U.S. Behind in Space Race, Russia Leads Again

MOSCOW (AP) -  Russia, a global leader in space exploration, especially with the U.S. drastically cutting the funding of NASA and considering privatizing, is ready to launch a simulated mission to Mars.  The Russians are pursuing a long term plan to learn how to prepare for putting a human on Mars.  AP writer, Vladimir Isachenkov, reports:

"The experiment, conducted by the Moscow-based Institute for Medical and Biological Problems in cooperation with the European Space Agency and Chinese space authorities, will simulate a 250-day journey to Mars, a 30-day surface exploration phase and 240 days return trip."

Unfortunately, the U.S. has no plans like this.  Obama's budget butchered the space program and our plans to return to the Moon.  There is no funding in America for space research anymore.  There was a time when we prided ourselves on the innovations that came from the space program.  America is a nation built on innovation, a nation of leaders.  

How long will we let others lead, especially Russians?  Some people may not care about putting a man on Mars.  What most people don't realize is that our AirForce is extremely interested in our capabilities in space.  Current wars are fought using satellite imagery and geopositioning systems, which are products of the space program.  Future wars will be fought in space, not unlike Star Wars, without the aliens.  And if we want to be ready, we have to get serious about our space program.  Quit cutting NASA's budget.  Quit taking jobs away in a recession----real jobs, jobs that employ some of the brightest minds in the world. 

NASA creates jobs, saves lives, and protects America.

Memorial Day, a Federal Vacation

ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, MEMORIAL DAY 2010 -- Who's there?  Not Obama.  Why?  He was busy at a barbecue at American community organizer Marty Nesbit's place, who lives in a swanky upscale neighborhood with patriots such as William Ayers and Louis Farrakhan.  Obama did plan to speak at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in honor of the hallowed Memorial Day, but unfortunately mother nature denied him the luxury of being on vacation and doing your patriotic duty at the same time.

Rain and lightning tore from the sky as Obama took the podium.  Obama spoke, only just enough to tell everyone that it wasn't safe; go home.  Obama should have listened to his own pleadings with the crowd.  Chicago is not currently his home.  He has a job to do.  Memorial Day is a big day for a president.  After all, he is the Commander-In-Chief of our great American military.  He of all people should respect the tradition of Memorial Day.  Instead he couldn't break away from his precious vacation time in Chicago.  He should have been at Arlington National Cemetery and not have sent Vice President Joe Biden to do his bidding.

Obama has a history of paying little respect to the tradition of Memorial Day.  Last year he was at Arlington National Cemetery for the traditional wreath ceremony, but he was able to slip out of there just in time to hit the links.  Obama was on the golf course at 3:00 p.m. on Memorial Day 2009, but he was able to manage a small prayer in between his tee shot and his approach.  He missed the putt, and obviously the point.

In Obama's defense, he is not the first president to miss a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.  George Bush missed it in 2002, but for a slightly different reason.  Instead of hamming it up with crooked Chicago socialites, Bush was in Europe meeting with foreign leaders on official U.S. business.  He made a speech at the Normandy American Cemetery, where he commemorated our veterans in proper fashion, with the best means available to him.

Whether it's the golf course or a barbecue with communists, it's disrespectful.  Mr. President, do your job and lead this nation by example first and foremost.  Honor the tradition, not the vacation.

Economic Freedom Can End Recession

You hear it everyday on the news:  Obama wants to reign in Wall Street, big banks, and executive pay.  Claims are made that Wall Street, Fannie and Freddie, and insurance giant AIG are to blame for the Great Recession.  All this finger pointing by the White House and Democrats in Congress makes you wonder how they are just now coming to this realization?

Everyone knows that the government has oversight on large companies through the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a bill that was pushed through after shady accounting and investing practices managed to fraud employees and investors in companies like Enron, Tyco International and Worldcom.  These companies fudged their financial reports, leading to the inevitable fallout of their market share, and a host of investors were left with empty pockets.  The SOX Act makes company managers personally certify their disclosure of their financials, holding them civilly and criminally liable in the event that fraud or artificial inflation should occur.  Some still debate over its positive effects.

