The ML Editor

The final state of Crusoe’s plantation and the island can be reconciled to what Crusoe has learned about religion and value during his stay on the island. Some of the lessons Crusoe learns are the wisdom of his father in admonishing Crusoe to be content with the “middle State”, the importance of trade to the value of a product, the sinfulness of wastefulness, and the acknowledgement of God’s providence and design for all things on earth. Crusoe applies these lessons learned on the island after his return to Europe.

The first of these lessons Crusoe learns, which his father tried to teach him, is the security and contentment that comes from being in the middle state of life. Crusoe’s father insists that this state is the “most suited to human happiness” in that people neither have the “labour and sufferings” of the lower class, nor the “pride, luxury, ambition, and envy” of the upper classes (Defoe 5). This station of life, his father tells him, is not “subjected to so many Distempers and Uneasiness either of Body or Mind” as the lower and upper classes are prone to suffer from (Defoe 5).

Crusoe discovers this admonition to be true when he is stranded on the island and must engage in hard, physical labor in order to survive and provide him with the items that he needs and wants. As his father warned him, Crusoe falls gravely ill as a result of his extreme physical exertions, and his “spirits began to sink under the burthen of a strong Distemper” (Defoe 66).

After Crusoe returns to Europe, he is confronted with the opposite end of the scale when he learns the riches of his plantation. Even though Crusoe has not participated directly in increasing the value and production of the plantation, he still reaps the rewards issuing from it. This sudden wealth, which necessarily puts great responsibility onto Crusoe, causes him to “turn pale and [grow] sick” (Defoe 205). Thus, Crusoe recognizes the wisdom of his father’s advice, which after leaving the island, he is content to live in that middle state for many years.

On the island, Crusoe learns that trade is vital to establishing the value of a product, e.g. gold and silver. When Crusoe finds the gold and silver on the ship, he realizes that it has no use for him upon the island, because he cannot use it to trade the money for something he does have use for. His first inclination is to let the gold and silver sink to the bottom of the ocean, but on second thought, he does take it with him. But since Crusoe cannot trade the money, it lies “in a drawer” and grows “mouldy with the damp of the cave” (Defoe 95).

After Crusoe leaves the island and returns to Europe, he begins converting the value of all his goods into gold, silver, and “bills of exchange” (Defoe 207). Likewise, Crusoe decides to liquidate his plantation in Brazil because he has doubts about Catholicism being the appropriate religion for himself. He sells it to the children of his trustees, who “fully understand the value of it” (Defoe 218). Thus does Crusoe realize that products have no value until trade is involved.

Another lesson Crusoe learns on the island is the sinfulness of wastefulness. He realizes that the island offers abundant opportunities for food, fuel, etc. But Crusoe begins to see that :all the good things of this earth are no farther good to us than they are for our own use” (Defoe 94). Therefore, if Crusoe kills more than he can eat, or plants more than he can store for later consumption, or cuts more trees than he can find use for, they will all just go to waste, as he cannot use them in time before they spoil or rot away.

When Crusoe learns the state of his Brazilian plantation, he does not know at first what to do with his sudden riches. But remembering the lesson that wastefulness is sinfulness, he immediately turns philanthropist. Crusoe cancels the debt that the old Captain owes him, and furthermore settles an annuity on him for a “100 moidores” and “50 moidores a year” upon the Captain’s son (Defoe 206). Likewise, Crusoe sends a hundred pounds apiece to his sisters, and to the widow of Crusoe’s first benefactor, with a promise of more money to come.

Crusoe also bestows 500 moidores on the monastery in Brazil and 372 moidores to be used to benefit the poor, “as the Prior should direct” (Defoe 207). It’s very important to note that Crusoe does not send any money or presents to the trustees of his plantation because they “were far above having any occasion of it” (Defoe 207).

Since now Crusoe has more money than he has immediate use for, he distributes much on his family, friends, and religious institutions. After his return to England, he adopts two of his nephews and provides a home for them, setting them up in employment when they come of age. In this manner, Crusoe turns much of his wealth to benefit others who have need of it.

In the same way, Crusoe applies the lesson he learned while on the island about God’s providence for all living things upon his return to civilization. Crusoe reconciles himself to the knowledge that God put him on the island, but comes to see that the banishment is not so much a punishment as it is a blessing, since Crusoe could have perished with the rest of the ship’s crew. Crusoe comes to the conclusion that God put him on the island because he “rejected the voice of providence” that had designed Crusoe for the middle state of life where he could have been “happy and easy” (Crusoe 67).

