Now for something that isn't that fun but still interesting...
ALARM OVER PRISON SUICIDES
A summary of the article:
French Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie has put into place a few extra measures to reduce suicides in prison, such as paper pyjamas, non-tearable sheets and non-flamable mattresses among others, to reduce the chance of hangings and burnings.
Florence Aubenas, head of prison rights group Observatoire International des Prisons, told France Info radio that although this was for the prisoners' good, it was against human rights.
The French President, Nicholas Sarkozy also said that the state of the prisons was a 'disgrace'.
196 people have died since last year.
My views:
I feel that the whole thing is avoidable.
If the prisoners had better facilities they would not want to commit suicide. If they had been been allowed some free time to excercise or read or learn, they might not have decided that their life was not worth it and they would have focused on reforming and turning over a new leaf.
So, I feel that the jailors should not attempt to just stuff the prisoners into a jail cell and leave them there to rot, and maybe even cram four or five into one cell and leave them to fight out who should have the beds in the cell. I feel that they should start an educational program so that the prisoners can continue their education without the influence of peer pressure. This also gives the additional benefit of giving them time to repent and face their problems, all of which contribute to the mental well-being of the prisoner. Furthermore, the prisoners may become more well-behaved because they are too engrossed in studying or learning to fight with prisonmates.
Also, the hype about spending money to make non-tearable sheets and things like that are just useless, as the non-tearable sheets may be used for a prison escape out of a window. Althought the matresses are non-flamable, I'm sure the paper pyjamas are. And surely the prisoner can suffocate himself in the non-flamable matress and hang himself with the non-tearable sheet, right? So, my suggestion for this bit is to just spend the money to make a more comfortable environment for the prisoner to stay in, with a maximum of 2 people to a cell and just remove all the things from the ceiling save the lightbulb. If the guy wants to hang himself he has to find somewhere to hang the rope first, so just get rid of it! And also fix the mattress to the bed or floor to reduce suffocations and bar the windows to prevent any escapes from that front. If the prisoner wants to bite his wrist until he ruptures the artery and bleed to death, that's his problem. (I haven't thought of a way around that yet so...)
I am sure these suggestions are much more efficient and perhaps cheaper in the long run. (After all, paper pyjamas will have to be thrown away, which is such a waste. )
Phew! at least 200 words...I hope?
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
Assignment Part 1: Favourite Food
Ok... this blog article is to talk about my favourite food.
My favourite food is not one that can be bought in whole from many shops (actually I have yet to find a shop that sells this; if you find one let me know =P) but it is better to buy half and cook half and then reheat the lot. And the soup.
Basically, my favourite food is some fried rice and some deep-fried chicken popcorn mixed in (the fried rice can be bought from the hawker centre near my house and the chicken popcorn can be cooked or from KFC) mixed with a lot of Japanese mildly hot curry(which can only be purchased at Giant). As the fried rice is a little dry, and the curry very thick, it tends to stick in your throat and cause you to choke so I suggest you get some Campbell Cream of Chicken or Mushroom to wash it down regularly(i.e. every three mouthfuls.) None of the other Campbell soups work as well as the Chicken or Mushroom (Actually ABC soup is the best but it's a little bit childish not to mention watery and tasteless) so just pop down to a supermarket like Sheng Siong or Shop n Save or a hypermarket like Giant (recommended for all purchases in this recipe) to purchase it.
The whole meal tastes a little spicy and very thick and crunchy. Not at all sour and a little sweet and VERY SALTY.
Steps if you want to consume this weirdly delicious meal:
1: Buy the Campbell soup of your choice
2: Buy a packet of mildly hot Japanese curry from Giant
3: Get some KFC popcorn chicken
4: Get the fried rice
5: Boil some water and while waiting, warm up the oven or microwave
6; Open the Campbell soup and curry
7: Chuck them in two separate pots
8: Turn on the gas and cook, and heat up the popcorn chicken and rice at the same time. The microwaving should be for about 5 minutes. The soup and the cury should take about the same time. (Did I say it was instant curry? I hope you read this before buying the stuff. Oops. Too late =D)
9: Get everything out of their respective pots/wok/microwave/oven/bowl/can/dog dinner dish
and slap it all in a plate(except the soup: put that is a separate bowl).
10: Get two spoons and a fork. Put one spoon and one fork and put it in the plate or wherever the rice is and put a separate spoon in the soup bowl ( You don't want to contaminate the soup).
11: Start to eat.
Final word of advice: If you try this and you have diarrhoea or constipation or just think it tastes disgusting or weird, do not try making it again. I can eat it because I have 1: a strong stomach and 2: a mutated tongue, so don't blame me or my recipe. Blame your DNA. OK?
I'm quite sure this is more than 200 words, so I suppose I'm done then.
My favourite food is not one that can be bought in whole from many shops (actually I have yet to find a shop that sells this; if you find one let me know =P) but it is better to buy half and cook half and then reheat the lot. And the soup.