SOX was meant to instill investor and consumer confidence after a shaky mini-crash in late 2001.  But does it do what it purports to do?  Some say yes.  If so, then why must we have a Wall Street Reform bill?  How has Wall Street strayed so far from the successes of SOX in so little time?  Most would agree, they haven't.  Wall Street makes everyone money, even people who don't own any stock.  Wall Street is the purest form of capitalism we have.  Market value is based on supply, demand, reputation and consumer confidence.  The Street has made millionaires out of many and led to the American dream for at least half of retirees.  People see the value in risk.

Still, Obama and his minions in Congress seek to tighten their grip on big business, instead of allowing the free market to work.  America will deal with whatever new rules and regulations are placed on it, and the American people will always find a way to flourish.  We lead the world in innovation, technology, banking, and developing natural resources.  We are a nation of go-getters, a culture of creating something out of nothing, and above all else, aficionados of freedom.  Freedom not free for everybody.

The government is as much if not more to blame for the Great Recession.  After all most people agree that if you had to narrow down the cause to a singular cause, you would blame Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:  organizations that were forced to make bad home loans to people who couldn't afford it, all in the name of free for everyone, not freedom.  The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research describes the perfect storm of government involvement in Fannie and Freddie as:

"The government mission required them to keep mortgage interest rates low and to increase their support for affordable housing. Their shareholder ownership, however, required them to fight increases in their capital requirements and regulation that would raise their costs and reduce their risk-taking and profitability. But there were two other parties--Congress and the taxpayers--that also had a stake in the choices that Fannie and Freddie made. Congress got some benefits in the form of political support from the GSEs' ability to hold down mortgage rates, but it garnered even more political benefits from GSE support for affordable housing. The taxpayers got highly attenuated benefits from both affordable housing and lower mortgage rates but ultimately faced enormous liabilities associated with GSE risk-taking."


How can we trust Obama and Congress with the reform of Wall Street, when its clear that their involvement with mortgage giants Fannie and Freddie was a big cause of the collapse in the first place?


Granted there are some cases where government wasn't involved and natural bankruptcy occurred (Lehman Brothers).  However where government stayed out of the picture and allowed private enterprise and the free market take over, those companies began flourishing much more rapidly again after being bought by larger companies, ridding themselves of toxic assets, and creating new business models.  A free marketplace does that; Americans do that; when we're knocked down we get back on the horse that bucked us.  That's what we do.  Every entity that the government has bailed out has seen a slower recovery than those who were bought out or reconditioned through private enterprise.  


Think about it.  Do we really want further economic constraints on the number one money making aspect of our economy, Wall Street?  Or do we want to let those guys do what they do best, make us money?  You decide.

Climbing through Adolescence

During the summer of 2000, at age 16, my friends and I departed on a two month trip by car to explore some of the most famous rock climbing areas in the United States. My two friends, Jeff and Ian, are also from Florida, and we became acquainted during rock climbing competitions in the Southeastern division of the Junior Competitive Climbing Association (JCCA).  The JCCA is a circuit of indoor climbing competitions which one can enter in order to gain qualifying points toward receiving an invitation to the United States Junior National Climbing Competition. The top three competitors are then invited to be a member of the United States Junior Climbing Team that competes at the World Climbing Competition each year. The fourth and fifth place competitors are alternates for that team. Becoming a member of that team is dream of most young competitive climbers. 

            Jeff, Ian, and I were living in different cities at the time. Jeff lived in Orlando, and Ian lived in St. Petersburg where I also used to live. However, I had just moved in with my older brother in Gainesville, Florida after my sophomore year in high school in order to go to Santa Fe Community College via my General Education Development Test.

