J Nzekwe's Online Journal

In England you have the glamorous houses, skyscrapers, businesses and offices but England has a hidden side that our government, media and politicians choose to hide away and ignore. This is side of the hungry, homeless and poor, the side where people work but are still homeless, the side where families live of a food bank, the side where [parents go for days without food just so that they can provide for their children and keep a roof over their head. Throughout my time here i interviewed many people on how they got into their situations and how poverty in England is no minor problem at all.

This country’s government says that they are trying to ‘Reduce and stop poverty’ but when i interviewed Alfie who lives on a council estate with his mum and two brothers in Hackney, I realized that this country’s government is not helping at all to reduce this problem. “Some days we had nothing to eat”. These are the words that should never come out the mouth of a eleven year old. He told me that there were days that all his family had to eat was two pieces of bread which they had to share between them. He explained that his mum went nearly three days without food just to keep them fed. Over one quarter of all children live in poverty and 65% of them has a parent that works, this shows that you can work and still live in poverty.

This isn’t the only case of poverty in the UK over 150,000 people are homeless in London, this has increased by 30% in the past year and over 30,000 of these are children. This is a terrifying number that increases as our government continues to ignore our poor and homeless. Its hard to see such a reputable country such as Great Britain ignoring there poor and homeless. These people just need some help to get back on their feet and get5 back to work but our country seems to struggle with helping these people.

Food poverty is not the only problem within the UK another problem is our welfare system and how they handle this countries poor. I interviewed a mother of three children who had her benefits cut due to her having a black out on her way to her appointment, she arrived 10 minutes late and explained why she was late but they did not care. As she didn’t receive her benefits money she had to result to using a food bank to feed her children for the week ” Walking into a food bank is terrible, you feel like everyone is judging you”. On average 30% of people visit a fod bank due to their benefits being cut or suspended.

Last week i interviewed a man who had recently lost his job as a mechanic due to him suffering a severe stroke, he lost the use of his hands and because of that he had to apply for benefits. Richard was called in to take part in many tests to see if he was ‘fit for work.’ He had already explained that the doctor had deemed him ‘not fit for work’ and he had the doctors notes to prove it but our welfare system still decides to take him take tests to deem him fit for work. ‘ I am clearly not fit for work i can barely hold anything because all my hands do is shake’ The benefits systems deemed him not fit for work, but he still has not received benefits.#

These people i have mentioned all suffer from living in poverty whether it be food poverty or homelessness, they are all on the edge of giving up. They have no option to turn to a government who simply do not care about the them. Our media and polititians try their hardest to hide away and ignore the fact that there people live in this state.

Medical drugs need to be tested before they are used as they need to ensure that the drugs work and ensure that they are safe before they can be prescribed. There are three main stages in the development and testing of a new drug. During stage one the drugs are tested using computer models and human cells that have been created and grown in a labortory. Many substances fail this test because they damage the human cells or don’t work. If the substances pass the first stage of the test, they are then tested on animals. These tests have to be carried outin the uk but testing animals with tobacco or cosmetic substances is illegal. These tests are carried out by injecting the animal with the substance then monitoring them for a certain amount of time to see if there is any side affects. They test on animals because humans and animals share many illnesses such as the hardening of the arteries which happens in both humans and rabbits, this means that testing on animals would give us a good understanding on if the drugs have any side effects as the illnesses are the same. If the substances pass animal testing then they move onto the third and final stage of testing which is clinical testing. During this stage willing volunteers are tested on to check if they are safe. The substances are then tested on people with the illnesses to ensure that they are safe and that they work.

Transpiration is the process where plants absorb water through the roots and then give off water vapour through pores in their leaves. An example of transpiration is when a plant absorbs water in its roots. Cohesion is when particles stick together within the same substance such as water. When plants release water through transpiration, the job of cohesion is to move water through the xylem. When the water leaves through the stomata new water is pulled into the leaf by this pull between water molecules.

