Connected The Thick Of It Essay

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Essay 1 In the Thick of It (Part 1) (From Chapter 1 of “Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives”, by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler, published by Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2009) In the mountain village of Levie, Corsica, during the 1840s, Anton-Claudio Peretti became convinced that his wife, Maria-Angelina, was having an affair with another man and that, even worse, their daughter was not his child. Maria told Anton that she was going to leave him, and she made preparations to do so with her brother, Corto. That very evening, Anton shot his wife and daughter to death and fled to the mountains. The bereft Corto sorely wanted to kill Anton, but he could not find him. In a bit of violent symmetry that seemed sensible to residents if the area, Corto instead killed Anton’s brother, Francesco, and nephew, Aristotelo. It did not end there. Five years later, Giacomo, brother of the deceased Aristotelo, avenged the deaths of his brother and father by killing Corto’s brother. Giacomo wanted to kill…show more content…
“On March 14, 2002, I gave my right kidney to my best friend’s husband,” Cathy would later note in an online forum that chronicles the experiences of people who become “living donors” of organs. The summer before, during a heartfelt chat, Cathy had learned that her friend’s husband’s renal failure had worsened and that he needed a kidney transplant in order to survive. Overcome with the desire to help, Cathy underwent a series of medical and psychological evaluations, getting more and more excited as she passed each one and moved closer to her goal of donating one of her kidneys. “The experience has been the most rewarding of my life,” she wrote. “I am so grateful that I was able to help my best friend’s husband. His wife has her husband back. His sons have their dad back… It’s a win-win situation. We all win. I gave the gift of

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