In June, we began our adventure. Jeff drove his 1991 Ford Crown Victoria from Orlando to pick up Ian in Tampa, and then they came to Gainesville to get me. We packed a U-Haul Roof Rack, and the old Ford’s trunk was filled as full as we could get it with everything from clothes and climbing gear, to stoves and sleeping bags. We had everything three guys needed to live out of a car for two months.

Our first stop was Atlanta, Georgia. In Atlanta, we competed in the JCCA Regional Competition as our last event before JCCA Nationals. All of the dieting, dedication, and training had us set to reach our peaks at the time of National competition in a few weeks. Unfortunately, I did poorly in the Regional Competition and failed to gain enough points for the invitation to the big competition in Portland, Oregon. I made a mental error early on in my first climb, and it left me with little chance of reaching the necessary amount of points. We left Atlanta headed for Denver. We were not even quite sure which climbing area to hit first. We had Portland as our goal at the end of the first month.

            We first decided to try out the boulders at Morrison, just outside of Denver. We arrived about a day and a half of continuous driving. We did not sleep like any other sane people would after such a grueling road trip. We jumped right out of the old, beat up Ford running for the rocks. The boulders there were impressive red sandstone that have enough climbs (or boulder problems, as climbers call them) to keep us occupied for about half of the day. My favorite climb there was called Helicopter because at the last move a climber is required to throw his right hand up and out so far that the entire left side of his body swings off the rock with tremendous speed.

            Our next stop was Rifle, Colorado where the mystical Rifle Canyon lay on the outskirts of this little town. Rifle Canyon is a dazzling display of colors on a canvas of limestone rock. I had never before seen any such coloring. The canyon was carved by a river, and at some spots the road is only wide enough for one car. The entire structure appeared to be falling on us at all times. It is a polished limestone canyon that has an onslaught of all these crazy little angles. The rock is an overhanging face that threatens to throw your feet off at any second. The climbing there is world renown for its tests at power and endurance. Some of America’s hardest climbs are there as well, i.e. Zulu and The Crew.

We met a group of Swedish guys at the base of one wall of Rifle Canyon. They told us a little about their heritage which was fascinating. At night we sat around campfires and talked about the climbs of days past. As we talked, we sought advice from the other climbers on certain approaches to different climbs because we knew that there was always another way that could be easier. The collection of climbers around campfires was like a brotherhood. No one criticizes anyone, and everyone is feeding off of each other’s enthusiasm and energy for climbing. I felt like we were all brought together from different parts of the globe to do some hardcore soul searching.

            For the whole time we were in Rifle Canyon, it felt like I was a kid in the Magic Kingdom. I had the feeling of not knowing where to start. I tried to soak up as much knowledge as I could on the unusual climbing style that is forced upon a climber by Rifle Canyon. Many of the climbs require unorthodox techniques that are really trick moves which seem to boggle one’s mind with every newfound quirk that the rock has to offer. We left Rifle Canyon to proceed on to Maple Canyon, Utah where we heard there were dozens of cobblestone covered walls with excellent climbing.

            Unfortunately for us, our Crown Victoria had transmission problems so we were stuck in the middle of nowhere in a town called Price, Utah. The population of this place was like two thousand people, and there was nothing to do for the three days we were stuck there. We made the best of it by trying to pick up girls at night on the main street of the small town. We hesitantly got a hotel room while we were there because there were no parks for us to pitch a tent nearby. We were all a little short on cash, so the hotel set us back even more. The whole trip we ate the cheapest possible food we could, so that meant a lot of nights with a hot bowl of Ramen noodles. Our stomachs were put through hell daily, and I got down to a lean one hundred and thirty pounds at the midway point of the trip. I was weighing around one sixty at the beginning. After the car was fixed, we were short on time, so we went to American Fork, Utah instead of Maple Canyon because it was more on our way to Portland.