Plants need to transpire because more transpiration leads to more suction of water from the roots which leads to more dissolved nutrients uptake which helps with the plants growth. Plants also need to transpire as evaporation allows the plants leaves to cool. One factor that affects transpiration is light, this affects it as in bright light transpiration increases because the stotoma opes wider to allow more carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. Temperature also affects transpiration as transpiration is faster in higher temperature this is because evaporation and diffusion is faster in higher temperatures. Another factor that affects transpiration is wind as its faster in wind this is because water vapour is removed quickly by air movement. The last factor that affects transpiration is humidity. When its humid transpiration is slower, this is because the diffusion of water vapour slows down if the leaf is already surrounded by moist air.

The xylem are columns of hollow, dead reenforced cells. The xylem moves water and minerals from leaves to the rest of the plant. Factors that speed up transpiration will increase the rate of water uptake from the soil. When there isnt a lot of water or the roots are damaged, it increases a plants chance of survival if the transpiration rate can be slowed down. Plants can do this themselves by wilting. Wilting is when the leaves become limp through heat or loss of water.

Essay question: How does Ron Suskind presents the difficulties of Cedric’s education in part one and two of his articles?

In this essay I will explain how Ron Suskind presents the difficulties of Cedric education by using language techniques in part one and part two of his articles. At Ballou High and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cedric goes through many difficulties such as violence, receiving abuse and struggling with work at MIT. Throughout the articles Suskind uses various language devices that suggest that it was difficult for Cedric to get an education.

One language technique that Ron Suskind uses is metaphor. We can see this when he says ‘The arduous odyssey of Cedric’ He uses this quote to show that Cedric’s education is difficult. The word ‘odyssey’ is taken from a Greek myth where the main character has to go on a long hard journey alone where he battles many monstwrs along the way to get to where he wants to be. This relates to Cedric as he has to go a long hard journey alone to get his education. This also relate to Cedric as he faces monsters such as other students bullying him because hes a good student. The word ‘arduous’ suggests that it is going to be difficult, tiring and demanding for Cedric to get his education.

The metaphor ‘the odyssey’ talks about how Cedric faces difficulties by himself. However Suskind uses the metaphor ‘I tell him those people on the sideline are already out of the race’ to show Cedric is part of a group that faces difficulties as a collective. This quote shows that Cedric is part of a group that all face difficulties to get their education. The word ‘race’ suggests that Cedric has to compete with the other students to get his education. Also this quote suggests that Cedric has to keep working hard in order to, catch the other students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This quote is also similar to part one of the article as they both suggest that Cedrics education is going to be hard to get. 

Another metaphor Suskind uses is ‘being a minority and a high achiever means you have to carry extra baggage about who you are, and here you belong that puts them at risk’. This quote shows that Cedric has to carry extra baggage because his journey is going to be long and he is going to have to carry more because hes black and a high achiever. This quote also suggests that being a minority is a bad thing and that if you are a minority then you are not part of society. This means that Cedric no matter where he goes, he will always have to carry around the extra weight of him being black in a place where blacks don’t get as much opportunity as white people do. Also when Cedric was at Ballou High he was considered ‘white’ even though he was black because he was a high achiever. On the other hand when Cedric went to MIT he was seen as a minority because he was black and a high achiever.

Suskind uses the metaphor ‘Mr Washington vents his frustration at how the deck is stacked against underprivileged students like Cedric’. This quote suggests that the odds are stacked against Cedric because hes underprivileged and black. The word ‘Deck’ suggests that like a deck of cards in a game all the odds are against him. The word ‘underprivileged’ suggests that because Cedric is black and comes from a poor background it will be hard for him to get anywhere. This is similar to the previous quote as in both Cedric is the the minority because he is black and and the only student prepared to try and get there education. This quote is similar to the previous quote as in both talk about having extra baggage as the deck represents society so the odds is all the extra baggage that he carries such as being a minority but also being underprivileged.  

Another quote Suskind uses in part one of his article is ‘failure is persuasive here even seductive’ this is a metaphor and shows that in Ballou High failure follows you around and that it is easier to fail than to succeed this shows that it will be very hard for Cedric to get his education and succeed in Ballou High. The word ‘seductive’ suggests that failure will tempt you and it also suggests that its easier to fail than to succeed. The word ‘persuasive’ suggests that failure makes you believe that failure is the only thing that you can get out of Ballou High. It also suggests that at Ballou High they don’t get support so even though they want to be successful, because of the area they are in and all the failure that is around them they believe that it is easier to fail than to succeed.

