President Obama on The Death of Osama Bin Laden

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 President Obama on The Death of Osama Bin Laden

 http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead

 

The president started with a tragic introduction reminiscing the unforgettable event of Sep 11, describing it as “ a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history, the images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory, hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky, the twin towers collapsing to the ground, black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon..”

I believe that it was an electric introduction that touches the heart of people inside and outside the U.S.A. He appeared strong, blunt and direct. He stayed consistent with his message of hope and love to his community and country. He engaged the people of all race, religions and ethnicities and unified them as one American family.

The president reaffirmed that the U.S is not and never will be at war with Islam, and Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader, he was a mass murderer of Muslims. In this section of his performance, Obama employed complex rhetorical and linguistic strategies, which allow the speaker to introduce and deliver the message in favorable context. Analyzing rhetoric, Hart says “ human history has been written by great persons authoring great orations for social betterment. Often, these great statements have seemed more poetic than pragmatic, as satisfying to the heart as to the head”4.

Obama favored the third person plural pronouns we, us and our(s) in the rest of the speech, the pronouns played a significant role in creating a sense o unity of the speaker with the audience. We, us, and our(s), are employed many times respectively and are, probably, the most often used words of the speech. The speaker does not distance himself from the American people; instead, everything the president proclaims further seems to be issued by us- the people of America.

According to Capone, “ a political speech is in itself an interpretation of the audience’s feeling and needs” that allow “the audience to build its own intentionality while a politician reflexes them” (2969). Obama in this case, was a member of not only the American society but also the society to which he speaks. His audience has become international when he stated, “ Al-Qaida has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries including U.S as well”. I think that this part of his speech in one hand was very strong, yet friendly towards Muslim countries that believe in peace and dignity. However, in the other hand, it raises uncertainties that continue to trouble Muslims around the world – not to mention numerous westerners. How can Bin Laden have avoided detection in a place so close to Islamabad for more than five years? Why was there no attempt to arrest him? How are we to explain the absence of photographs, the disposal of his corpse into the sea (in pointed disregard for the Muslim rite his executioners publically claimed to respect? Anyways, president Obama who has in the past been sharply criticized for his apparent lack of strength and determination on national issues as well as on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has scored a powerful symbolic success that will have a strong impact on public opinion.

Prinz, Joachim. “I speak to you as an American Jew”, Web. 4 Apr 2011.

Capone, Alessandro. “Barack Obama’s South Carolina Speech” Journal of Pragmatics. 42 (2010): 2964-2977. Web.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead

 

 

Problem Memorandum: Disproportionally High Suspension Rates of Black and Latino Students

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Problem Memorandum

 

TO: Carmen Fariña, New York City Chancellor

FROM: Ysmeli Rosa

RE: Disproportionally High Suspension Rates of  Black and Latino Students

DATE: February 11, 2015

 

The disproportionally high suspension rates of Black and Latino students is a severe problem in New York City public schools and must be resolved to avoid further academic, social and economic disparities.  This memorandum will briefly examine the data demonstrating racial inequities in public schools as related to suspension rates, including ineffective public policies and weaknesses within the school structure that systematically prepare Black and Latino students for failure. The decline of suspension rates needs to be of utmost importance, otherwise the city will find itself building more prisons than schools.

According to a report from the New York Civil Liberties Union entitled A, B, C, D, STPP: How School Discipline Feeds the School to Prison Pipeline, suspension rates are disproportionally higher in low-income communities. [i] Author Samantha Pownell found that Black students attributed to 50% of suspensions in New York City public schools, though they only make up 29% of student enrollment.