            American Fork Canyon is located just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. When we arrived at the climbing area, we met these locals who were putting up a new climb. They seemed to be cool guys, and they showed us around to a few walls where there was some really excellent climbing was. At the end of the day, the kids asked if we wanted a place to crash because they knew we were camping. We gladly accepted, and these kids took us back home to their parents’ house. This Mormon family showed us the best hospitality with dinner at night and breakfast in the morning for the two nights we stayed there. We were indebted to them for their kindness, but Jeff, Ian, and I had a competition to get to that started in a little more than a week. We had to depart from them, but we still keep in touch with the guys every once in a while.

            The road into Portland, Oregon along the Hood River is one of the most scenic drives I have ever seen. There is an abundance of black, slate-like rock everywhere with windsurfers out on the river challenging the mighty winds that rip through the Hood. Being from Florida, I know about water, and the waves created by the winds on the Hood are like the waves created by tropical storms in the Gulf of Mexico. It is just a beautiful place to be. Portland is a very liberal town, and we hit it just before the Fourth of July Celebration. The town was crazy with festivities near the waterfront, and there was more alcohol being drunk than fireworks being lit. It was one giant party for independence. During the next couple of days, we ended up skateboarding at Newberry Skate Park and the famous Burnside Skate Park underneath the historic Burnside Bridge. The day of the competition came upon us, and I was stuck in the crowd with the rest of the spectators. I was, however, happy to see all of my friends from all over the country who came together for the event. Both Ian and Jeff did not make it too far in the competition, and Jeff was knocked out first. We had fun though, and the next part of the trip was the event for which we had been waiting.

            We originally planned to climb at the acclaimed Smith Rock in Bend, Oregon, but we could not contain our excitement for Yosemite National Park and Bishop, California.

We left Portland and drove about eighteen hours south to Yosemite National Park in California. Now before I got here, I thought the other places were amazing and interesting. Yosemite is like Paul Bunyan’s climbing area. With the two largest rock faces in the United States, El Capitan and Half Dome, it is easily the most monstrous climbing area I have ever seen. The rock is very old granite that can be any range of white, grey, and black colors. The waterfalls there are enormous, but the Sequoia trees are by far the biggest trees I will ever see, unless I make it to Redwood National Forest someday. We never trained for a multi-day big wall climb, so we did not have the equipment necessary to climb any one of the routes up El Capitan or Half Dome. It takes a tremendous amount of equipment to climb those walls because you have to haul everything from your fecal matter to your port-a-ledge with you. A port-a-ledge is a cot that hangs from the rock wall so you can sleep on it while you are on one of these multi-day beasts. We climbed some boulders in Yosemite because they were also world famous climbs first done in the late 1970’s including the ultra-classic line Midnight Lightning.             We met a park ranger there named Lisa Lopez who is the girlfriend of arguably the best climber who ever lived, Chris Sharma. She was very down to earth and even pointed us to some of her personal favorite climbs. Yosemite was a blast, but it was a little too touristy for us so we moved on down the road to Bishop, California.

            The small country town of Bishop was just south of a skiing town called Mammoth. Bishop is the birthplace of the climbing guru, Chris Sharma. It had the hardest boulder problems in the world on this collection of desert patina sandstone. Within five minutes of the city there are about six different climbing areas. The climbs at the Buttermilk and Peabody Boulders were the most famous, and we had seen some of them in videos. We tore ourselves apart on this super sharp desert rock for about two weeks until we ran out of money. We ended up eating at the A.M. P.M. Gas Station every day because you could get a burger for fifty nine cents.  I met a beautiful blonde girl who loved to climb, and she hung out with us about every day. This other guy who we called Texas Tony also became our friend out there, and he took us out to a couple local parties at night. He showed us some great climbs during the day. The climbing there is unique because most of the boulders start out overhanging or inverted, then you must pull a lip of some sort, followed by a finish on a slightly less than vertical face. It was a lot of fun. Our next and final stop was one of relaxation.

