Bobby DeLaughter opens his closing statement with, “it is about an unarmed man…coming home to his family, his wife, three small children that were staying up,” to gain an instant emotional response from the jury (297-298). Immediately, he wanted to make the jury of The State of Mississippi v. Byron … Continue reading →

Jack Smith, former newspaper editor and reporter, tells prospective high school students what working in journalism was like for him.

When I left home, he told me to never come back. I guess I shouldn’t blame him. I was always out late, partying with friends, skipping school, ignoring most of the things he told me to do. I got a job at the Grille on Hadley Street over in Norton … Continue reading →

The modern era was a time of change by rejecting the traditional values of society. Henrick Ibsen’s A Doll’s House represents a change that is more common-day, now, during contemporary times. This was a time when the middle-class placed its foot forward and shaped the future for modern and postmodern … Continue reading →

Life begins. Spring, the birth of all things. I hear music. An old tattered piano. Off-key. But tunes of old, with added side melodies not typically heard anywhere else in the world. I step across the newly tiled floors in the refurbished kitchen of my old home. Louder. I stand … Continue reading →

Note: This fanfiction will not be finished. So, don’t get too interested and hope that I write more. Spoilers: Season 5, Buffy The Vampire SlayerCharacters: Dawn, Spike Chapter 1 “Ugghhh……” Dawn walks out of the room in disgust. Buffy’s arms cross and her chin tightens her face. By the looks … Continue reading →

Recently, I had a chance to read the most intriguing article posted in a forum. But let me start from the beginning to explain how I came upon this piece of work. For a while I’d been thinking about purchasing “Buffy The Vampire Slayer (movie 1992).” It was on my … Continue reading →

I grew up in the Deep South in a small town called Highland Home, Alabama. I’ve lived on dirt roads at times in my life. I know how to use the words “ain’t,” “y’all,” and “yonder” correctly, and I still use them today. In addition, I’m an English major. The … Continue reading →

There are people who push the boundaries of the norm. They belong to a group that wears their book bags with one shoulder strap. I prefer to call them single-strappers. However, most people blindly follow the conventions set before them by their peers by wearing their book bags across both … Continue reading →

Taylor Caldin and Jordan Hill sat in a booth at Sammy’s next to the front window, sucking the last of their shakes. It was 11:30, half an hour before closing, and Taylor’s mother, Jean, who worked there, was wiping the counter clean. Taylor was an only child. His father hadn’t … Continue reading →

Bay-Bay Frazier is 400 pounds or more. He still manages to get from the living room to the kitchen or to the bathroom or out to his truck, but only with a shortness of breath. This summer he was rushed to the hospital. He found out that his heart could … Continue reading →

Essay on the ethics of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Athens, Alabama. I just stopped to get some coffee and go to the bathroom. I check my watch before pulling back on I-65 North. It’s 2:03 in the morning. Jimmy wrote to Santa the other day and asked for more things than I can afford. At the top of his … Continue reading →

I take a look at my current DVD collection. It has now grown big enough to warrant a third DVD rack. In fact, it is so big that I have a continually updated list on my website to keep track of the number. I now have 193 films on DVD … Continue reading →

This is who my grandfather is and who he will always be for me. He inches slyly toward me, hiding something in his hand. I am sitting on the floor of the living room, leaning against a recliner. Bending slightly at the hips and knees, he lowers himself enough to … Continue reading →

Oh how sweet that year had been to me. I was climaxing toward the cloudy mountain in my love life. There were mounds of girls and a few more. I played the game with a passion. My standards were always kept high as I carelessly rummaged through the pack one … Continue reading →

“Speak up where I can hear you damnit.” Eugene slammed his tan tote bag on the floor. “You’re supposed to be in bed Eugene,” I try to be commanding, but gentle. “I got to go on my route.” His bushy brows squeezed over the hazel plastic frames of his glasses. … Continue reading →

Note: Written sometime in high school in Mrs. Betts class (likely 2001). The leaves ruffled beneath the morning bright sky. You could hear a whistle through the cool air. In the distance I heard a quite scream. I started walking toward the sound, which was continually growing louder. It now … Continue reading →

Note: Keep in mind that this is a story from my youth. Yes, it is supposed to lack any kind of earth logic. This is from the mind of a child. Read on, if you dare. It was a hot day in the summer there were picnics everywhere the swimming … Continue reading →

Prologue A somewhat tall, but not overly, man sat next to a hospital bed. His elbows were propped on his knees with his hands extended to his lowered temples. There was a glowing red tint to his forehead, yet most of his face bore a pasty white complexion. He peeked … Continue reading →

