Jail Sentences - Traffic Law

Here in Costa Rica drivers are consider creative every time they take a car to drive and a pain for tourists and new drivers that can’t get use to the way we manage the driveways, this is part of a cultural behavior that we as costaricans get used to it, but it’s wrong! , ascending car accidents and deaths on the streets are part of this disease that keeps us as one of the worst countries to drive in.

But there still a way to make things right and the new traffic law in Costa Rica provides new monetary fines whoever violates it. As an initial idea the new law creates a license point system in which every driver has 50 points in their driver license and would be reduced for each violation until it gets to zero and lost of the driver’s license for 2 years. As well as many other restriction in some cases exaggerated but at least make us wonder for the real purpose of the new law, which is provide a mechanism to prevent and maintain a better behavior on the streets.

But probably the biggest enforcement is the No Drive Day in Downtown San Jose. The rule prohibits driving in the city on certain days of the week, depending on the last digit of their license plate. This decree which is supposes to expire before March 31, representatives of the Legislative Assembly said the president is expected to renew the restriction and take more aggressive steps to enforce it. Traffic police reported applying the new fines to 450 drivers who were not complying with traffic laws on the first day of application and 512 on the second. To help enforce the laws, Costa Rica Ministry of Public Works and Transportation is adding 400-450 new Transit Police officers to its existing 800 member force.

Even though Road traffic crashes are predictable and therefore preventable. In order to combat the problem, though, there needs to be close coordination and collaboration, and with the help of every diver, and to be conscious about the needs across many sectors and many disciplines.

Terrorism

Terrorism became well known after September 11, with the World Trade Center attack, but this problem had been part of the world scenario and human history since decades, the use of terror as weapon and as a way of manipulate the society. You don’t need to be a criminal or the stereotype of the man with the Muslim outfits to be considering a terrorist, dictators and often politic member use terror also, to make ideas in place under a deficient regime.

Nowadays ,terrorism developed into a risky business, a dangerous and very profit work that causes death wherever they need to act, and besides this dangerous business comes: drugs, gunrunning, internet hacking and all kinds of illegal threats that give financial help terrorist groups around the globe. Terrorism is also enforcing by publicity and the more publicity a terrorist group can get, more financial and logistic support can get among the enemies of the terrorist victim.

Terrorism is a conflict method that will survived and evolved as he continuing trying to adapt to the challenges and the new forms of conflicts, no place for early type of wars, with tanks and soldiers, but new kind of conflicts with high technologic methods and source of communication ways used against their enemies. This new use of technology can ensure terrorism a new way, even unexpected and most aggressive way of attacking, with extreme consequences, mainly because of today’s dependency to computers and communications systems.

There´s not a way to combat terrorism because it’s so complex and the acting way is unexpected and done by groups with roots all over the world, it can be done by a group or a specific person with an extreme motivation and rare goal. So, as globalization and technology, terrorism is here to stay for a long time as a way of war, or as a way to act against bigger and more develop opponents. The war of David against Goliath.

Globalization

The term of globalization have been changing in time, and nowadays, involves aspects like cultural, social, political and technological. Considering that the concept of is well known for most of the people because of the use and effects on internet. Internet is a good example of the globalization phenomena, the worldwide web is part of a big mass of people interacting and communicating to each other in real time, and that’s what being global is about.

Now, the definition could be a little harder when comes to the other kind of terms, like politics or cultural matters but they all come to a single concept, sharing knowledge and everyone be part of a big community, living as a whole, in every single aspect of our life’s, like sports, health, economy, culture, music, etc. The share of knowledge will give a hope by letting new tech and also new medicines for people with needs in the developing countries.

In my opinion, Globalization come here to stay and will be a type of ideology in the years to come, with the idea of bringing down all types of walls that separate human beings from each other, globalization is the future and won’t stop, even though it has their lows and highs, the problem of poverty have been an issue of globalization and also a matter in the developing countries that have been struggling against it or trying to be part of a globalize world.

Globalization is the way in which we, as human beings, would care about each other, this sounds more like a utopia, but at least we have the idea and the concept of going in the right way. In the years to come there will be an improvement not only in the main issues or the pros matter but also in the problems and diseases that the whole world has, like the search for cures of cancer and AIDS and the improvement in poverty too.

