Monday 26 September 2011

How the world changed 10 years ago!!

How the world changed 10 years ago!!

In my previous English class we saw a documentary film about 9/11, called 9/11. There were to French men who were actually making a documentary about the life of a fireman, in New York. They chose one man, which they were going to follow through his “education” to become a fireman. Before you are counted as a real fireman, you have to have experienced a real big fire, and helped to tame it. It took a long time before the man got anything to do, and all he wanted was something to happen. One of the other firemen told him “be careful what you wish for”
I quote from the film, “It sounds like a cliché, but it was a beautiful and peaceful morning” It was indeed, it was a totally normal morning in New York City……. Until, a plane crashed in the one of the twin towers, and later a other plane, in the other tower…..
All of the sudden it hit me, is this for real, or have I just been dreaming?... I have seen photos and video clips from this happening a thousand of times, but for the first time in all of my life it really hit me what had happened. Maybe it was because I was only 7 years when it happened, that I sort of just accepted that the attack had happened and “forgot” it.. I don’t know.. However, when I saw the documentary, I understood what had happened. I think that it is maybe because of the happening in Norway, that I first now could really understand everything. It seemed too far away, before. However now, I know what must have been going through peoples mind at that moment…
It is horrible, and I feel sorry for all the people who lost their friends and family during this attack… The world changed 10 years ago, I just did not realize it before now… 

Monday 12 September 2011

Erin Brockovich



Erin Brockovich is an American woman born in 1960. Even though she did not have an education as a lawyer, she had a central role in the trial about “Pacific Gas and Electric Company“ (PG&E) in 1993.

In 2000 a film about Erin Brockovich was released. In the movie Erin is played by Julia Roberts. The movie is set to the time right before and during the time Erin works with the trial about PG&E. Erin is a mother of three children, and before she got a job at the small lawyer firm, she was an unemployed. However, she asks her lawyer if she could get a job at his firm, and she does get a job, as a file clerk.  After a while Erin finds a pro bono case, she gets interested in. The case includes the company PG&E, and how they poison hundreds of citizens in the small town Hinkley. PG&E used cooling towers with water containing hexavalent chromium. The town’s groundwater consisted water from the cooling towers. As a result of that, hundreds of people got many types of different diseases. Erin acts immediately, and starts to investigate the case. She finds a lot of evidence that PG&E knew about the hexavalent chromium, but tried to hide it. The case never went to trial, but the evidence was examined by a judge. PG&E ends up with paying 333 million dollars as a compensation to all the plaintiffs.

I think the move was great. Firstly because it showed how much pollution can damage people’s lives. On the other hand, it showed how much only one person can affect so many people, in a positive way. Erin was not like all the other lawyers, she was more of a friend to the victims. Therefore she gained their trust, and managed to get a lot of important information from them.