            Jeff’s brother, Mark, lives in San Diego, and we headed there for some rest. On the way there we lost our U-Haul car top off the roof of our car. Unfortunately, it contained most of our personal belongings. We never found it, and we were all limited to one outfit of clothing for the remainder of the trip. We spent a couple of days in San Diego with no work at all. We had climbed outdoors for almost two months, and it was nice to have some recovery. Our muscles stopped aching, and our fingers stopped hurting. We spent a lot of time playing cards and lying on the beach, while we reminisced about all of the people we met and the climbs we did. We went into Mexico one day to see Tijuana, Rosarito, and Ensenada. We ate at the most unclean restaurant I have ever seen, but with the same twist of fate, it was the best Mexican food ever. This guy took some slow roasted pork and cut it up on a tree stump with a rusted machete and flies were all around him the whole time, even when he rolled up the burrito. Tijuana smelled so bad that we could not bear it to stay there, but Rosarito and Ensenada are nicer. The beaches were terribly polluted, and it made me very sad to see that one had to walk on the beach with shoes so you would not be cut by a piece of glass or a hypodermic needle. The local Mexicans were doing anything they could to get some American dollars out of us by approaching us on every block trying to sell some homemade jewelry or Mexican memorabilia. Anyway, back in San Diego, we rested up for the long forty-four and a half hour road trip ahead of us back to Gainesville, Florida.

            On the ride home, Jeff, Ian, and I, realized that the day to day lifestyles we were living and the drives that compelled us to finish school, get a good job, and be successful put too much emphasis on money. The trip reminded us of how important it is to stop for a second and to appreciate God’s greatest gifts of love, life, nature, family, and friendship. In our rapid paced industrial society, we often overlook the most important things in life. Our lives are like a wall built one brick at a time, and each brick is a different experience, situation, or emotion. If we finish the wall by forgetting the most important bricks at the bottom that got us where we are today, the wall is not strong. If we cherish every moment and opportunity in life, then the walls that we build are meaningful to us and strong. We remind ourselves of our trip often because it helps us remember that we cannot work our whole lives toward a goal without enjoying the process that got us there. Everyone knows that the adventure of a story is always more exciting and interesting than the ending, and that is why our trip is of great significance to me.

Marlowe and Ralegh: Contrasting views of pleasure

The two poems, Cristopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” and Sir Walter Ralegh’s “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”, have contrasting views of pleasure. The shepherd asks his love to “Come live with me and be my love, / And we will all the pleasures prove” (Marlowe lines 1 to 2). Marlowe uses nature images in the last two lines of the first stanza to say that the shepherd wants to see what pleasures nature “yields” (lines 3 to 4). He wants his love to experience all that nature has to offer or more importantly, all that he has to offer. The shepherd describes the time period as being in “May” (Marlowe line 22). The shepherd is saying that the season of spring will be gone soon, so let us indulge in it. There is an urgent tone used in this poem. He wants the two of them to seize the day.

The nymph is not easily taken in by this glorified version of life that the shepherd offers her. She replies to him that:

          If all the world and love were young,

          And truth in every shepherd’s tongue,

          These pretty pleasures might me move

          To live with thee and be thy love. (Ralegh lines 1 to 4)

The nymph starts her argument by talking about the influence time has on people and their feelings. She knows that everything might be great right now, but things change as time goes on. People grow older and uglier, and they also can fall out of love with one another. She also believes that the shepherd could be lying to her about all the pleasures he promises her.  

The shepherd tells his love that “we will sit upon the rocks, /Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks” (Marlowe lines 5 to 6). However, the nymph knows that they cannot do this forever because “Time drives the flocks from the fields to fold” (Ralegh line 5). Snow will cover the field, and the flock will have to go into a pen. She further describes time’s affect on the “shallow rivers” that the shepherd speaks of by saying that the “rivers” will eventually “rage and [the] rocks [will] grow cold” (Marlowe line 7, Ralegh line 6). The setting that the shepherd is describing will be turned upside down. She is talking about the winter and the change in the season. She is trying to show the shepherd that everything changes. The “Melodious birds” that the shepherd speaks of will also go away when the winter comes (Marlowe line 8, Ralegh line 7).