When Crusoe leaves the island, he ensures that it remains inhabited by the mutineers and the shipwrecked Spaniards. In regards to the island, Crusoe takes on a role much like God, in that he provides the men with arms, tools, seed, and instructions on how to survive and prosper on the island. Later, Crusoe returns to check their progress and bring them more goods to help them on the island. Crusoe also brings them a carpenter and a smith, who could have been of great use to Crusoe when he was on the island. Crusoe sails to Brazil after engaging the men “not to leave the place” (Defoe 220). From Brazil, he sends more supplies to the island and women to marry the men. Crusoe’s obvious purpose here is to populate and improve the island according to God’s admonition to Adam and Eve to be productive and multiply.

Crusoe did learn valuable lessons on the island and he did change his attitudes. He became more religious, which is evident in his unwillingness to return to Brazil; before confessing himself a papist did not bother him, but later, when he was more religious, he could not submit to Catholicism. Crusoe also learned the value of hard work, and strove to make conditions easier for the men left on the island. These lessons he learned were not forgotten as soon as he stepped on the ship to sail away from his solitary existence on the island.

Mary Arnold is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Fiction Writing.

Her writing portfolio may be viewed at http://www.Writing.com/authors/ja77521

I doubt Marilyn Monroe was anything but a confused star-struck drug-using individual with some gifts and talents that the Kennedy boys enjoyed. But she may have been so obsessed with them that she would have threatened to tell some of what she knew and she did have the attention of the people and media. There was a general lack of knowledge about the nature of JFK’s drug use and sexual shenanigans even after his death. It would not surprise me if this was managed and agreed to, or asked for by the Kennedy clan. They still value their image even though Old Joe has been exposed on Arts & Entertainment. Maybe Maria Shriver and Arnold will make a run for the Presidency. It is important to note that Mary Jo Kopechne figures into the issue in a big way however. Maybe she intended to leak a lot more about the Kennedy clan.

“Smathers also betrayed JFK over Marilyn Monroe. According to Sarah Churchill’s recently published book, The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe (2004), it was Smathers who first leaked the story to the press about the affair. The story first appeared in an article by Dorothy Kilgallen the day before Monroe died (Kilgallen was herself to die in similar circumstances as Monroe on 8th November, 1965).

Why should Smathers do this? One possibility is that Smathers was trying to link JFK with Monroe’s death. According to Matthew Smith’s Victim: The Secret Tapes of Marilyn Monroe (2003) the CIA was involved in a plot to implicate the Kennedys in Monroe’s death as punishment for the Bay of Pigs disaster.

If Smathers was involved in any conspiracy to kill JFK one would expect those close to him like Grant Stockdale {Mobbed-up vending-machine owner who was in a position to expose many things after JFK’s death and who was eliminated.} to find out about it. One person who might have discovered what was going on was his secretary, Mary Jo Kopechne, and her flat mate, Nancy Carole Tyler, who was Bobby Baker’s secretary. According to Penn Jones, it was Kopechne and Tyler who leaked the story about JFK replacing LBJ by Smathers as vice president. {I have no doubt about LBJ’s involvement in the assassination of JFK.}

Nancy Carole Tyler died in a plane crash, near Ocean City, Maryland, on 10th May, 1965.

Kopechne went on to become Robert Kennedy’s secretary. She was to die in Edward Kennedy’s car on 18th July, 1969.” (1)

Author of Diverse Druids, Columnist for The ES Press Magazine, Guest writer for World-Mysteries.com

I am a voracious reader of the most convoluted and lexiphanic texts - yet, there is one author I prefer to most. She gives me the greatest pleasure and leaves me tranquil and craving for more when I am through devouring one of her countless tomes. A philosopher of the mundane, a scholar of death, an exquisite chronicler of decay and decadence - she is Dame Agatha Christie. I spend as much time wondering what so mesmerizes me in her pulp fiction as I do trying to decipher her deliciously contorted stratagems.

First, there is the claustrophobia. Modernity revolves around the rapid depletion of our personal spaces - from pastures and manors to cubicles and studio apartments. Christie - like Edgar Ellen Poe before her - imbues even the most confined rooms with endless opportunities for vice and malice, where countless potential scenarios can and do unfold kaleidoscopically. A Universe of plots and countervailing subplots which permeate even the most cramped of her locations. It is nothing short of consummate magic.

Then there is the realization of the ubiquity of our pathologies. In Christie’s masterpieces, even the champions of good are paragons of mental illness. Hercules Poirot, the quintessential narcissist, self-grooming, haughty, and delusional. Miss Marple, a schizoid busybody, who savors neither human company, nor her inevitable encounters with an intruding world. Indeed, it is deformity that gifts these two with their eerily penetrating insights into the infirmities of others.