Before this data can be analyzed, it is important to note the circumstances surrounding these young people. First, schools with low academic performance also have the highest levels of novice teachers and higher attrition rates.  Detailed data released in March 2014 by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights shows racial minorities– aside from having less access to math and science classes — are more likely to be taught by teachers with less experience and a lower salary than their white counterparts. Schools in low-income communities with a higher rate of Black and Latino students often have the most novice teachers.  The report also showed Latino students are twice as likely to attend schools were less than 60% of teachers possess necessary licenses and a fulfill state requirements; black students were three times as likely. [ii]

This evidence is alarming because novice teachers are less likely to know how to handle challenging behavior effectively and thus, crises and students suspensions arise. It is fundamentally unethical for the public school system to deprive Black and Latino students of the right to an unbiased education with teachers fit to their needs and instead provide them with the noose with which to metaphorically hang themselves in the future.

Bloomberg-era politics such as the “three-strike” policy, which requires “immediate, consistent minimum response to even minor violations of the discipline code,”[iii] are grossly discriminatory and ineffective, discouraging students from attending school and thus continuing a cycle of racially perpetuated poverty and social injustice. This policy places student insubordination (e.g. speaking back to a teacher) and violent incidents (e.g. fighting, possession of a weapon) under the same category. Suspensions are recorded permanently in students’ records and become impediments for college acceptances and future jobs.

Pownell’s research shows Black students are more likely to be suspended for “behaviors that involve subjective or discretionary judgments by school authority figures, such as disrespect, excessive noise and threatening behavior.” On the other hand, white students are more often suspended for incidents in which subjectivity and judgment are not prevailing factors, for instance, bringing a gun to school.  “This different treatment,” Pownell observes, “results not from differences in students’ behavior but from how school personnel perceive their students.”

It is time Black and Latino students were treated with equal dignity and respect rather than as future criminals. Research also shows the same students in the pool of likely suspensions are more susceptible to Stop-and-Frisk and more prone to arrests. 90% of New York school arrests made from 2011-13 involved Black and Latino youth, a 20% higher rate than the national average.

Pownell writes:

The next mayor must follow these grass-roots examples and commit to an overhaul of this ineffective and overly punitive system that has harmed students for over a decade. The next administration must examine suspension and arrest data and implement meaningful reforms that keep our most vulnerable students in the classroom and connected to resources that support learning, regardless of their academic ability, ZIP code or skin color.

 

I urge you to  be the administration that takes this matter seriously and develops sound, meaningful strategies for change. A system that does not protect the rights of its children above everything else cannot expect to prosper.

 

 

 

References 

 

 

[i] Pownell, Samantha.A, B, C, D, STPP: How School Discipline Feeds The School To Prison Pipeline. New York: New York Civil Liberties Union, 2013. Print.

[ii] New York City Independent Budget Office,.A Statistical Portrait Of New York City’S Public School Teachers. 2014. Print.

[iii]U. S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights,.Civil Rights Data Collection: Data Snapshot (School Discipline). 2014. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. Issue 1.

[iv] Harris, Elizabeth A. (2014 Sept 28) De Blasio Plans for Revised Code for Discipline in Schools. The New York Times. PA19

 

Problem memorandum on CT scan overuse

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PROBLEM MEMORANDUM

To:William T. Thorwarth, Jr., MD, Chief Executive Officer. The American College of Radiology

From: Alexander Kollar

Re: CT scan overuse

Date: February 10th, 2015

CT overuse in patients, and especially pediatric patients is a dangerous problem in the healthcare sector. As a radiologic technologist, I have myself scanned children multiple times in one day in the emergency room setting. I have seen how there is little to no oversight when physicians make decisions to use this imaging modality on patients. “Performing two scans in succession is rarely necessary, radiologists say, yet some hospitals were doing that more than 80 percent of the time for their Medicare chest patients.”1 The use of medical imaging, especially high dose CT scans has soared in the last 20 years, “our resulting exposure to medical radiation has increased more than sixfold between the 1980s and 2006, according to the National Council on Radiation Protection & Measurements.”2

There is of course a necessity for these exams, but their overuse is something that cannot be taken lightly. “Most researchers agree that there is no such thing as a dose of ionizing radiation that is so low that it will not have some effect on our body, such as damaging cells. It is important to note that each exposure to radiation builds up in our body and the risk of cancer increases with each radiation exposure. So even though a single source of exposure to radiation is unlikely to cause cancer by itself, the combined exposures add up throughout our lifetime and increase our risk of cancer over time.”3

