Categories
Gentrification

Gentrification in Atlanta

 

In Shaila Dewan’s article in the New York Times “Gentrification Changing Face of New Atlanta” the author defines gentrification as demographic change of Atlanta’s upward shift in its white population. As a result property taxes increase and low-rent apartments have been replaced by new developments. This article uses a statistics and comments from the experts. This article is interesting because it describes gentrification problem as demographic problem that requires to analyze various information.

www.nytimes.com/2006/03/11/us/gentrification-changing-face-of-new-atlanta.html

Categories
Drugs

Drugs literature review exercise

All human beings are motivated to satisfy their natural instincts in order to feel secure and comfortable.  Most pursue well-established goals, such as relationships, successful careers, having children in order to feel happy and safe in their lives.  However, some people learn different shorter-term ways of coping, such as drug use and other addictions, which leads to their distorted understanding of motivation, reward and punishment. Szalavits (2016) argues in “Can you Get Over an Addiction?” that the traditional views on addiction of either a chronic disease or a moral defect are flawed and that these behaviors are a result of repeatedly reinforcing skewed reward objects.  This view of an addiction as a learning disability has invaluable implications not only for the treatment of drug users, but also for understanding how we as a society play a role in getting people addicted to drugs and other destructive behaviors.  Both Childress (2016) in “Veterans Face Greater Risks Amid Opioid Crisis” and Lawrence (2014) in “A Growing Number of Veterans Struggle to Quit Powerful Painkillers” show how the VA taking shortcuts in the pain management for soldiers is teaching these veterans addiction – an inappropriate coping mechanism.

Different social groups struggle from drug addiction. Childress (2016), addresses the hidden addiction problem that U.S. Army veterans face and cites that nearly seventy thousands veterans suffer from opioid-use disorders.  Childress points out that soldiers are well supplied with opioid medications during and after their military deployments, often with little dosage control. According to Lawrence’s article (2014) “The troops, if they got hurt they’d just shove you a bag of pills.” (para. 13). Thus they return back to their homes addicted and have little options for successful recovery. Lawrence (2014) highlights a specific case of a veteran addicted to painkillers. He confirms that soldiers in pain get unlimited access to high-addictive medications, which has led to an opiate epidemic in our society. Luckily the VA is recently starting to explore other ways to deal with pain management such as yoga and physical therapy instead of relying on pills for everything.  Although this is a positive dynamic it is important to remember that it is our own pills for everything approach that contributed to the veteran addiction problem to begin with.

Categories
Drugs

Both articles made by New York Times and PBS agree that the opioid addiction recently became a number one threat to our citizens.  According to Editorial Board (2017) “Public health officials have called the current opioid epidemic the worst drug crisis in American history, killing more than 33,000 people in 2015.”(para. 2). This number is close to victims who died from car accidents and proves that opioid addiction is the major threat for the nation. It is important to follow how the state officials response to increasing number of deaths from heroin overdoses problem. Governor of NH Maggie Hassan thinks that “The opioid epidemic is really our most pressing public health and public safety issue right now” (as cited in Woodruff, 2016 p.1). It shows that problematic states are able to identify the problem and to launch the programs that will help.

Categories
Drugs

Summary on “Batman’s Bad Call”

In Johann Hari’s book chapter “Batman’s Bad Call,” the author argues that the true nature of addiction to drugs is based on absence of social bonds that people lack nowadays. He describes an experiment where opiate addicted rats were moved from isolated cages with no mates or entertainment to populated cells filled with all kinds of happy social factors.  The goal of this experiment was to establish a social factor within an addiction.

Hari believes that the chemical drug addiction is not as strong as how the traditional scientists think it is. He argues that instead, it’s the absence of social bonds that leads people to fill this void with drug use. The results of the rat experiment showed that the rats quickly recovered from the physical addiction and started to enjoy their new life without drugs. Hari draws a parallel between rats and humans and proves that the main reason of drug addiction is the poor social atmosphere that can be compared to an isolated cage people live in. Moreover, he continues with the attempt to find out how modern society creates these individual cages.

Hari introduces the idea that consumerism plays a significant role in social isolation that leads to drug addiction. He arrived at this conclusion by interviewing numerous addicts and scientists who spent many years working on the problem of addiction.  He uses an example that our global economy supports never-ending consumerism. This environment forces people to constantly buy things similar to rats stuck in an empty cage, who have nothing to do but get more of the drug. Hari concludes that we live in a highly addicted society, and the only way to alleviate drug use is to remove the factors that shattered our historically established social bonds in the first place.

Categories
Uncategorized

Credible Article: How do cartels get drugs into the US?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34934574

The link above will connect you to newspaper article “How do cartels get drugs into the US?” Drug overdose in the U.S. is a big problem.  Annually it kills more people than car or gun accidents. Many of these illegal drugs keep coming from overseas. There is a discussion going on about the idea of building the wall on the south border with Mexico. Some politicians think that this wall will help us to reduce the amount of illegal drugs that are smuggled into the U.S. territory. This article provides information about large volume of cocaine traffic on the south borders and explains the ways of how illegal drugs are delivered into our country. However it does not blame any political party or leader for passive actions. The article was published on BBC.com  or British Broadcasting Corporation that is the one of the most trustful and world’s oldest broadcasting organizations.  Four experts shared their views on the problem. Three of them represent the U.S. Government services and another one is the Associate Professor at Yale University.

Categories
Uncategorized

Why I write

In George Orwell’s essay “Why I write”, the author explains the nature of writing by identifying four main motivational forces and then arrives at conclusion that seeking the truth , which he calls, political purpose is the strongest driver in creating a good book. Orwell describes writing motivators of egoism, enthusiasm, historical impulse and political purpose in how they comprise any writer’s desire to write. He begins by describing his first attempts creating primitive texts and explores the importance of child’s imagination as the foundation for future creations. Orwell continues with his teenage memories of how he became hypnotized by the beauty of words. He suggests that it is impossible to figure out any writer’s current motivation without exploring and understanding their earlier stages. In the next part of the essay he depicts how a writer’s values change over the course of their life and as a result of their experience. He admits that when it happens, the task of connecting artistic expression with political purpose becomes the most challenging aspect of writing. Regardless of the evolving writing motives described, Orwell confesses that there is always a mystery at the bottom of those motives he refers to as the political purpose and without this component the book cannot be good.

Categories
General

Nikolai’s post

How writing and empathy similar?

As we discussed earlier during our class the definition of empathy can be narrowed to a special tool that people use to find a solution to any problem. Another words, empathy is an action that allows us to switch places with other people and realize their problems. Writing is a tool too. When we write about something on our blogs we share our thoughts with the whole world. We try to find a solution by providing an impact on people’s mind through the power of words. Same thing with the empathy.

 

What is the value of empathy?

Empathy is an important tool to find a solution to any problem. It gives us the possibility to realize what is other people experience. We all should agree that our world has deficit of empathy. Especially if we look at the most recent politic decisions. It looks like recent reforms focused on majority of citizens who already have strong protection. Thus the most vulnerable people like refugees become less protected because our politicians do not use empathy as a tool.