Then, there is the death of innocence. Dame Agatha’s detective novels are quaint, set in a Ruritanian Britain that is no more and likely had never existed. Technologies make their debut: the car, the telephone, the radio, electric light. The very nature of evil is transformed from the puerile directness of the highway robber and the passion killer - to the scheming, cunning, and disguised automatism of her villains. Crime in her books is calculated, the outcome of plotting and conspiring, a confluence of unbridled and corrupted appetites and a malignant mutation of individualism. Her opus is a portrait of our age as it emerged, all bloodied and repellent, from the womb the dying Victorian era.

Christie’s weapons of choice are simple - the surreptitious poison, a stealthy dagger, the cocked revolver, a hideous drowning. Some acquaintance with the sciences of Chemistry and Physics is indispensable, of course. Archeology comes third. But Christie’s main concerns are human nature and morality. The riddles that she so fiendishly posits cannot be solved without taking both into account.

As Miss Marple keeps insisting throughout her numerous adventures, people are the same everywhere, regardless of their social standing, wealth, or upbringing. The foibles, motives, and likely actions of protagonists - criminals as well as victims - are inferred by Marple from character studies of her village folks back home. Human nature is immutable and universal is Christie’s message.

Not so morality. Formal justice is a slippery concept, often opposed to the natural sort. Life is in shades of gray. Murders sometimes are justified, especially when they serve to rectify past wrongs or prevent a greater evil. Some victims had it coming. Crime is part of a cycle of karmic retribution. The detective’s role is to restore order to a chaotic situation, to interpret reality for us (in an inevitable final chapter), and to administer true and impartial justice, not shackled by social or legalistic norms.

Thus, nothing is as it seems.

It is perhaps Christie’s greatest allure. Beneath the polished, petite-bourgeois, rule-driven, surface, lurks another world, replete with demons and with angels, volcanic passions and stochastic drives, the mirrors and the mirrored, where no ratio rules and no laws obtain. Catapulted into this nightmarish, surrealistic landscape, like the survivors of a shipwreck, we wander, bedazzled, readers and detectives, heroes and villains, damsels and their lovers, doomed to await the denouement. When that moment comes, redeemed by reason, we emerge, reassured, into our reinstated, ordered, Before Christ(ie) existence.

Her novels are the substance of our dreams, woven from the fabric of our fears, an open invitation to plunge into our psyches and courageously confront the abyss. Hence Christie’s irresistibility - her utter acquaintance with our deepest quiddity. Who can forgo such narcissistic pleasure? Not your columnist, for sure!

Sam Vaknin ( samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.

Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

Visit Sam’s Web site at samvak.tripod.com

It is not unusual for a person to grow apathetic toward his or her current job. Lack of stimulating work, low pay, and limited growth potential within an organization are all excellent reasons to seek out a way to make a change. One of the best, and easiest, ways to achieve this is to explore furthering your education and training online. This innovative and exciting method of personal and professional improvement has the benefit of allowing you to enhance your career opportunities by either earning a degree or by taking advantage of continuing education options. This is also an ideal option for you if you want to change your career entirely. Education and training can be sought online without interfering with work and family commitments.

In order to get that promotion you’ve been working so hard for, it’s often necessary to further your education and training. Doing so online allows you do achieve your full career potential at your own pace, without interfering with work. In many professions, such as pharmacy, it’s often required to stay up to date with new technologies and pertinent information. A convenient way to do this is to take your continuing education courses online. Some employers are even willing to pay for a portion or all tuition and fees. After all, investing money in their employees can provide long-term benefits for employers.

There are many advantages of choosing an online education and training facility if you wish to further your education and training. There is no need to live near or commute to a school or training facility when all classes can be attended and all coursework submitted online. Attending school online is a great option for those who might have misgivings about going to college as an older student or returning after many years. Furthering your education and training at an online school can make it easier to ease into the routine of class work and projects, an can reduce the stress of feeling the need to fit in with younger college students. Further, the course availability is often convenient for those who work full time and/or care for a family. Frequently, institutions offer evening and weekend sections of courses. It is also very appealing to “go to school” from the comforts of home.

The type of education and training available online is seemingly limitless. The entire spectrum of college degrees is available to a student, including Associate’s, Bachelor’s, and PhD degrees, as well as professional certificates. These degrees are available in many different fields, including Business, Social Sciences, Humanities, Mathematics, Liberal Arts, Fine Arts, and Healthcare programs. In addition to college diplomas, continuing education for professionals is available in many areas, including Healthcare programs, Business, and Information Technology.

