CONSUMER SOCIETY

ON CONSUMER SOCIETY
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/magazine-articles/consumer-society


Alejandro Altimir

globalization for interpreters lecture

One of the prime issues  interpreers to be must tackle  is  audio comprehension
We must all tune in our ears for unspaced communication tranches, except for the natural breathing pauses  a speaker needs. This continuum of speech must reach  our ears  so they get used  and comprehend audio material  at a faster speed . Our first topics  for the subject

ASPECTOS DE LA REALIDAD SOCIAL CONTEMPORANEA
is WORLD REGIONS .
 And this starts  by asking ourselves  what the worl d  looks like  nowadays .Upon observation, we must admit that  interconnectedness is the key work. This lead s  to the idea of a GLOBALIZED WORLD
This series of lectures by professor JohN Boyer from Virginia University  will provide us with some interesting material on the topic.  Please listen and extract  5 key ideas  to work on in class.

 http://www.plaidavenger.com/worldregions/

Porf Patricia Grey

Scottish Independence in the near future?

In spite of the recent kelpers referendum in Malvinas, we can find these interesting articles:

Scotland referendum for Independence in 2014? (Introductory, in Spanish, contents the links in English at the end). Those are: "How Scotland is taking the Catalonia road" (referred to its independence) and others links about that issue. They were published by "The Guardian" (London) and also "El Pais" (Madrid). 

Please, click on them:

Scotland heads for independence

Scots favour a form of autonomy

The prime minister's urge to defend the UK against Scottish autonomy

A no vote in Scotland could leave England begging for mercy

GRAMMAR EXERCISES FOR P.E.T.

If you are preparing  for the PRELIMINARY ENGLISH TEST LEVEL,  here is a useful page that contains  a lot of exercises  with answers, so you can correct yourself . Do not forget to comment  on your results   in class!!!!

 http://elt.oup.com/student/englishfile/preint/;jsessionid=42C02764831919B9C139AEE1388207FD?cc=ar&selLanguage=en

general info about PET exam in Spanish link

http://argentina.cambridgeenglish.org/contacto/index.php

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY

Lincoln and the struggle to abolish slavery

Alan Maass looks at what Abraham Lincoln deserves to be remembered for.

February 12, 2009 | Issue 691

Lincoln's visit to the conquered Confederate capital of Richmond, Va., where he was met by jubilant freed slaves
FEBRUARY 12 marks 200 years since Abraham Lincoln was born, and that's probably not news to you. It seems like every institution of American society and every voice of the political establishment is "honoring" the Great Emancipator on his 200th birthday.
But this is only a concentrated whiff of the legends about Lincoln that every one of us heard from our first days in school--a selfless leader, honest to a fault, the president who saved the union, the man who freed the slaves.
This sanctification--and, oftentimes, sanitizing--of past figures is typical. One result is that the ways history is shaped not mostly by individuals, but by the actions of much larger numbers of people, is obscured. Lincoln, for example, couldn't have freed a single slave without the 2.5 million soldiers who served in the Union Army--or without the self-activity of the slaves themselves, struggling for their freedom.
On the other hand, from some on the left, you get a quite different picture of Lincoln, and it's one that people angered by the corruption and hypocrisy of political leaders today find easy to believe: Lincoln the racist, who thought whites were the natural superior of Blacks, and who cared nothing about the question of slavery except how it could help him win a war fought for the profits of northern manufacturers.
That isn't the right picture either. Lincoln didn't "free the slaves" by himself, but he did play an important part in the struggle to end slavery.

What else to read

The best history of the Civil War is also one of the most popular: James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. McPherson also authored a book of essays, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, which examines the question of Lincoln's role during the war, his political commitments and his views on slavery and race.
The most perceptive commentaries about the Civil War written at the time came from Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Their letters, essays and journalism on the subject are collected in Marx and Engels on the United States.
Frederick Douglass wrote volumes of essays and articles on slavery, the abolitionist movement and the Civil War. A good starting point is his autobiographical Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.
Ahmed Shawki's Black Liberation and Socialism is an excellent overview of the struggle against racism in the U.S., with a section on the abolition struggle through the Civil War.

