There Are No Children Here Essays - There Are No Children Here, Gang

There Are No Children Here The West side of Chicago, Harlem, Watts, and almost any major city in the U.S., What do all of these areas have in common? These areas, along with many others have become mine fields for the explosive issues of race, values, and community responsibility, led by the plight of the urban underclass. Issues such as violent crime, social separation, welfare dependence, drug wars, and unemployment all play a major role in the plight of American inner-city life. Alex Kotlowitz's book; ?THERE ARE NO CHILDREN HERE?, confronts America's devastated urban life; a most painful issue in America. Kotlowitz traces the lives of two black boys; 10-year-old Lafayette, and 7 year old Pharaoh, as they struggle to beat the odds growing up in one of Chicago's worst housing projects. Their family includes a welfare dependent mother, an alcoholic-drug using father, an older sister, an older brother, and younger triplets. Kotlowitz describes the horrors of an ill-maintained housing project completely taken over by gangs, where murders and shootings are an everyday thing. He succeeds at putting a face on the people trapped inside the housing projects with virtually no hope of escape. One can truly feel a sense of great loss for the family, and a great deal of hope for the two young boys. You can truly feel yourself hoping that things will work out for them, and you can really feel like you know these young men on a personal basis. All through their lives Pharaoh and Lafayette are surrounded by violence and poverty. Their neighborhood had no banks, no public libraries no movie theatres, no skating rinks or bowling allies. Drug abuse was so rampant that the drug lords literally kept shop in an abandoned building in the projects, and shooting was everywhere. Also, there were no drug rehabilitation programs or centers to help combat the problem. Police feared going into the ghetto out of a fear for their own safety. The book follows Pharaoh and Lafayette over a two year period in which they struggle with school, attempt to resist the lure of gangs, mourn the death of close friends, and still find the courage to search for a quiet inner peace, that most people take for granted. Kotlowitz portrays what life is like at the bottom, and the little hope there is for the poor which makes it virtually impossible for the young lives in the ghetto to grow up. Also at the same time Kotlowitz wants the reader to know that not all hope is lost, but something must be done before hope is truly lost. The mother was portrayed as a woman who lacked self-esteem, and was not prepared to enter the job market. She had no skills, and was completely dependant on welfare. She also liked to gamble, and sometimes actually won. The biggest and most pervasive problem of the young children's lives was the dominance of the gangs at Henry Horner Homes. The gangs were dedicated to violence, and children were compelled to join for their own safety. The gangs in the Homes were of a retreatist sort, in that they focused mainly on drugs, and their gang related activities, and would use whatever force necessary to keep their activities afloat. Drugs were a part of the boys every day life, and brutal drugs wars surrounded their apartment. With the gangs so close to home, the children had a constant fear of death. The violence never let up. The children lost many friends to either drugs or the gangs. When they lost a friend, they felt sorrow for a while, but reality would set in, and they knew that it w as an every day part of their life. It was these feelings that made the Rivers children hesitant to get close to anyone. If they did not get close, they would not feel the loss as much. It made them feel that there was no way out, and death was their unyielding fate. Their feelings of loss also caused them to have a tremendous distrust in the police. In a way they looked to the police for guidance, but at the same time did not trust them. Residents of the homes

Hazardous Lawns essays

Hazardous Lawns essays In Canada three out of every ten households use pesticides and almost half use chemical fertilizers (Ring, n.d.). Considering the vast number of households in the country the amount of chemicals that are seeping into our food and ground water is enormous. Pesticides have been linked to cause illnesses in people and wildlife. However, households continue to fertilize their lawns every spring to kill insects and weeds in order to obtain the perfect lawn. Pesticides are used to eliminate pests and designed to kill various species of weeds in our lawns. They are very effective at making or grass greener and less patchy. Typical pesticides include; insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and bacterial disinfectants. In Canada the most common pesticides at present are chlorphenoxy compounds which are used to kill broad leaved plants. The major ingredient is 2,4-dichlorphenoxyacetic acid and during manufacture other substances may be produced which contaminate the product, including dioxins such as tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin. The second most common herbicide used in domestic situations is glyphosate When a pesticide is sprayed only 5% of the spray actually hits the targeted location. Movement from wind volatilization and leaching spreads the pesticide around. It could contaminate up to 30 homes in a residential area. A study suggests up to 3% of pesticides applied to lawns are tracked inside from feet walking over the sprayed area. Its difficult to document the level of pesticides in humans. Although humans are one race, people with different ethnic backgrounds could react differently to studies done on them. Most tests are done on genetically identical laboratory animals and then extrapolated to humans (Ring, n.d.). Glyphosate herbicide is an organic acid which can affect the function of the liver, kidney, skin, eyes, and can cause symptoms such as anorexia, vomiting, and muscle weakness. Pesticides have al ...

Studio Portraiture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5500 words

Studio Portraiture - Essay Example his or her appearance and mood rather than his or her environment. Portrait is far distinct from a snapshot for it shows someone in immobile state thus it can be termed as the best expression of a personality in photography. This explains why since the time immemorial, portraiture as an art ; painting, sculpture and photography, has been used in making impressions of great people such as kings , emperors and pharaohs among others. Moreover, it has been used in the same magnitude on important occasions like funerals weddings. Donnan (2004) claims that in political arenas, portraits are so important that it is deemed a symbol of national unity to have portraits of the head of state in important places. It is common that if a portrait of a certain personality is used too much it can lead to worship of that person either politically or in other ways like in the case of Stalin in Russia. Families have heightened demand on portraits to enjoy in commemoration of important events like weddin gs and birthdays among other various events. Portrait photography has developed since the time immemorial to become a vast and technologically sophisticated industry today. Studio portraiture has expanded creating many jobs and careers and the other hand developing talents. As technology advances so do the techniques of photography which makes the talents developed in studio portraiture to be taken far outside a housed studio (Donnan, 2004). Today's advancement in studio portraiture is solely due to digital formatting technology which is narrowed from electronic technology. Digital technology is the system controlled by digital circuits where electronic logic is transmitted discreetly using gates and flip-flops this is the opposite of analogue electronics whose systems continuously varies. Digital format is use of the said digital technology in a calculation or solving of a logical problem. Digital formatting has led to greater developments in photography techniques such as high key lighting. it has also led to development of digital cameras which are very efficient in studio portraiture. This study will be used to gauge by what ways change in studio portraiture to digital format has affected style and type of photography available today (Donnan, 2004). Problem Statement Gradual changes of portraiture brought about by technological advancement have been perceived to have brought about negative impacts to the society in terms of style as well as types of photography available today. Justification of the study. Since the discovery of portraiture as an art which through history, dates back several thousand years back, there has been a great revolution in the ways it is carried out and the outcome. The development in different techniques of portraiture has led to increased performance of portraiture as an art in satisfying the need of the user the drive of the artist. The emergence of portraiture industry has led to springing up of many studios in the recent times which have later developed as big film or photography companies; this implies large scale business which requires talents