The metaphor ‘But where i start from is far behind where some students are, i have to run twice the distance to catch up’.This quote shows that Cedric has to work twice as hard to catch up with the other students level of intelligence because he didn’t receive a good education at Ballou High due to drugs, violence, bullying, guns and a bad learning environment whereas the other students received a good education at their previous schools and they come from good backgrounds. The word ‘distance’ suggests that Cedric is going to have to go a long way to get to where he wants to be. This quote is similar to the previous one as they both talk about the things that hold Cedric back whether it be the work being hard at MIT or bullying at Ballou High. 

In conclusion there are many ways in which Ron Suskind shows that Cedric’s education is difficult in Ballou High and MIT. The quote that I think shows this the most is ‘the arduous odyssey of Cedric’. This is because it relates the most as they both have to go on a long hard journey alone with difficulties along the way to get to where they want to be. Cedric faces many difficulties such as bullying, violence and having to do extra work at home because Ballou High doesn’t provide good enough teaching for Cedric to get his education.

The distance from the road affects the colour of lichens because cars release sulphur dioxide in their exhaust fumes. So this means that the closer the lichen to the road the higher the concentration of sulphur dioxide, the less they will grow as they can’t grow in areas with alot of pollution. Sulphur dioxide can cause acid rain which can affect and damage the enviroment.

The ‘REEL’ is when people act a certain way to ‘fit in’. Many people saw hip-hop as a bad influence because they rap about having girls, lots of money and having sex. Hip-hop used to be a way for the black community to criticise social issues such as police brutality, racism etc. As hip-hop started to become popular, big record labels saw that the small labels which produced the hip hop songs were making money, so the big labels bought the small labels and hip hop becomes commercialised. As the big labels take over the songs are written so that they rap about violence, money and getting girls because that is what the white suburban teens liked and wanted to hear.I

One emcee we have studied is Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick Lamar is a Compton born rapper. He started his musical career as a teenager under the name K-ot, releasing his mix tape that attracted local attention which led to him signing a record label with Top Dawg Entertainment. He gained major recognition in 2010 when he released ‘Overly Dedicated’. In Kendrick Lamar’s song ‘The Blacker The Berry’ he indirectly criticises the REEL by rapping about social issues. You can see this when he repeats the line ‘the blacker the berry the sweeter the juice’ I infer from this that he is saying the blacker the person the better a person you are. You can see that he repeats the line ‘the blacker the berry the sweeter the juice’ multiple times, he uses repetition to clearly tell people to embrace the key point that being black is a positive thing at a time when being black is shown to be negative due to police brutality in the US.

Another emcee we have studied that also criticises the ‘REEL’ is Mos Def. We can see this in his song ‘Mathematics’. He called it this to show the relationship[p between numbers and the rap industry. During the song he says the line ‘I got 16 to 32 bars to rock it but only 15% of profits ever see my pocket’. Here Mos Def is exploiting the emcees. He shows this by comparing the amount of bars he makes to the amount of profit he gets. In the second part of the bar he says ‘Only 15% of profits ever see his pockets’ i imply from this that the record labels take advantage of him using his music and only giving him 15% of the profits.

Kingslee James Daley who goes by the name of Akala was born on the 1st December 1983. Akala is a rapper who has a SBTV freestyle. In his freestyle he starts it by saying ‘Sorry kids let me apologise before i go further unfortunately i don’t rap about how many man i’ve murdered’ here he tells people that he doesn’t rap about the REEL but he raps about things that are socially conscious such as police brutality and racism. In the bar he says ‘unfortunately i don’t rap about how many man i have murdered’ He says this as if its disappointing that he doesn’t rap about murdering people, he criticises the REEL here by saying that all emcees do is rap about how many man they have murdered.

