Foscari - Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Informatica e Statistica

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Boyle’s Los Angeles is where an estimated 120,000 gang members across five counties battle over turf, pride and drugs. It is a city of violence as a new race war escalates between new Hispanic gangs and older black groups. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has referred to his city as “the gang capital of America”, has launched a crackdown on the new threat. The latest front is Harbor Gateway, a nest of streets between malls and office blocks. It was here, just before Christmas, that Cheryl Green, a 14-year-old black girl, died. As she stood on a corner talking with friends, two Hispanic members of the neighbourhood’s notorious 204th Street gang walked up and opened fire, killing Green and wounding three others. Traditionally, the outside view of LA gangs has been of black youths but Hispanic gangs are rising and spreading across America. Last year there were 269 gang-related killings in LA. Gang-related crime leaped 15.7 per cent last year, as most other types of crime fell. Hate crimes against black people have gone up. Green’s death made the public aware of the gang war between ‘brown and black’. Next week a summit will be held called the Black and Brown Strategy Meeting which aims to head off a race war. “All of the signs are there that a racial war is going to explode in this city,” says Khalid Shah, director of Stop the Violence, one of the groups organizing the meeting. “You are looking at an event which could not only paralyze an entire city but an entire state,” he warns. Green’s death sparked Villaraigosa’s crackdown. The police took the unprecedented step of publishing a list of the 11 worst gangs, including 204th Street. They promised to go after them with police, FBI agents and injunctions to prevent members meeting. But Angelenos have seen it all before. The city’s history is full of anti-gang initiatives. Publishing the ‘hit list’ could backfire. “Putting out a list was a bad idea. Groups that don’t make the list will want to be on it. They don’t exactly think rationally,” said Alex Alonso, a gang historian. Yet there is hope. Alfonso ‘Chino’ Visuet, 23, was sucked into the gang life as a teenager. There was the lure of excitement and riches, the push of a difficult home life. “People who join a gang are always running away from something. They flee to the gang,” Visuet says. Visuet now works for Father Boyle’s Homeboy Industries, a project that helps people leave gang life. It provides jobs, an education, pays to have gang tattoos removed and gives counselling. It aims to remove the circumstances that lead to crime: poverty, abuse and unemployment. It is staffed almost entirely by former gang members and has created a bakery, a silk-screen printers and a restaurant. It worked for Visuet. He starts college this autumn and wants to be a probation officer. “I was on the edge of doing something that would ruin my life, either by doing violence or having it done to me. That’s over now,” he says. Visuet despairs at the conflict. “A brown gang member now just sees a black gang member. What they don’t see is how that person comes from the same place they do. They might have a mother who is an alcoholic as well or a father who beats on them. They have the same story,” he says. LA is a city of two worlds – Hollywood and gangs. On a two-lane highway that goes through the middle of Harbor Gateway, a few hundred yards from where Cheryl Green was shot, there is a billboard for a new TV show called Sons of Hollywood. It shows three rich young men against a 36
ackdrop of palm trees. It claims to be a ‘reality’ show, but for most of the impoverished, racially torn citizens it is nothing more than a fantasy. Guardian News & Media 2007 First published in the Observer, 18/03/07 Comprehension check Find information in the text and write short answers to the questions. 1. What was Jonathan Hurtado’s mistake? 2. How are Boyle’s Los Angeles and the Beckhams’ Los Angeles different? 3. How is the view of LA gangs changing? 4. What are two consequences of Cheryl Green’s killing? 5. Why do some people think the hit list is a bad idea? 6. Why do people join gangs, according to Visuet? 7. What does Homebody Industries do to help ex-gang members? 8. What is Sons of Hollywood? Expressions Order the words in italics to make expressions. 1. count of keep to something = to remember or record a number as it changes over time 2. make home your to somewhere = to live somewhere 3. there all the are signs = something is sure to happen in the future 4. they seen all it before have = they are used to it 5. doing edge the on of something = about to do something 6. fantasy nothing a than more = not real War vocabulary Find words relating to war and conflict in the paragraphs. The first letter has been given. 