Madonna- American Life

Madonna- American Life
Do I have to change my name?
Will it get me far?
Should I lose some weight?
Am I gonna be a star?I tried to be a boy,
I tried to be a girl
I tried to be a mess,
I tried to be the best
I guess I did it wrong,
That’s why I wrote this song

My comment on the song

I think Madonna excoriates the American culture and thinking. Expecially the American Dream, an attitude of life which says that everybody has the chance to have more money and a better and happier life, is criticised.

Madonna who is living an American dream as a star does a kind of self-critical statement. In some passages it even sounds like a search for identity which is also a big theme in the American Dream.

This song is noted for the provocative video, which was canceled after two days. It included an open statement against George Bush and the Iraq war but she recognized that it would be better to considerate of the US-army in Iraq.

Madonna wanted her song to resist against the war, the cruelty and violence.

I think she managed to write a song against the American Dream and everyone notices, “that nothing is what it seems.”

But in my opinion a video has to fit to the song and just because of a canceled video and a created scandal her criticism on the government is not that clear. Some people even say that the video was only made to spark the interest in her new album “American Life.”

January 17, 2008. Nicht kategorisiert. 3 comments.

Prepositions

All things considered I mostly chose the right prepositions.

I had some problems to distinguish the prepositions on and in.

“The factory workers have been on strike since January.”

“Children! Don’t play on the street! It’s dangerous!”

“He always comes on time.”

A good website to look at some rules of the prepositions of location.

January 14, 2008. Nicht kategorisiert. Leave a comment.

Dueling Titans

Today Maren and I started our work on the article “Dueling Titans”, which is a text about the differences between China and the USA concerning the global supremacy.                                                                                       

Because of the length of the article the work was divided, so that we will work on the topic America.

After reading the whole text at home, we decided to search apart for general information about the USA and especially for the economy. We collected the links and summarized them in keywords.

First I found an article about the crisis in the USA and the neverending rotation concerning the arrears.

Then there was an interesting page with some diagrams and data from the export and import. There is also the answer of the question if the Chinese imports and low-wages destroy jobs in the USA.

At last I collected general information like the GDP (gross domestic product) and the inhabitant’s annual income .

We decided to reread the text to collect the facts only about America. Next week we will sum up and arrange our results and maybe we will start to sum up the text.

November 20, 2007. Nicht kategorisiert. Leave a comment.

The global toothbrush

 The really unbelievable fact about the story “The global toothbrush” is that an electric toothbrush is fabricated in so many different countries.

In the article the Philips Company is used as an example for globalization, because it has several locations all over the world.

But why there is not only one location? Is it actually profitable to split the work?

The Philips Company

The Dutch Company is one of the biggest producers of electronics. The annual sales betray €30.3 billion. It employs about 160.900 workers in 60 countries. And just for a toothbrush there are working 4.500 employees of two dozen nations in ten different countries at twelve nations.

Although it’s Dutch, there are only few workers from the Netherlands.

Philips produces between 10.000 and 27.000 toothbrushes per day. Today ca. 300 million people use electric toothbrushes and in 5 to 10 years the number could rise up to 900 million.

The company pays salary in a different amount to the employees of the different locations.

That means, that for example the Americans get $9- $14 per hour whereas the Chinese people only earn 1000 renminbi per month, which is about $ 120 per month and $ 0,75 per day.

The different locations

The toothbrush is fabricated in 10 countries: in each case one factory in Japan, France, Taiwan, Malaysia, Philippines, Sweden, Austria and two in the United States and two in China. And there still is the question, why it is necessary that e.g. in Austria the plastic parts are manufactured and the same plastic parts are assembled in the United States.

Example of the journey of the toothbrush

I want to show a short part of the journey of the toothbrush to understand the connected work to manufacture a toothbrush. Our journey starts in Zhuhai (China). Here the circuit boards are etched. In Taipei (Taiwan) and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) the circuit boards are fit with components. Those components are soldered in Manila (Philippines). After that one or twice a week ca. 100.000 circuit boards leave Manila Airport to be flown via Tokyo to Snoqualmie near Seattle, where the toothbrush is packaged. All in all the single toothbrush parts travelled 27.880 km until they arrived in Snoqualmie.

The journey shows, that the single locations have to work together very well and have to communicate. It’s not possible, that for example there are too less circuit boards manufactured in China, because then the whole production defers.

Globalization

Already 600 years ago the globalization began, when the Europeans discovered the world and began to trade with countries all over the world. Today the globalization is dominated by females, because the employees in fabrics mostly are female. This is because the salary for men are higher then for women.

Conclusion

I think the example of the Philips Company shows the today’s globalization in a critical way. Now we know, how closely the single locations have to work with each other so that the whole production works. The locations are under considerable strain, because of the strict exhibitions they have to fulfill. Another very important thing is, that the companies always are in search of cheaper offerers of the single toothbrush parts. This means, that the factory could be closed anytime or sold to little prices. All the globalization companies work for their advantages and that is why they have so many locations. The splitting is cheaper than just one location and even though they have to transport the single parts, the price is lower.So at the end I want to quote the text: “Globalization means business. And business means competition.”

October 5, 2007. Nicht kategorisiert. 2 comments.

Way of working

In the following I want to describe my working methods and how I dealt with the task we had.

First I looked for general information on our theme “The apple as a symbol of globalization?” and then collected them in a word document. I made catchwords of my information for a better overview.