Current ethnic conflicts

Ethnic Conflicts have been in the world since and even before Jesus, as an example we can remember how Moses and Jew people were rejected from Egypt as written in the bible, and how Jews had suffer through history just because of their religious believes, or also how Muslims are or were rejected since the terrorist act of 911, this can make us wonder, why of this human behavior, well this type of behavior is very common among people, is a territorial instinct or sense of property that in which people felt threaten when don’t know somebody or have a difference aspect or a different believes.

Ethnic conflicts are most of the time with difference in race, political or religious believes, but there´s also a type of discrimination against minorities under a society, in this case for example Latin American, is very common to find countries with indigenous populations trying to make their rights and thoughts stand still under a society in which white people domain.

Political differences among countries can also end in an ethnic conflict, but this case is very particular, issues like control of a territory or problems with the country borders, like the recent problems with Costa Rica and Nicaragua, both trying to control an area of land in the north border, this can cause a ejective behavior against nicas, just because of political matter, we have the advantage of being a pacifist country that won’t let this issue go any further, but if this same case were developed in an conflict area it might end in a war.

Violence between races or ethnics had been part of us since so long; is sad, but this is how some countries or territories had been created, as everything grows and develops we can expect new kinds of violence against ethnic groups; globalization, migration of people to other countries, land control, and power help to increase this type of discrimination, and as happened in the past, if we don’t try to stop this, we would see again genocides, violence, and even more terrorist acts.

Globalization of infectious diseases

Infectious disease is a problem that doesn’t respect ethnic, social position or geographic location; it can either affect developed and undeveloped countries. For undeveloped countries the problem could have a major impact because of lack of institutions and procedures to help people infected by an epidemic. In the other hand, developed countries can support more easily the advance of an epidemic by affording new drugs and procedures to eliminate an infection.

Nowadays, modern transportation, immigration, and unrestricted borders allow people, animals, and other different species that carry diseases, and easily moved from one country to another and spread it pretty fast. Keeping in mind that one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide are epidemics. Trying to stop this technological and individual advantages, reduced the increasing number of infections worldwide , but still the need of better and more strong actions to eliminate completely the pandemics around the world.

Safer food , water, better housing, better nutrition, and better sanitary conditions, all that together, and also the use of vaccines are some of the main factors of stopping increasing infections around the world. They´re still countries that can’t afford this kind of treatment, so they depend on international organization to help deal with the problem, so is also important to maintain and support international cooperation.

Cooperation should be the key to provide better response for a pandemic, the fact that governments around the world have the responsibility of providing better health services and better social structure to stop infectious diseases, this shouldn’t be it, governments need to do more, also for developed countries that experiment with vaccines and other types of cures, they all have to set their experiments for free, to provide the whole world better treatment and better cure.

Migration

As the global economy grows, wealth and money lay just in several countries. Meanwhile the third worlds, which are composed by undeveloped countries, still under a state of poverty and lack of economic growth; the migration of people comes as a way of helping their families in poor countries, to have a relief in his economy and also the importance of giving their children a better education and life time.

In the other hand, developed countries see immigration practices as problems, because of many aspects, one of them is the used of social services by immigrants that doesn't pay taxes like a regular citizen, this can affect the economy and social funds on a country ; another aspect is taking on the borders, bunch of people trespassing without controls, no one knows who is entering, or what kind of person is getting into the country, this could be a really hard problem, criminals or antisocial persons trying to get in, causing insecurity and violence under a society.

Here in Costa Rica, immigration comes in some part as a way of helping the economy, but also immigration could be a problem too, immigrants mainly from Nicaragua come to make menial jobs that nobody want to do, those works are: construction workers, coffee pickers; they also take care of our children and help families as baby keepers or housemaid, those jobs help our economy and social stability.

In conclusion, immigration can have either advantages or disadvantages, in some cases migration is temporarily, and when they return, people can bring with them new skills and attitudes that later on can be helpful to their families and their social stability, and in the other hand, also it become a problem to carry and an issue for social issues and social parameters.

