Headphone usage damages hearing

Overusing headphones can deeply affect people`s personal life. The majority of teenagers nowadays are listening to music for more than 4 hours a day, 80% of that quantity using headphones, usually in the maximum volume. Using headphones on inappropriate situations may cause accidents, overusing it can interferes negatively on social interaction, and also can cause hearing loss.

Many traffic accidents are caused by drivers, or cyclists, who use headphones to listen to music while driving. The headphones obstruct drivrer’s and cyclist’s attention, in a way that they can miss traffick signs, horns, pedestrians crossing the road. The use can also impedes drivers from listening to sirens from police, fire engine, ambulance,  preventing them from reaching or helping someone by not moving over. Australian ad agency DDB Sydney, for instance, did an ad campaign for the New South Wales Police “to raise awareness of the fact that the number of teenagers dying as a result of listening to ipods while they drive, or ride bicycles is beginning to reach “epidemic proportions”. In Brazil, according to the national traffic code, the use of phones to listen to music while driving is forbidden. The penalty for the driver who disobeys it is R$ 85, 13, plus 4 points on his/her driver’s licence. Only a few people is aware about the consequences from matching music listened by phones and cars. Traffic authorities should increase the dissemination of informations related to traffic accidents caused by phones usage, as well as penalties for drivers who dismiss the law.

The oversuse of headphones can also prejudice a teenager’s social life. Many of them due to shyness, insecurity, lack of self-confidence, rather listen to music on their ipods, than interact with friends, becoming away from sociability.

The GPS generation

     GPS: an atempt to get rid of the traffic. With technology being part of our lives, a new gadjet is launched on montly basis. The GPS, known as Global Positioning System has hit ourselfs not too long ago, providing directions facilities. GPS are becoming more common nowadays because it’s easier, more precise and faster.

     GPS are more practical to use because it’s only necessary to type the destination wanted. It takes only about five minutes to get the root drawn, while the Tomas Guide takes a lot longer just to find the page with the adress. Besides that, it’s smaller and fits inside purses, which makes it useful also when going on foot or visiting other countries. That’s why using the GPS is considered easier.

CONCLUSION: Global Positioning System are being more used than before due to it’s facility, precision and speed. People are now shunning from Tomas Guide and running to GPS because it’s starting to be handier in our society. Therefore, GPS is an alternative to avoid the traffic.

Just Like Desert

Our destination is Atacama-Chile! Recently married, my husband and I packed our bags and were ready to go.We started in Sao Paulo at eight o`clock in a Saturday morning. It was our Land Rover. The route; for the first day was Brazil, we were really excited by going to another country with the car and other outdoors experiences.  After some distance we met our excursion partners. It was between this time that things turned the wrong way along with the trip.

This man is Stupid. This was the first impression we had from a couple, in which the husband was a cooker. The man almost hit our car of the rear and soon the car was out of control. But thanks to my husband`s quick reflex.  Otherwise the accident would have caused injuries to the inmates.

The second day we had some trouble with the guide, who seemed to be unprepared to be in charge. For instance Julios, who was a policeman, throw garbage out of his car into the road, in such a situation we expected the guide to call Julios` attention, but for our surprise he did not.

In the third day we were in Argentina and we already had in mind the idea to leave the others and continue, using the GPS. Because we couldn`t stand, that problematic people all together, beginning with the guide, the policeman and the cooker, there were two more problematic families, in one of them, the daughter was underweight and couldn`t eat , in the other the man was so selfish that he couldn`t give a hand to nobody but his wife. But we choose to go on with them, because we had paid.

 At this time of the trip everything was getting in my nerves even my husband, it was decidedly time to come back home. After four days travelling we arrived in Atacama Desert, the place was astonishing, but I couldn`t enjoy much, I could only think of the way home, my husband and I were fighting every two minutes, because both of us was frustrated with our holiday. And in the last two days we were glad the end was coming soon, and finally home sweet home. We deserve a better  vacation next time.

SMOKING KILLS

Cough, Cough. Would you please stop smoking here? Many people smoke a lot nowadays, mainly in big cities, where they live chaotic lives. To change this situation, in August of 2008 the governor of São Paulo forwarded a new project of life in which the population is prohibited from smoking cigarettes, cigar, pipes and cigarillo in every establishment of the state, including bars, restaurants and discos. This new law, besides helping non-smokers to continue their daily routine without any uncomfortable smoke, helps smokers to reduce the number of cigarettes per day, since they will be moving to a non-smoking place. And also decreases the development of cancers, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases caused by this chemical dependence.  

By this law, the government is trying to take care of non-smokers. These passive smokers suffer many consequences without being responsible for them. Some companies, such as Globo find this idea interesting, so in August 29^th, 2008, non-smokers are relieved from the smoke there, while the smokers who work at Globo dislike his decision and are complaining, because don’t know how to quit smoking, where they were free to smoke in the day before, they felt like an engineer without his calculator. Even so, Globo maintained the same position, because the main reason of this campaign is that people can get addicted to tobacco without choosing to do so.