The shepherd offers his love “beds of roses/ And […] posies,” but the nymph knows that “The flowers do fade, and wanton fields/ to wayward winter reckoning yields” (Marlowe lines 9 to 10, Ralegh lines 9 to 10). Again she throws this problem of time into his plan. At the end of that same stanza she says that his ideas sound good, but they will not last through time. She has a skeptical attitude towards everything he says.

The nymph describes all of the things the shepherd has promised her by saying that they will “Soon break, soon wither, and soon forgotten” (Ralegh line 15). As time goes on the shepherd will grow tired of the nymph and forget about how much he loves her. The fancy clothing that the shepherd offers his love has little affect on the nymph (Marlowe lines 13 to 18). She says that “All these in me no means can move/ To come to thee and be thy love” because she is not impressed by material or superficial goods (Ralegh lines 19 to 20). Everything that the shepherd is offering the nymph might seem good, however they are “In folly ripe, [and] in reason rotten” (Ralegh line 16). The nymph knows that to go with the shepherd because of superficial reasons would be making a big mistake.

If the world is unchanging, the pleasures that the shepherd speaks of would not lose there value. The nymph describes this by saying, “But could youth last and love still breed, / Had joys no date nor age no need, / Then these delights my mind might move” (Ralegh lines 22 to 24). She is trying to show the shepherd that her beauty and her ability to procreate will not last forever, therefore love has different needs at different times. The shepherd seems to be naive by believing that the two of them will always wake up to a “May morning” (Marlowe line 22).

The difference in gender in the poems is not the main reason for the difference in the two positions. The gender of the shepherd’s poem makes somewhat of a difference in the cultural context because women were not supposed to initiate any intimate offer with a man. The positions taken on both sides of the argument are not gender based at all. The issues that the poems deal with are carpe diem verses time’s inevitable changing process. Marlowe’s poem takes the stance that there is no time to waste, but Ralegh’s response is that time is all we have. Ralegh takes the view that anyone would take in response to Marlowe’s poem, and it is not restricted to a female role. The messages sent by both of the poems are more about contrasting viewpoints than love affairs. The messages are universal to anyone and are not limited to a strict male-female interpretation. The literal meanings of this courting process may cloud the messages of seizing the day like in Marlowe’s poem and of time’s inevitable affects like in Ralegh’s poem. Ralegh does not produce a believable female speaker because he did not limit any of his response to being a strictly female characteristic. He simply took the contradicting view. He uses a didactic method of taking everything that Marlowe uses to try to win his love and switching it around to show the insignificance of it in the broader picture. The items that Marlowe and Ralegh talk about are slightly gender related, but they are not necessary to the theme of both of the poems. Although men did wear gowns, skirts, fancy belts and slippers at the time of these poems, we usually associate these things with women (Marlowe lines 11 to 17). Men, at the time, wore clothing similar to what the shepherd was offering his love, so even these things are not limited to gender. The difference in the positions taken by Marlowe and Ralegh are not gender based. One is simply a logical argument against the other.

Shakespeare on Controlling Lust

In Sonnet 129, by William Shakespeare, the concluding couplet shows the reader that lust is a downfall inherent in people’s lives that they cannot avoid. Shakespeare tells the reader “All this the world well know; yet none knows well” (line 13). He connects lust to being instilled in people by God as a curse, and he says people should “shun the heaven that leads men to this hell” (line 14). This “heaven” can also be thought of as the act of lust.

The poem begins by describing lust as “Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame/ Is lust in action; […]” (lines 1 to 2). The footnote describes that “the word order here is inverted and slightly obscures the meaning. Lust, when put into action, expends ‘spirit’ […] in a ‘waste’ […] of shame” (Norton 1040). Shakespeare is writing about the effort, pain, and seamen exerted in the immoral act of lust. The “waste of shame” can also be taken literally to mean the genitals of someone who lusts. The genitals are corrupted because they are not being used for God’s purpose of procreation. Lust is a misuse of a man’s seamen because it is not being used to procreate. Lust is not an act of love: it is just about sex. In the next part of the stanza, Shakespeare uses very descriptive adjectives to show that lust is “full of blame” (line 3). He calls lust “perjured, murd’rous, bloody […]/ Savage, extreme, rude, cruel” (lines 3 to 4). Lust has these qualities “till action” and “in action” (line 2). He concludes the stanza by warning the reader “not to trust” lust because it will not lead to good (line 4).

