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< Class:ENG112 - Section 36 - Fall 2007 | new magazine page

The following essays suggest methods to improve social problems afflicting our world today. They tackle issues such as poverty, marijuana decriminalization, prejudice, and hate. The Arts in Action draws attention to how unconventional methods like Broadway musicals educate the public on current events like gay rights, AIDS, and expanding human acceptance by exploring the barrier between entertainment and information. Every night, the news provides a specific, easily-avoidable block of time on TV. The audience then return to comfortable, vicarious sitcoms and reality shows that amuse and distract us every week. A Hazy Debate combines the authorâ€™s appeal for recreational marijuana while describing the history and ongoing legal dispute between marijuana advocates and objectors. By appealing to habitual marijuana smokers, the author leads into the education of marijuana with allure. Leading the Fight Up Against the Enemy draws attention to the unthinkably high poverty rates in South Boston. All people today face a world where change is painstakingly slow, and the future appears dim and despairing.

By advocating awareness, there is hope that the more people know, the more action we are willing to take. More importantly, we must bridge the gap between information and pleasure. The key to making a difference is intervening against the poor conditions â€“be they emotional, economical, or legal â€“ in order to ameliorate our world and construct a more secure, optimistic, open-minded society for future generations. -Laura

Authors in this Category

Adc92388

Pasta sauce

Gphelan

Leading the Fight Against the Enemy

What does it mean to be poor in urban America in the 21st century? As time has passed, so has the idea and actual reality of living in poverty for those who do- the booming economy and forward-thinking ideals that drive America onwards into the future are turning a blind eye to the urban poor, who are being left behind in the 20th century. The issues of violence, drug use, and crime have always been a staple of this reality of poverty in the United States, specifically in major cities, which are still evident today. The underclass have always been shunned, their voices muffled, but it is finally time to take a stand for the people who have little, but who deserve much more, and get them the medical and psychological help that they need to lead productive and happy lives. This issue of poverty leads to a general sense of despair and hopelessness, which in turn leads to the destruction of the innocent lives of those who are forced to live in the vicious cycle of despair, which needs to end now. This is why I am writing to you members of the Boston Housing Authority, in conjunction with the Old Colony Task Force, so that this volunteer group can help the BHA get more involved in the upkeep and gentrification of the other housing projects in South Boston, and the further medical and social help of the tenants of these areas.

Full Text of Adc92388's Paper

The Arts in Action

Every day hundreds of millions of people across the country participate in the performing arts in some faction or another whether or not they would like to. They are the performers and the audience, the producers and the consumers. More than most realize, they are the subjects. Through the 20th and 21st centuries, musical and dramatic arts in all of their forms have been ways to represent the social issues of the United States---some written to correspond to current events, and others written with the emotions of those events in mind. Productions have tackled such issues as racism, homophobia, and homelessness while taking the world from scenic locales like Laramie, Wyoming all the way to the grit and gristle of cities like New York and Baltimore. Through Hairspray, The Laramie Project, and Rent, a message of acceptance and harmony is brought about with a different focus in each production.

Full Text of Pasta Sauce's Paper

Legalization of Marijuana

Justice is up in smoke. I have not always been pro-choice on the topic of Marijuana legalization there was in fact a time when I was confident that â€œpotâ€ was one of lifeâ€™s many evils. Like most people when I was young I believed everything I was told, but much like how Santa and the Tooth Fairy fell short of the truth so has enough of the information I have been told to turn me away from smoking. For as long as Marijuana has been called a dangerous substance fact and fiction have been mixed together by those who opposed its recreational usage and did their best to demonize the herb. Over the years anti-marijuana propaganda has fed off the feeble knowledge of the drug with such films as the 1936 black and white â€œReefer Madnessâ€, a classic anti-marijuana propaganda film that depicts high school kids being â€œturned-onâ€ by adult pushers. Where teens turn into giggling fiends after one puff, a puff that propels them down a road of vice and death. Films such as these seen as jokes today, were taken seriously by parents and adults at the time they were screened, and have managed to skew the truth of marijuanaâ€™s dangers and effects. But it is not the lies that I aim to disprove but instead the whole system that I as an American citizen believe it is proper to call into question. It seems ridiculous to me that on so many other legislature laws have been lifted and changed but when it comes to the United States drug policy, the law has been set in stone. I believe that this is dangerous for a democracy, for us all to bow down before our laws and not to rise up against them to push their boundaries. Before hearing from both sides of the argument a history lesson on Marijuana.

Full Text of Gphelan's Big Paper