Watermelons
Watermelon is truly one of summertime’s sweetest treats. Watermelons are fun to eat and good for you. Watermelon seeds were brought to this country by African slaves. Today there are more than 100 different varieties of watermelons. The flesh may be red, pink, orange, or yellow. There are seedless varieties and super-sweet round ones that fit nicely into the refrigerator.
Watermelon is a tender, warm-season vegetable. Watermelons can be grown in all parts of the country, but the warmer temperatures and longer growing season of southern areas especially favor this vegetable. Producing a good watermelon is a bit tricky in the short northern season. Gardeners in northern areas should choose early varieties and use transplants. Mulching with black plastic film also promotes earliness by warming the soil beneath the plastic. Floating row covers moderate temperatures around the young plants, providing some frost protection in unseasonable cold spells.
Harvesting is particularly critical because watermelons do not continue to ripen after they have been removed from the vine. They should be picked at full maturity. No amount of thumping, tapping, sniffing, or shaking can actually give a clue to ripeness.
One main kind of watermelon is a seedless watermelon. These melons are self-sterile hybrids that develop normal-looking fruits but no fully developed seeds. The seeds for growing them are produced by crossing a normal diploid watermelon with one that has been changed genetically into the tetraploid state. The seeds from this cross produce plant, when pollinated by normal plants, produce seedless melons.
In seedless watermelons, rudimentary seed structures form but remain small, soft, white, tasteless and undeveloped tiny seed coats that are eaten virtually undetected along with the flesh of the melon. Seed production for these seedless types is an extremely labor intensive process that makes the seeds relatively expensive. Because germination of these types is often less vigorous than normal types, it is recommended that they be started in peat pots or other transplantable containers. Here the germinating conditions can be closely controlled. Once transplanted, cultivation is similar to that for regular watermelons.
For pollination necessary to set fruit, normal seed types must be interpolated with seedless melons. The pollinator should be distinct from the seedless cultivar in color, shape or type so that the seedless and seeded melons in the patch can be separated at harvest. Because seedless types do not put energy into seed production, the flesh is often sweeter than normal types and the vines are noticeably more vigorous as the season progresses.
In the story “Peaches”, Reginald McKnight introduces his main characters, one being Marcus. Marcus is a good guy, but he is described in different ways, due to his confidence and insecurity. Throughout the work, author Reginald McKnight takes great care to illustrate situations and describe feelings and personalities that many men experience. This way, even though Marcus is having trouble controlling himself around other people and arrogant at times, he still tries to be a better person for Rita and for himself. He does this by going out of the country to experience other cultures and enhance his morals. On one level Marcus demonstrates that he is incredibly confident, on the other level he shows signs of being insecure, manipulative, unstable and incapable of achieving change.
One policy one could examine to see its implications on incarceration rates in the United States is the “War on Drugs.” This war has taken place since the Nixon administration in the 1970s, and aims to eliminate the possession, importation, and solicitation of illegal substances. This war has multiple fronts in which people are currently fighting, but the domestic theatre of war is a culprit for this rise of incarceration rates. Bobo and Thompson examined this phenomenon and found, “rapid increase in incarceration rates can be traced to the "War on Drugs" and associated sentencing practices” (451). The “War on Drugs” can be seen taking place in predominately urban impoverished African-American communities. As a result, more African-Americans are being arrested for drug crimes, whether they be petty possession misdemeanor crimes or more serious felony solicitation of illegal substance crimes. Further, since these areas are more impoverished, individuals will look for other ways in order to generate income in order to support themselves and their
With everything in life, we can work to fix injustices and a problem in society, but trying to fix what was wrong not only takes time, but also may be imperfect. As mentioned previously race played and still does play a large role in how crime is treated in the United States. This article explains how the racial disparity is not a coincidence and the article provides facts of the disparity, and what the Fair Sentencing Act does. The author begins the article by chronologically exploring the details of how the disparity began. The Anti- Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which was introduced in the Reagan-era, was responsible for the disparity. The Act stated that 1 gram of cocaine was equal to 100 grams of crack (Davis 2011). An extremely large difference. She ends the article explaining that despite the fact that there is a decrease in the ratio, it is still unfair. The Fair Sentencing Act only works to reduce the disparity and does not eliminate it completely (Davis 2011). While the ratio was once 100-1(crack to cocaine), the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 brought it down to 18-1.
Michelle Alexander presents three compelling arguments in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. First, American society is repeating the outrages of the early Jim Crow laws, which imposed racial segregation on the bogus principle of separate but equal; second, our country has a widespread dilemma of increasing mass incarceration numbers, and, finally, that our modern so-called “colorblind” era thwarts multitudes of people from understanding or acknowledging that racist undertones exist beneath elevated rates of mass incarceration as a result of America’s “Drug War”. Michael M. Cohen, author of Jim Crow’s Drug War: Race, Coca Cola, and the Southern Origins of Drug Prohibition, provides support for Alexander’s assertion
Another reason racialized mass incarceration takes place is because of the high rates of poverty and unemployment for inner city African Americans, especially those with low-education and low skill levels. Urban ghettos have been associated with the problem of social disorganization and crime. The biggest reason for this is the war on drugs. There is no substantial proof that verifies African Americans are more involved in illegal drug consumptions than other groups are. However they are arrested more than other groups. Bobo and Thompson stated that blacks are almost 34% involved in drug-related arrests though only 14% of those are among regular illegal drug users. Among drug related convictions, African Americans make up half of the cases whereas only 26% of the white population is convicted. As Bobo and Thompson stated, “Illegal drug consumption seems to know no race. Incarceration for drug-related charges, however, is something visited in a heavily biased manner on African Americans.”
