How to end homelessness in America?

I realize that this is probably a very complex question and that many people and organizations have spent years on trying to come up with solutions for this problem. I don't know exact statistics of the number of homeless people in the United States but judging from the visits that I have made to large cities and smaller cities, the homelessness level in large cities is a lot higher and they seem to have many homeless people. If it was up to me to come up with a plan to get people off the streets and back on their feet and I had unlimited funds,  I would first start out by getting statistics on the number of people living on the street. Then I would build shelters, and build enough so that everyone could be taken in. People would receive all services for free at the shelter, such as food, showers and sleeping arrangements. They would also get free employment agency services so that they could eventually save up enough to move out of the shelter and stand on their own two feet. And in an attempt to prevent homelessness, I would set up a program to which a person could go to for help if they felt like they were on the verge of becoming homeless. The program would provide some financial help as well as a plan to get out of the hole. That way the cycle of homelessness doesn't just keep going and I wouldn't have to keep building more and more shelters. 

What is truth?

One person's truth in a lot of cases is not another person's truth, that is why it is so difficult to define the "real" truth. But after thinking about it for a little, I came up with the conclusion that truth can be classified. First there is the concrete truth, scientific truth, that pretty much everyone agrees on. For example, that 2+2=4 or that using the quadratic formula on an equation will tell us what x equals to. There are many truths from that category that we still don't know, and often times that type of truth changes changes with time as scientists make more discoveries, but for the time being, everyone agrees on it. The second type of truth is the type that a large group of people believes in. Examples of that are certain religions and cultural beliefs. For example, catholics believe that all the stories told in the Bible are complete truth, but there are many others who don't. Another example would be cultural superstitions, in Japan a lot of people believe that if they cut there toe nails at night they will not get to be by their parents' side when they are dying. And finally the third type of truth is when a person is convinced something is the reality and the truth in a specific situation and another person believes something else is the truth in that situation. It's when each individual has a different view point because of the different things in their life that they have been exposed to, which have influenced the type of person they have become and their thinking process. I guess I would call that type of truth a personal truth, when you might be totally wrong according to many people but in your eyes you are seeing the truth and they just cant see reality.

Is this the end of books as we know them?

I personally really believe that the answer to that question would be no, it is definitely not the end to books as we know them. The video that we watched on that device that can store many books in itself was pretty cool and impressive. It's basically to reading material, what ipod is to music. The ipod did kind of lower the CD sales by ALOT (I don't even own s single CD but have close to a thousand songs on my iTunes) so if we look at previous records one might assume that the Kindle will do the same to books, but for some reason I just don't feel like that will happen. I would much rather read text from a regular book, to me there's just something about an actual paper book that isn't transferable to an electronic device. Books seem to have meaning when you pic them up, they have passed through various people's hands and others have shared what you're about to read. To me that makes the text more valuable. I may be totally wrong about this and people might be carrying Kindles around ten years from now like they do with ipods already, but for some reason I just have a feeling that books will stick around for a long time.

The U.S. and Neocolonialism

At first, not really knowing what neocolonialism meant I had to look it up, and found out that it’s “the economic and political policies by which a great power indirectly maintains or extends its influence over other areas or people”. So basically, in a language more familiar to me, it’s when a rich and powerful country (like the U.S. or England) sees something appealing, or something that could be of use and bring profit, in another, disadvantaged, way less powerful and wealthy country (like Jamaica or the countries in Central America). It’s not something that I have learned about a lot in school, which I think might be for a reason, since U.S. seems to like to neocolonize other countries. I think that U.S. getting involved in other counties can be good, but only if the intensions of that involvement are pure and will save lives and will overall make the life of the residents of the other country better off than what they were before U.S. invaded. And I think that the U.S. invading other countries is a totally bad and abusive idea when it does so to gain more wealth for the country at the expense of others, doesn’t respect the residents and how our actions will affect the quality of their living, and to use that other country as a puppet in order to gain more power for U.S. in the world. Sadly, the second scenario seems to be the more frequent one so at this point in time I would have to say that U.S. getting involved with other countries’ business shouldn’t happen and that I am against it.

Why learn academic English?

I think that the single most important reason to learn academic English is so that you come off professional, experienced and intelligent in a work environment. So that when you have something important to get across, weather it's to your boss or employee, it comes off effectively and your statement sounds powerful. You aren't going to get anywhere with anyone if you can't find the right words for the message you mean to deliver because then you will come off unsure both of your message, and yourself. If you are assertive with your language you will seem like a person who wants and will get things done, and that’s the kind of people there is a demand for out there in the real world. The reason I picked the work place as the most important reason is because none of us really use the formal way of speaking at home or with our friends, when we’re relaxed and not worried about keeping a job. But most of us will be at work about eight hours a day, five days a week, so we might as well learn academic English.