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Niloc Retseh

Professor Hester

ENG 102-0XX

Spring 2013 — Summary Paper

Changing Lives, One Book at a Time

In his 05 November 2011 article in The New York Times, “His Libraries, 12,000 So Far, Change Lives,” Nicholas Kristof tells the story of how John Wood has opened 12,000 libraries and 1,500 schools around the world. According to Kristof, Wood’s charity, Room to Read, has stocked those libraries and schools with over 10 million books. Kristof states that Room to Read
opens six new schools a day, or, Kristof points out, six times as many as the number of outlets McDonald’s opens.

Kristof writes that since Wood quit Microsoft and founded Room To Read in 2000, Wood has also self-published 591 children’s titles in a variety of remote and diverse languages. Kristof quotes Wood that some languages don’t have children’s books. Thus, Room To Read has ferreted out children’s authors in languages such as Xhosa, Chhattisgari and others. Kristof informs us that Wood is currently seeking “’…the Dr Suess of Cambodia.’”

Further, Wood, Kristof emphasizes, has changed the lives of 13,500 otherwise impoverished girls by keeping them in school. Kristof relates how he met one such girl, Le Thi My Duyen. Floods had forced her family to live “…in a shabby tent on a dike,” Kristof reports, and those floods had also forced Duyen to drop out of school. According to Kristof, Room to Read paid for Duyen to not only go back to school but to live in the dormitory and avoid a four-hour daily bicycle-and-boat commute, all at a cost of a mere $250 per year. This tiny amount, Kristof points out, dwarfs in comparison to the billions and billions we spend on missiles and troops for our foreign interventions and, as Kristof quotes Wood, that tiny amount“…can change a girl’s life forever….”

Kristof argues that Wood succeeds because of his hard-headed, business-like approach. Kristof explains that Wood utilizes his marketing background at Microsoft to spread the word to 53 Room To Read chapters around the globe. From these 53 chapters, Kristof proclaims, Wood attacks illiteracy “as if it were Netscape,” aiming for 100,000 libraries and relegating illiteracy to “…the scrapheap of history,” all within 20 years.

Name

Professor

ENG 102-0XX

Spring 2013 — Summary Paper

Gang of 40 by

Nicholas D. Kristof

In his article, “Gang of 40,” Kristof argues that the “Gang of Four” ruled China in the 1970s during the days of hard-line communist seclusion. Under the rule of this extremist, drivers were often motivated to proceed at red light since red signified the revolutionary color of advancing. This resulted in a confusion that marked those times. The author then draws a comparison between America and China. Here, he argues that Americans do things in grand manner and because of this exceptionalism, America has outperformed China by far as far as extremist ideologues are concerned. He claims that there is no pathetic little foursome. However, he says that there is unrivaled “Gang of 40” in America. The “Gang of 40” in this case, is the name that he uses while referring to 40 members who are hard-line Republicans. This group has led to the shutdown of federal government. It is also the group that is warming up for a debt default, which the author is worried that it will plunge the world into recession. The Gang of 40, according to the author was trying to save the American money. Unfortunately, they have cost American taxpayers billions of dollars.

Despite the fact that the Gang of 40 despises Mao suits, Kristof argues that they are both similar since they are holding the entire nation hostage. The author refers to the two groups as small unrepresentative figures having fewer clues about where they are leading the country or about economics. Kristof explains that the government shutdown by the Gang of 40 has been bad since it has cut off death benefits to relatives and families of defense service members. Besides, Kristof claims that the Gang of 40 has led to the end of federal support for rape crisis centers. Kristof complains that while this is taking place, the Senate and House gyms remain open. Kristof praises Washington restaurant for offering a ten percent discount to some of the federal members and imposing a ten percent surcharge to Congress members. He wishes that Gang of 40 should be forced to wash dishes.

Kristof is worried that the extremists are downplaying the risks of plunging into the debt limit. He quotes Representative Ted Yoho, who is a Florida veterinarian, saying that by missing the debt ceiling deadline, there will be stability to world markets. Kristof also quotes Senator Rand Paul who said that it is a pretty reasonable idea not to raise the debt limit. The other person who was quoted by Kristof saying that it is not a bad idea to miss the deadline of the debt-limit and face a managed catastrophe is Senator Tom Coburn.

Kristof notes that the findings from a Pew Research Center poll reveal that fifty four percent of Republicans think that the United States can miss the deadline of debt-limit without major problems. He says that our trajectory is dangerous because the hard-liners are receiving positive feedback. He further notes that he has often been curious about the bad political leadership in the United States as seen in the 1840s and 1850s, during the run-up to the Civil War. In this case, he asks about the way American politicians have not stopped cataclysm. He says he is gaining a better understanding and insight when he watches today’s obstreperousness.

Kristof argues that he is stroke by two features. One of these features is the obliviousness of key or central players, in this case the Gang of 40, to the risks that lied ahead. The second feature is the way political leaders seek support by brazenly threatening intentional harm to the country unless these politicians get their way. He continues to say that the House Republican hard-liners were defeated in the democratic process by Obamacare, the same way President Obama was defeated for his fight to ban assault-weapons. Instead of these hard-liners accepting the defeat by Obama, the way the president did, the Gang of 40 members took hostages and gave conditions that unless there was defunding of Obamacare, the Gang of 40 will cause a great damage to the American economy.

Despite the fact the G.O.P claims to be the party in charge of budget deficits, Kristof argues that the tantrum by G.O.P. was responsible for government shutdown. He claims that the cost of missing the debt limit deadline could be markedly greater. For instance, he says that the interest rates are rising to the highest levels for one-month Treasury bills since the financial crisis. The Gang of 40 had members who were not willing to pay for early childhood education yet they were paying several billions for debt-limit or government shutdown crisis. This is something that Kristof says it is not governance but is extremism.