Shanzhi EL Blog

2007-08-26T07:38:00.001-07:00

Made in China

The immense problem with Chinese-made goods is not simply the quality of said goods, which have come under fire, but in the large quantity in which they have been exported. China’s export grew to US$546.7 billion this year, soon to overtake Germany as the world’s No.2 exporter, with only the United States. With the ubiquitous “Made in China” tag, China needs to clean up its act.

Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi has a good point. China desperately needs to remedy the situation that “ha[s] badly dented domestic and foreign consumers' confidence” in Chinese products. China is waging war on these products. And in China, this never means a good thing. With the heads of government focusing on this issue, it sends a clear message out to the rest of the leaders in China, be it grassroots or government. They need to clean up their act.

China has come into the news recently for a series of high profile cases involving the danger of their products. From toy recalls to cardboard filled buns, using a Chinese good now entails a certain amount of risk. China’s problem is that they rely heavily on the money from these goods to run its country. With a growing distrust of Chinese goods, their economy will certainly be adversely affected. And the Beijing Olympics are around the corner!

To what lengths will China go to ensure its product safety? They have already executed a high ranking product safety official for corruption, which they attribute (directly or otherwise) to the quality of their products. And judging from what Wu proposes, a “whip[ping] into line” of the officials involved, the measures implemented are going to be harsh. The methods she proposes are “time-tested”, and are campaigned based, with the intention to get officials less focused on economic goals, but quality based ones.

Well and good for China, who desperately need to brush up their act involving their goods. But would reverting back to these campaigns be a step backward for China, a step back to its fervent communist past? With the largest number of executions in the world, is the harsh step that China is going to take reprehensible?

As Wu herself said, the problem lies in management and production quality standards. These standards must be addressed immediately, rather than the weeding of undesirable officials through execution. While these may serve as a warning to others, they work only in the short term, during when the government comes down hard on these acts. As these problems are deep seated, the root of the problem has to be changed, rather than the problem’s exponents. An approach which China can adopt is the establishment of foreign watchdog entities, to tackle the problem. With a foreign entity, answerable to perhaps the government or the UN (this should be an international issue), it would be less concerned with bribery, and more with solving their problem.

(482 words)

2007-08-26T07:34:00.000-07:00

Pedophile Walks Free

The law is worded to such detail to prevent others from exploiting obscure loopholes. It is meant to uphold justice, to ensure that those who will harm society are unable to be unleashed upon society. It is supposed to grant every person who comes before a judge and jury an equal chance, to be judged with impartiality. And it is this that ironically allowed for a paedophile to walk free, due to a small legal technicality, allowing him to continue his self proclaimed “harmless practises”.

It is sad that the law accommodates the possibility and the subsequent exploitation of such loopholes. The prosecutors involved were left to wring their hands in defeat, helpless to stop this man from walking free. A self confessed paedophile that was to attend a hearing about a violation of a judge’s order, an order which was to ensure the public peace. And he was able to leave jail before he faced the court, simply because of an oversight that the judge had, preventing him from knowing the scheduling of the hearing.

The Sixth Amendment in the American Constitution so reads - "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense." And it is this Amendment that the judge infringed, thus leaving the proposition helpless.

The technicality is but a small infringement. Yet any infringement results in an unconstitutional ruling, thus resulting in a case like this. The question here is at what cost the Constitution should be upheld. Allowing a pedophile to go free because of a small infringement seems to be too much. He could have as easily been kept incarcerated until he was notified of his hearing.

The Constitution should be upheld yes, but to let loose a convicted criminal, a pedophile no less, onto the streets because of a small infringement is too much. The interests of the public should be kept ahead of an infringement of the Constitution. Again, at what cost was the decision made?

It makes sense for the judge to be able to overrule minor infringements of the Constitution in a trial, for the good of the society. A judge is vested with the power to preside over a judicial trial, and as such, he should have the better judgment to decide what best to do with a dangerous criminal, rather than let the Constitution be the final, overbearing authority. He should work with the Constitution, but with his better judgment, decide for each individual case. It would be better than to risk letting loose another pedophile.

(490 words)

2007-05-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

Police brutality or necessary violence?

There is a reason for Los Angeles having the moniker “Gang Capital of America” – not only is LA home to over 152,000 gang members organised into over a thousand gangs, but also the infamous Crips and Bloods gangs. It makes perfect sense then for the LAPD to use force in dealing with such cases. However, the LAPD tends to use such force against all, resulting in controversies with excessive force.

The gang problem in Los Angeles, compounded by the crime rates, seem to have created the “warrior culture” prevalent in the LAPD, especially after William Parker “imagined the city's police force as an urban army” – but this culture has also been put into practice against civilians e.g. during protests and arrests. The LAPD’s excessive force in arresting Rodney King in 1991 is one of the most prevalent examples of police brutality today, and reflects all that is wrong with the department.

