Writing Feedback / Essay on Traditional meal in Christmas Day [6]

As a part of Christian Orthodox church, my family celebrates Christmas Day on January 7th because our church uses different calendar. Christmas Day is time when tradition and the other customs must be prepared and completed. One of the traditions is Christmas Day meal.

This automatically means that my mother will have a lot of work to do because she is the only one in house who knows to cook like professional cookers. Since the male part of the family (father, brother, and I) have to go in the morning into the forest to pick up a young oak tree, called "badnjak", mother is left to do cooking part by herself or maybe with assist of little sister.

Traditional meal for Christmas Day is "sarma". Preparing this meal is not easy and short time job. For that reason, mother is waking up early in the morning so she can set up all materials for the sarma. To prepare sarma, she has to make good mix of vegetables (rise, onion, etc) with minced meat (pork or beef) including salt, pepper and different local herbs. After she finishes that part, we are coming back from forest with badnjak. Badnjak is taken into the house and laid on the fire to burn. The burning of the badnjak is done is same time with prayers to God so that the coming year may bring much love, and food. Later than mother begins to roll mixed food into large pickled cabbage leaves. When she completed that, she puts sarma in the large clay pots so she can cook it. The sarma is then boiled for several hours, and the best cooking method is slow boiling which sometimes takes from six to ten hours. During that period all family members are helping mother to organize table and other stuff into the house.

The other traditional customs are usually learned from grandparents. For example, my mother learned from granny how to prepare sarma and a lot of different types of cooked food and now she is teaching sister how to prepare same things.

While sarma is boiling, mother takes a couple pieces of gammon (smoked ham) which suppose to give nice smell to the meal. Sometimes she also puts pieces of bacon or some another smoked meat.

Finally, when sarma is cooked enough, every member of the family take a sit around big table and then mother puts large pot filled out with sarma in the middle of table so evry member can reach it. If everything is ready, one of the children lights up candle and says the Lord's Prayer. Next step is my favorite because it is time for eating. The oldest person at the table takes food first and after that person all others can begin with eating. I love sarma a lot but I don't know how to prepare it, and I don't think I'll ever know it. I don't know what would I do if one day I marry foreign girl which doesn't know what sarma is.

Writing Feedback / Locke and Rousseau [3]

please check my grammar and other errors

thanks

John Locke (August 29th 1632 - October 28th 1704) was born in small town in England. He was a philosopher who had a lot of influences on the improvement of political philosophy. His philosophy was based on idea that theory of mind is coming from experiences. He stated that human spirit doesn't have any innate ideas or principles. He also assumed that the mind was a "blank slate" or "tabula rasa". This statement is totally opposite to Christian philosophy. He represented that common-sense should determinate every human activity. He said that "No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience". Locke is best known as a champion of freedom. In his work "A Letter Concerning Toleration" he represents the principle of religious freedom. This letter was followed by the "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" who is determined by the concert of freedom, and spiritual freedom or freedom of thought. He also deals with the problems in political freedom and the legitimacy of politics in his work called "Two Treatises of Government".

At the beginning of his "First Treaties of Government", Locke stands up against the absolute power and slavery. He says that the core of Filmer's teachings that each government is absolute monarchy, and that the basis of which it comes is that no one man is born free (Filmer was political theorist who supported the divine right of kings to rule). However, Locke stated that all men are born free. Later on, Filmer tried to use Bible to support his statements, but Locke used similar resources and comes to opposite conclusions. He interprets certain parts of the Bible in order to prove that God had no intention to bring one person under another. Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.

In "Second Treaties of Government" Locke leaves this way of analysis. He starts with the question of the nature of political power and the purpose of civil government. According to Locke, political power represents laws with the death penalty, in order to protect the property and the use of violence in the execution of such laws, and all for the common good.

According to Locke's definition of the function of government; the greatest guarantee of liberty is separation of powers on law power, executive power, and federation. The first passes laws while the second provides their function through the administration and the court. The third applies the regulations international laws. A freedom may be threatened if all those functions are under control of one person, and for that reason it is important to separate officers and creators of laws. So laws should be made in the parliament, while executive power is entrusted to the ruler. Also, all political power must be associated with morality. His idea of the limitations of government is very important because that idea protects rights for liberty, property, life, and personality. His quote shows that very clearly: "Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself". If the government does not respect the natural rights of the people, they have the right to rebel against government. However, people cannot rebel if governor respects the natural rights (especially freedom and property).

Opposite to Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (June 28th 1712 - July 2nd 1778) is a supporter of democratic ideas. In his works he was looking for a political solution for social inequality. His works express a protest against feudalism and inequality. In main part of "Social Contract", Rousseau starts from natural state where all people were equally free. There was just physical inequality which comes from differences in growth, health, and age. There was not private ownership and because of it there isn't injustice.

Rousseau rejects Locke's concept of the natural state. A natural state is the state of isolation for him. He said: "Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death". In this state man is "good", but man is happier when he is connected with other people; with society humans procedures receive moral evaluation; everybody is a judge and everybody is "the punisher" for caused insult or injustice. So the fear of revenge leads to creation of the laws.

