Conflict in the Congo Region is Increasing
NY times articleIn the Congo, a continuation of the already terrifying war is happening. The civil war in the Congo, which supposedly ended in 2003, was the deadliest war in modern African history. The war has killed as much as 6 million people since 1996, and is fueled by increasing ethnic issues between the Hutus and the Tutsis. Atrophied and malnourished children lay in the streets and hospitals of the Congo as a result of the conflict. The pinnacle of the conflict between the two groups was in 1994, when 800,000 people were killed as a result of the hatred in neighboring Rwanda. Many rebel groups have been conniving to usurp power in the government of the Congo. As the war continues, the divisive struggle is forcing more and more people from their homes and into refugee camps. As many as 400,000 people have been forced out of their homes in the past year alone. Refugee camps are becoming less and less capacious, and more and more people are being displaced. "This is the worst situation we've had" says Patrick Lavand’homme, a UN official, "and it is going to get much, much worse." The region is on the verge of exploding into civil war, and the U.S. and Britain are becoming more and more scrupulous in their attention to the region. Rebel groups in Rwanda has put more and more pressure on both parties to stop fighting, and they have threatened to interfere with the conflict. Both groups have made no attempt to fabricate an excuse for this conflict or cover it up, and yet involvement from non-African nations is minimal. This month, The UN will vote on whether to have UN peacekeeping forces in the region.
Labels: Current Events
Beauty in The Waiting Room
The key messages of the play The Waiting Room, by Lisa Loomer, pertain to the pharmaceutical industry and cultural differences between people and their perception of beauty. Ken and Larry are the main two characters that the playwright uses to expose the problems with the modern day affiliation between the pharmaceutical companies and the government, and how the pharmaceutical companies have influence on the government. Larry is a prominent businessman of a pharmaceutical company, and Ken is a FDA officer. In the play, there is a promising new cancer drug being developed at a facility overseas in Jamaica. The drug overseas is already being tested and used at the facility, and is in the process of being established by the FDA as safe.Meanwhile, Larry’s company is in the process of developing a drug and, instead of urging Ken to speed up the process of admitting the Jamaican drug into the US to save lives, he is urging Ken to delay admittance of the drug into the U.S. The reason for this is because Larry holds stock in his company, and is delaying the admittance of the Jamaican drug into the country until he establishes his own drug and introduces it into the public in order to make money instead of saving lives. The playwright made Larry into a character that has can influence characters around him profoundly, and Larry has a very powerful influence on Ken. This is an insight into Lisa Loomer’s views on this modern-day issue. This aspect of the play’s main message is that even while new treatments are being developed overseas, the U.S. is falling behind in the area of health coverage because of greedy pharmaceutical companies. This is a very important point, and is illustrated well in the play.
The other, less serious message of the play is the cultural differences between people of different time periods and empires, and how their image of beauty is different. There are three main characters in the play: Forgiveness from Heaven, a Chinese woman whose feet are bound, Victoria, a proper lady from Victorian England, and Wanda, a woman from New Jersey who has breast cancer and implants. They all sit in the waiting room at the hospital and compare themselves and their cultures. Forgiveness from Heaven, while she loves her husband, is bound to him much like the bindings on her feet, and she is content with that. Her husband has five wives; she hates her bindings, but views them as a necessity to be beautiful. She even says in the play “Doctor tell me I have to wear flat shoes. I rather die than wear flat shoes.” She needs the bindings so much that she is willing to have gangrene instead of giving up the bindings. That image of beauty is so ingrained in her mind that she is very strongly unwilling to give it up.
Victoria has a very proper husband, who is a doctor. She, unlike forgiveness, is bound to him and has no freedom whatsoever, much like her corset. She is in the hospital for a hysterectomy. Like all women in Victorian England, she is not allowed to read or find out information on her condition, or anything for that matter. While in the hospital, she is constantly reading, specifically the works of Freud, among others. She is beginning to realize that she is in fact going crazy because she is so oppressed, not because there is actually anything physically wrong with her. When she realizes this, she begins fighting her husband about the procedure because it is not the solution to her problem. Her character is an analysis of the Women’s Rights Movement, and is an comparison to the struggle that took place when women first began to question their husband’s authority.
Wanda has no husband or boyfriend, and she is a product of the modern media’s image of beauty. She is confused about her perception of beauty. At first, she is the one that reads Cosmopolitan and Vogue and makes sure that her breasts are big enough and that she looks, as best she can, like the girls on the cover. When she discovers that she has breast cancer, though, her mind is changed about beauty. She forgets about the media’s interpretation and discovers her own vision of beauty when she says: “Yeah, dying would be a bitch. But isn’t it worse—not living when you’re alive?” She is essentially saying that she thinks that she would rather die than live a life where has a different interpretation of beauty—one that comes from an outside source.
Although these characters are different, they all have one thing in common: they all discover true beauty at the end of the play. For Forgiveness, it was when she took off her bindings and decided that it didn’t matter what her feet looked like, as long as she was comfortable with them. For Victoria, it was when she decided to not wear her corset and take all of her books with her home that she’d been reading at the hospital. For Wanda, it was when she decided to rid herself of her implants and try the new cancer drug at the hospital—the same one that Larry was developing. I think that the play ended well for all three of the women, but that Ken should have stood up against Larry and admitted the Jamaican drug into the U.S. On the other hand, in the play, the issue remained unsolved, and the problem persisted, as it does today. The last thing where the play left off short was Wanda and Douglas’s cancer cases. I would’ve liked to see what happened to them after they decided to go for the new drug. The Waiting Room was overall very well written, very humorous, and cunningly satirical. It also had two very important underlying messages, one about beauty, and one about the growing problem of the influence of powerful American pharmaceutical companies. It was overall a great piece of writing that had very well illustrated fundamental messages.
Labels: Beauty
Is beauty portrayed in a negative way in fairy tales?
There is no way that the reading of fairy tales affects children in a negative way. The article states that in fairy tales, beautiful women are rewarded; I think think that this is perfectly acceptable. These findings are yet another way that political correctness is taken too far and does nothing for society. According to human instinct, beautiful people are more likely to be better partners to be with, and therefore are able to succeed in life, which, in human instinct, is finding a mate and reproducing. Therefore, more beautiful people are more successful and they will be rewarded for their beauty by finding a mate and reproducing. However, in modern day society, there is a conflict between human nature and reality. The modern world is about material possessions, and natural selection among humans has all but stopped due to medical advances and knowledge about living. Beauty is no longer as important as it used to be, because beautiful people don't need it to live.
So, is this article saying that people should forget about the pursuit of beauty, and simply not try to be beautiful and enhance your aesthetic beauty? I think so. Young children need to understand that beauty is important, and that beautiful people need to exist, and so the pursuit of beauty is indeed important. generally, being pretty helps to land jobs, be successful in persuading other people, and, most importantly, finding boyfriends. The image of the princess in fairy tales is the exact thing that men and women want, and nothing should be done to change that. Guys, wouldn't you choose a beautiful princess like Cinderella over an ugly one like the Shrek princess? I know I would. And ladies, wouldn't you choose a prince charming over an ogre? I think so. These findings are true to a very small extent, and I think that kids should read all the fairy tales they want.
Labels: Beauty