Polio Is Down 99 Percent, But That's Not Good Enough

According to Mary Carmichael in an article in the newsweek, the reduction in polio cases around the world by 99 percent may not be enough.

World leaders has done an extremely good job in trying to stop the outbreak of Polio but they must also understand that it is important to completely eradicate Polio. According to Mary Carmichael, Polio is a disease that would keep returning to haunt us unless we completely get rid of it. About 66% of the countries that had eradicated Polio were re-infected again. These countries are currently lacking in funds to support their causes. There is also the problem of Muslims resistance to western vaccination. Some Muslims resist the vaccination because they feel that this is just a western plot to sterilize them.


“If an infectious disease is brought down to low levels in the population, a given individual's risk of catching it will be lower—and that individual may be less likely to bother getting vaccinated against the disease because it doesn't seem like the threat it once was.”

The victims are mainly from the more rural or developing countries, thus they may not understand the point of continuing with vaccination when they thought that the threat of the disease is over.

This human complacency exist everywhere in the world not only in third world countries. This is similar to the taking of antibiotics. When we are recovering, we usually stop short of the complete dosage recommended and therefore our body cannot entirely kill the virus / bacteria which stay in our body to rear their heads later. Stronger antibiotics are then needed.

Continuous education is our only hope for change.

Book Review – Lord of the Flies (William Golding)

William Golding was a British writer. He won a Nobel prize for the book that he had written - “Lord of the Flies”. He was born on September 11th 1911 and died on 19th June 1993 when he was 81 years old. Apart from “Lord of the Flies”, William Golding also wrote many other great novels like the trilogy “To the Ends of the Earth”. This novel had won him the Booker’s prize for literature in 1980. William Golding’s fictional stories have a very wide range of topics.

The novel “Lord of the Flies” was written during the first years of the cold war. The theme of the book is mainly about civilization and people’s desire to rule. This desire for power destroys all the rules and laws that we create to live peacefully and harmoniously.

The novel “Lord of the Flies” is mainly about a group of boys who crashed landed on an uninhabited island. With no adults around, these boys have to take care of themselves and survive. However, the boys have many arguments on what to do and soon the two boys Ralph and Jack struggle to gain leadership over the group of boys. Eventually the group splits into two small groups. The group under Jack loses their civility and become savages.

This story tells us about the sometimes invisible evil side in every human being. This evil side can sometimes only be seen when the person is placed in a particular situation. For example, when the person is in an extremely dangerous situation, the person might reveal his evil side just for survival. In the novel, William Golding uses children as his characters instead of adults. This is to show that evil exist in every single being be they young or old. Children are a symbol of innocence, however in the story, these children show their darker sides.

“Maybe there is a beast....maybe it's only us.” Although in this context the children did not mean that they were the beast but rather that they were imagining the beast. However, we can interpret this quote as the children being the beast which was true at the end of the story where most of the boys became savages - the “beast”.

"The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist." At first, the boys had respected the conch. Blowing the conch would have meant a meeting was to be held and also the boys could only speak in a meeting if they held the conch. This conch was a symbol of civility, rules and values. However, when the conch was destroyed, it represented the end of civility within the boys and also the end of their rule system. They no longer abided by the rules. They had turned from civil people to savages.

In conclusion, the book mainly explores the darker side of the human being by placing the boys in an unfamiliar and possibly dangerous environment. William Golding does this by illustrating the boys’ darker side unleashed through their struggle for survival. The book makes us reflect about ourselves, if we would give in to our “darker” side when under pressure. The book ends abruptly leaving us a question if the children would revert back to their old selves when they return to civilization or would they remain as savages.

The Trouble With Immortality

In an article published in the newsweek on 18 june, 2010, Jonathan Weiner talked about the implications of immortality and why we should not hope for immortality.

Many people desire immortality. However, immortality may not be as good as many of us seem to think. With the current global warming getting worse, immortality would be a worse option. If we were to live forever, it would mean that we would have to live in a worse environment compared to the one we are living in now. There may be many advancement in technology which would bring convenience into our lives but environmental issues would still be a very big problem.

The world’s population is already increasing at such rapid pace and is currently very crowded already. With immortality, the earth would soon become over populated and the quality of life would rapidly deteriorate. Also, with an overcrowded planet, there would not be much space between people and this might also lead to an increase in contagious diseases.

There is a large difference between leading a long life and leading a quality life. Without a quality life, a long life would be meaningless. However, it is impossible to get both. So, we should stick to a quality life rather than desiring to get a long life. I agree that everyone wants a good long life which is impossible to achieve with immortality. The longer we live, the worse our environment is going to get. It is impossible for us live a good life with the deterioration of the environment and the increasingly overcrowded earth. Thus, immortality is definitely not a solution for a good long life.

We should not be striving for immortality for ourselves. Instead, we should try to strive for immortality for the Earth. We should be protecting our planet, protecting the resources. If we do that, then we would have succeeded in obtaining “immortality” for the human race.