Aside from individuals who were actually convicted of a felony, the tens of millions of Americans who were arrested without ever being convicted for a crime are no exception to this form of legalized discrimination as the same constraints applied to convicted felons are unfairly applied to them as well (Alexander 145). When it comes to felon discrimination, the severity of the felony does not matter. Public housing policies deny eligibility to people who have even the most minor criminal backgrounds. Due to the fact that people of color such as African Americans and Hispanics are primary targets of police in the War on Drugs, they are much more likely to be arrested for minor, nonviolent crimes as opposed to people who are white (Alexander 145). Instead of racial discrimination being nonexistent in present society, Michelle Alexander argues that racial discrimination has merely been extended to occur through subliminally discriminative colorblind practices (Alexander 11). The criminal justice system still targets racial minorities and deprives them of basic human rights by permitting legalized discrimination, such as the discrimination existent in public housing seen by the usage of racially restrictive covenants in the past, and by the
Department of Justice. African Americans are arrested for drug offenses at rates 2 to 11 times higher than the rate for whites – according to a May 2009 report on disparity in drug arrests by Human Rights Watch.”
Racial disparity in drug related convictions has been a wide spread problem in the United States since the War on Drugs in the early 1980s. It was prevalent before that time, but minorities became the target of drug related crimes in startling numbers at this time. There are several hypotheses for this alarming situation, but the bottom line remains that racism is the leading cause of racial disparity in drug related convictions. Minorities from inner cities, with low-incomes and socioeconomic statuses who get caught in a downward spiral, are the easiest targets for the government to point the finger at for drug problems in the United States. The statistics will show that while more White people use illicit drugs in the United States, more African Americans and other minorities will be convicted, and more harshly than their White counterparts, for the same crimes.
A person’s social class plays a big role in determining who and for how long a convicted felon spends in prison. For example, a white kid from an influential family, convicted for the same crime as a kid from Projects may serve a fraction of the time in prison, simply because of his financial status. Another major issue within our current prison system is how illegal drugs are classified by the Justice Department and the level of punishment associated with these drugs. According to “Facts about the Prison System in the U.S,” how we classify illegal drugs and the punishment can be extremely unfair. For example, a person arrested with having five grams crack cocaine may receive the same charge or conviction as a person found with five hundred grams of powder cocaine. I believe, no matter how much or what type of cocaine you are caught with, the charge should be consistently applied. The bigger issue is with how the unfair and unjust laws are written. Many of today’s laws are written by people who are rich and they have little consideration for the people who will be affected by racially and culturally biased laws. Consequently, the people who are hit hardest by these laws are generally poor and minorities. In other words, African- Americans and minorities are discriminated against within the criminal justice system and the proof lies in the number of minorities incarcerated. For example, according to “Facts about the Prison System in the U.S,” African-Americans make up fourteen percent of the drug users within the United States; however, African-Americans make-up thirty-seven percent of the prison population, which has been convicted and sentenced to prison for using or having illegal drugs. This demonstrates that African-Americans are stereotyped as criminals, treated unequally, and much more likely to be arrested, convicted, and sent to
Janick. J. (2011). Center for New Crops & Plant Products - Department of Horticulture and
Cheryl Dunye's film, The Watermelon Woman, combines elements from both narrative film-making and elements from the traditional documentary. The film follows Dunye (as a film-maker and as a character) and ventures on the journey of finding the Watermelon Woman. Whereas most of the film follows Dunye as a character throughout her life as she goes through the process of filming her finds, a few of the scenes are filmed as if the film was an actual documentary. The film is based primarily around the character Cheryl's life and adventure in finding the Watermelon Woman than it is about learning about the Watermelon Woman.
Beckett, K., Nyrop, K., & Pfingst, L. (2006). Race, drugs, and policing: understanding disparities in drug delivery arrests. Criminology, 44, 1, 105-137.
The writers begin by introducing some statistics where it is seen that there is a high number of blacks and latinos in prison for drug charges. They also present the two ways that racial disparity in drug arrest rates is explained by. The first is that
...e to the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 that made punishment significantly more serious for the trafficking of crack compared to powder cocaine. The issue with this is that crack was in fact associated with blacks and powder cocaine; a much more serious drug threat was associated with whites. 75% of people in state prison for drug conviction are people of color although blacks and whites see and use drugs at roughly the same rate. In NYS, 94% of those imprisoned for a drug offense are people of color.
Insect pollination as we all know, is the process that enables reproduction and fertilization by the transfer of pollen performed by insects. Insects are some of the oldest pollinators of plants. Pollinating insects date back to 140 million years ago. Since then, due to how effective insect pollinators are, these flowering plants have become the major group of terrestrial vascular plants. Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms, have imperative roles within our ecosystems, both natural and agricultural. For instance, insects provide food, fiber and shelter for wildlife and humankind alike (2007). It is commonly know that in humans, high levels of fruit and vegetable consumption are associated with decreased risk of chronic disease (Calderone 2012). Aside from these important roles, plants have also been considered as a viable option for fuel sources (Calderone 2012). There are around 300,00 species of flowering plants in the world and without pollination, the reproductive process would be very difficult since pollination causes the production of seeds (Calderone 2012). Of the 300,000 plant species worldwide, a little over 3,000 of these plants have been used as a source of food. Close to 300 of these species are grown around the world today and only 12 of these plants make up about 90 percent of the food sources in our world. These 12 include the grains...