Lincoln's importance in history wasn't as an abolitionist thinker--he did, indeed, hold backward ideas about race compared to other opponents of slavery--or as an organizer for the cause, but in the role he played in a specific historical situation.
Lincoln was the political leader representing the ruling class of Northern capitalists at one of the last points in world history where the interests of that class coincided with an expansion of democracy and freedom. And Lincoln's greatness in this context is that he didn't shrink or retreat from that role--as others around him did--but rather rose to the challenge at each link in the chain of events.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE CIVIL War is rightly called the "second American Revolution," because its roots lie in the first revolution of 1776 against the rule of the British monarchy--and the contradiction at the heart of the new United States.
On the one hand, the new government represented the most advanced form of democracy in the world at the time, based on the high ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence, such as "all men are created equal."
But, of course, all men weren't equal in America. At the time of the revolution, there were 1 million African slaves in the colonies, and the most prosperous part of the economy--the agricultural system in the Southern states--was dependent on their labor.
To the extent that this glaring contradiction troubled some early leaders of the U.S., they nevertheless accepted the situation because they expected slavery to die out. But they were wrong in this expectation, and the reason why can be summed up in one word: cotton.
Between 1793 and 1815, cotton exports from the U.S. grew from 500,000 tons to more than 80 million tons. Cotton from the U.S. was the fuel for the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the development of capitalism--and slavery was the key to producing cotton. As Karl Marx wrote from his vantage point in Britain, "Without slavery, there would be no cotton, without cotton, there would be no modern industry."
Slavery not only didn't die out--it thrived. Under the South's oligarchy of big plantation owners, all the horrors of the slave system were intensified.
Meanwhile, the northern U.S. was developing in a very different direction. Small-scale farming continued to remain significant, but more and more, Northern society became organized around industry, built up in the urban centers. By 1850, the Northern system had been transformed by innovations in transportation, technology and communications.
The two systems, North and South, were pulling in opposite directions and increasingly coming into conflict, in battles played out in the federal government--over trade policy (Southern plantation owners wanted free trade; Northern industrialists wanted tariffs to protect their new enterprises), government investment (the North wanted the government to spur innovation; Southerners wanted it to keep out of the economy) and other issues.
The biggest battles of all were over the addition of new states to the Union--because whether slavery was legal or not could tip the balance of power in the federal government between slave states and free states that allowed the South to block the more rapidly developing North.
Alongside the economic conflict was a political one: deepening anti-slavery sentiment in the North versus the hardening of the South in defense of its system, with every new political compromise to paper over the conflict driving the two sides further apart.
An abolitionist movement dedicated to ending slavery had existed in the U.S. from the start--with Blacks themselves among its most powerful voices--but it became more outspoken and radical as the 19th century progressed.
By the 1850s, the intensification of the conflict undermined the moderate Whig Party in the North, which tolerated the North's junior-partner status in the federal government. The Republican Party was founded in 1854 as a third-party challenge--under the influence of the abolitionists, but also a range of other forces that were more hostile to the power of the slave South than to the institution of slavery itself.
Abraham Lincoln became the Republican presidential candidate in 1860 precisely because he represented the middle point among these different forces.
Lincoln, who had been a member of Congress from Illinois, was morally opposed to slavery and expected to see it ended over time. But Lincoln denied that he favored "the social and political equality of the white and black races," as he put it in one political debate. "I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."
Moreover, while Lincoln wanted to see slavery die out, he opposed taking action in the name of abolition--for example, challenging the Fugitive Slave Law that put the power of the federal government behind the slave-catchers who kidnapped free Blacks to "return" them to the South.
The central plank of Lincoln's 1860 campaign for president was the one issue that all the different forces in the Republican Party could agree on--that slavery couldn't be allowed to expand into the Western territories.
Many abolitionists thought this was far too timid, and called for a boycott of the election. The great abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass was more supportive of the Republicans, but still critical. As he put it:

The Republican Party...is opposed to the political power of slavery, rather than to slavery itself. It would arrest the spread of the slave system...and defeat all plans for giving slavery any further guarantee of permanence. This is very desirable, but it leaves the great work of abolishing slavery...still to be accomplished. The triumph of the Republican Party will only open the way for this great work.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
DOUGLASS' COMMENT was prophetic. The victory of Lincoln and the Republicans in 1860, against a divided pro-slavery opposition, did open the way for the struggle to come.
How? Because restrictions on the expansion of slavery--the one key plank in the Republican platform--would inevitably undermine the South's dominant position in the federal government, and that would be the beginning of the end for the slaveocracy.
Certainly, that's how the South viewed Lincoln's election. In his inaugural speech, Lincoln pledged, "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists." But before he took the oath of office, seven of the 11 states that would make up the Southern Confederacy had already seceded from the U.S.
This sent a panic through ruling circles in the North. Various business and political figures, including fellow leaders among the Republican Party, urged Lincoln to accept a compromise that essentially would have scrapped the party's program on slavery.
But on this score, Lincoln the moderate passed his first big test--by not bending. As he wrote in a letter to one of the Republican advocates of compromise:

We have just carried an election on principles fairly stated to the people. Now we are told in advance, the government shall be broken up unless we surrender to those we have beaten...If we surrender, it is the end of us. They will repeat the experiment upon us ad libitum. A year will not pass till we shall have to take Cuba as a condition upon which they will stay in the Union.