Against gangs, who run amok, armed, in the city, the LAPD let the ends justify their needs, and waged a violent war with the gangs, claiming they resisted authority. This carried over to the dealings with other conflicts that the LAPD faced, including peaceful protests i.e. May Day Marches, where they fired rubber bullets on reporters and unarmed protesters. Police brutality is defined as “excessive use of physical force…by police officers”, and it is extremely hard to argue in favor of the LAPD in this instance. It is then ironic that the Chief of the LAPD, William Bratton, was quoted as saying “'[s]ometimes policing isn't pretty and there is little if any time for reflection and discussion before action…there should be no rush to judgement.” After over fifty years of this “warrior culture”, the system within the LAPD should have changed, to accommodate both peaceful, unarmed conflicts as well as armed ones.

“The institutional memory is very short,” claims one demonstrator who was at the marches, referring to the LAPD’s failure to change. It reflects badly on the state as a whole, the reputation that its police force is gaining. The violence that the LAPD has used on countless occasions has led to even greater conflicts, like the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. This, I believe, reflects a failure on the part of the LAPD, not to mention ironic, that their “law-enforcement” methods led to widespread chaos, creating more crime than was present to begin with.

Granted, the “warrior culture” needs time to be changed, but honestly far too little has been done to change the LAPD, since say the riots of 1992. I believe that the effects that LAPD violence can have on the society have been made evident countless times, each time more painful than the last. Efforts have to be made to turn the LAPD from a violent police force to an effective one. The gangs of LA may warrant violence, but the line has been clearly drawn in the sand, and the LAPD should be careful not to tread it.

(495 words)
Bibliography

(2007 May 16). Los Angeles, California. Retrieved May 16, 2007, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopaedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles,_California

(2007 May 16). Los Angeles Police Department. Retrieved May 16, 2007, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopaedia Web site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAPD

(2007 May 16). Police Brutality Retrieved May 16, 2007, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopaedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality

2007-05-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

Teachers take it too far

To date, there have been six major school shootings in American Elementary Schools, with several ending in multiple deaths of young children, and as such, the motive behind the “learning experience” carried at Scales Elementary School can be understood.

Drills of this sort are commonplace in schools the world over, for they prepare the students should disaster befall the school, ensuring that safety standards can be met should such an event occur. But conducting a fire drill and simulating an attack are on two opposite ends of the spectrum.

The issue with this particular simulation appears to be the fact that the teachers involved “[told the students] it was not a drill”, and as such, ignited panic amongst the children. Despite wanting to see what they would have done in a “real situation”, the “poor judgement” involved is evident.

In a school, security is paramount, with several in America installing metal detectors to strengthen the security in school. The issue of security is so important in schools for one main reason – school children are extremely vulnerable, and susceptible to danger. As painfully shown in various school shootings the world over, while the death toll may not necessarily rise to high numbers, the death of a single child is still one too much. When a person is killed, all that he is, and all that he will ever be is taken away. To kill a child, in my personal opinion, is unpardonable – he had no way to defend himself, and he had a full life ahead of him. What he could have done will now never come to pass.

But the school, arguably, did not truly err in simulating this incident true-to-life. Drills attempt to simulate, hence the name, a real life incident, to gauge reaction time and to establish safety standards. But the error in judgement here is in exposing the school going children to such a simulation. With this school being an elementary school, the ages of the school children range from six to eleven. Granted, without a real simulation, it would be difficult to prepare them should the real incident occur. But the teachers failed to take into consideration the impact that such a sudden drill would have on the school children, being extremely young. While a drill aims to prepare, the manner in which this particular simulation was executed served to shock and scare the school children.

I feel that this particular simulation was taken too far, with the teachers failing to properly understand what the drill should have entailed. However, disregarding the problem of this particular drill, I would encourage improved simulations in schools, as the threat of gun violence is very much prevalent in American society. Schools are a sanctuary, and school children have every right to be free from fear. While this effort may have failed dramatically, it does not necessarily mean that efforts of this sort should not continue, to aim to improve school security in a arguably volatile environment.

(497 words)

Bibliography

(2007 May 15). List of School Related Attacks. Retrieved May 16, 2007, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopaedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_massacres

2007-03-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

Racial factor in school admission

The value an education has is undoubtedly clear to many people, and as a result is highly regarded. School admission based on merit is clearly the ideal goal, but to what extent should a student's race play in said admission?

America prides itself on being amongst the forefront in the field of education, despite a history of segregation in its system which has been thrust into the spotlight once again. I quote, "...voluntary integration programs constitute illegal racial quotas." I, for one, do not understand the need for racial quotas to be implemented in an education system. When it comes down to it, racial quotas only serve to inhibit a meritocratic system, because at the end of the day, members of a particular race will benefit.

