqi public opinion remains largely favorable to reconstruction. This is certainly true of the vast bulk of the Kurdish and Shiite populations, but it is also true of many urban Sunnis (the bulk of that ethno-religious group). Most Iraqis don't particularly care to have so many foreigners in their country, but there is a widespread fear that if the United States were to leave Iraq, the country would slide quickly into chaos and civil war -- a fear amply justified by patterns on the ground. Consequently, most Iraqis do not want the United States to leave; they just want the United States to do a better job rebuilding their country. * Similarly, most of Iraq's leaders have shown great patience and urged their followers to cooperate with the U.S.-led reconstruction. They appear to recognize that the United States ultimately is striving to build the stable, prosperous, and pluralist nation they hope for. They also seem to realize that all of the alternatives to cooperation with the United States are much worse, and much less likely to produce their ideal outcome; thus they have generally counseled restraint despite repeated missteps by the United States. * The insurgency is not likely to undermine reconstruction by itself, and the greatest threat is simply that the slow trickle of American dead will cause the American people to lose heart. Support for the insurgency is limited mostly to the Sunni tribesmen who inhabit western Iraq (the Sunni triangle) and other fringe elements of Iraqi society. Few of the insurgents have demonstrated an ardent commitment to their cause, and as a result they have caused comparatively few casualties to Coalition personnel given the daily number of attacks they conduct. * American and other Coalition personnel have enjoyed considerable success working with Iraqis in their villages and neighborhoods to restore basic services, rebuild schools, restart the local economy, and create new political institutions. In particular, the military's civil affairs personnel are making real headway in rebuilding the country from the ground up -- the only way that it can be done -- wherever they are present. The Bad News As important as the positives in Iraq are, they must be contrasted with a range of problems in the reconstruction. None are unsolvable, and so they should be seen as challenges, not pitfalls. In every case, if the United States takes appropriate action, there is no reason these challenges cannot be met. That said, tackling some of these challenges will probably require the Bush Administration to shift or even reverse course on a range of issues it has so far resisted. * The United States must fundamentally reorient its security strategy. To date, U.S. forces have concentrated on chasing insurgents and protecting themselves. Although not unimportant, these pale in comparison with the need to provide basic security for the Iraqi people. Today, the fear of common crime and attacks committed by those who seek to undermine the course of the reconstruction are the single greatest impediments to Iraq's economic and political reconstruction. This will likely require the commitment of more American forces, or a significant shift in U.S. policy to secure additional foreign forces, because Iraq's indigenous security forces are not ready for the job and probably will not be for 6-24 months. * The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) must reach out to the Sunni tribal community, to eliminate their sense of grievance against the United States and so quell their support for the insurgency. At this late date, this will probably require diverting significant assets to the tribal shaykhs to secure their loyalty and launching a massive education program (necessary for the entire country, but particularly acute with the Sunni tribes) to convince Sunnis that they too will be better off in a new, pluralist Iraq. In the course of doing so, however, Washington and the CPA must be careful not to alienate the larger Shiite and Kurdish communities whose support so far have been the keys to progress in Iraq. * After months of mistakes, the CPA has developed a feasible plan for handling the political transition and the construction of a new system of government in Iraq. This plan, embodied in the so-called November 15 agreement, is probably the best conceivable approach given the difficult circumstances in which the United States currently finds itself. However, the plan is extremely complicated and has a number of key hurdles to overcome, derived largely from the inherent complexities of Iraq and past American mistakes. Consequently, it will require the unflinching commitment of Ambassador L. Paul Bremer and President Bush himself to see this plan through to completion. * The economic revival of Iraq has been stunted by several American failures that should be addressed quickly. The first is the failure to provide security for the Iraqi people, which makes the ordinary flow of goods and personnel across the country difficult, raises production costs, and cripples investment. The second is the failure to provide basic services. Here the Coalition has done much better than it has on security, but it still has not corrected shortages of electricity, clean water, and gasoline, to name only the most pressing. * The reconstruction effort is desperately short-staffed. This is true on the security side, where there simply are not enough U.S. and Coalition infantry to provide security for the Iraqi people, and the Iraqi security forces are not yet ready to do the job. It is true in the political and economic realms too, where the CPA is so short-staffed that it has virtually no presence outside of Baghdad and as a result, numerous aspects of reconstruction are suffering. And it is also true in terms of the numbers of civil affairs personnel in the field working with the Iraqis. Where these men and women are present, they are doing a remarkable job, but there are far too few of them for the tasks they face. * Finally, the United States has major communications problems, in at least two respects. First, Coalition personnel do not coordinate with one another enough. Baghdad and the field are often completely cut off from each other and as a result, efforts in the field are not supported and decisions in Baghdad are often misdirected. Second, and in some ways of greater importance, the United States must do a much better job communicating with the Iraqis themselves. Because of shortcomings in both capabilities and intentions, the CPA provides the Iraqi people with too little information about developments in their own country, leaving them anxious, frustrated, and resentful. The Bottom Line If the United States is unwilling to change its policies to address these challenges, but is willing to continue to maintain the current commitment of resources to Iraq ($18 billion per year in economic and political assistance, 150,000 troops, and a strong political role in the country's governance), there is enough good there that, even with its failings, the current course of the U.S.