After that I specialized in sub themes like several countries and put the information into the word document. Before I started to write a text, I sorted out needless information and made also catchwords. Then I started to think about the construction of my article and so I decided, to split my article up, because it’s easier to read several passages. With my catchwords it was easy to write a text.

I think I’ve figured out my method because I always work on articles or texts for school like this. Because of that I’m satisfied with my article concerning method.

September 25, 2007. Nicht kategorisiert. 2 comments.

An apple… a symbol of globalization?!

 Today we had the task to find information about the different origins of the apples in our supermarket. In the following I will compare the countries and try to answer the question, if the apple is a symbol of globalization.

First I found some general information. Since the growing globalization Germany is the leading export country. Although Germany has many growing areas for example in Baden-Württemberg, Sachsen-Anhalt and the “Old Land“ and many species of apples, there are also apples from all over the world. So why do so many Germans buy these apples?

Several surveys showed, that the Germans want to help their area and also the jobs. But only few consumers pay attention to the origin of the products. Most of them have no idea of the CO2- emission the transports cause. The export from Italy for example causes a emission three times higher than the emission from a transport inside of Germany.

Now there is the idea to create a logo for products in the supermarket, which shows the emission. With this logo the consumers have the opportunity to compare the apples. Another reason for this logo is, that the industry would mind the transport ways and maybe that the consumers would buy more local cultivated apples.

Facts and numbers from Südtirol

Nearly every tenth apple eaten in Europe is cultivated in Südtirol. In Kaltern for example 30.000 apples p.a. are harvested. In the whole area there are 2.344.720 fruit trees at 837,4 hectare, which means, that the harvest is 40.000 kg apples per hectare. 50% of the apples will be exported.

Facts about the “Old Land“

In the “Old Land“ the harvest averages about 120.000t p.a. It’s the biggest coherent fruit growing area in Central Europe. The area has a size of 14.300 hectar.

Some information about Argentina

Although 90% of the Germans want to buy more fruits cultivated in their area, the export from Argentina tripled in the last five years.

Many organic-farmers live in Argentina, although Argentina has no market for organic products. Because of that fact, Europe and the USA are the main customers.

An example for the journey of an apple: From Rio Negro to our supermarkets

The journey of the apples which will travel about 13.000 km far begins in Rio Negro, a city in Argentina. The oftentimes controlled apples are harvested and packed in boxes. Now they are cooled down to -4°C and then stored at 0°C until they arrive in the supermarket. The apples are shipped in a 17 days long journey to Rotterdam habour, which costs 10 cent per kg apples. The transport causes 163 g CO2 per kg apples (compare: a new car causes 160 g CO2 per km). From there they are brought by trucks to the supermarkets.

Globalization?!

I think the apple is a good symbol of globalization, because it’s a part of the world trade. And as I already mentioned the import grows more and more. Although the reasons are incomprehensible, the people buy more and more apples from countries like Argentina or New Zealand.

But there are some studies saying that the trend goes to products from regional farmers. Because of that some firms like Eosta, which supplies supermarkets like Edeka, Lidl and Aldi, created an environmental protection program. This program spends money for reforestation in Indonesia’s rain forest. It’s possible, because the workers in countries like Argentina are cheaper than the workers in Germany.

I think in the globalization question there is no real answer what to do as a consumer. Therefore the question still is: Shall I support the regional farmers and buy an apple, which maybe causes more CO2 emission, because of the storage, or shall I buy the apple from Argentina, which causes less emission and supports an environmental protection program?

September 23, 2007. Nicht kategorisiert. 2 comments.

German apple or New Zealand apple?

Today we talked about globalization and the transports of fruit. Mr. Donath brought two apples with him, one from New Zealand and one from Altes Land (“Old Land”).

In the following text I want to show the differences between the transports of the two apples and I try to answer, which apple I would buy.

At first some facts about the Old Land, which is a marsh area near Hamburg at Elbe river . It’s about 33 km long and 8 km wide and famous for its fruit-growing. The most farmers cultivate apples like Jonagold apples.

The in autumn harvested apples are transported by a truck to a cold storage house. Sometimes they stay there for month because even in winter or spring people want to buy apples which were cultivated in the region. If the apples are needed, they are brought by truck to a supermarket and sold there, mostly beside apples from another countries.

Now I want to have a look at a New Zealand apple.

 The apples have a long journey before they arrive in our supermarkets. After the harvest they are transported by trucks to cold storage houses or are directly brougt in containers to get shipped to a big habour in Europe like Rotterdam or Hamburg. After that the apples stay in cold storage houses for a short time or are directly brought to supermarkets. Mostly the journey from field to the supermarket lasts two to four weeks.

The question, which apple I would prefer is hard to answer. The costs are equal and the energy needs are nearly the same (astonishing: the energy need for German apples is higher because of the long storage).

In spring the German apple is nearly a half year old, whereas the New Zealand apple is just a few weeks old. So I think I would buy the apple from New Zealand.

In autumn I would buy the German apple because of the shorter ways and the little storage. 

Thanks for reading,

Anke

September 11, 2007. Nicht kategorisiert. 1 comment.

Comments on the topics

I really like all of the presented topics, because all of them are current issues for example in the news.

Because of this it’s interesting and we can use many different sources.

Especially I like the topic “Africa”. In my opinion the continent has so different countrysides, standards of living, cultures and histories, that it won’t be too one-sided and boring. 

I think even if someone doesn’t like geography or history, we all will find a theme, which we will work on for interest.

Greetings, Anke

September 4, 2007. Nicht kategorisiert. 1 comment.