World News B #4 October 26th, 2007

(I took this photo in my neighborhood the other day)

1. Visit your classmates' blogs from last week.
2. Look at question #11. Choose your 3 favourites.
I chose the following three. All are cool!!!

I want to equal world.
Doraemon appeared.
A day becomes more than 24 hours.


3. 20 minutes language practice (listening, vocabulary, grammar, etc)
I did the "Criminal terms" (http://a4esl.org/q/f/z/zz34mmn.htm)
I learned the following terms.
accessory 共犯
leprosy　腐敗
larceny　窃盗罪
perjury　偽証罪


4. Find a news item in English. Blog it. 45 minutes.

Title: Living Beneath the Surface, Undocumented and Unsure
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/nyregion/24about.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

Summary: This article is about the new proposal of the New York State's Governor, Eliot Spitzer, in which he said he would permit people who could meet rigorous standards of proof for their identity to get driver's license, regardless of their immigration status. The governor argues that it would reduce unlicensed or uninsured drivers on the streets and also hit-and-run accidents.

My thoughts: I know breaking the law of where you live is a bad thing. So staying in a country where you don't have any legal status would be also a bad thing. Apparently giving undocumented immigrants driver's licenses wouldn't be a good thing. But it's not that simple in America.

I met many people in ESL school in NY when I studied there for 3 months in 2005. They all were immigrants from all over the world. Most of them worked for a very long hours every day and night illegally. But I couldn't blame them because they needed money for their family and they were needed by somebody. In the U.S., a lot of undocumented immigrants are working in a harsh environment. And the government knows it and rather overlooks the problem. Now America can't exist without illegal immigrant labor force. They need their credit cards to live in an apartment on their own or some of them need their driver's licenses to work. But they can't have both of the needed ones. It's very complicated situation. We might have similar problems in our country in the future since we will have less labor force year by year. So I'm interested in how America deals with the problem.

The phrases that struck me in this article are words by Bishop DiMarzio:
"There is a demand for the labor provided by immigrants, but no coherent system for recognizing their presence in society."
"We have allowed persons to enter and have integrated them into the labor market, but now through sporadic enforcement of immigration laws we hope that they will leave and no others will come."

Ummmm.....it's a difficult situation!!!!

5. Read your classmates blogs. Blog about some of them. 15 minutes.

I read the first posting of RAGAMI san's blog and liked the title's meaning!
The title is "あいり～らいふ". And she says that:
「あいり～（irie）」はジャマイカの言葉で
「楽しい」とか「最高」、「平和」という意味♪
だから日常が楽しかったり最高な日に
なるようにってことでこれにしました(*･∀･*)

Now, I'll try to translate her idea into English. I'm sorry if I'm wrong. Maybe she wants to say:

"My blog's title 'irie' is a Jamican term, meaning 'exciting!', 'fabulous!' or 'peaceful!' I wish everybody's life would be fun and great so that's why I chose it!"

I love your idea, RAGAMI!


Naoko