Why do the words 'God' and 'I' have capital letters? This is presented ( 1 ) it's a difficult or controversial question, maybe about the status of religion. After all, some of us were told at school that God is capitalized out of respect for the Almighty. But this is just a diversion. The answer is quite simple: in English, proper names are always given an initial capital letter, and God is a proper name, just as Gordon and Barack are. The word 'God' should still be capitalized even if you have no respect, ( 2 ) you are referring to the being known as God — in other words, when the being's proper name is God. So even an atheist should capitalize God, ( 3 ) he has no more belief in God than he does in Puff the Magic Dragon. You might split hairs if you were a particularly tricky kind of atheist and try to say that because you don't believe he exists he can't have a proper name, but you'd be ( 4 ) because possession of a proper name is not a proof or even acceptance of something's existence, any more than Superman's is. But the word 'god' should not have a capital, of course, if it's used descriptively rather than as a proper name — when you're referring to just ( 5 ) god, or one of the gods, or a real goddess. The word 'I' is the only personal pronoun to be capitalized, and it may ( 6 ) be that the single letter 'i' would look insufficient in lower case. A grey area would seem to ( 7 ), perhaps, when you use personal pronouns for God, but you would use capitals when referring to His Majesty, or His Holiness, so it may be right to insist on capitalizing Him when referring to God, ( 8 ) respect, because Him could be used as a title, not a personal pronoun. I think, though, that most people accept that a lower case 'him' is the norm nowadays. The ( 9 ) between capitals and non-capitals or, in printing terminology, upper and lower case, emerged only in the Middle Ages in European languages. In classical texts, all letters were capitals. The rules for usage vary with each language, and have varied throughout history. All European languages begin sentences and lines in verse with capitals, but within sentences and lines usage varies. In German, every proper noun is given a capital, and that was once ( 10 ) English. Now only specific names and things such as adjectives derived from nouns have capitals.

Perhaps the worst misfortune to befall the world's gorillas is that they live in some of the most resource-rich and lawless parts of the planet. Their forest homes in Africa are rich in timber, gold, diamonds and the rare mineral used in electronic devices like cell phones. The race to obtain such natural resources is largely to blame for their habitat loss. Along with loss of living areas, the apes face threats from human population growth and a surge in the bush meat trade, with locals and organized traders killing wildlife to eat and sell. Gorilla meat forms a part of illegal bush meat hunting, which is carried out in West and Central Africa. Although bush meat hunting may involve different kinds of animals, it usually focuses on the hunting of great apes like gorillas and bonobos. This high rate of hunting accompanied by a gradual habitat loss has resulted in a sharp drop in the population of wild gorillas. A U.N. report warns that most of the remaining gorillas in Africa could become extinct within 10 to 15 years. Farming was the original livelihood of Central Africa. The local African population had several taboos regarding gorilla meat, but a rise in the population along with a poor economy resulted in the large scale hunting of gorillas. They were the easiest source of meat for the poor, rural families. A single animal could easily feed an entire family for a week. Also, mining and logging camps hire professional poachers to feed their workers and the refugees who have fled nearby conflict. Though gorillas still make up a tiny percentage of the trade, losses can be devastating, because the gorilla numbers are so low and their communities are so tightly knit. Gorillas are the largest primate species that inhabit the forests of Central Africa. All these species of gorilla are now protected under the Endangered Species Act. However, this has not stopped poachers from illegally hunting the animals for their meat as it is sold on the illegal bush meat market for a huge profit. The meat is also illegally exported to underground western markets in London, New York and Paris, where it is prepared as a part of wealthy diners. In the year 2006, over 5000 gorillas died from an outbreak of the Ebola Virus in Central Africa. Hunters who catch and trap gorillas could have been trapping sick animals and selling contaminated meat in bush meat markets in Central Africa. This is extremely dangerous to humans as doctors have stated that consuming meat from sick animals could cause zoonotic diseases to jump species resulting in far more virulent and dangerous human diseases that do not have any treatment. In fact, most researchers feel that the HIV disease was a completely simian disease that originated in chimpanzees. Human contact with the infected meat could have resulted in the virus jumping species to form the HIV disease and infection.

What would you do to earn money if all you had was five dollars and two hours? This is the assignment I gave students in one of my classes at Stanford University. Each of fourteen teams received an envelope with five dollars of "seed funding" and was told they could spend as much time as they wanted planning. However, once they cracked open the envelope, they had two hours to generate as much money as possible. I gave them from Wednesday afternoon until Sunday evening to complete the assignment. Then, on Sunday evening, each team had to send me one slide describing what they had done, and on Monday afternoon each team had three minutes to present their project to the class. They were encouraged to be entrepreneurial by identifying opportunities, challenging assumptions, leveraging the limited resources they had, and by being active. What would you do if you were given this challenge? When I ask this question to most groups, someone usually shouts out, "Go to Las Vegas," or "Buy a lottery ticket." This gets a big laugh. These folks would take a significant risk in return for a small chance at earning a big reward. The next most common suggestion is to set up a car wash or lemonade stand, using the five dollars to purchase the starting materials. This is a fine option for those interested in earning a few extra dollars of spending money in two hours. But most of my students eventually found a way to move far beyond the standard responses. They took seriously the challenge to question traditional assumptions — exposing a wealth of possibilities — in order to create as much value as possible. How did they do this? Here's a clue: the teams that made the most money didn't use the five dollars at all. They realized that focusing on the money actually framed the problem way too tightly. They understood that five dollars is essentially nothing and decided to reinterpret the problem more broadly: What can we do to make money if we start with absolutely nothing? They ramped up their observation skills, tapped into their talents, and unlocked their creativity to identify problems in their midst — problems they experienced or noticed others experiencing — problems they might have seen before but had never thought to solve. These problems were nagging but not necessarily at the forefront of anyone's mind. By unearthing these problems and then working to solve them, the winning teams brought in over $600, and the average return on the five dollar investment was 4,000 percent! If you take into account that many of the teams didn't use the funds at all, then their financial returns were infinite.