Poverty

Life is a contrast and you can see it everywhere, countries with the most beautiful landscapes have the majors problems of poverty and hungry in the world, been more specific the case of Africa, a land with natural fauna and flora that captivate everyone who visit this land, but is the most affected continent not only by having the poorest countries, but also had the worst rates in health, life expectancy, and hungry in the all globe. Is true that poverty doesn’t affect only African countries, and is spread all over the world, even in the richest countries had problems to fight poverty and unemployment. But the situation is just different when comes to places where other indicators like, education, work, and stability is lack or missing.

There’s a war against poverty, but even when the whole world is in crisis poverty is not, and increases more every day. The wealthier countries in the world are committed to try and eradicated poverty, but not so much have been done, if only 0.7% of what rich countries spend in arms where destined to poverty every child around the world would have an education for a life time. And here I come with another contrast, avaricious of who more money have, the more they have, the more they spend in stupid things, like wars; and the less they care about humanitarian aspects, instead of been pro-life they are trying to better kill we all, and by that forgetting about our problems and lacks.

Just to keep in mind the poorest country in the world where at some time a colony of a rich country, this give us up how wealthy countries were in somehow responsible of poverty around the world, and they should be also responsible to set ideas and plans to eradicate and help countries that present this problems, Political leaders again are in front of such an important issue for humanity and they don’t do much, as usual, once again comes generous organization that try to fight against all kind of difficulties to take part in this monumental effort of eliminating at least extreme poverty in the globe.

Sometimes is sad to know that poverty around the world is always a matter of money, and is not of survival, because in that case the richest countries should be others, that just by been alive at the sunrise is a worried for every single day, a bunch of feelings comes when I think of how selfishness of we as human, against poor people can end in this lack of interest for humankind, it comes to my mind the recent events in Haiti, now nobody thinks or care about this country, once it goes through TV cables and the notice in the news disappear the problems goes away and we simply forget, that’s how is done, people always forgets really fast, and become disinterested later on.

This image doesn’t escape a lot from reality, when we talk of rich countries against poor nations, and we as individual act as those selfish nations that forget that they are responsible for their health and life, so we should start to help as an individual these sound like an utopia but, there’s no other way, we shouldn’t depend on what political people can do we need to find other ways to help and support altruist organization to keep with their effort.

Guns at home

Guns at home

When I first heard about this topic, I had my own opinion, and it was on favor of gun possession and arming, I didn’t realize the real consequences of having a gun at home. As most of the people, I picture myself at home and some unknown criminal breaking into the house, me at that time undefended looking for something to protect me, and later looking for a gun and try to use it against the murder. But very few people who legally own a gun really use them in self defense, and the weapon just stay there locked in a cabin or in some cases under the bed, as a potential accident.

Gun possession increases the risk of a violent death, because a gun can be involved in an accidental shooting, suicide or family homicide. As an statistic every time a gun injures or kills in self defense, it is used 11 times as an attempted suicides, 7 times in criminal assaults and homicides, and 4 times in unintentional shooting deaths or injuries. So a home with a gun is less secure than a home without a gun.

There should be other alternatives to gun possession and more laws and regulation for these kinds of practices. Arming is also a matter of cultural and social status and need to be control. They are more guns everyday on the streets and easier for a child or an inexpert citizen to acquire one. The guns should be ban at all and give jail penalty for anybody who own one. That’s the only way of stopping violence, there still other ways of controlling this issue, but at this time, in Costa Rica; I think that no other alternative can fit.

When I did my research on this topic I found a statement that fits perfectly to arming an gun possession, and how we should be learned. “You only have to alternatives, if you want to prevent a boy of throwing stones, either teaches the boy not to or pick up every stone and throw it into the sea”. So, in fact, if we cannot teach everyone how to use arms we at least need to try and eliminate them, and with them the consequences of arming and gun possession can disappear.