Mick Jenkins is a rapper who has criticised the REEL in many of his songs. One song that criticises the REEL is ‘Martyrs’. In this song Mick Jenkins refers to the word hanging as a double entendre. One is chilling with your friends and the other is beong lynched. Being lynched is when a person was hung from a tree. In the song he raps the line ‘ Ima get all this money, ima buy all this shit, ima fuck so many hoes, nigga ima fuck yo bitch’. He criticises the REEL by adopting the mindset of the young people of today. This type of attitude can be seen in the rap music industry which has an influence on the listeners. He does this to show how destructive these mindsets are.

The last emcee we studied is YC THE CYNIC. He is another rapper who uses repetition to help him criticise the REEL. He does this by using the word Negus instead of niggas. Negus is a ethiopion word translating in to Royalty. He uses this word to say that black people are royalty before slaves. He uses the word negus instead of nigga because nigga is term used to put black people down and make them think they are lesser of a person than anyone else.

In conclusion, the REEL is something made by mass media to put a bad image on howyoung black people live. My essay shows that rappers only rap about guns, sex, money and girls becasue they have to not because they want to rap about it. The rappers i have studied all criticise the way REEL rappers rap and how it is bad

My question is ‘is the merchant of Venice anti Semitic?’ Anti Semitism is hate or discrimination towards Jews. This discrimination was clear in 16th century Venice and was not classed as a hate crime. Jews had to live in a separate place to the Christians which was called the ghetto. In the play Christians and Jews have a clear feud. In this essay I will look more in to how Jews are discriminated against.

William Shakespeare gets the point across of anti-Semitism through many of his characters. People today may think that the play is offensive, where as people who lived during Shakespeare’s time would have accepted the play as part of everyday life. Most of London’s population at the time was anti-Semitic because there were very few Jews living there.

The point of anti-Semitism is used  through the character of Antonio. Antonio doesn’t like Jews so Shylock confronts him for spitting on his gabardine and calling him a dog, Antonio replies with, “I am like to call thee so again, To spet on thee again, to spurn thee, too. This shows that Antonio has no remorse for showing hate towards a Jews (Shylock) beliefs and traditions. This shows that the play is anti Semitic as Antonio is discriminating Shylock and his religion.

In the second act, Launcelot is considering if he should look for a new person to serve. His problem is he works for Shylock, who is a Jew. Launcelot says to himself, “Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnation” he decides to run away from Shylock and work for Bassanio He then says, “I am a Jew if I serve the Jew any longer” to his father. This shows that if he continues to work for Shylock he will turn into a Jew, this can be seen as anti semitic as he would rather work for a Christian than a Jew.

Shylock is also seen to be bloodthirsty as he had an agreement that he may have a pound of Antonio’s flesh if he didn’t pay him back. He turns down triple the amount of money and is so insistent to have his bond “If every ducat in six thousand ducats were in six parts, and every part a ducat, I would not draw them, I would have my bond”, this could be saying he is bloodthirsty. A rumour among Christians was that Jews actually did eat human flesh, and since there were no Jews in the country, no one was there to deny this rumour and it was generally believed. This can be seen as anti Semitic as they are saying that Jews are barbarous and bloodthirsty for wanting a pound of a man’s flesh.

Jessica is Shylock’s only daughter. She breaks her dad’s heart by running off to marry a Christian (Lorenzo) and helps herself to her dad’s ducats and some treasured family jewels. Anti Semitism is shown when Shylock seems to be worried more about his ducats than his own daughter. This can be seen as anti Semitic as Jews were the people who handled money in the sixteenth century.

When Shylock is taken to court, he points out the fact that what he is doing isn’t as bad As what the venetian state has been doing (purchasing slaves). Even though  cutting off flesh is similar because he is taking a piece of a man. He makes it clear that they are hypocrites. He says that if the tables were turned the flesh would have already been taken because they have bought them. So why cant shylock take his flesh since he has given money to antonio.’You have among many a purchased slave,Which, like your asses and your dogs and mules,You use in abject and in slavish parts,Because you bought them.’This shows hypocrisy and anti semitism as the christians are aloud to do anything with slaves but Syhlock cant do anything with antonio because he is a jew.