Today, one man asked for a day of silence in the blogosphere. It has been dubbed One Day Blog Silence. Steli Efti, a 24-year-old high school principal, created OneDayBlogSilence.com in response to the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16. The blogosphere’s response – uproar. The very idea of blogging is … Continue reading →

The first thing you will notice about Jonah is that he isn’t the quintessential prophet. He doesn’t follow God’s every command. He is quite the opposite. In the first chapter, God calls to him, saying, “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their … Continue reading →

“Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer,” a phrase repeated many times over on the television show “Battlestar Galactica,” is the human call for divine help in the polytheistic culture on the Galactica. There seems to be a problem with that pray however. The Cylons, a species of mechanic beings built … Continue reading →

Written: February 2007 It is late on a weekend night. Groups of college students are busily rushing into the limited number of taxis to get home. Streetlights in downtown Auburn are bouncing off the orange of Kevin McCarley’s taxi. His work shift is about to get exciting. A group of … Continue reading →

One can clearly see the distinction of the working class and the middle class in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, and many would note that as the novel’s theme. However, the more pressing issue in the novel is that of religious doubt, which the difference of northern and southern England … Continue reading →

Ray Kurzweil’s work in The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology has brought me a new and profound hope for the future of humankind. Through his detailed discussion of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics, I am now as much as a hopeful optimist as he about the future, and look … Continue reading →

Jerry Sibley does away with the classic bedtime tales and offers new adventures of a youngster named Harley Earle.

Andrew Jarecki and Christopher Nolan in directing Capturing the Friedmans and Memento, respectively, attempt to show us the difference between what the truth is and what we see as the truth. David is the character in Jarecki’s documentary that refuses to see the truth because his version is easier to … Continue reading →

Introduction Growing up in southern Alabama I was always the outdoor type because even in the 1980s and 1990s a young boy couldn’t do much other than run around outside barefooted and climb trees. I was the archetypal Southern boy. I took my first job in the fields at the … Continue reading →

In E.D. Hirsch’s essay, Literacy and Cultural Literacy, he proclaims that America’s cultural literacy has declined, and that cultural literacy is the most important element in a functioning democratic society. His most important claim is that the members of this society must have shared background information in order to communicate … Continue reading →

I grabbed one side of the blanket as Garrett, my friend who decided to visit for the weekend, grabbed the other. Our plan was simple, pick up the blanket that was a holding place for three one-gallon cans of paint, paintbrushes, light bulb covers, and several random screws. I just … Continue reading →

The following is a 10-week ethnographic study that follows two southern Alabama families. The paper focuses on each family’s three-year-old boy as he grows up in a fast-paced, ever-changing society where literacy is paramount. Written in the fall of 2005. Introduction The Wilsons The Peavys Conclusion Why do Bradey and … Continue reading →

When reading Gothic fiction, one can assume that religion will play a role in the overall evolution of the literary genre itself. The section of this mode of writing that expresses its wishes to delve into the depths of religion is the vampire motif. Bram Stoker in Dracula uses the … Continue reading →

In her novel, White Teeth, Zadie Smith argues against fate and the appearance of randomness that the concept of predestination brings along with it. Her counter-argument is the idea of self-determination and its consequences. Interweaving the ideas together one can see that she ultimately shows that fate has nothing to … Continue reading →

We sat down at the dinner table, the three of us. Some concoction of rice and beef lay steaming on potholders. We were using the real plates tonight because we ran out of paper ones. “Will you say the blessing with us?” I looked up and declined very calmly. She … Continue reading →

Using two quintessential modern characters of the Victorian Era, John Fowles seeks to challenge the social conventions of the past in his novel, The French Lieutenant’s Woman. In the 1960s, a time when sex marks the dawn of a new era, Fowles felt the need to throw the sexual revolution … Continue reading →

In Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Monk and Anne Radcliffe’s The Italian, each writer seeks to shock the audience by revealing a mystifying secret unknown to the main characters. Radcliffe and Lewis unleash familial secrets in order to put their readers into a state of astonishment. This element of surprise is … Continue reading →

I was asked a few days ago what kind of reading I do outside of class, other than my school work and the book I was currently discussing. I had no idea how to answer that question. Maybe I was caught a little off guard, but I seriously hadn’t given … Continue reading →

Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, is a story of change, or the movement of one phase of life to the next. There is a complete turn of Gregor’s character physically and mentally throughout the story. The most striking themes portrayed are the unpleasantness of work, the skewed view of life, and … Continue reading →

Velma deceitfully slides up to Roxie, trying to convince her to team up as an act. She bursts out into a jazzy exhibition with every bit of natural entertaining ability she possesses. Roxie, showing her true colors since she is now in the limelight, fends off Velma as swiftly as … Continue reading →