Self assessment on listening 2

http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/health-report.cfm

I have listened a podcast "Debating the Teen Brain". It wasn't difficuilt to understand, but I have listened twice. I have read a text after lestening, because I wanted to see spelling of unknown words. There was some new words for me: prefrontal, cortex, equip and some other. I enjoyed lestening because there was some new information. As I said in previuos post it is very useful that we can listen online, because we can prepare for our english exam.

Self assessment on listening

http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2007-10-30-voa1.cfm
I have listened a pod cast “How to Build a House with Bales of Straw“. It was easy, because speakers talked slowly and clearly, so I listened only once, and I didn’t need to read. I enjoyed listening, because I have heard some new information for me. I have learned some new words: thickness, bale, adobe and other. I think this listening online was very useful for me, because I can’t hear English around me, so it’s very good that there is a possibility to improve my English through the internet.

Alcatraz penitentiary

Nowadays Alcatraz is one of the biggest tourist magnets in San Francisco. Alcatraz prison is in island, which is a mile from the mainland. From the mid 1930's until the mid 1960's, Alcatraz was America's most security prison, for the nation's most incorrigible inmates. It was very hard to escape from this prison because the water of San Francisco Bay is very cold and if a person fall in, there is little chance to survive.
Living conditions weren’t very good. Upon arrival at Alcatraz new prisoners were assigned to a private cell and provided with only life’s most basic necessities: clothing, food, water and medical care. There were 336 cells. Each cell was 5 feet by 9 feet. Cells at Alcatraz had a small sink with cold running water, small sleeping cot and a toilet. Most men could extend their arms and touch each wall within their cell. Inmates were required to observe a strict silence policy, only being allowed to talk during meals and recreation. Visitation rights had to be earned and all visitors had to be approved by the warden. Sending and receiving letters was also a privilege. A highly regimented schedule meant prisoners were woken at 6:30am, cleaned their cells and marched single file down the main corridor in silence to the mess hall for breakfast. Following breakfast, the prisoners were then given their work assignments for the day.
There have been many famous inmates in Alcatraz: George "Machine Gun" Kelly; Robert Stroud, who was better known to the public as the "Birdman of Alcatraz. The most famous inmate probably was Al Capone, who spent about 4 years in this prison. This time wasn’t easy for him. Capone got into a fight with another inmate in the recreation yard and was placed in isolation for eight days. While working in the prison basement, an inmate who was standing in line waiting for a haircut exchanged words with Capone and stabbed him with a pair of shears. Capone was admitted into the prison hospital and released a few days later with a minor wound.
Alcatraz is very famous because of escapes. Over the 29 years (1934-1963) that the Federal prison operated, 36 men tried to escape. 23 were caught, 6 were shot and killed during their escape, and 2 drowned. 2 of the men who were caught were later executed for their role in the death of a correctional officer, 5 men missing and presumed drowned. The most famous escape from Alcatraz was in 1962. Frank Morris and Brothers John and Clarence Anglin vanished from their cells and were never seen again. They have made their way out of prison using spoons and a homemade raft. They put dummy heads - made of a mixture of soap, toilet paper and real hair - in their beds to fool prison officers making night-time inspections. They then cut through the back of their cells with sharpened spoons. The group escaped out of the vents in the back of their cells and into the utility corridor. Then they proceeded onto the roof and down to the bay. They used a makeshift raft of driftwood and raincoats sewn together to make pontoons in order to float away from Alcatraz.
In 1963 the decision to close Alcatraz was made by US Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Alcatraz desperately needed repair from extensive salt-water and air corrosion at a time when budgets were being cut. At three times the operating expenses of other penitentiaries, Alcatraz was simply too costly to keep open. The isolation (and hence lack of natural resources) that had made the island such an attractive site for a maximum-security prison ultimately sealed its fate.

Conflicts

Conflict is a state of opposition, disagreement or incompatibility between two or more people or groups of people, which is sometimes characterized by physical violence. There are many kinds of conflicts: intrapersonal conflict, interpersonal conflict, emotional conflict, group conflict, organizational conflict, community conflict, military conflicts and so on. Conflict develops because we are dealing with people's lives, jobs, children, pride, self-concept, ego and sense of mission or purpose. Sometimes it’s good, because it helps to find the best solution, but everybody would be much happier if we could live without conflicts. The main reason of conflicts is that parties refuse to negotiate and find a compromise. Nobody of us enjoy conflicts, so we should try to avoid it
Techniques for avoiding and/or resolving (board-superintendent) conflict:
1.Plan for and communicate frequently
2.Be honest about concerns
3.Agree to disagree - understand healthy disagreement would build better decisions
4.Get individual ego out of management style
5.Let your team create - people will support what they help create
6.Discuss differences in values openly
7.Continually stress the importance of following policy
8.Communicate honestly - avoid playing "gotcha" type games
9.Provide more data and information than is needed
10.Develop a sound management system

Gun control

Last month the entire world was shocked because of Virginia killing (if you hadn't heard about it you can see clips on the left of my blog). It made us to think how such things can happen nowadays? How one student can kill 32 people?The main reason is that there is very easy to buy a gun in America. The right to bear arms is written in the American constitution. Gun right supporters says that they have to have a right to own guns for individual self defense.The statistic of gun violence isn't very good:
In a single year, 3,012 children and teens were killed by gunfire in the United States, according to the national data released in 2002.
Between 1994 and 1999, there were 220 school associated violent events resulting in 253 deaths.
Every day, more than 80 Americans die from gun violence.
The rate of firearm deaths among kids under age 15 is almost 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized countries combined.
There are much more terrible facts about gun violence in America. According to these facts gun control must be much stricter in America.

Employment law

The history of the employment law begins with the industrialization. This law defines workers rights, dealt with health and safety in the workplace, and limits upon working hours and ages. Most of the countries have such legislation.
In English law employees have more rights than self-employed people. This law also gives women the right to return to work after a break, which was given because of baby, protect workers from sexual or racialist discrimination, regulates retirement age.
Sometimes EC law better protects workers than English law. EC had many attempts to harmonize employment rights among member states. The main problems are: a standard minimum wage, Sunday trading, the right to strike. There aren’t so many employment laws in Japan like in Western countries. Workers work longer ours and often don’t ask for overtime payment. Also there is bigger woman discrimination. On the other hand Japanese workers enjoy more security than employees in western countries.

INTERNET FRAUD

In criminal law, fraud is the crime or offense of deliberately deceiving another in order to damage them. The term "Internet fraud" refers generally to any type of fraud scheme that uses one or more components of the Internet, such as chat rooms, e-mails, web sites and so on. Internet fraud occurs in many different forms. Credit card frauds, fraud related to online investment, internet auction fraud are just a few of the most common types of fraud. So how we can protect from internet fraud? I have found some good suggestions:
1. When banking online, check the address of any pages that ask for personal account information;
2.Don't give out your credit card numbers online unless the site is a secure and reputable;
3.Be cautious when responding to special investment offers;
4.Don't believe the promise of large sums of money for you or you cooperation.

Used links:

http://www.internetfraud.usdoj.gov/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_fraud