In the second act Lorenzo insults Shylock when he tells Jessica that if her father ever makes it to heaven, it is only because Jessica converted to Christianity and that is shown when Loremzo says, ‘If e’er the Jew her father come to heaven, It will be for his gentle daughter.’ This shows that in Venice you had to be Christian to go to heaven showing that if you was a jew you had no chance of getting into heaven unless one of your family members was Christians this is anti semitic because it shows that jewshe were hated because they didn’t have the same beliefs and because of that they would not make it into heaven

When the play was first released it was to be seen as a comedy. It was seen as a comedy because in the sixteenth century discrimination against Jews was seen to be entertaining for the audience. Many people in our time would see this this play as racist and not entertaining. This can be seen as anti semitic because Shakespeare made this play a comedy meaning we are supposed to laugh at Jews being judged, mistreated and discriminated against.

Antonio came out and expressed his hatred for Jews. Launcelot decided to find a new master because he thought that working for a Jew was bad for his health and mind. Lorenzo said that the only way Shylock would get to heaven is by his gentle daughter. Jessica showed her hate towards Jews when she ran away from her father to marry a Christian man. These characters thoughts throughout “The Merchant of Venice” makes it an anti- Semitic play.

War is a fight between two countries or two groups of people within the same country. I believe that war should never happen and if war does manage to happen then it should be done in a place where no civilian would get hurt. War is always going to be here and no one knows when or if there will ever be no war.

Just War is meant to protect the innocent, so that the people involved in the war are the people who chose to be involved. While on the surface this seems to be a good idea, how can we protect the innocent in an event such as a war? It would be impossible to make sure that no civilian is harmed or killed during a war because soldiers fighting naturally goes into populated areas. It also would be difficult to decide which civilians are innocent and which are not – for example, would a munitions worker who agreed and supported the war be a target? We can see that it is controversial to make a decision on who is innocent and who is not.

Just War says that the reason for going to war must be fair. According to Aquinas, ‘the war must occur only if it is to confront a real and certain danger’(Bitesize Just War), including protecting innocent life or basic human rights. However, it seems that if you are going to justify war because it is protecting innocent life, when clearly war itself is going to destroy innocent lives. It seems hypocritical also to say war can be justified if it is protecting human rights, because what about the rights of civilians who are caught in the area of fighting or bomb attacks? I think trying to justify war by saying it is for a good cause is not right and in my opinion is hard to understand because trying to get peace by bringing in war is not going to work an example of this is ‘the second Lebanon war which did not achieve anything'(The Jerusalem Post).

World War II is a perfect example of a war that is not just.This looks as if it was a Just War, but the Allied bombing of Dresden, a where for two days they dropped many bombs by  2,400 bombers that destroyed the city and killed 135,000 civilians for no military purpose, that broke the final condition.

The conditions of a Just War are:

• it must be fought by a legal recognised authority, For example a government.
• the cause of the war must be just
• the war must be fought with the intention to get good or correct evil
• there must be a chance of success
• the war must be a last resort after all negotiations have been tried and failed
• only a reasonable amount of force must be used and civilians must not be harmed

Having a just war is like saying that you can legally go in to a country and start killing their soldiers. I believe that this is not right and should not be right. Trying to get justice by taking away life is not justice it is cruel and inhumane. Just because you have been given legal authority by a state of government to kill someone to protect your own country doesn’t make it right to take away another country’s people away.

I believe that if Nations settle down their differences without war and loss of life. War gives an image no respect for human life and that it does not matter if it is taken away.I believe that eventually war will lead to the end of the world .Weapons are getting stronger with the ability to kill a millions of people in a seconds.

In my opinion I do not believe there can ever be such a thing as a just war. World War I was one of the bloodiest wars in the world’s history with millions of soldiers and civilians being killed, for what reason did millions of people die? Because one person was assassinated. Does that give you a reason to go in to a full-blown war and cause millions of children and adults to lose their life not enabling them to live the rest of there lives.

This is  why I do not agree with the state,ment ‘Is There Such A Thing As A Just War’.