Review: The Peaceful Pill Handbook

Title of the article: In Tijuana, a Market for Death in a Bottle
Source: The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/world/americas/21tijuana.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&em&en=7a39725c70e25908&ex=1216958400
Date of Publication: July 21, 2008
Author: MARC LACEY.

Garcia Fernandez, Gabriela.

It would be rather difficult to believe that you can find advices of how to commit suicide in a book, but it is true. “The Peaceful Pill Handbook” by Phillip Nitschke, is a book that lays out methods to end one’s life. Its author is the founder of Exit International, an Australian group that helps people who want to end their lives. It is banned in Australia and in New Zeeland. Anyway, its advices have already “helped” many people to committe suicide.
One of the book’s most popular advices is to buy Mexican Pentobarbital, a barbiturate commonly known as Nembutal. The drug, literally takes a person’s breath away and it can kill by putting people to sleep. It is tightly regulated in most countries but in Mexico, the drug is “readily available” says P. Nietschke in his book.
It is no surprising how easy is to buy the drug in Mexico, if we take into account that it is a country which has a huge problem of contraband. It is presicely in Tijuana pets' shops where Nembutal can be bought in small bottles of its concentrated liquid form. Once widely available as a sleep aid, this drug is now used mostly to anesthetize animals for surgery and to euthanize them.
Considered as “the most trouble-free and painless form of suicide” by P.Nitschke, Nembutal goes in brand names like Sedal-Vet, Sedalphorte and Barbithal. People who buy the drug are known as “death tourists”. They visit the veterinary pharmacies in Tijuana, Mexico, paying as little as 30 dollars for a dose. Some of them show the shops’ owners one of the many photos of bottles of Nembutal provided in Mr. Nitschke’s book. And although pet shops owners acknowledge that foreigners regularly inquire about the drug, they assumed “the customers were using it to end the lives of their animals”.
This situation changed after an article published by “El Norte”, a regional newspaper, detailed how easy was to buy pentobarbital and how foreigners intended to use it. Consequently, local authorities are seeking to clamp down on unauthorized purchases and shops are now supposed to sell the drug only to licensed veterinarians who present a prescription.
A second step to solve this problem, should be, in my opinion to reconsider Mr. Nitschke’s book as a threat to people willing to die. The book not only offers advices of the best ways to commit suicide but it also tells people where to buy the drugs to do it. This is totally inmoral and it may also be considered a crime, taking into that what Mr. Nitschke is doing is a form of “assisted suicide”, which is illegal in many countries.

Review: What Play Means for Children.

Title of the article: The Importance of Play
Source: http://www.articlecity.com/articles/family/article_2742.shtml
Author: Judy Hansen
Date of Publication: May, 2008.

Garcia Fernandez, Gabriela.

Most people may think that children play because they are bored, but to play is much more than that. Jude Hasen explains in the article “The Importance of Play” the role that this activity has for children and how play becomes a door to the world for them. For this author, when children play, they are immersed in a world of wonder, exploration and adventure, which gives children the opportunity to learn and experience things themselves. Taking into account her explanation, there’s no doubt that play is vital then, for children’s development.
As any important activity in human life, to play has different stages: the first one during toddler hood, the second stage when children are preschoolers and the third stage during children’s school age. Each stage is adjusted to each age capacities and abilities, and each one adds important experiences to children’s life and development.
What is more amazing than the stages of play, is the fact that play “benefits the child in ways that might be difficult for adults to imagine” as J. Hasen states in the article. To support this opinion, the author explains the most relevant benefits that play has in children’s life. First of all, play brings joy. Apart from that, it “fosters socio-emotional learning” because when playing children display their independence in the decision to embark in play activities. On the other hand, play “hones physical and motor development” since it involves the uses of the sense and the body.
As important as those benefits, is the fact that to play “facilitates cognitive learning”. It is vital to the intellectual development of a child. To play “enhances language development”, “encourage creativity” and “provides bonding experiences”. Taking into account all these benefits explained in the article, it is clear that play is a very important factor in children’s life.
But what is the importance then, in getting to know what play means for children? First of all, to know this, may encourage parents to support their children’s playtime. If parents get to understand play as an extremely beneficial activity for their children, their view over this activity will always be positive, leading to parent’s support to it. And this support is no other thing that a great contribution, and the best contribution, that parents could do to their children life and development.

Review: The Great Ape Project.