Yet as the Civil War began following the Confederate bombardment of the Union's Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C., Lincoln was the opposite of his resolve on the question of the expansion of slavery.
The North barely mobilized for the first battles of the war. Lincoln assumed that the Southern rebels would be put down with a minimal effort, and that a "silent majority" of Southern Unionists would emerge to challenge the secessionists. Short of allowing the expansion of slavery, he was willing to make all sorts of concessions guaranteeing slavery where it already existed.
In August 1861, the Northern Gen. John Frémont imposed martial law in Missouri and began freeing slaves as a military measure against Southern forces. But Lincoln modified Frémont's order and ultimately removed him from command--out of fear that the general's action would tip more states into the Confederacy.
This shows that Lincoln still didn't understand the central dynamic of the Civil War--the struggle over slavery. As an infuriated Douglass wrote: "To fight against slaveholders without fighting against slavery is but a half-hearted business and paralyzes the hands engaged in it...Fire must be met with water. War for the destruction of liberty must be met with war for the destruction of slavery."
Douglass was right again. The war went badly for the North because of the half-hearted commitment to waging it in Lincoln's government--and especially among the generals in charge of the Northern Army.
For example, George McClellan, the top commander of the Northern forces, had been appointed to appease pro-slavery Democrats in the North, and the so-called Border States that hadn't joined the Confederacy. Because he favored a compromise that insured the continued existence of slavery, he hesitated to use the full force of his army against the South.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
BY THE middle of 1862, the Southern armies were winning in virtually every theater of the war. Watching from Britain as an avid supporter of the North and abolition, Frederick Engels wrote to his friend Karl Marx that the war looked to be over, and the South had prevailed.
But Marx disagreed. "So far," Marx wrote, "we have only witnessed the first act of the Civil War--the constitutional waging of war. The second act, the revolutionary waging of war, is at hand."
The North had crucial advantages that were necessary for victory--greater numbers, a stronger transportation network, developed industry. But by themselves, these weren't enough. The North also needed the political will to prevail--because the Civil War was bound to be a political war.
Both North and South, the armies of the Civil War were made up of volunteers--to a much larger extent than any other U.S. war. So these armies needed to know what they were fighting for and why.
To the Confederacy, the Civil War was about the survival of its political and social system. But in the North, the political aims of the war had to be made central. Above all others was Douglass' argument--to make war on slaveowners, the North would have make war on slavery.
This first became clear for the North as a matter of military necessity. Slaves themselves forced the issue by escaping to Union lines whenever the Northern armies approached. The practical question arose for Northern officers: Should the slaveowners' "property" be returned to them, thus adding to the enemy's military advantage--or should the escaped slaves be defended?
This became the reality along all the battle lines, with escaped slaves becoming a volunteer labor force accompanying the Union Army. Lincoln at first hesitated to embrace this policy of military emancipation. But once he became convinced of its necessity in order to win the war, it became a cornerstone of his strategy.
By mid-1862, he had decided on issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, though he waited for a Union victory at the Battle of Antietam to make it public. The Emancipation Proclamation was a calculated half-measure. It only freed slaves in the states that had joined the Confederacy, not in the Border States that remained part of the Union, but where slavery remained legal.
But the effect, as Lincoln knew, was unambiguous. It was a further step toward making the Civil War into a war of abolition--and turning the Union Army into an army of liberation, whose physical presence enforced the Emancipation Proclamation in the Southern states.
In early 1863, Lincoln again hesitated at another measure proposed by abolitionists, but was won over--for the formation of Black regiments to fight in the war. In bringing together soldiers who were fighting for their own liberation, this policy had an enormous effect. By the end of the war, one in 10 soldiers in the Union Army were Black.
The growing importance of emancipation as a war aim had an effect on white Northerners, especially the white soldiers of the Union Army. Few started out the war as ardent abolitionists, but many became so in the course of it. As one Michigan sergeant wrote in a letter to his wife:

The more I learn of the cursed institution of slavery, the more I feel willing to endure for its final destruction...After this war is over, this whole country will undergo a change for the better...Abolishing slavery will dignify labor; that fact, of itself, will revolutionize everything.