But of course, when it comes to the cut-off point, and there are plenty of students who make the cut, there are solutions. Singapore Primary Schools use a balloting system when response for new intake is overwhelming, and when each student is equally deserving of a place in the school. Granted, for school admissions that are based on merit, this is not the perfect answer, but to have a sense of parity pervade the system, a game of chance cannot possibly have a substantiated argument against it.

Unless they have good reasons for establishing such a race factor.

The article however, states that “[w]hen there are more applicants than spaces available, and when a school is not considered ‘racially balanced,’ race is one of several ‘integration tiebreakers’ used to achieve diversity.” Diversity in schools is important; it is during those formative years in both Primary and Secondary Schools that students learn ‘different social rules that, in turn, affect their expectations about how learning will occur, how their teachers and peers will treat them, and how they should behave in the classroom.” It is easier to imprint onto these younger minds social consciousness, as compared to trying to change a racist teenager or young adult. America already is still trying to deal with the effects of segregation that occurred during a most of the last century. Clearly, the implication for a lack of diversity would result in a lack of social awareness in generations to follow, and on a larger scale, affect foreign relations.

In the end, it appears to me that the reason the racial issue is causing such wide attention is the fact that perhaps race plays a crucial part in education attainment. In the 1990s, Asian Americans had the highest rate of educational attainment (Bachelor’s degree or higher), followed then by Caucasian Americans. African Americans and Hispanic Americans constituted the lowest percentage. Ignoring the fact that Asian Americans are thought of to be hardworking, and being of a lower number, Caucasian Americans have a much higher rate of educational attainment. This trend follows into the percentage of those who graduated High School. Should the race factor be implemented, the education system would look less favourably upon certain races, continuing the undesirable trend.

(500 words)

Bibliography

(2007 March 4). Education In The United States. Retrieved March 4, 2007, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopaedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_schools

What Children Bring To School. Retrieved March 4, 2007, from National Academies Press Web site: http://books.nap.edu/readingroom/books/earlyed/chapter3.html

(2007 March 1). Educational attainment in the United States. Retrieved March 4, 2007, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopaedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States

2007-02-10T23:06:00.000-08:00

Obama to launch White House bid

Barack Obama is, I quote, "widely considered to be the first African-American candidate with a realistic chance of winning." Undoubtedly, should this materialize, the American political landscape will change drastically.

For one, the track record of African-American politicians pales in comparison to their. Take the US Senate as an example. As of today, only 5 African-American politicians have served in the United States Senate, the number of which includes Senator Obama, who is currently the only African-American in the Senate. In the 109th Congress (the current being the 110th), there were only 42 African-American politicians serving, compared to 367 Caucasian American politicians. On a slightly larger scale, 118 African-American politicians have served in the US Congress since 1868.

These demographics speak for themselves.

First let us examine the feasibility of an African-American President in a predominately Caucasian country (in a 2000 Census, 69.1% of Americans were of Caucasian heritage). In a country where its national interests would be predominately influenced by its majority, it seems unlikely to me that the nation would rally behind Senator Obama. However, it was noted that Senator Obama managed to appeal to Caucasian audiences, but the extent of this appeal could be negligible.

Yet another problem which the article highlighted was the fact that “[Senator Obama] was not part of the civil rights movement, which correspondents say makes some African-Americans wary of him.” This could be due, in part perhaps, to the fact that he was barely ten years old at the time. But unlike say, Jesse Jackson, Senator Obama has not demonstrated many explicit political views about race, the most apparent of which was shown in his candidacy bid. This could sway the African-American vote.

But to judge merely on racial and ethnic grounds would be superficial.

The stiff competition he would face from Senator Hilary Clinton is apparent, with the latter having the advantage in terms of experience. Senator Obama is relatively fresh, with only one term in the Senate. Yet his desire for change would be a breath of fresh air to American voters.

But what does Senator Obama have to ensure a concrete Presidential Bid, as compared to previous African-American Presidential candidates? His candidacy clearly evokes Lincoln, as his bid was launched on a political landmark, where Lincoln denounced slavery. Being of mixed heritage, Senator Obama's stand is evident, as are his calls for a “more hopeful America”. Furthermore, his opposition of the war in Iraq would put him in a good light in the eyes of anti-war protesters, and puts him as an opponent of President George W. Bush, who of late has come under fire for the war. However will these increase his chances?

Senator Obama has defied the odds to come thus far, and I respect him for that. As much as I wholeheartedly endorse his Presidential Campaign, I doubt the possibility of him taking office in the White House any time soon. America is just not ready, and I feel, neither is he.

(496 words)

Bibliography

(2007 February 10). Barack Obama. Retrieved February 10, 2007, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopaedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

(2006 July 16). The United States Congress Quick Facts. Retrieved February 10, 2007, from ThisNation.com Web site: http://www.thisnation.com/congress-facts.html

(2007 February 10). Racial demographics of the United States. Retrieved February 11, 2007, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopaedia Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_demographics_of_the_United_States