Feedback Letter

Feedback Letter, Globalization Week Org. September 29th, 2010 Hi, during last Wednesday we attended to a presentation about Drupal Software, as a personal point of view you could came with some really interesting topics about it. The Drupal software is now leading programs for websites worldwide, and more important about it is that is a free open source program that can be run in any kind of module. The presentation at itself was a little boring, and sometimes were difficult to understand because it did showed irrelevant information that didn’t even match with the main topic, but also shows a different perspective of what a website is, and how they are done. The speaker did know fully about the topic, and he came to the presentation as a developer and founder of a Drupal enterprise here in Costa Rica, which is really good to know how the market of software and development is improving more everyday, and help the country keep the standard of being one of countries were software development is a exporting and qualified product. The globalization week comes out with the idea of help students in the university know about other topics, and one of the most important topics know days is technology, so this type of presentation should be taking as a way of learning how new tech improve not only our lives, but our business and working places. Well as usual the university comes with this type of events that make us have our opinion for certain topics , is also true that they need to be better, and with more interesting content. Something I cant let go is that at least this last presentation, I did assisted, wasn’t interesting for everybody, because maybe, didn’t fulfill the needs of everyone in the auditorium, so that’s another critic of why the event should be more interesting and with more dynamic.

Global Warming

Global Warming is now an everyday issue, but is being a topic for not for a long time, right now is really a concern and a danger to all human kind and the environment as well, the whole world is involve in the consequences and impact of global warming effects.

The major impact of global warming is now done by the carbon dioxide spread by fossil fuels, experts talk of more than 20 billion tons of carbon dioxide thrown to the atmosphere every year, if we think about it, the human population is around 6.5 billion people so it would be 3 tons of carbon dioxide for every single human in the world.

So, if carbon dioxide could do this to increase the green house effect, what could happen if we add some other factors like, pollution, used of non clean energy sources, water contamination deforestation, etc. is going to be hard to imagine the real consequences, the climate warming influence physical and biological systems the world is now changing because of this issue, and in just a few years scientists believe of the increase in 4 degrees the world temperature, that can cause an enormous effect in the planet behavior and climate.

As usual, this is now a political matter all the countries around the world are now concern of what global warming could do and the real effects on worldwide climate. There’s a lot of things that can be done but not too many ideas yet approved because the problem is well-known by the politicians, but they still think of a long period plans that can’t affect the economy of their countries, so it’s now more important the economy than the survival of the human being, not to be surprise of this statement when come out from a politician.

Some work had been done, but is not enough for the problem to come, the climate change is and should be an educational matter, if big enterprise do not care about this issue, well… the rest of us should do something, and beginning with a good education in terms of climate warming is a good start.

Human Rights and Domestic Violence

Human rights are rights to which all humans deserve merely by reason of being human. This statement includes men, women and children, we need to keep this in mind because, and now violence against women is a worldwide issue that can become a worldwide crisis. Domestic violence has many forms including physical aggression (hitting, kicking, biting, shoving, and restraining, slapping, throwing objects).

Domestic Violence is often not recognize as a human rights abuse, because sometimes the government can’t do anything about this type of violence because it takes place in private: in home, in a relationship, or between married people. But unfortunately domestic violence is increasing because of this gap. There are more and younger women, fearing for her life because of a spouse or a companion who committed acts of violence against women or family in general, are free to do all this without any restrictions. The laws are missing or not applied by the institutions and the people in charge. So this issue becomes a big snow ball with anybody to stop it.

Victims of abuse require mental health care, and the effects in our society is enormous, children suffering behavior problems resulting from domestic violence, will grow up requiring special care, and with academic difficulties because, with the lost of optimistic and risk taking qualities necessary to become successful, and also will raise children who will in turn continue the cycle.

We need to start in the country institutions to help stop this problem; also the key is to denounce every single act of violence, and to protect our children and women from acts of violence. We all as human beings were born free and equal in dignity and rights so we need to fight for what belong to us.

Introduction to the English Course

Hi,

Well my name is Daniel Hidalgo; I’m cursing the career of Circuitos and Sistemas electronicos since last year, and this is my second course of English, I started with English III last quarter, I really enjoy the way we went through classes last quarter, and remember how challenging and hard where the works, presentation and projects we did. For this quarter I’m expecting more of hard work and fun, so I’m sure is not going to be easy but we are going to have a really good time. Enjoy!!