This kind of deepening political commitment made the soldiers of the Union Army willing to endure harsh sacrifices--including, like the Michigan sergeant, who was killed by a Confederate sharpshooter near Atlanta in 1864, the ultimate sacrifice.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE TRANSFORMATION of Union soldiers, like Lincoln's stubborn commitment to resist compromises, is all the more impressive considering the pressures in the other direction.
The pro-slavery northern Democrats--known as the Copperheads, after the snake--organized around every military failure, including those caused by the incompetence of their hero, Gen. McClellen. They stoked a racist backlash against the Emancipation Proclamation, which created the climate for the deadly New York Draft Riots in 1863.
With each new crisis caused by military defeats and the agitating of pro-slavery forces, Lincoln was urged by leading political figures to compromise--even to offer "peace" on the South's terms.
Among the compromisers were prominent Republicans with a stronger record in favor of abolition than Lincoln before the war. But Lincoln distinguished himself for his refusal to give in. And eventually, he found a group of generals, including Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman and Philip Sheridan, who were prepared to wage an all-out war aimed at destroying the slave power.
Lincoln hadn't thought this out in advance. "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me," he wrote in one letter. But his shift over the course of the war is unmistakable.
Thus, in his first inaugural address, Lincoln said he had "no purpose...to interfere with the institution of slavery" where it existed. By his second inaugural speech, he took an altogether more uncompromising and radical position:

Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled up by the bondman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so it must be said, "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

As for his own attitudes about slavery and race, Lincoln was transformed by events. One famous story describes his visit to the Confederate capital of Richmond after the Union Army conquered it. As historian James McPherson wrote:

[Lincoln] was soon surrounded by an impenetrable cordon of Black people shouting, "Glory to God!" "Glory! Glory! Glory!" "Bless the Lord!"...Several freed slaves touched Lincoln to make sure he was real. "I know I am free," shouted an old woman, "for I have seen Father Abraham and felt him."
Overwhelmed by rare emotions, Lincoln said to one Black man who fell on his knees in front of him: "Don't kneel to me. That is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank Him for the liberty you will enjoy hereafter."

Lincoln didn't "free the slaves." Slavery was abolished because of the sacrifices and struggles of millions of people--Blacks as well as whites. But Lincoln did play an important role. He deserves to be remembered, not for all the trivia that will be wheeled out at celebrations supposedly in his honor today, but as a participant in one of the great struggles for freedom in history.

links for interpreters first year

SCHOOL  AND CAREER  INTERPRETING

FIRST YEAR   SOME USEFUL LINKS  IN YOU TUBE

1.       CAN INTERPRETERS  GET EMOTION ACROSS  Miguel Angel Martinez DG Interpreting

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50-Tl4d0LUY

2.       INTERPRETING VS  TRANSLATION  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPF-iNmbxC8

3.       ASOCIACION DE INTERPREERS DE BARCELONA  CONSECUTIVE VS SIMULTANEOUS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHiSTBKguos

4.       ON NON NATIVE SPEAKERS  SEPAKERS OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

JAPANESE SPEAKER

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXTzamiHg0c

5.       A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF A CHINESE- ENGLISH INTERPRETER

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87jwMEKOGrU

If you find others, please add them to this list to share.

CHOOSING A POPE

WATCH THE BRIEF VIDEO ON  HOW THE POPE IS ELECTED

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPgimD26Fnc

Nuclear Energy

Nuclear power gives us about 17 % of the world’s electricity . Some countries produce more nuclear power than others. France, for example, gets about 75 % of its energy from nuclear power plants , the USA only 15 %. Many countries, like Austria, don’t have any nuclear energy at all.
 

The energy of atoms

Nuclear energy comes from the energy inside each atom. Atoms are made up of a nucleus with protons and neutrons—and electrons which revolve around the nucleus like the earth goes around the sun.
 

Nuclear Fission

An atom’s nucleus can be split apart. When this is done, a lot of energy is released . Albert Einstein, the world’s most famous scientist, said that you can get a lot of energy out of a small number of atoms. When it is let out slowly, you can use this energy to produce electricity , but if you let it out all at once, it can cause a great explosion—like in an atomic bomb.
In a nuclear power station uranium atoms are split apart to create energy. Uranium can be found in rocks on earth, but only a special form of uranium—U 235—can be used to make energy. A pound of uranium has the same energy as about 250 000 litres of petrol .
 