People won´t smoke the same amount they smoked before, because it would be prohibited to smoke in nightclubs and pubs, where people usually smoke a lot. The scenario will change, besides smoking while talking/dancing with friend, smokers will need to move to a restrict area for them, so that they wouldn’t smoke one after other. The same measurement was successful when established in Canada, England and Australia. Taking these countries as a model, Brazil is driving the right way to improve health.

The government states that this measurement is not only about ostracizing tobacco addicts, but it is also aimed at promoting the quality of life resulting in increased of life expectation. The National Institute of Cancer says that twenty-two people die per hour as victims of extreme squeal of tobacco and The Nica points out that seven non-smokers die per day because of living with addicted. For instance, people who live in farms, which can easily breathe fresh air, have better lungs compared to a person that lives in polluted towns. As other consequence, the numbers of cancers because of tobacco are expected to decrease and if this really happens, the Estate will be able to spend less money and time on health and strongly invest in education.

Therefore, the city hall must prioritize health, which is necessary to people life, so as to help noon-smokers from smoke, the new law has been projected. The purpose of this law is to make smokers reduce the amount of cigarettes per day, to improve cancers development together with giving quality of life to non-smokers. So eventually people will hear the Cough, Cough sound.

 

Late clock

(By Alexandre and Renata)

Sleep deprivation can result in nuclear explosions. This is what happened in Chernobyl, Ucrania in April 1986. Along with the huge pressure to complete the tasks within deadlines, the staff was forced to lose hours of sleep in order to maintain their jobs, resulting in lack of attention with the security system and an overheated reactor. The capitalist culture of “24 hours/7 days of week” has been leading some people to shorten their period of sleep. Bad quality of sleep could offer risks for the human beings, such as cognitive impairment, emotional disturbances and memory disorders.

First, the lack of sleeping quality may result in problems to the human’s cognitive system. In this situation, attention and capacity of concentration are sharply decreased and time of reaction is greatly slowed due to the fact that during the sleep, important hormones, which are related to judgment, impulse control, attention and visual association, act on the prefrontal cortex. For example, on Mar 25th 1989, Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker, shocked towards a reef at the Alasca shore and two hundred million liters of oil were spilled in the ocean. (CONTINUATION OF # 1…)

#2

Third, while some people may believe that a good night sleep is not related to the learning process, studies showed that wakefulness impairs the consolidation of memory. The mechanism was studied by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings provided evidence that sleep helps regulate neuronal function in the hippocampus, which is responsible for spatial orientation and recognition of physical surroundings, known as contextual memory. According to the study, memory consolidation happens over a period of hours after training for a task, and certain cellular processes have to occur at precise times.

5 minutes, a whole story, same impact.

Introduction:

“Ilha das Flores”; “Medea”; people have never heard of these movies. However, they all know movies like “Titanic” and “An Inconvenient True”. Even though the four of these films are pretty well made and the stories are very original media emphasize only the long-feature films once it’s the ones that bring money to cinema industry as it’s available to people to see it in the movies theaters. It’s a shame that media forget to pay attention to short-feature films. In other words, short-feature films are getting more popular because of its dissemination by reality shows, the creation of Anima Mondi’s festival and the possibility of winning an Oscar.

 

1st paragraph:

 

First, short-feature films producers found a way to improve its advertising by the creation of a reality show. In this reality show 30 aspirant candidates to movie directors competes for a contract with DreamWorks Company to start their career in cinema industry. The contestants spend a month writing, shooting, editing and directing a short-feature film per week and 3 judges analyze and eliminate the worse of the week. For instance, in the first 2 weeks the rating was pretty low. Yet, people gave the show a chance and started to watch it as they found it brilliant. Due to the approval from public the show’s format ended up being a success. Further, companies as Back of America got interested in the show as well becoming one of the sponsors of the program with high donations.

(about the title… it’s awful, right? lol )

Bin Laden: the root of the american economic crisis

INTRODUCTION:

Bin Laden’s second victory: the breaking of Wall Street. The terrorists attacks on September 11th reached not only the World Trade Center and The Pentagon, but also the american financial system. However, this second victory only took place in Wall Street seven years later. The current american crisis is a consequence of the terrorists attacks, which forced the U.S. government to became more lenient towards the market regulations, which in turn let banks to loan money in the form of mortgages to people who couldn’t afford, causing the crash.

1st PARAGRAPH:

The embryo of the today’s american crisis is (are?) the attacks on September 11th 2001. The obliteration of the Twin Towers, the american economic symbol, was interpreted by investidors that the bigges economy in the world was fragile. Since they considered it vulnerable, a mass movement of removing money from the US economy got played (to be continued…)

Drink, drive and death.

 

Last year, more than 36.000 people lost their lives in car traffic-related accidents in Brazil. The number by itself shocks, but the reason why those people died is even worse. Studies around the globe shows that even at small doses, alcohol may affect drivers’ efficiency by decreasing their perception and increasing considerably the risk of lethal accidents. For this reason, the Brazilian Government has recently published the Federal Law no. 11705/08, which does not allow drinking and driving and establishes stronger penalties, leading to cases of imprisonment. Overall, the society should be in favor of this harsh, but necessary law because it can decrease the number of car accidents, it can save lives and it can reduce the spending of public money related to car accidents.