Basically, my favourite food is some fried rice and some deep-fried chicken popcorn mixed in (the fried rice can be bought from the hawker centre near my house and the chicken popcorn can be cooked or from KFC) mixed with a lot of Japanese mildly hot curry(which can only be purchased at Giant). As the fried rice is a little dry, and the curry very thick, it tends to stick in your throat and cause you to choke so I suggest you get some Campbell Cream of Chicken or Mushroom to wash it down regularly(i.e. every three mouthfuls.) None of the other Campbell soups work as well as the Chicken or Mushroom (Actually ABC soup is the best but it's a little bit childish not to mention watery and tasteless) so just pop down to a supermarket like Sheng Siong or Shop n Save or a hypermarket like Giant (recommended for all purchases in this recipe) to purchase it.
The whole meal tastes a little spicy and very thick and crunchy. Not at all sour and a little sweet and VERY SALTY.
Steps if you want to consume this weirdly delicious meal:
1: Buy the Campbell soup of your choice
2: Buy a packet of mildly hot Japanese curry from Giant
3: Get some KFC popcorn chicken
4: Get the fried rice
5: Boil some water and while waiting, warm up the oven or microwave
6; Open the Campbell soup and curry
7: Chuck them in two separate pots
8: Turn on the gas and cook, and heat up the popcorn chicken and rice at the same time. The microwaving should be for about 5 minutes. The soup and the cury should take about the same time. (Did I say it was instant curry? I hope you read this before buying the stuff. Oops. Too late =D)
9: Get everything out of their respective pots/wok/microwave/oven/bowl/can/dog dinner dish
and slap it all in a plate(except the soup: put that is a separate bowl).
10: Get two spoons and a fork. Put one spoon and one fork and put it in the plate or wherever the rice is and put a separate spoon in the soup bowl ( You don't want to contaminate the soup).
11: Start to eat.
Final word of advice: If you try this and you have diarrhoea or constipation or just think it tastes disgusting or weird, do not try making it again. I can eat it because I have 1: a strong stomach and 2: a mutated tongue, so don't blame me or my recipe. Blame your DNA. OK?
I'm quite sure this is more than 200 words, so I suppose I'm done then.
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Elearning lesson 2
Did you know that Robert Frost, the most celebrated poet in America, won four Pulitzer prizes? He got them from writing...guess what - poems! What else?
Robert Frost was also astonishingly lyrical, as seen in the short poem:
Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Robert Frost's work was principally associated with the life and landscape of New England, and though he was a poet of traditional verse forms and metrics who remained steadfastly aloof from the poetic movements and fashions of his time, Frost was anything but a merely regional or minor poet. The author of searching and often dark meditations on universal themes, he was a quintessentially modern poet in his adherence to language as it is actually spoken, in the psychological complexity of his portraits, and in the degree to which his work was infused with layers of ambiguity and irony:
Going for Water
by Robert Frost
The well was dry beside the door,
And so we went with pail and can
Across the fields behind the house
To seek the brook if still it ran;
Not loth to have excuse to go,
Because the autumn eve was fair
(Though chill), because the fields were ours,
And by the brook our woods were there.
We ran as if to meet the moon
That slowly dawned behind the trees,
The barren boughs without the leaves,
Without the birds, without the breeze.
But once within the wood, we paused
Like gnomes that hid us from the moon,
Ready to run to hiding new
With laughter when she found us soon.
Each laid on other a staying hand
To listen ere we dared to look,
And in the hush we joined to make
We heard, we knew we heard the brook.
A note as from a single place,
A slender tinkling fall that made
Now drops that floated on the pool
Like pearls, and now a silver blade.
But my favourite poem by Robert Frost is still the one that is the most instructive; it has been used by many life guides like the 7 Habits of Effective Teens.
It is:
The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
(The poem is called The Road Not Taken, and it is by Robert Frost,
it is NOT The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
References: Poets.org
Robert Frost was also astonishingly lyrical, as seen in the short poem:
Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Robert Frost's work was principally associated with the life and landscape of New England, and though he was a poet of traditional verse forms and metrics who remained steadfastly aloof from the poetic movements and fashions of his time, Frost was anything but a merely regional or minor poet. The author of searching and often dark meditations on universal themes, he was a quintessentially modern poet in his adherence to language as it is actually spoken, in the psychological complexity of his portraits, and in the degree to which his work was infused with layers of ambiguity and irony:
Going for Water
by Robert Frost
The well was dry beside the door,
And so we went with pail and can
Across the fields behind the house
To seek the brook if still it ran;
Not loth to have excuse to go,
Because the autumn eve was fair
(Though chill), because the fields were ours,
And by the brook our woods were there.
We ran as if to meet the moon
That slowly dawned behind the trees,
The barren boughs without the leaves,
Without the birds, without the breeze.
But once within the wood, we paused
Like gnomes that hid us from the moon,
Ready to run to hiding new
With laughter when she found us soon.
Each laid on other a staying hand
To listen ere we dared to look,
And in the hush we joined to make
We heard, we knew we heard the brook.
A note as from a single place,
A slender tinkling fall that made
Now drops that floated on the pool
Like pearls, and now a silver blade.
But my favourite poem by Robert Frost is still the one that is the most instructive; it has been used by many life guides like the 7 Habits of Effective Teens.
It is:
The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
(The poem is called The Road Not Taken, and it is by Robert Frost,
it is NOT The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
References: Poets.org
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