READING AN ARTICLE

I read 3 articles from SPEAK UP. These 3 articles talks about bigotry and how to respond to this everyday BIGOTRY.

NEWS REPORT

THE BABEL TOWER

This news is taken from TV5 on the 30th September, 2009. This news is about the lack of language interprets needed at the European Commission. In fact, they do not have enough interprets to supply their needs. If this continues, there is going to be the risk of disappearing of some language, especially, English, French, German and Spanish. The European Commission is known as the Babel tower because there are many languages spoken in there just as the real Babel tower. Working at the European commission is a big challenge because there are almost 40 reunions per day in different domains such as economy, politics, social issues, etc. The payment for an Interpreter in the European commission is very good: 4000 €. The qualities an Interpret must have are to be always willing to learn many new things and to have knowledge in many domains.

THE BIG GREAT GREEN WALL

This news was taken from TV5 on 20th October 2009. It is about a great project that will take place in Africa and will be carried out by Africans themselves. Its objective will be to look for fighting against the dryness and desertification that Sahara desert is bringing to Africa, so they want to stop the spread of the desert. For that, they will plant trees all over the end of the desert in order to stop other terrains to become desert. This strategy is a good initiative to preserve the environment and the biodiversity. This big green great wall will be composed of many species of different plants, and they will be planted over a distance of 7000 from Dakar to Djibouti to constitute a 5 km wide green strip across the desert to stop any further progress of desertification process. So their plans are to give our planet a new 'green lung' and contribute thus to the fight against climatic changes. I think this project is an awesome idea because it aims to protect our environment helping to preserve our planet and our survival.

THE FAMINE IN THE WORLD

This news was taken from TV5 on 28th November, 2009. This news is about the famine the entire world is facing today. According to the ONU the famine has increased in the last year almost the double. The countries most affected are India, Kenya and Ethiopia. The causes of this current famine are because of the climates changes: the dryness and the severe rains have contributed to the lost of kettle and the cultivation. Another cause of the famine is that the agriculture has been replaced by the growth of agro carburant. So this phenomenon has also caused social problems making people get mad provoking strikes and discontent among people.

INDIAN SECT MENBERS VOW TO MARRY SEX WORKERS



This news was taken from BBC news on 16 December 2009. This news is about The Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS) which is one of the religious sects that operates in northern India. This sect has pledged to marry female sex workers who want to escape exploitation. This sect is composed by more than 1000 followers. They say they want to do this because they want to help women from being exploited and also to stop the spread of the HIV/Aids virus. They offer community services, social welfare and spiritual leadership. They estimate that 40%-50% of women working in cities like Mumbai (Bombay) and Delhi are HIV carriers many of them are HIV-positive. Some have young children and are concerned about their future. Actually this sect wants to ensure these women are protected legally once they are married.

ALZHEIMER'S RISK LINKED TO LEVEL OF APPETITE HORMONE

This news was taken from BBC news on 15th December, 2009. It is about a discovery carried out at Boston university medical center for about 12 years. This 12-year study of 200 volunteers discovery a very intricate link between a hormone called Leptin which is the responsible to control the appetite in the human body and the development of this disease, Alzheirmer. This hormone is produced by fat cells and tells the brain that the body is full and so reduces appetite. It has been used as a potential weapon in treating obesity, but currently there is growing evidence that this hormone also benefits brain function. So it means that those who has a high level of this hormone are less likely to suffer from Alzheimer than those with the lowest level of Leptin. As we can see this is a great advance because it moves us closer to understanding the causes of this disease and provide information for drug development to fight it.

READING A STORY

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

This is a play written by Oscar wilde was created during the late Victorian era. It is actually a humorous plays that tries to show the real Victorian era. It shows the hypocrisy and frivolity of the Victorian’s society in a very funny way using very sarcastic dialogues. Wilde plays with the meaning of the words of the name of the play, “Earnest”(the synonym that means honest, sincere) and “Ernest”(the name). That is why its characters especially Algernon and Jack under an extremely formal appearance just lie and hide the truth to each other and to everyone else. They are such as adults full of hypocrisy that it does not seem that they have grew up. They are kind of kids who always try to make others believe their lies in order to get rid of the blame and consequences their actions would bring them. Its dialogues have a brilliant and very comic and a very ingenious and clever solution to every problem as well as the visible characteristics of the Victorian society. That society that once applause the brilliant creator and the next day condemn him because he exposes what it has patently hided. In the play we can also see the existence of the idealistic love when Miss Gwendolyn dreams about that ideal man named Ernest and she hasn’t even met him for the first time. As well as the strong position that women plays, because men are shown to be weaker than them, and it is very visible when Miss Gwendolyn’s mother talks about her husband saying that he is not allowed to eat with visitors and he actually does not play an important role throughout the play. This is a very interesting play that highlights the importance of social classes, money, land, nobility instead of human sensitive and inner emotions.