1. s__________ (Paragraph 2) 7. k__________ (Paragraph 5) 2. b__________ (Paragraph 4) 8. w__________ (Paragraph 5) 3. w__________ (Paragraph 4) 9. v__________ (Paragraph 11) 4. t__________ (Paragraph 4) 10. c__________ (Paragraph 13) 5. f__________ (Paragraph 5) 11. b__________ (Paragraph 13) 6. o__________ f __________ (Paragraph 5) Phrasal verbs into nouns Look at the following example from the text. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has referred to his city as “the gang capital of America”, has launched a crackdown on the new threat. The noun crackdown comes from the phrasal verb to crack down. Complete the sentences with nouns made from the following phrasal verbs. black out blow up stop over hand out clean up lay off 1. On our flight to London we had a two-hour ___________ in Frankfurt. 37
Page 1 and 2: Università Ca’ Foscari - Venezia
Page 3 and 4: the mid-1980s when President Gorbac
Page 5 and 6: World Heart Federation obesity warn
Page 7 and 8: 4. What is the official forecast fo
Page 9 and 10: 3. Many young people die as a resul
Page 11 and 12: 121.2mm 5pm Friday 48 hours Adrian
Page 13 and 14: There is not much good news in the
Page 15 and 16: 1 HIV 2 AIDS 3 Trade and Intellectu
Page 17 and 18: a. a hundred b. twenty The words be
Page 19 and 20: Bettencourt, with a fortune of $20.
Page 21 and 22: 13. to communicate ideas or feeling
Page 23 and 24: 0:-) The writer just made a sweet o
Page 25 and 26: **== United States Flag V :-E Vampi
Page 27 and 28: The survey shows a rise in Internet
Page 29 and 30: 2. An ____________ is a person who
Page 31 and 32: 3. Ariana is banned from most Europ
Page 33 and 34: 10. leads / wires - _______________
Page 35: Gang mayhem grips LA Intermediate K
Page 39 and 40: Read the headline. Tick the words y
Page 41 and 42: Vocabulary Find the word Find the w
Page 43 and 44: turtle shells. One of the most expe
Page 45 and 46: Computers Below you will find some
Page 47 and 48: Internet companies try to stop spam
Page 49 and 50: 4. Speech software allows you to us
Page 51 and 52: Vocabulary It all comes down to (1.
Page 53 and 54: Mobile users can share files betwee
Page 55 and 56: 4 Accacia is one of the biggest sof
Page 57 and 58: hours a week, while people working
Page 59 and 60: impulsiveness or a lack of emotiona
Page 61 and 62: Take in your own notepad - you do n
Page 63 and 64: 16. What two or three things are mo
Page 65 and 66: customers. 'If you present yourself
Page 67 and 68: • When you are the person making
Page 69 and 70: Role play these two telephone situa
Page 71 and 72: Situation 2 c I'll have to get back
Page 73 and 74: Complaining and Apologising Check y
Page 75 and 76: Esame Lingua Inglese, 15 Settembre
Page 77 and 78: 2) ‘Bot nets were discovered quit
Page 79 and 80: 3. Environment recognition ASIMO ca
Page 81 and 82: small,great smaller, greater the sm
Page 83 and 84: I'll help you if you want. / lf you
Page 85 and 86: that mistake. 4 If we’d found/we
Page 87 and 88:
A few letters of my friends ore com
Page 89 and 90:
1 'Could I speak to Mr Yo, please?'
Page 91 and 92:
informal or neutral: actually, in f
Page 93 and 94:
4 It could / will rain, so we shoul
Page 95 and 96:
5 I__________ go the dentist next F
Page 97 and 98:
4 Money €678 six hundred and seve
Page 99 and 100:
check; and all medical equipment se
Page 101 and 102:
11 Past continuous was / were + ver
Page 103 and 104:
9 When George saw / was seeing Dian
Page 105 and 106:
down again by 60%. In a statement r
Page 107 and 108:
2 I ...............................
Page 109 and 110:
7. I ………………………..(
Page 111 and 112:
a state rather than an action. a ve
Page 113 and 114:
Some verbs and verb phrases have to
Page 115 and 116:
Complete the following sentences wi
Page 117 and 118:
Order of adjectives When we have mo
Page 119 and 120:
6 I'm sorry, my flight has been ___
Page 121 and 122:
So with adjectives and adverbs: The
Page 123 and 124:
2 I had _________ trouble finding s
Page 125 and 126:
21 Relative Clauses 1 We use who or
Page 127 and 128:
Negative and positive un- non- in-
Page 129 and 130:
Exercise 2 Read the following sente
Page 131 and 132:
BUSINESS IN BRIEF 3560 three thousa
Page 133 and 134:
Unemployment has been rising If the
Page 135 and 136:
(what/husband/do?) (he/enjoy his jo
Page 137 and 138:
scenario --- scenarios cargo --- ca
Page 139 and 140:
Many singular quantifying expressio
Page 141 and 142:
esult, results, resulting a The lin
Page 143 and 144:
The instructions are very clear and
Page 145 and 146:
Exercise 1 A device that scans bar
Page 147 and 148:
if the meal is a specific meal then
Page 149 and 150:
1 In paragraph 4 which streets are
Page 157 and 158:
Practice Exam Esame Lingua Inglese,
Page 159 and 160:
100 machines. 2) ‘Bot nets were d
Page 161:
voice commands, but also to the nat
show all

Foscari - Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Informatica e Statistica

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?