Chain Reaction

In a nuclear reactor free neutrons hit a uranium atom and split it. New neutrons are set free and when they run into other uranium atoms they split them again. When this continues over and over again, you call it a chain reaction .
Control rods are put into the reactor so that the chain reaction doesn’t go on so fast. The chain reaction also gives off heat energy. This heat is used to make water hot and produce steam . The steam turns a turbine to generate electricity.
When parts of atoms hit each other they also become radioactive , which is very dangerous if it doesn't stay in the reactor.

Inside a power plant

A nuclear power plant must be safe, otherwise radiation could get into the air. They have a containment - a building around it that is made of concrete and steel. In the core of the reactor uranium is formed into long rods which are put into water. This water cools the rods when they get too hot.
Control rods are also put into the core. They take up the neutrons and control the chain reaction. They can be raised or lowered into the core. If you raise them the chain reaction goes on quicker , the core gets hotter and more energy is produced. If you lower them they absorb free neutrons and the chain reaction is slowed down.

Inside a power plant

 

Dangers of nuclear energy

Nuclear power plants have advantages because they produce electricity in a clean way. But there are also many problems

• Natural uranium cannot be used in power plants. You have to enrich it. This costs a lot of money and is not good for our environment .

• There is the danger of nuclear explosions. The explosion at Chernobyl in 1986 blew up the rector’s containment and tons of radioactive dust were blown into the atmosphere. Many people were killed and millions around the power station had to leave their homes.

• Used uranium stays radioactive for thousands of years. There is no way to store it safely.

• Transporting uranium is very dangerous.

 
 

Nuclear Fusion

Fusion is the opposite of fission. The nuclei of small atoms are joined to make one bigger atom. The sun uses nuclear fusion of hydrogen atoms to produce light and heat.
Fusion is better than fission because it doesn’t create that much radiation and you can use water as fuel .

Nuclear Waste

When the uranium in the core of a reactor is used up, you have to take it out . In some cases uranium can be recycled and used again. If you reprocess uranium you can make another dangerous product—plutonium, which is used to make atomic bombs.
But even though uranium can be used again it finally has to be stored safely. Nuclear waste remains radioactive for thousands of years. Even putting it deep into a mountain would not be completely safe.

The future

In the 1950s and 60s we thought that nuclear power was a clean and cheap form of energy. The energy companies thought that nuclear energy would replace coal, oil and gas.
But as time went on and disasters in Three Mile Island and in Chernobyl happened, people around the world saw nuclear energy as a danger. Some countries have already stopped their reactors completely and other are shutting them down in the near future .
 

The World’s Worst Nuclear Disaster—What Happened at Chernobyl

On 26th April 1986 the world’s worst nuclear disaster took place at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the northern Ukraine. One of the four reactors exploded because the operators were very careless about safety during a routine test. The explosion blasted a large hole through the roof of the building. Tons of radioactive material were blown up to a height of about 1 km. There was also a big fire in the station.
About 100 million curies of radiation escaped from the station into the atmosphere. Most of it fell on the farmland of Belarus and the Ukraine. A lot of fallout also drifted westwards to northern and central Europe.
The people of Chernobyl were exposed to radiation about 100 times greater than from the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Since the accident, many hundred thousand people have become ill, a lot of them have died of cancer or other diseases.
Over 400,000 people had to leave their homes as a result of the explosion. The area around Chernobyl today is a radioactive desert and nobody is allowed to live there.
The population of the Ukraine and Belarus is living in constant danger because the water is still poisoned and the ground on which they plant crops is still radioactive. The children are not allowed to walk in forests, play in parks or pick wild flowers.

Downloadable PDF Text- and Worksheets

• Text and Worksheets available at our shop

Related Topics

• World of Energy
• Japan Shuts Down Nuclear Power Stations
• Fukushima's Effects on World Oceans
• Chernobyl Disaster Still Endangers Animals
• Chernobyl - 25 Years After the Worst Nuclear Disaster in History

 