THE EYES OF THE DRAGON

This is a story of classical fantasy written by Stephen King and published in 1987, which presents a very remarkable battle between evil and good in which magic plays an important role all the way through the book. It is about a kingdom where an old king lived; he did not have any children and was single. So he decided to get marry with a very young beautiful and innocent lady. The Night of the wedding they had sex because of a magic drinking his wizard Flagg had given to him. So his first boy was born, his name was Peter. Then, some years after, while the king was in the forest, he found a Dragon who he killed and drank its blood, cut its head and hang it on the wall of his bedroom. So that night the king was so happy that maybe the blood of the dragon gave him power and made love to his wife. His second child was born whose name was Thomas. In Thomas’ birth her mother was murdered by her maid who was forced by Flagg. As time passes, and Peter grows older Flagg realizes that this little boy was not a threat to his position as royal wizard. Then, Thomas found a secret place in the castle where he sees the murder of his father by the wizard. He saw this through the eyes of the dragon head hung on the wall. But he stayed quiet and the wizard blames on peter. So peter went to jail. After a long time he was rescued by his best friend and his brother kills the wizard and tells the truth.

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

This is a story about a young and handsome man called Dorian gray. A friend of him made a portrait of him catching his beauty and youthfulness. He was very proud of that beauty that desired to never get old; instead the picture would do it. He gets married and kills her. Every time he did something wrong the picture got a monstrous aspect. At the end, he realizes he is a monstrous and decides to break the picture with a knife, when he touches it he falls down and the real monstrous Dorian Gray is death on the floor. We can actually make a comparison with the life an art. It presents a contrast between those two because Art possesses beauty and form and it is contrasted with the unattractiveness and shapelessness of real life. In the story Lord Henry encourages Dorian to treat his own life as if it were a work of art. He must experience it fully, as one would a piece of art, but at the same time remain detached from it, in the way that one might appreciate a great painting or a play

TV SHOWS REVIEWS

THE BEST OF FRIENDS -SEASON 3

In this season, Chandler is looking for a roommate to share his apartment with, so there, is when he meets Joey for the very first time. The coffee place where they use to go is a bar in which Monica, Ross, Phoebe and Chandler hang out. Monica meets Rachel in the bar and they start to talk because they went to high school together. Although, Rose is having problems with his wife and he end up knowing that his wife is a lesbian so Phoebe gives him support. After a while, they start kissing each other and they are interrupted by their friends who enter the bar at that very late hour at night. In the next chapter, Monica re start dating with Richard, an ex boyfriend she wanted to have kids before. At the end she realizes that he is not convenient for him. There are also bad situations, such as the breaking up of Ross and Rachel. In which there are many sad and dramatic scenes. Ross is jealous because of a Rachel’s work partner and the break up that night. Then, Rachel is too sad, and Ross calls her but he heard His work partner’s voice who is hanging out with her at her apartment. That same night Ross ends up in the bed with another girl who met at the bar. He tries to do his best to keep the secret but Rachel learns that anyway. In this season Phoebe also meet his brother for the very first time, and discovers he is too similar because of his strangeness and his peculiarity. She also gets a date with a diplomatic man from a foreign country who does not speak English but he had a translator. This person is screwing up all the magic moments when they are just about to kiss or hug. He keeps getting on the way so Phoebe decides to take Monica with her in order to keep the translator busy, but Monica talks a lot with him, that he does not translate the other man’s words anymore, so Phoebe and the diplomatic man cannot communicate. This season is very funny and sad too. I liked it a lot because it made me feel a little bit melancholic and sad, it really touched me!.

DAWSON’S CREW


This TV show is really good; I would say that I like it a lot. This American TV show was produce and emitted between the years 1998 and 2003. Its producer and writer is Kevin Williamson and we can say that this is an autobiographical story. Well, It is about the story of four adolescents who lives in a small town called Capeside near the sea in the state of Massachusetts. This TV show shows the evolution of their lives in a dramatic way, involving every kind of problems of adolescence and society. Its main characters are Dawson Leery, Pacey Witter, Jennifer Lindley and Josephine potter “Joey”. Everything starts with the eternal love that Joey feels for Dawson. Jen is a very beautiful blond girl who comes from New York City and becomes Dawson’s love and sexual obsession. Joey is really jealous and forgets his friends’ Pacey birthday. After some time, Dawson realizes about Joey’s feelings and he fall in love with her too. They start to date but it did not work. After that, Pacey is in love with Joey and she falls in love too. But at the beginning she did not want to accept it because she was concerned about what Dawson would feel and think about it. It was later then that Joey decides to tell Pacey the truth about her feelings. Although Joey is very confused, Pacey is very sure about what he feels about her and helps her to find it out. Because of all this confusion, Pacey decides to travel in his ship named “true love”. Before he gets to get away from Capeside, Joey goes and tells him that she really loves him and asks him to come with him in his trip during the summer. That was a decision she made because she wanted to move forward and forget his eternal love Dawson. This is a great TV show because it illustrates many of adolescence problems that we may face, so it helps to clarify and to see some possible solutions to these problems. It is also a dramatic and romantic story based on a triangle love between three best friends.