Settling in one place led to the mutual rapprochement of people, but also it led to the private ownership, slavery, and poverty. That is how first inequality and the formation of civil society begin. That resulted in to the competitive struggle and the tendency for accumulation of wealth. So civil society is "fruit of unhappy evolution" in Rousseaus eyes. The state was created as a suggestion of rich to poor people. It supposes to keep people's rights and freedom because people didn't give up of their rights when they entered the country. Every single man brought his personality and power under the control of the general will.

The other inequality appeared with foundation of the state -political. A difference between a ruling and a minor class is now added on the difference between poor and rich. According to Rousseau, this led to the highest level of inequality where all people are in the same way illegal because they have dictatorship of one person who is using force to keep power. He didn't find best solution for this problem, but he said that people must have at least the right for a referendum because they have to accept already declared regulations.

He recognized tree different types of government: democracy, monarchy, and aristocracy. Democratic government is the ideal according to Rousseau. All people are involved in to the administrative functions. Monarchy is acceptable only if it is accepted by the people, and if it is called Republican Monarchy. Aristocracy includes control of a small number of people. It also has to be democratic type of government because one cannot rule by himself. Power belongs to people.

He was dreaming of a small democratic state in which everyone had only a little bit of private property in order to satisfy their own needs. He didn't approve capitalistic progress because it increased social disagreements. In his quote we can see it clearly: "You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one."

In all those paragraphs above we can see that Locke holds that we have natural rights, rights that are in us as human beings independently of our being members of a political community. On the other hand, Rousseau denies it, maintaining that all rights come from the state. Locke holds that government authority is legal only within certain limits; it is bounded by our natural rights, which we create for governments to preserve. Since Rousseau recognizes no such rights, he recognizes no such limits. For him, government may use authority over anything to promote the common good. That doesn't mean we have no rights; we have the rights the government allots to us. Democratic government works for us because we have some type of control over a government and that is one of the main reasons why I believe that Rousseau's ideas are better, moderate, and superior than Locke's.

Letters / letter of concern (human cells) - investigate the facts [2]

i need help with the letter of concern! it's due tomorrow :(
she said to investigate and collect FACTS. if i for example wont to write how using human cells is bad thing to do, where i can find FACTS that support my letter.

i also need instructions how to start and finish letter!?!?!

thanks

Writing Feedback / A mistake i learned from - narrative essay [2]

Hi everybody,
I wrote this essay and I need your help with grammar and other stuff which can go wrong in essay. English is my second language so every feedback will be helpful.

Thanks a lot

Bad Decision

It was the afternoon on the great sunny Friday; my favorite day of the week. I received a long awaited phone call from the John Brown University. A pleasant man let me know that there was an open spot in the basketball team and if I want I can get a full scholarship. Only bad side was that I have to come as soon as I could to be prepared for the basketball season.

I felt very, very satisfying because I knew that the hard work, on a court, during past couple years, finally paid off. A pleasant man from the phone call was actually a head coach of the basketball team. He told me a lot of good thing about the school and the basketball program. He also gave me a week to think about his offer. So I took a sit and together with my parents decided that this offer will be good for me as a basketball player and, more important, as a man because school is Christian.

A flight day came faster than any one of us thought. Soon, I was at the airport with my bags, more than ready to show how good athlete and student I'm. After a long flight and all cities I went through, I finally end up in Tulsa where assist coach suppose to pick me up. I took my bags and I start moving toward the exit. I was so confused because there were a lot of people over there and I just couldn't see coach. Eventually he saw me, and my US experience started.

A school and a town were not as big as I was expecting but I still liked it. A time passed really fast and school started as well. Practicing and school together wasn't fun at all. Anyways, I was extremely motivated, so it wasn't problem to me. Everything was going perfect until I didn't get injured. I twisted my ankle, and for a first time a felt a little bit of "hard times". I didn't even think I'll injury again in just couple month later. Surgery on my knee wasn't good idea at all, but I had to do it. Later on, I was on crunches and in the huge pain inside of my right knee.

In that point of time I was on my own. My family was far away in Serbia and all I was able to do is to expect support from my teammates, friends, and coaches. In the first couple days almost every person I knew came to visit me and see how I'm doing except one, the coach. I felt postponed because he was the one who should come and say words like "don't worry" and "we will prepare you to play next season". Instead of those words eventually, after a month or so, I got "we will not renew your scholarship". For person who needed support, those words were shocked. In same second in my head blasted picture of a man who is going home as a loose article.

However, I have learned that even if God is learning us thought his words to care about the other people, we still have to care, maybe twice as much, about ourselves. For example, when I was feeling pain in my knees during a practice I shouldn't "take one for a team". I should just stop practicing and in that way take care of myself, and keep myself out from injury. For future times I already know that it's better to be "weak" in coaches' eyes than to get a surgery on your knee.