 Words

• absorb = to take up
• advantages = good sides about something
• Belarus =country in eastern Europe that used to be a part of the Soviet Union
• blast = here :blow away
• cancer =a very bad disease in which cells in a part of the body start to grow in an uncontrolled way
• careless = they were not careful
• chain reaction =an event that leads to another event, over and over again
• concrete =material used for building houses, bridges, roads etc.. You get it by mixing sand , water , small stones and cement together
• constant = always
• containment = the building around a nuclear power station
• control rods =long thin poles or bars of metal that control the chain reaction
• core = the inner part of something
• create = to make
• curies = radioactivity is measured in curies
• disaster = a dangerous accident that kills many people
• dust =dry powder made up of small bits of dirt
• electricity =power that is carried by wires or cables. It gives us light and heat and makes machines run
• enrich = to make something better
• environment = the world around us
• exposed to =not protected
• fallout = when radioactive dust moves around in the atmosphere and comes down in the form of rain
• finally = in the end
• fission =the splitting of an atom
• fuel =material like coal or oil that you can burn to produce heat or energy
• fusion =the central parts of an atom join together
• generate = make
• heat =something hot
• height =how high something is
• hydrogen = one of the elements that make up water (H 2 0)
• join = to put together
• lower = to push down
• near future = very soon
• nuclear power plants = places where nuclear power is made
• nuclear reactor = the inner part of a power plant. this is where energy is produced
• nuclear waste = what’s left over when energy is made in a nuclear power station
• nuclei = the plural of “nucleus”
• nucleus =the central part of an atom
• operators = the people who are in control of the power station
• otherwise =or else
• petrol =it is made from oil and is used to make our cars move
• poison =material that can lead to death
• radiation =form of energy that comes from nuclear energy; too much is dangerous
• radioactive =a form of energy that is dangerous for living things
• raise = to pull up
• recycle = to use over and over again
• release = to set free
• remain = stay
• replace = to use instead of something else
• reprocess = the same as “recycle”
• revolve = to go around
• rods = longs sticks
• routine = something normal
• shut down = close down
• split =divide
• steam = the smoke that comes out of water when you make it very hot
• store =keep for a time
• uranium = a radioactive metal that is found in rock. It is radioactive.
• used uranium = the uranium that is spent and cannot be used to produce

Racism

A race is a group of people who have the same skin color and physical features.  There are a few main races in the world, like Europeans or Caucasians, Blacks, or Asians.
Racists are people who believe that some races are better and more important than others. They think that their own race is the best and that other races are physically and mentally inferior to them. In many cases racists feel threatened by others. Racism exists in many countries. Minorities are often discriminated against and have problems getting jobs, houses or the same education as others.
There has been racism throughout history. Western scientists and philosophers have often tried to prove that white people are supreme to others. In the past, governments have often justified their legal and economic system with racism. It has led to slavery and even the cold-blooded murder of whole population groups. Racism has made people afraid of their leaders.

History of Racism

In ancient Greece and Rome, enemies were captured, made prisoners and turned into slaves. In ancient Egypt thousands of foreign slaves built the pyramids of Giza.
When the Age of Exploration began in the 15th century Europeans founded colonies in the New World. The English, Spanish and French tried to civilize Native Americans because they thought they were barbaric and different.
In the United States Blacks were kept as slaves for many centuries. They had to work on the cotton farms for no money at all. After they had been officially freed by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War they still continued to be discriminated against for decades. Racists groups such as the Ku Klux Klan emerged as a sign of white superiority and hatred towards Blacks.

Members of the Ku Klux Klan burn crosses in the American south

Australia held racist attitudes towards the Aborigines.  In the early decades of the 20th century Aboriginal children were taken away from their families and civilized in a white environment.
During World War II Nazi Germany murdered over 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, the largest genocide in history.
In South Africa, the white government followed a policy of segregation which they called Apartheid. Whites, Blacks and Asians lived in separate areas, attended their own churches, hospitals and schools. Apartheid ended in 1990 when Nelson Mandela became the first Black president in the country and the ANC took over power.

Racism today

Although racism may not have the same influence today, it still exists. In Europe, right wing parties are very successful in their attempt to scare people by telling them there are too many foreigners in the country.
In America there is aggressiveness and often hate towards Hispanics, often considered to be unintelligent.
In sports, black athletes are often insulted by racist colleagues and spectators.

Sign on a segregated beach in Durban, South Africa during the Apartheid period

 