-led occupation is unlikely to result in disaster. It probably will not produce a functional state and society, but it is unlikely that Iraq will simply descend into chaos -- although such a worst-case scenario cannot be ruled out. Because various political, military, and economic factors make it unlikely that Washington will simply maintain its current economic and military commitments to Iraq indefinitely, however, the key question is whether the Bush Administration adapts its policy to the needs of reconstruction or instead opts to phase out its engagement in Iraq. There is enough good in Iraq and enough positive developments there that if the United States and its Coalition allies are willing to address the challenges listed above, there is every reason to believe that Iraq could be a stable, prosperous, and pluralist society within a period of 5-15 years. In contrast, there is great danger for the United States in disengaging from Iraq. Without a strong American role, at least behind the scenes, the negative forces in the country would almost certainly produce Lebanon-like chaos and civil war that would quickly spill across Iraq's borders and destabilize politically and economically fragile neighbors such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iran, and Syria, and possibly Turkey and Kuwait as well. [... it is a long article..] After the experience of the last thirty years we now know quite a bit about failed states -- enough to know that allowing Iraq to become one would be disastrous. The chaos bred by a failed state can never be successfully contained. Iraqi refugees would flow out of the country and into neighboring states. Chaos in Iraq would breed extremists and terrorists who would not limit their targets only to those within Iraq's nominal borders. Groups within Iraq would call on co-religionists, co-ethnicists, tribesmen, and fellow political travelers across the borders for aid. Petty warlords would seek help from neighboring powers, and the neighbors themselves would inevitably begin to intervene in Iraq's civil strife if only in the vain hope of preventing it from spilling over into their territory. The problem with failed states is not only the misery and suffering they inflict on the people of the country itself, but how they destabilize their entire region. Lebanon fomented instability in Israel and Syria. Lebanon also bred some of the worst terrorist groups around -- groups like Hizballah, which haunt the region to this day. Afghanistan helped create the dangerously volatile situation in Pakistan, created internal unrest in eastern Iran, and has spawned problems for many of the Central Asian states. Afghanistan also became the breeding ground for al-Qa'eda. The chaos in Congo has helped spread instability throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa. The failure of Yugoslavia (and then of Bosnia) threatened to destabilize the entire Balkans, prompting the intervention of NATO, which had the size and resources to stabilize the situation. The same would likely hold true for Iraq and its impact on the countries of the Persian Gulf. They would be inundated by refugees and armed groups seeking sanctuary and assistance. They would be sucked in by tribal rivalries, ethnic and religious ties, and fear that a failure to act will cause the chaos to spread across their borders. They would likely become battlegrounds for rival Iraqi militias and breeding grounds for Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists. And these are countries that the United States cares about deeply. Saudi Arabia is frail enough as it is. Many analysts fear that even on its own, the Saudi state might not last another ten years. Add to that the tremendously destabilizing influence of civil war in Iraq next door, and no one should be sanguine about Saudi prospects. Kuwait is another major oil producer, and if chaos consumed Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it would be hard for tiny Kuwait to remain inviolate. The loss of oil production as a result of chaos or revolution in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait would cripple the international oil market with unimaginable consequences for the global economy. Beyond them, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, and Syria are all also economically and political fragile and all would suffer from the political, military and economic spillover of a failed state in Iraq. Nor are these simply abstract warnings. They are being played out on the ground even today. Already the Iranians, Syrians, Turks, and Saudis have begun to stake out their turf and potential proxies in the event that Iraq falls apart. The Iranians, Saudis and Turks have all (generally) been urging their supporters to cooperate with the U.S.-led occupation, recognizing that chaos in Iraq would be the worst possible outcome for them, but behind the scenes they all appear to be making plans for the possibility that reconstruction fails and they are forced to provide for their own security. Throughout the region, officials and other elites are terrified that the United States will fail or abandon Iraq and the country will slip into Lebanon-like strife. All of them are convinced that it will create massive problems for them. Even Israeli officials are beginning to plan for the possibility of such development, although they recognize that they will be powerless to control the evils that will arise for them from such a development. Given the history of failed states, we simply cannot allow Iraq to slip into chaos and civil war. The results would likely be catastrophic for the entire region -- a region that is vital to the interests of the United States and the economic health of the entire world. If the United States remains in Iraq there is no guarantee that everything will work out well, but we must recognize that there is simply no "exit strategy." U.S. withdrawal would lead quickly and inevitably to the worst-case outcome for us, the Iraqis and the entire world. If we do remain engaged in Iraq for the next five years or more, the worst-case scenario is still possible, but the risk is much lower. Even if we continue to pursue less than optimal policies in Iraq, it seems more likely that we will end up with a Bosnia (a country not capable of surviving on its own but not torn apart by violence), than Lebanon of the 1970s and '80s. And it is also worth remembering all of the positives in Iraq today. They suggest that if we remain engaged while adjusting our policies and strategies, there is good reason to believe that a stable, prosperous, and pluralist Iraq can eventually be achieved. That too is not guaranteed, but it can only be achieved if we stay in Iraq and see this campaign through to completion. Questions for students: 1) Do you agree with the statements made on this page? (I hope not... there are some statemetns that contradict othere statements). Explain using examples. 2) What can you do? Write a letter to a Member of Congress? Name of Senator The Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Name of Representative House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 |