Essays / otto von bismarck and adolf hitler - essay on nationalism [3]

i have to describe and evaluate those persons ideas and have to approach that from a Christian perspective

first - i dont know how to evaluate their ideas

second - how am i doing that approach part? Is there any rules about it?

Writing Feedback / Essay about war and religoion during 1990s in Europe-Balkan [4]

i wrote this essay and i need help because im bad writter and i dont speak english so well

I consider myself an Orthodox Christian, because I believe in God, but there are times when it is difficult to follow his rules, especially when war is going on toward you. In Serbia, people who are living by me are mostly Orthodox Christian. Now I'm living in the United States, Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and all people at John Brown University are Christian, but not just Orthodox. There are some differences between Christian people here and Christian people in part of Europe where I'm from. In my entire life living with all kinds of people, I have seen that differences in religion can cause problems in some parts of world. For example, people can be friendly and compassionate with others, but Christians are more often helpful and friendly. Most of the time, if somebody is non-Christian they don't help them, or maybe they don't relate with them. However, in my experiences I learned that sometimes it doesn't matter if you believe in same God. I have seen different types of Christians fighting one against the other even if they were saying that they are fighting for their beliefs, to be precise, their religion.

Everyday watching TV, I saw a lot of kids walking on the streets, hungry and tired of wars around them. For me it was natural to see those kids and other people in that situation, but I never thought that they were trying to survive everyday endangering their lives. I lived for nineteen years of my life in Serbia without realizing how serious that situation was. One day, ten guys from neighborhood were called to survey in army. After that happened I started feeling fear because I knew that those guys are going to risk their lives for all Serbians, and also those guys may don't come back. In that point of time I started questioning myself: Why is this happening to us? What is a reason of war? The answer to these questions can be mix of bad people in the government, and also differences in religion and beliefs. Most of the politician's used religion to encourage solders and nations just because they needed them to reach their goals. The big problem happened when JNA (Yugoslav People's Army) began falling apart; reason for that was exactly that same propaganda and differences in religions. So because of it, solders began with killing between them self. From the international reputation as a powerful, well-equipped, and well trained force, JNA went to weak and unstable unit. However, news reporters informed that JNA is doing well, and that our country is closer and closer to wanted peace, which of course wasn't true.

After army lost it strength, country felt apart and from one country, Yugoslavia, we have countries like Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. When country felt apart, one more thing happened as well, and that is formation of two war sides or two enemies. On the one side we had Catholic countries: Croatia, and Slovenia. On the other side we had Orthodox counties: Serbia, and Montenegro. In middle of two fires was Bosnia and Herzegovina. B&H was country with most differences in religion. Before a war it was made of Serbs (around 50%), Bosniaks (around 40%, Muslim population), and Croats (around 10%). All those differences resulted conflict between ethnic groups, and that it went straight in war at this area, and Bosnia and Herzegovina was war zone, place of destruction. People were terrified because enemy was all around. Literally enemy lived in houses in same neighborhood. And then extreme, foolish, unmoral, horrible war began. The situation began so bad that armies would come and kill all citizens of towns just for revenge. The example of this was destroying of whole towns in couple hours at the heart of the battle ground. First Croats and Muslims deleted two small towns and one bigger town called Vlasenica which had over 12 thousand of Serbian people. After massive killing happened, the other side, Serbian side, decided to do same to one of Muslim's towns called Srebrnica. Here we can see how is difficult to follow His rules. A solder put in use old quotation "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" in which a person who has taken the eye of another in a fight is instructed to give his own eye in compensation. But in this situation eye was replaced for lives, thousands of lives. A Greek solder who was a part of the Orthodox army gave an interview to Greek national TV station.

Reporter: "What did you do when bombarding stopped? "
Greek Solder: "We just came in and clean up a place from live enemy."
Reporter: "What are you fighting for?"
Greek Solder: "I'm fighting for big Greece, and Europe free from Muslims and other Orthodox Christian enemies."
Soon after this interview was published, young men were very excited and they wanted to go in Bosnia and join their forces in "glory" fight. However, Greek leaders didn't send their army; rather than that they sent weapons and food to their people who were already there because they didn't want to get in conflict with U.S. and N.A.T.O. who tried to "solve" problems on their way.

Slowly war became a not just fight for land or control; it became fight for ideology, beliefs, and religion. Throughout history we get used to see Catholic people doing wrong things or fighting for badly values. Here we have same situation where Croat Catholics were fighting united with Muslims. One day, after all secrets get known we will recognize did they make mistake or both sides made one huge mistake. I'm still looking for reasons, and I'm asking myself everyday "Why did this happen? And what was wrong with living together in unity and harmony during bright days of big Yugoslavia?" At this point, the situations are still in the same conditions, the problem is still alive and it should be solved, it does not matter who takes the decisions, but only important thing is that we can live together! We don't have to be Christians to have moral and humanism in our self. By the way, what is moral than a respect for all creations of the world.

EF_Kevin [Contributor] 88 Edit Delete Move 75.69.136.118
Apr 20, 2009 #4