Affording to further your education and training online is no different from doing so in a traditional face-to-face institution. Often, financial aid is available to students in the form of grants, loans, and scholarships. It is important to check with the individual institution of interest for requirements and guidelines. Also, many employers may be willing to pay for part or all of an employee’s continuing education. Investing in an employee’s future is also investing in the employer’s future.

The misconception of continuing your education and training online is that the experience might not be as enriching or legitimate as attending face-to-face classes at a traditional college or training facility. Programs offered online present the same opportunities for group work, independent study, and interpersonal communications as their traditional counterparts. In fact, continuing your education online might help to facilitate the learning process as well as develop time management and self-motivation skills. With the prevalence of the Internet and advancements such as teleconferencing in both education and the business world today, it is possible to come away from the experience not only with a degree, but also with greater knowledge and comfort with technology. Continuing your education and training online is a valuable, convenient, and flexible way to broaden your career opportunities.

Learn the essential information for picking the right online degree course at www.higher-education-online.com/education-and-training.html

It has always been societies’ responsibility to guide, nurture,
educate and develop the fullest potential of every one of its
youngest members. The primary responsibility for this has
traditionally fallen to families yet, due to the increasing
breakdown of the family unit this is not the case for many young
people in today’s society. Coupled with the diminishing impact
of traditional ideologies in shaping young peoples actions and
choices, it has now become imperative for teachers and trainers
to devise an alternative way of meeting the personal and social
development needs of young people.

Causes of Personal and Social Development degeneration

These fundamental changes in society have led many young people
to experience low self-esteem, lack confidence, possess limited
social skills, and believe they have little or no hope for the
future. This can often lead into a downward spiral of
behavioural problems and social disenfranchisement.

Until we begin to address these root causes, by instead
nurturing in our young people a healthy sense of identity,
assist them in feeling good about themselves, give them tools,
confidence and a genuine hope for the future - these personal
and social behavioural issues will only continue.

Solutions: Empowering Young people and informing teachers and
trainers

This is why this current climate has resulted in the need to
devise a new framework that takes pre-emptive action to empower
young people to learn how to think, and construct a personal
belief system that will drive responsible choice and action.

‘I’m so glad that somebody has expressed the need to change the
way we educate our future’ ~ Gonul Hussein, YMCA Training

This can be accomplished by:

Using forward thinking models of teaching and developing
ground breaking resources that provide personal and social
development lesson plans.

Interactive games and discussions - infused with fun -
which result in effective and meaningful socialisation and
communication. These include social interactive games sometimes
called brain breaks or brain gym which improve learning by
integrating physical activities into the learning processes.
They have been proven to increase memory retention and student
involvement and participation.

Forums where young people can voice it! and be genuinely
listened to, maximise the student’s enjoyment, attention and
desire to engage in the learning.

This results in improving young peoples self esteem and a
maximisation of the learning experience - with the power to
ground life choices in personal experience rather than a
prescribed formulae devoid of personal verification through life
experience or thoughtful engagement.

Supporting Teachers, trainers and Youth Workers

Schools, charities and youth organisations - places where many
young people have contact and turn to for support, have assumed
a pivotal role as the current providers of personal and social
development for today’s youth.

In order to support teachers, trainers and youth workers in this
evolving role it is clearly essential that they receive the
necessary resources and tools - resources that are accessible
and fully meet the needs of the young people but also those of
the professionals working in this challenging field.

Marisa Rowe, co-director of the Voice it! Project said, ‘It is
important to listen to our educators; their needs and their
challenges. We need to make it easier for them, make it
realistic and take some of the pressure off. This is why with
the Voice it! resources
we include all the physical props and accessories that
are needed in order to make the learning interactive, fun and
meaningful.’

The Voice it! Project’s ground breaking e2e resource The Voice
it! Journey, is a fresh, relevant and fun personal and social
development programme covering 3 key modules - Equal
Opportunities & Diversity, Emotional Literacy & Anger Management
and Self Esteem & Life Direction.

Heather Rabone of Stanchester Community School said, ‘These
resources bridge knowledge and understanding with development of
student’s attitudes and values, by encouraging them to reflect,
discuss and communicate effectively.’

Fired with a passion to inspire and empower, The Voice it!
Project works to celebrate and release the free spirit in all of
us - finding innovative ways to unlock potential, support
creativity and challenge minds. For further information about
the project and its innovative range of resources please visit
http://www.voiceit.com
Email info@voiceit.com or
telephone +44 (0)1935 413335.