CT scans were once rare, but are so routine now, that one in ten americans will have one every year. That’s approximately a staggering 30 million CT scan a year. Since CT scanners cost millions of dollars, there is of course an incentive for their use. It is not easy to determine exactly how much an increase in cancer this can cause, but “a 2009 study from the National Cancer Institute estimates that CT scans conducted in 2007 will cause a projected 29,000 excess cancer cases and 14,500 excess deaths over the lifetime of those exposed.”4

CT scans are thus overused, but the frightening thing is that even when they are used for a legitimate medical need, they can be used incorrectly. The general guideline is that doses for medical imaging should be as low as possible, but there is no clear guideline to what that dose of radiation should be. Because of this, how different private practices and hospitals use them varies significantly nationwide. “The dose at one hospital can be as much as 50 times stronger than at another.”5

There is no specific rule or law when it comes to doctors ordering these exams. “For example, emergency room physicians routinely order multiple CT scans even before meeting a patient. Such practices, for which there is little or no evidence of benefit, should be eliminated.”6 A physician has guidelines and suggestions to follow, but it is ultimately up to him/her to decide how many CT scans to order. Perhaps a policy change where the ordering physician would have to consult with another fellow doctor, and document it, before administering the exam, would be in order. This would be a legal incentive for future physicians to think twice before ordering an exam that is not only unnecessary, but also dangerous to the patient. Many hospitals have already changed protocols. “ “What that means for us is when a physician orders a scan from a radiology department, the radiologist begins to engage in a conversation with those physicians, talking about what might be a more reasonable and acceptable approach.”7 This is great step that hospitals have taken, but they are the exception and not the rule, and a broad policy change would make the above example a widespread practice.

And lastly, the long time rising cost of healthcare is another reason to implement change to the above practices. These exams are extremely expensive, ranging from hundreds of dollars to thousands each. The more that these exams are ordered, the more insurance companies will have to pay out, and this will raise the cost of healthcare for everyone. Not to forget the fact that if there will be 29,000 extra cancer cases a year, then the cost of treating these future patients will be a staggering addition to the already rising costs of healthcare. There are also other, less expensive exams, that doctors can order instead of CT scans. Ultrasound is significantly cheaper and exposes the patient to no radiation as well. And if a physician consults with other doctors in the hospital to determine that a CT is not warranted, then they will be saving everyone money, and a significant radiation dose to the patient as well.

In conclusion, creating a policy where Hospitals and physicians are held accountable for their overuse of CT imaging is a must. This will save money, and reduce the cost of healthcare, but more importantly, keep the patients in hospitals safer and healthier. And after all, is that not the goal of the healthcare industry in the first place?

1 WALT BOGDANICH and JO CRAVEN McGINTY. Medicare Claims Show Overuse for CT Scanning. The New York Times: Health. June 17, 2011.

2 RITA F. REDBERG and REBECCA SMITH-BINDMAN. We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer. The New York Times: the opinion pages. Jan.30, 2014.

3 Julie Bromberg and Laura Covarrubias. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Radiation and Cancer, But Were Afraid to Ask. stopcancerfund.org. August. 2014.

4 RITA F. REDBERG and REBECCA SMITH-BINDMAN. We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer. The New York Times: the opinion pages. Jan.30, 2014.

5 RITA F. REDBERG and REBECCA SMITH-BINDMAN. We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer. The New York Times: the opinion pages. Jan.30, 2014.

6 RITA F. REDBERG and REBECCA SMITH-BINDMAN. We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer. The New York Times: the opinion pages. Jan.30, 2014.

7 WALT BOGDANICH and JO CRAVEN McGINTY. Medicare Claims Show Overuse for CT Scanning. The New York Times: Health. June 17, 2011.