Words

• Aborigines = native population of Australia; the people who lived there before Europeans came
• although = while
• ANC = African National Congress = leading party of South Africa; it came to power in 1990 and has been fighting for the rights of Blacks in South Africa
• ancient = old
• attempt = try
• attend = go to
• attitude = feeling
• barbaric = very cruel and uncivilized
• capture = to catch a person and keep them as prisoners
• Caucasian = a member of the race of people with  white or pale skin
• century = a hundred years
• civilize = educate ; to make someone behave in a better way
• decade = a period of ten years
• discriminate against = to treat a person or a group of people differently  and in an unfair way
• environment = the world around you
• features = characteristics, physical appearance
• foreign = from another country
• found – founded = start something new
• free = release; here: not be a slave anymore
• genocide = the murder of a whole race or group of people
• government = the people who rule a country
• hatred = hate
• inferior = lower than, not as good
• influence = power, strength
• justify = to show a good reason that something is right
• lead – led = cause
• mental = in your mind, brain
• minority = a small group of people within a much larger group
• physical = about the body
• prisoner = someone who is captured and taken somewhere
• prove = to show that something is true
• racist = a person who hates someone of a different race or religion
• right  wing = very conservative
• scare = to make someone afraid
• scientist = a person who works in a lab and is trained in science
• segregation = when people of different groups are kept apart so that they can live and work separately
• separate = their own
• slave = a person who works for someone else without getting any money for it
• slavery = the system of having slaves in a country
• superiority= the situation of being better than others
• supreme = the highest, best
• throughout = in all of

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FAMILY PROBLEMS

Family Problems Come in All Shapes and Sizes

There is no such thing as the perfect family. Every family is unique with its own combination of strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes families get overwhelmed by what seems like an endless list of challenges when it comes to juggling work, school and individual family members' needs. And sometimes families are blindsided by a huge upheaval such as a mental or physical illness, a job loss, or an addiction. Even "joyful" events such as a wedding, a job promotion, or a financial windfall can disrupt a family with unexpected consequences. Seeking a professional family problems therapist may help.

The more family problems there are, such as a depressed parent combined with a defiant teen-ager, the more challenging it will be to find the best combination of treatment solutions. Treatment would depend upon the nature of the problems and the willingness and ability of family members to participate. Sometimes couple therapy may be in order or it may be that family group therapy combined with individual therapy is required.

Types of Family Problems Commonly Treated by MFTs

• Mental health problems such as depression, anxiety or phobias
• Illness
• Co-dependence
• Communication problems
• Domestic violence
• Anger
• Addiction
• Divorce
• In-law challenges
• Infidelity
• Intolerance of differences
• Inability to manage or resolve conflicts
• Over-dependency or extreme autonomy
• Financial difficulties or excesses
• Resentments
• Stepfamilies
• Sexual abuse
• Teen issues
• Chronic crises or unexpected upheavals
• Inadequate problem solving skills
• Favoring or disfavoring family members
• Unwanted separation due to job or personal demands

What You Can Do Right Now

1. Face reality. Be fearless and compile a list of what must be accepted and what must be changed both internally (within yourself) and externally (situation specific). This is your starting point for prioritizing challenges and identifying the resources you'll need to resolve them. It will also help you identify what is and is not within your control.
   
2. Take care of yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually.
   
3. Find and ask for help. Sometimes it's hard to ask for help but remember that therapists are trained to provide valuable perspective while assessing, diagnosing and treating family members of all ages.
   
4. Be open to change.

Parenting

How easy is it to be a parent ?

It Isn't Easy Being a Parent...

Parenting can be wonderful and rewarding, but it can also be difficult and unpleasant. Most parents experience moments (or months or years) of feeling overwhelmed. There’s a lot of information out there about what we “should” do to raise “good” kids.
In reality, there are no guaranteed methods for ensuring we and our children will be happy, healthy, and successful in life. There is, however, plenty of research showing that parents can make a significant, positive difference through a number of simple approaches.
Since the 1950s, Search Institute researchers have studied the effects of various influences in young people’s lives. They’ve found that the 40 Developmental Assets clearly relate to good things — like doing well in school, serving others, engaging in the community, and forming healthy habits.
It’s important for grown-ups to help young people experience these things, but parents can’t do it alone. However, there are nine specific parenting strategies that help. Focusing on these nine research-based strategies provides guidance and direction in the uncertain world of parenting. And that’s something parents can feel good about.
Below are our 9 Parenting Strategies based on the Developmental Assets research. Download, print, and share the strategies, and refer to them often in your parenting journey.
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Strategy #1

Take Action! No two parents show love in quite the same way. Some shower their kids with lots of hugs, high-fives, and kind notes; others are more stoic or reserved. Tap into your own way of showing your kids you care.

Spend time together in ways that fit your lifestyle.

Try to make time for regular meals together, go for walks, talk in the car, or meet somewhere for coffee.

Don’t strive to live up to a stereotype or an ideal of parenting; just do what works for you. Get more ideas here.

Strategy #2

Take Action! Communicate in ways that work well for you. Texting sometimes gets a bad rap, but so did the telephone years ago. Lots of kids today text—many of them, with their parents. If it works for your family, go for it. The medium you use matters less than how much you truly listen.