Shakespeare opens the next stanza, by explaining that lust is “Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight” (line 5). This line deals with the anticipation that lust makes one have for achieving lust’s goal of sex, but then after sex, a person hates themselves and the one they have lusted for because of the morality involved. After the act, people see the impurity of the whole situation. Shakespeare describes lust taking people “Past reason” to conquer the one they have “hunted” (line 6). Then after this illogical hunt is over, “Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait” (line 7). Shakespeare uses the imagery of a hooked fish to describe a person after lust has occurred. The person knows they have made a mistake, but they also know they cannot correct it just like a fish. This also is given another meaning when the couplet comes along. The fish can be thought of as people who are given this hook by God. A fish has an instinct to pursue the food, and people have an instinct to lust. Both fish and people cannot prevent their problems because it is part of God’s design.

The person who has succumbed to lust or “the taker” is now “mad” because he or she realizes his or her faults (line 8). The word “mad” also is used to describe the insanity involved with lust (line 8). Lust is “Mad in pursuit, and in possession so” (line 9). Lust occupies one’s mind and is all they can think about when one is lusting. People are “Mad” when they are trying to lustfully pursue someone because they do not think or behave logically.

Shakespeare concludes that “Had, having, and in quest to have, [people are] extreme” (line 10). People do not behave rationally, but they are not capable of rational behavior under the power of lust. Shakespeare concludes that the act of sex for the purpose of lust is “A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe” (line 11). When people have this kind of sex it is great but afterwards, it is terrible. “Before” the sex takes place people think it will be a “joy”, but “behind” or after the sex people want to separate themselves from the incident like it never happened (line 12). People would like to block out the memory like it was all a bad “dream” (line 12).

The couplet at the end of the poem gives the reader a meaning to Shakespeare’s deep description of lust in the rest of the poem. He does not relate lust to a broader scale until the ending couplet. Before the couplet, Shakespeare does not let readers know what this description of lust has to do with them. He knows that everyone knows that lust is filled with problems, but Shakespeare points out that people cannot avoid it when he says, “none knows well” (line 13). He then gives the reader instruction “To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell” (line 14). Shakespeare shows the reader that the lust was given to people by God, but they must attempt to keep it from controlling or ruining their lives

The Invisible Man, a brief overview of Ralph Ellison's masterpiece

Ellison's writing could be called autobiographical. His writings are about his life experiences. His first novel The Invisible Man was thought to be about him because there were so many similarities between the main character and himself.

The central theme of Ralph Ellison's writing is the search for identity, a search that he sees as central to American literature and the American experience.

He has said that "the nature of our society is such that we are prevented from knowing who we are," and in Invisible Man this struggle toward self-definition is applied to individuals, groups, and the society as a whole. The particular genius of Invisible Man is Ellison's ability to interweave these individual, communal, and national quests into a single, complex vision.

In this sense, the book is part of the literary tradition of initiation tales, stories of young men or women who confront the larger world beyond the security of home and attempt to define themselves in these new terms.

The novel surveys the history of African-American experience and alludes directly or indirectly to historical figures who serve as contradictory models for Ellison's protagonist. Some of the novel's effect is surely lost for readers who do not recognize the parallels drawn between Booker T. Washington and the Founder, between Marcus Garvey and Ras the Destroyer, or between Frederick Douglass and the narrator's grandfather

Ellison does not restrict himself to the concerns of African-Americans because he believes that African-American culture is an inextricable part of American culture. Thus, Invisible Man shows how the struggles of the narrator as an individual and as a representative of an ethnic minority are paralleled by the struggle of the nation to define and redefine itself.