Title of the article: When Human Rights Extend to Nonhumans
Source: The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/weekinreview/13mcneil.html?pagewanted=1

Garcia Fernandez, Gabriela.

The environment committee of the Spanish Parliament is discussing a new bill which aims to grant limited rights to apes, since they are considered our biological relatives. The discussion is based on The Great Ape Project, which takes into account apes’ human qualities such as to feel fear and happiness, create tools, use language, remember the past and plan the future. The directors of the project are the Princeton ethicist, Peter Singer and the Italian philosopher, Paola Cavalieri, for whom apes are part of a community of equals with humans. If the bill is passed, it would become illegal in Spain to kill apes and torture them, and arbitrary imprisonment would been forbidden. Apes in Spain zoos would not be freed but they would receive better care.
The big question under this project arises when deciding which humans’ rights an ape should be offered. To answer this, Mr. Singer explained that the DNA of a chimpanzee is 95% to 98.7 the same as that of humans. And he demanded in his project only rights that he felt all humans were usually offered, like freedom from torture. Under this project’s point of view, Apes’ status would be akin to that of children.
Lots of debates arise after this project was presented in the Spanish Parliament. While people who protect animals feel that “it is a great start to breaking down the species barrier”, scientists would like to keep using chimpanzees to study AIDS virus. On the other hand, Spanish Catholic bishops attacked the vote as undermining a divine will that placed humans above animals.
The article’s author states his point of view discussing what he considers the basic human right: not to be killed for food. Cannibalism is forbidden to laws of all countries. If we take into account the slide difference between a chimpanzee’s DNA and our, killing them for food as it occurs in Africa, for example, would be a crime, even without The Great Ape Project coming into force.
To conclude, all this matter can simply be seen as all great struggles separating man from beast. In the end, we have to consider that animals cannot protect themselves against humans and that’s what enables us with such superiority over them. That we reconsider our position over animals and that we treat them as equals will remain in my opinion, as something remote, even if the Ape Project is voted by the Spanish Parliament.

Review: A new discovery around HIV

Review: A new discovery around HIV

Title of the article: “Gene Variation May Rise Risk of HIV”
Source: The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/science/17hiv.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Date of Publication: July 17, 2008
Author: NICHOLAS WADE

Garcia Fernandez, Gabriela.

This review is based on an article by Nicholas Wade from the New York Times, which explains the new conclusions reached by scientists in relation to HIV/AIDS. The article is based on a new discovery around the HIV virus found by a group of researchers from Texas and London. The discovery is expected to offer an important insight into the biology of the virus.
According to the article, a genetic variation that once protected people in sub-Saharan Africa from a now extinct form of Malaria may have left them more vulnerable to HIV. This would explain why AIDS is more common there than expected. The genetic variation has been studied in the US, where African-Americans who carried the variation were 50% more likely to acquire HIV than African-Americans who did not.
The geneticist David Goldstein said that “if the new results are comfirmed, it would mean that selection for resistance to Malaria has created a vulnerability to infection with HIV”. The genetic variation involves a change in one unit of DNA. As a consequence of this, red blood cells fail on inserting a certain protein on their surface. This protein is a receptor which receives signals from a hormone known as CCL5, part of the immune system’s regulatory system. The receptor was also used by a Malaria parasite to gain entrance to the red blood cells. More than 90% of people in Africa now lack the receptor on their red blood cells, as do about a 60% of African-Americans.
The Texas-London research team is not certain how lack of the receptor promotes HIV infection, but Dr. Ahuja, who wrote the report, said that “the blood cells act like a sponge for the hormone CCL5”. Because CCL5 is known to obstruct multiplications of the virus, having lots of the hormone in the bloodstream may prevent the infection. Conversely, people whose blood cannot soak up the hormone could be more vulnerable.
Dr. Weiss contribution to the research was the fact that the red blood cell receptor was similar to another receptor, the CCR5. This one occurs on the surface of the white blood cells, which are HIV’s mayor target. A small percentage of Europeans have a mutation that prevents CCR5 receptor from being displayed on the surface of white blood cells, and they are protected against HIV. The absence of the two receptors has the opposite effect: vulnerability to HIV, when the red cell receptor is missing, protection from it, when the white cell receptor is withdrawn.
As it’s often the case with provocative new findings, the researchers may have some way to go before convincing others that their observation is correct. From the time being, this new discovery offers a new possibility to the understanding of the virus, and some answers to the questions that arise around this terrible disease.

