Maycomb Tribune - Tom Robinson's failed escape attempt.

The Maycomb Tribune

Negro convicted of rape tries to escape, Shot dead.

Maycomb, Alabama. Tom Robinson, convicted of Rape barely a week ago was shot dead while attempting to escape from the Enfield Prison Farm yesterday. Robinson had rushed towards the perimeter fence around the Exercise field, and had almost made it past the fence. Ignoring warning shots, he was shot as he reached the top of the fence.

A prison officer, who declined to be named, said, "He was running so fast, if he had two whole hands, the nigger would have made it. It was a close one. "

Robinson had been convicted of raping a Mayella Ewell, 19, in a much observed trial. Despite the best efforts of Mr Atticus Finch, the lawyer appointed by the state, Robinson had been convicted of his crime and sent to Enfield Prison Farm pending the outcome of his appeal. Before the appeal could be heard, Robinson tried to escape.

When interviewed, Mr Finch stated, "I didn't expect this to happen... I told Tom that we had a good chance of overturning the judgement..."

A Mr Ewell, the father of the rape victim, was not surprised on hearing the news. Mr Ewell stated, "These niggers (sic) have it coming to them. Living around here, devaluing my property, they'll all get what's coming to them. The Electric Chair is too Good for them."

The Challenges of Life bring out the best in young people. What are Your views?

I believe that the challenges of life helps to develop young adults to become more resilient, as well as develop other traits.Firstly, life poses many challenges to young adults who are have just headed into the world to begin a independent life. However, these challenges allow them to become more adaptable, etc.

Challenges can be broadly defined as a demanding situation which prompts a certain reaction. Thus, the challenges of life might refer to the difficulties one might encounter when going through the process of life. Therefore, such challenges may include finding a job, and adapting to different lifestyles, etc.

These challenges bring out the best in young adults in their response to the challenge. For example, a challenge might be difficulty in finding a job- if the individual is repeatedly turned down. In such a case, they would probably respond by working harder or trying to gain new skills to make themselves a better candidate for the job. This example encompasses the values of perseverance and hard work. These values will be valuable to them in the later stages of their life. Thus, these challenges do bring out the best in young adults.

Some people might say that young people might give up in the face of adversity. An example might be students who drop out of Secondary School or University. However, some of these dropouts actually learn more from life than from their school, and later become successful people. An example of a university dropout is Steve Jobs, who dropped out of Reed Collage. He later went on to establish Apple, an extremely successful computer company. Another such example would be Bill Gates, who after dropping out of university, set up Microsoft, a software company, which produced the widest used Operating System.

Therefore, the challenges of life does bring out the best in young people.

A Day in the life of a WWII housewife

We're fighting the war on the home front. They say that every day. In London, the streets now are littered with debris and corpses, that no one has cleared up yet. Both my children, have been relocated to the country, to escape the Luftwafte's cluster bombing, daily, nightly. The air-raid sirens have become our daily song of despair. Rations too are become stretched even tighter, the queues at the rationing centre stretching into the hungry hundreds hoping for their food. Everything is rationed. Food, meat, clothes. The war stretches ever longer, as the government tries to assure us that everything will go well.

When will the tide finally turn?

Descriptive Essay based on below picture

The soldier ducked as he leaped over the debris, an hour before, a peaceful village, another victim of cluster bombing. Smoke and gunpowder hung heavily in the air, gunfire breaking into their thoughts, the bitter acrid taste of burning villages around them, This was a destroyed village. They leaped over the shrapnel and crushed houses on the ground. A gate swung loosely on its crushed hinges, a slow rhythmic back and forth. Back and forth.

Main Themes of To Kill a Mockingbird

The main themes of To kill a Mockingbird would probably be the themes: Discrimination and Growing up, among other themes.

Discrimination is the most obvious theme of all - the Discrimination is seen between the Negroes and the White people, the Ewells and the other residents of Maycomb, as well as the Radleys and the Maycomb residents.

The discrimination against the Negroes can be seen with they are forced to sit in a separate court balcony, forced to live in a separate part of town, and use different facilities, etc.

The Ewells can be seen to be separated from the town - "She [Mayella Ewell] was as sad, I thought, as what Jem called a mixed child: white people wouldn't have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs; Negroes wouldn't have anything to do with her because she was white. (Ref Pg 198)" as well as "Maycomb gave them [The Ewells] Christmas baskets, welfare money, and the back of its hand."

Next, the Radleys are portrayed as being antisocial and thus, the town is somewhat prejudiced against them for being different from everyone else, although more towards Arthur (Boo) Radley. "The Radleys, welcome anywhere in town, kept to themselves, a predilection unforgivable in Maycomb."

Furthermore, Arthur Radley was believed to be a monster. This was further perpetrated by Miss Stephanie Crawford, who spread rumours that Boo Radley "looked at her" while she was sleeping. This shows that any difference which made a person stand out might also cause the town to be prejudiced against them. Furthermore, this prejudice lasted for a long time, as the town was unwilling to let go of their bigoted beliefs.

Quote: "Any stealthy crime committed in Maycomb were his [Arthur Radley] work. Once the town was terrorized by a series of morbid nocturnal events: people's chickens and household pets were found mutilated; although the culprit was Crazy Addie, who eventually drowned himself in Barker's Eddy, people still looked at the Radley Place, unwilling to discard their initial suspicions." (Page 15.)

The second theme, The growth of Scout and Jem, can be seen throughout the story as Jem becomes disillusioned with the town after the trial and subsequent conviction of Tom Robinson. Although Scout does mature nearing the end of the book, she still maintains a slightly childish perspective on life. Furthermore, at the end of the book, Scout realizes how to look at life from some one else's point of view as she stands on the Radley Porch and comments on Boo Radley's life and perspective.

Newspapers.

Newspapers - We encounter them practically everyday either at home or at school. But how much thought do we devote to the humble newspaper?

The purpose of Newspapers is mainly to inform people. Of course, there are two major types of newspapers, each with their distinctive features. These two newspapers are the broadsheets and tabloids. Broadsheets have a large layout and inverted pyramid layout for major stories which places the most important information at the top of the page. Broadsheets mainly report on breaking news and international events. The tone is usually very formal and quite analytical. In contrast, tabloids focus more on visual pictures as well as very sensationalized stories, which mainly are human interest stories.

Furthermore, each section in the newspaper has a specific function to cater to a specific type of reader.

Lastly, there are also newspapers which fall into a "unclassified" catorgory, such as Singapore's Today, published by Mediacorp, which is given out for free, and contains snippets of news but with a tabloid layout. Today is also heavily sponsored by advertisers.

A Song - Strange Fruit

Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

This Song is composed by Billie Holiday, a black singer who was popular with both White people and Black people.

The song makes obvious references to Lynching - The fruit appears only in the South (Which was against the freedom of Negroes), it also has a few lines which refer to the Lynched Person - "The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth as well as Then the sudden smell of burning flesh"

The song is more poignant, as it only implies the Lynching, but it does not explicitly state it is a lynching. This increases the effectiveness of the Song as the listener automatically makes their own inference about the lyrics, so that the message is stronger. However, I also find the lyrics very poignant as it highlights the irony of "gallant south" since the message is conflicting - Gallant yet they bully and oppress others.