 

 First, this law can reduce the number of car accidents, since it prohibits drinking and driving, the most relevant cause of car accidents. Once the law establishes a range of severe penalties, including imprisonment, for whoever is driving under alcohol effects, it forces drivers avoid drinking before driving, which in turn prevents many car accidents. For example, after this law has come into force, the consumption of alcohol has been reduced significantly and as a result the number of car accidents decreased around 57%. In other words, when the law coerces drivers not to drink, it creates a safely drive environment, which decreases the risks of car accidents.

 

Second, this law can save lives by not allowing drunk drivers. Frightened by the civil and criminal penalties for drunk driving, conductors will respect the message it brings: drinking and driving is considered extremely unsafe. When drives get conscious of that, many lives will be saved. It has been proven that 44% percent of persons who died presented some percentage of alcohol in their blood. Such results give the idea that in some way alcohol is closed linked to accidents. For this reason, when forcing people to consider not drinking and driving, the number of deaths will decrease. To have an idea, the number of deaths related to car accidents decreased from 277 cases a day, last year, to 156 victims per day, this year. The drop off drunk drivers is directly related to the reduction of deaths in car accidents.

 

Third, this law can prevent the Government of spending public money on medical services. According to the Brazilian Medical Association, the State expends 25 billion Reais to help out car-crash victims. After the law, the State could save up to 11 million Reais in its budget over the past three months. From the economic standpoint, the law is excellent because the Government can save up the money from the taxpayers wasted in medical service.

 

The government worked in the right path when they value life as being more important and relevant in comparison to a small group of people who insists on drinking beverages before driving, arguing that their acts are not dangerous. The right to drink remains, but not when it is related to driving because the results are much clear: more than 36.000 people died last year from car accidents. Understanding that the Federal Law n. 11705/08 is a question of saving lives and public money will make easier for anybody to give up drinking and driving.

 

 

 

 

Watching crazy hospitals

     It’s awful when doctors don’t hear their patients, as if they were guardians of truth. Even worse when the client‘s life depends on that information. The reality might sound sad, unfortunately, the majority of our psychiatric public hospitals physicians has nothing to do with doctor House’s competence. An entire environment “forgotten” by the government would, of course, result in precocious diagnoses of normal citizens, lack of hospital structure and a barely prepared staff of doctors. Again the humanity’s friend called corruption is present.

Imagine an innocent, being judged guilty and having to accept the consequences of such an injustice. It’s almost the same thing of judging someone, who might have some esquizofrenic symptoms, as totally crazy, then start to administrate haldol to him. This medication is used to reduce hallucination symptoms at the price of accelerating the famous Parkinson’s disease, depression for the time it is being used. Now, this depression is usually treated with electroshocks, when the Parkinson is not induced, however, haldol can induce this symptom. Whenever nurses realize that the patients are depressed they report to these superb doctors, who order them to start the shock therapy. As a result, the patient is drugged and forced to take unnecessary and inefficient electroshocks.

The psychiatric hospitals are not usually located at the same places of regular ones. The main reason is simple, patients with mind disturbs are potentially dangerous to themselves, other patients, and everyone who may be visiting or walking through the hospital’s grounds. Indeed, São Paulo’s public hospitals are in generall well conserved. By the other hand, sanatories are usually very damaged. There was one called Bom Retiro, at Santa Catarina, who has it’s entrance very well conserved, a lot of green areas, some sunpaths and fountains. But inside the place, a terrible smell due to the constipation caused by the haldol on the patients. Separate rooms for each patient, cleaned once per week, with one almost permanently dirty toilet and a bed with a mattress filled with straw. It’s not required much effort to visualize the food gave to those patients at these emprisonment’s days.

The same sanatory had only one pschyatric responsable for the whole contigent. To control the interns, the crew were nurses who had  trainment to control people with disturbs, but not a graduation to effectivelly know what they were doing. Some others sanatories reported deaths due to the wrong admnistration of medicine. One cronic patient suddenly blew out his intestines throught his anus in the middle of the path. Thousands of patients die every year, forgotten by their families, doctors, State.

Some sad information is telling that a huge part of government’s capital invested on health are destined to these kind of institutions. Certainly deal with mental perturbations is a very delicate and complicate task, however , so is to deal with surgeries and massive quantity of going to doctors appointments at public clinics. Corruption is spread on the most nasty areas it could be, merging in a point where pchyatrists don’t even know who really needs treatment.

A shot in the foot: NGO is not a solution

Many people believe that NGO is a palliative solution to social problems when facing the lack of government actions. They are wrong, instead. Although they are considered as a 4th power to handle with social, economic, environment and many other issues, the fact is that NGO is assuming the Estate paper in dealing with the problems that are not their concerns. The Estate, who receive by law money and power to organize the society is now leaving those duties to NGO, missapropriating the money that all of us pay as tax.