Backbencher
Weblog for HIST 381 at NDSUSunday, March 30, 2008
RP: New Zealand Herald
The first article that caught my eye on the New Zealand Herald website was titled "Public Hospitals in Staffing Crisis". The public hospital system is having a hard time keeping junior doctors which has started to become a major problem. In order to solve this the Resident Doctors' Association has requested to have a large increase in pay for these doctors, who previously, have been leaving the public hospital system to work in locum jobs, which were stated to pay almost three times as much. On the other side of this, it is believed that the presence of the locum jobs is actually keeping these doctors in this country. This article caught my eye because I am aspiring to go to medical school, and it's interesting to see what goes on in this field in other countries. Maybe I should move to New Zealand?
Another article I read was one titled "Lights Go Out Across Globe to Mark Earth Hour". In order to show concern regarding the global warming situation, people all over the world, including entire cities switched off their lights for an hour. Countries including New Zealand, Fiji, Australia, Britain, Thailand, Denmark, and the US participated in some way. Entire cities also participated by turning off most of the lights around town, or at least around major landmarks. The website Google also joined in by presenting a black web page with the words "We've turned the lights out. Now it's your turn" on it. This article was very interesting to me because it is amazing to see that an entire city would turn out its light just for awareness of this possible environmental problem. Just think what the world could do if it all collaborated for an even bigger cause. Does this mean we are on our way to actually doing something to improve how we live? Or is this just going to be another feel-good-act that will last us until we have to do another one next month, or year?
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