The Importance of Children Education

Having an Education is important, even in careers which do not normally require academic qualifications. Whatever subject we study, education can teach us to learn from life.
Most of the social problems that our country is suffering nowadays, could be avoided through education. If we take into account, for instance, how much violemce is afecting adolescents and children, we can conclude that this problem has its roots in the lack of eductaion they have. Children and adolescents tend to behave outside thier houses as they are taught to behave inside them. If they misbehave in such a dramatic scale, is simply because they are not well educated in that area.
Following this type of analysis, we can understand how important is the value of education and realize that this field has many failures, especilly in our country. Most of those failures are taking place at home. And after leaving a home which does not educate, children enter into a broken educational system which cannot cope with them as it should.
We must understand that primary education is key. It helps the child to develop in terms of providing foundations for more advanced learning and in helping the child develop into an emotionally healthy teenager. Several subjects are essencial in primary school such as music, physical eductaion, foreign languages, creative writing and maths. Through them schools aim to develop essential qualities that are substantial as preparation for the outside world. It is in primary school when children develop their competitiveness, interpersonal skills, self-confidence and team spirit. And, most important of all, it is in primary school when children inherit the basic patterns of their behaviour, the main differences between right and wrong, the importance of solidarity, and when they develop their aim of becoming good people. School not only teaches subjects, but also manners and values.
What is not done and not learnt during chilhood is not likely to be done or learnt afterwards. Childhood is an important time in every person’s life, in which people learnt most of the values that will rule their lifes as adults. The influence of family and school should not be dismissed as it occurs nowadays. These are the children educators and to be in charge of children’s eductaion is a serious task. And it should be taken as serious as it is.

"Betrayal” and “The Kite Runner”

When reading the extract from “The Kite Runner” and the poem “Betrayal” the fact that they shared betrayal as a main theme clearly stands out. Other similarities can also be perceived between both text, as well as some differences, but the former are more than the later.
First of all, that text A and text B shared the same main theme can be seen throughout the whole texts. The novel “ The Kite Runner” has its main character, Amir, as the representation of the feeling of betrayal. This boy betrays his friend Hassan, son of his father’s servant, quite often and through many different situations during their childhood. The extract tells one of the highest moments of the novel from those in which Amir assumes himself as an unloyal person. This is shown by the fact that Hassan and Ali’s birthday gift makes Amir feel uncomfortable. Taking into account that by this moment of the novel Hassan has already been raped, Ali and Hassan’s kidness towards Amir makes him feel that he is totally unworthy.
Betrayal is constantly treated in the novel and in each point at which it stands out, the tone and mood of the story inmediately tends to change. Sadness and the feeling of guilt are highlighted when the plot of “The Kite Runner” goes aroung betrayal. The mood changes from happines to dispair and the atmosphere turns gloomy everytime Amir betrays his friend. Rethoric and existencial questions hunt the protagonist when the feeling of guilt invades him. He wonders why he is so mean with Hassan and although he regrets, he cannot stop being like that, and in some instances he even justifies himself. The phrase “He’s only a Hazara” said by Amir after not helping Hassan when he is sexually attacked, is an evidence of that.
As stated at the beginnig, betrayal is also the main theme in the poem of the same name written by Frank P. Whyte. This theme is developed through it as it occurs with “The Kite Runner”. A difference from the few between the two texts, is the fact that in the poem there is any situation in which the theme is not present. Furthermore, the mood and tone remain generally the same throughout it. The whole poem has a sad atmosphere and there are not alterning situations or emotions like it does occur in “The Kite Runner”. The novel has some up-lifting moments in which joy and happiness and even hope appear as main fellings. In the poem, the structure in which betrayal develops is quite different and no hope or happiness is felt when reading it.
Leaving aside this important difference between text A and text B, the strengh of the similarities between both texts is easily perceived when reading the poem. Stanza number 4, for example, is a clear evidence of that strengh. This paragraph explains how a betrayer can attemp to justify his dishonesty and wrong doing. This can be understood when reading the phrase “the betrayer will wrap themselves in a coat of righteousness”...what this stanza communicates is exactly what Amir does in the novel when saying “He’s just a Hazara”. This justification from part of Amir strongly conveys the image that stanza 4 from the poem gives of a betrayer.
After comparing text A with text B, betrayal and its consequences are understood not only as a literal theme that can inspire authors to write but as part of the human life and spirit. Both authors succeded in these pieces of work to presenst Betrayal as an act capable of being performed by everybody and the feeling of guilt as an emotion from which nobody can escape when betraying somebody else.