In "Greasy Lake," what is it about Digby and Jeff that inspires the narrator to call them bad?

In the second page of Boyle's "Greasy Lake," the narrator
provides us the following description of Digby and
Jeff:

Digby
wore a gold star in his right ear and allowed his father to pay his tuition at Cornell;
Jeff was thinking of quitting school to become a painter/musician/head-shop proprietor.
They were both expert in the social graces, quick with a sneer, able to manage a Ford
with lousy shocks over a rutted and gutted black-top road at eighty-five while rolling a
joint as compact as a Tootsie Roll Pop stick. They could lounge against a bank of
booming speakers and trade "man"s with the best of them or roll out across the dance
floor as if their joints worked on bearings. They were slick and quick and they wore
their mirror shades at breakfast and dinner, in the shower, in closets and caves. In
short, they were bad.

Most of
the descriptions here reference Digby's and Jeff's appearance
rather than their behavior. Like the narrator, Digby and Jeff are
for more interested in looking bad than really
being bad; they want to be cool.

The
first description of Digby reveals the reality of the situation. He wears the gold star
in his ear, just as a "dangerous character" might; however, Digby's father is paying his
college tuition, something to which no "dangerous character" would ever
aspire.

Like most teenagers, the narrator, Digby, and Jeff
want to be cool. Their desire to be "bad" is more of an ideal and a dream than it is a
reality. This, of course, all changes with the encounter with Bobby and the chaos that
ensues.

What do we mean by 'the process of evolution'?

Evolution is the constant state of change of any living
organism regardless of whether it is a tree, an animal, or a human being.  As beings
react to their environments certain traits get passed along through genes that enhance
the possibility of survival.  There are several trains of thought on why this happens,
and the most popular this day and age is that of natural selection.  Essentially what
happens is that the physical attributes, and beahviour patterns in any given living
organism that are most beneficial to survival continue on through the genes because
those living organisms possessing those traits are more likely to survive and pass them
on to their offspring.  The better a species is at adapating to changes, especially
environmental changes, the longer that species is likely to survive over
time.

Another process of evolution is that of extinction. 
By that I don't mean of a species, but of physical attributes and behaviour patterns in
a species that become obosolete as a species evolves.  For instance, in x-rays of whale
flippers one can see the remains of what look quite like human hands.  As the whale
ancestor spent more and more time in the water, these "hands" became less necessary and
so overtime they were absorbed into the body.

Why did Wang Lung and O-lan fall on hard times in The Good Earth?

In The Good Earth, Wang Lung and
O-lan do not fall on hard times through any fault of their own.  The farmers in Wang
Lung's area are greatly affected by drought, and they cannot sustain themselves through
their land when the crops fail.  Because Wang Lung and O-lan have been frugal, they are
able to last much longer than many others in the area, but eventually even they must
leave their farm behind to travel to the southern city in search of money and food.  At
this point, the couple begin to see their children as a burden because they feel guilty
about not being able to properly provide for them.  O-lan suggests selling their
daughter into slavery; however, Wang Lung cannot bring himself to do this to the
girl. 

How does the "am I my brother's keeper?" attitude get repeated in today's society?Referring to the Cain and Abel story from Genesis.

We are, judging by our values and actions, a very
materialistic and individualistic society.  We have a common value which suggests people
should "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps", take care of themselves and their
families, and ask for little from society. This probably originates in the days when
government was absent (on the frontier, for example) and the population more scattered,
and you were forced to be self-reliant or you didn't
survive.

In the recent health care debate, there seemed to
be little concern on the part of many that 1 in 6 Americans had no health insurance at
all.  There is an underlying, usually unspoken, feeling that if you are poor, you
deserve to be poor, or that if you take state aid, you must be
lazy.

Our Charles Darwin "Survival of the Fittest" attitude
is a large part of our history, and apparently, it is very difficult to overcome. 
Surprising, because Americans are overwhelmingly patriotic about
country, they just don't translate that pride, somehow, to their
own society and its people.

In The Crucible, why is Mary Warren so afraid to go to court when John Proctor tells her to accompany him?

You need to remember what stage the Salem witch trials
have reached at this time - more and more people are being denounced as having been seen
with the Devil and are being brought to trial by the group of girls, of which Marry
Warren is one. Hysteria and fear are sweeping through Salem, and the group of girls has
incredible and frightening power - the power to denounce you, leaving you in the
position of either facing death or "confessing" your supposed crimes of being in league
with Satan. Also, Elizabeth has just been told that Abigail has charged her with
witchcraft. John Proctor thus decides to sort out this "madness" and go with Mary Warren
to tell the court that this was all made up. Note how she
responds:

I
cannot charge murder on
Abigail.

When pressurised by
John Proctor, she goes on to say:

readability="6">

She'll kill me for sayin' that! Abby'll charge
lechery on you, Mr.
Proctor!

Mary Warren
identifies that it is Abigail who is leading the group of girls and is directing their
wrath of denunciation. For her to go against the group by herself would be very
dangerous, as we go on to see in Act III, when the girls turn on her, exactly as Mary
predicted.

How the values are formed? Is management by secularism more effective and important than management by spiritualism?

There are two questions here and I like the second one.
 In my mind, there is more danger in managing through spiritual means than secular ones.
 The spiritual dimension could be seen as effective if one is immersed in a homogeneous
setting where all individuals are only one form of religious worship.  Even this could
be challenging as different individuals within the same faith or string of worship can
hold varying perceptions of zeal towards the idea of the sacred.  In a heterogeneous
setting, secular instruction and management is more effective for a variety of reasons.
 The first is that it creates a common ground for all individuals that lie outside a
specific notion of the sacred.  Rather than enforce one form of religious worship and
advocate one form over another, the secular nature is one that seeks to work with
individuals away from religion, making it an issue for the private as opposed to
elevating it in the public domain.  Additionally, I would say that management by the
secular is more effective because it is probably easier to construct management core
visions and principles to a secular vision as opposed to a specifically religious
one.

Why was the practice of foot-binding so popular?

Of course, there is no way to know for sure why this
practice became popular with so many Chinese.  But, to me, there are two major
reasons.

First, I think it is because this was such a
male-dominated society.  Men could pretty much tell women what to do and so they could
force them to have this rather painful thing done.

Second,
I think that the bound feet somehow became a status symbol.  If your wife had feet like
that, it showed that you did not need her to work -- you could afford to have her unable
to do much but sit around.

Neither of these explain why the
practice started in the first place, but they do help to explain why it could come to be
done by so many people.