MOVIES REVIEWS

2012

This film is directed by Roland Emmerich and it is about the end of the world in 2012. It is actually based on the Mayan calendar predictions about the earth’s future that seems to show a horrible destination for the humankind. According to the Maya’s prophesies, in 2012 there is going to be a strange galactic event in our milky way. The earth will be in exact alignment with the sun and the center of the Milky Way that is a black hole. Mayan thought this will cause a phenomenon called pull-shift that makes the pole of the earth shift in a matter of days or perhaps seconds. Albert Einstein suggested this before. He said that the earth poles have shifted before and it had caused global climate changes but it happened slowly over the years. Before the Equator rested in the Pacific Ocean and in Alaska, but now, we know it rests in South America. If this phenomenon takes place rapidly, it would mean global catastrophes such as giant tsunamis, terrible earthquakes, rise of the sea and epidemics because of the millions of death people. When watching the movie, you will see all these planetary catastrophes all the way through it. It starts when a scientific goes to India to visit another Indian scientific and they discover that the sun is causing the earth’s nucleus temperature raise. The governments of the world decide to build some futuristic and phenomenal arcs in order to save humankind, but to get to this inventions people must pay a lot of money. To my mind, this film has fantastic and very amazing special effects but it longs two and a half hours. It is a sad story that made me think about my family, friends and people destination and It made me feel sad. Well, I hope it is just a Hollywood creation because I wouldn’t like to face this catastrophe.

SAW 6

This is a horror film directed by Kevin Greutert that makes part of the saw series that started in 2004. This film show how certain people are chosen to “play” a game in order to understand what the value of life is. This is a very bloody and dramatic film because it contains violence so that is why it mustn’t been seen by minors. Its philosophy is that life should never been taken for granted. The story begins with a couple that has to cut parts of their bodies in order to save their lives and avoid a device to hurt and perforate their brains. There is also a story of a man who invented a formula for an insurance company to earn more money depending on an applicant’s probability to live long enough in order to pay them a tidy profit, rejecting the coverage to those people who didn’t fit in that formula. He starts to play and then he finds his staff playing also the game, so he has to make life-or-death decisions for each one of his staff. At the end, he saves 3 of his 7 staffs but in another room there are two people, a mother and a son. These people are the family of a man who died because of cancer, but his illness was not helped by the insurance because of the formula. He was not actually a good candidate because his possibility to live was very poor. So he would me more outcomes for the insurance company. I liked this film because it has been one of the films that have kept me all the time awake and interested on it.

AWAKE

This film is directed by Joby Harold in 2007. The movie stars saying that every year, one of 700 people are awake during surgery, so the plot of this movie is about a man who suffers "anesthetic awareness" and finds himself awake and aware during a heart surgery but he is paralyzed. This young 22 year-old man named Clayton, is a genius in finance, so he is a very rich man who lives with her mother. Meanwhile secretly he dates with his mother’s secretary, Sam. He is not very sure approve it about telling his mum about his relationship with this woman because he knows she won’t, but after going to see a doctor friend, he decides to tell the truth to his mum. He proposes to Sam in the middle of the night before the heart operation, she accepts and he tells his mum too. His mum is not happy with that news and neither with the news he is going to be operated by his friend. He receives a call from the hospital saying that there is a heart available for him, so he can be operated as soon as possible. The day of the surgery his mother is in there with a friend who is also a cardiologic which his mother wants his son to be operated by. Clayton does not accept and keeps on what he had planned. The operation starts and he realizes that he is conscious but he cannot move. He feels and hears everything around him. While being victim of this anesthetic awareness he hears the plans doctor have. They are planning to kill him and pretend the heart did not work during the surgery so they can get out the way with no difficulty. During all this process he realizes that who had planned everything was his new wife. She was actually a nurse who worked at that hospital with that group of doctors whose plans were to be widow so she would be rich and able to help to pay the hospital bills. Meanwhile Clayton’s mum realizes about her intentions because she looked at her purse. She found many letters who claimed his son’s murder. Clayton’s mother then decide to give her healthy heart to his son by suffering from an overdose calling her trustful doctor who saved finally his son’s life.