Do you understand what your kids are trying to tell you? Are you paying attention to body language or other cues that might indicate there’s more to a story?

When you share things, are you grounding yourself in love, respect, and clarity? Do you ever say one thing and mean another? Do you treat them the way you want to be treated?

Get more positive communication tips here.

Strategy #3

Take Action! Are you able to name at least three non-parent adults who are positive role models for your child? That strict but kind violin teacher who pushes 20 minutes of practice a day may be helping your daughter build confidence. Or maybe the neighbor who hires your son to walk her dogs helps him see himself as a responsible and reliable person. Adults outside our families can be hidden treasures when it comes to helping us parent. Research shows that all family members can benefit from kids having these kinds of supportive relationships. You can help nurture them by introducing your children to people you like and respect, and supporting positive relationships that develop naturally. Get more tips here.

Strategy #4

Take Action! Most schools and youth-serving programs go out of their way to reach parents through conferences, volunteer opportunities, and special events. If you’re too busy to attend, at the very least, connect with your children’s teachers via e-mail or phone. Then start taking advantage of opportunities to actually get into and spend time at the places your kids go.

If the idea of going to school makes you uncomfortable, chaperone a field trip out of the building.

If you aren’t finding good ways to get involved, start talking to or emailing your child’s teachers, principals, program leaders, other directors. Let them know what would work for you and why the current opportunities don’t work.

Get more tips for connecting to your child’s school here.

Strategy #5

Take Action! Kids may not realize it, but having responsibilities is good for them. All people need to know they are valued and valuable; it’s human nature. Parents can show kids that they are valued at home by giving them increasing levels of responsibility. We can then take it a step further by helping them get engaged in service in the community, whether this involvement is in the neighborhood, school, or somewhere else. Get more ideas here.

Strategy #6

Take Action! Kids need emotional and physical safety in equal measures. The challenges parents face in providing it vary as much as kids and their environments.

A secret to keeping kids safe is to do the other eight things on this list. If you’re communicating, you’ll know what’s going on in your child’s life, where they might need some help, or if they might need someone to look out for them. If they have contributing roles and positive influences, they’re more likely to make safe choices, and if lots of people care about them, they can get help and support when needed.

A second key is to take physical safety measures (such as baby proofing when they’re young, or setting rules about driving when they’re teens) out of love for them and a desire for them to have positive experiences, rather than out of fear.

Get more ideas here.

Strategy #7

Take Action! It’s no fun being the parent who says no when others are saying yes. But sometimes it’s in the best interest of your kids and your entire family. The key to reducing everyone’s stress and frustration about limits and expectations is to be clear, consistent, reasonable, and evolutionary. “Evolutionary” means being responsive to your child’s changing developmental needs and what they’ve demonstrated about their choices.

Reward the positive behavior and limit opportunities for negative behavior. For example, if you have a teenager who has a history of impulsive behavior, don’t let her go to an unsupervised party; have a gathering at your home instead. Or, if your son gets up five mornings a week in the summer to go to cross country practice, let him skip an evening lacrosse workout when he’s feeling ragged and worn out.

Get more ideas here.

Strategy #8

Take Action! Be the dad who talks to your passengers during the carpool. Be the mom who asks a lot of questions about school, interests, and activities. You don’t have to be nosy to get to know your children’s friends, but you do have to be the one to set the tone of kind, friendly interaction. Your kids might think it’s a little weird at first, but in the long run they’ll appreciate it. Get more ideas here.

Strategy #9

Take Action! This one is simple, but definitely not easy: Be the kind of person you want your child to be. Know your values and act on them, treat others the way you would like to be treated, follow your dreams, cut yourself some slack when appropriate, and feel good knowing you’re building the assets your kids need to succeed. Get more ideas here.

Download and print the 9 Parenting Strategies >>

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WHAT IS THE MEANING OF FAMILY

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF FAMILY

The family a social institution is the most fundamental of all social groups and it is universal in its distribution from time immemorial. It is fundamental and persistent social group, a basic social institution at the very care of society. The values institutionalized in the family have long been regarded as important enough to warrant strong measures against any behaviour that violated them. Not only has the family been defined as fundamental to the existence of society, but it has been viewed as a source of morality and decent content. It has also been defined as a primary force for controlling behaviour and civilizing the human animal.

Definition of Family

Family is a group defined by sex relationship sufficiently puire and enduring to provide for the procreation and upbringing of children - Maciver

Family is a group of persons where relations to one another one based upon consanginity and who are therefore kin to one another - Kingsley Davis