The Rainbow Stories
The Rainbow Stories is a piece of literature written by William T. Vollman, it consists of a series of short snippets no longer then ten paragraphs. Each different snippet has a specific title that relates to the material to follow. The setting is in a large hospital where patients follow long lines through the halls so they don't get lost or end up getting the wrong procedure. Vollman observes not only many different procedures but also things that are not covered in medical handbooks. He writes about the waiting room and stories that people share with staff and other patients. There is a very fictional feel to the piece.
Things seem to be exaggerated more then necessary. There is one part that seems as if it is straight fiction. A story is being told about a man that was decapitated in a motorcycle accident; a doctor imagines the riders head flying through the air at 60 Miles per Hour and the remainder of his body riding on with out even the notion of decapitation.
Vollman uses the structure he does because it provides for a grater impact with a shorter text length as a whole. It also provides maximum information while keeping the format of a story. The use of witty titles also helps deepen the meaning of each section. Most of the snippets are stories about patients or just accounts of what Vollman observes in the hospital, while others are statements by Vollman himself about the hospital system as a whole; the last paragraph is of course a conclusion where he says he doesn't know if the stories are true but are written in there unaltered state.
This piece almost seems to be set up as an exposé to show people what heroin addicts go through for their supposed treatment. It explores the economy caused by these methadone clinics and how they affect people. You can give blood for money, get tested for aids or other diseases and get your fix of methadone if you are clean all in the same place and time, as long as you follow the right line on the floor.
There is strong symbolism through colors in this piece, Vollman lists all the colors of the lines and where they lead to. The red line leads to Atlantis, this was the most important and prominently used line in the text. The red line seems to led to hopelessness or back out to the real world, maybe both in some cases.
In the book High Price, highly credible author and neuroscientist, Dr. Carl Hart explains the misconceptions that everyone normally has about drugs and their users. He uses his own life experiences coming from a troubled neighborhood in Florida. The book consists of Hart’s life growing up with domestic violence in his household and the chance he had to come out and excel academically. He talks about the war on drugs and how within this war on drugs we were actually fighting the war with the wrong thing.
This medicalized interpretation of heroin addiction heavily emphasizes a constant state of suffering for those who are affected (Garcia 2010, 18). Furthermore, Nuevo Dia employees take this framework into account when contributing their efforts to treat addicts, on the premise that relapse will soon follow recovery (Garcia 2010, 13). When detox assistants assure themselves that their patients will return to the clinic, as if they never went through a period of treatment, one can expect that the quality of such to be drastically low. The cyclical pattern of inadequate therapies, temporary improvements in health and detrimental presuppositions all widen the health inequality gap in New Mexico. Garcia shares that the “interplay of biomedical and local discourses of chronicity compel dynamics of the Hispano heroin phenomenon,” which is evident in how the judicial system handles the social issue of addiction (2010,
And in the long run, I don’t think that it’s worth it to showcase needle exchange as the top preventer of the transmission of HIV. I am all for methadone treatment because of the fact that opiates are extremely hard to get off and in this way it is proven that the addicts can at least try to assimilate themselves back into normal living if that is their wish.
We are introduced to the story of Matt Schoonover, a young man who had recently obtained his masters degree from Yale. He had grown up “attending a Christian private school, and a prominent church” (2). Matt had begun abusing pills, though he was originally prescribed them by a doctor. Even after undergoing detoxification and then rehab, Matt could not curb his addiction. “Unable to afford street Oxycontin, Matt switched to black tar heroin, brought in from Mexico” (3). We are told how this is unfortunately quite common. People who are prescribed pills often end up abusing them; and once they can no longer afford the high prices of OxyContin they switch to black tar heroin. This transition is often what leads to overdoses, as black tar heroin is extremely deadly and overdoses like Matt’s are common. This is just one story out of tens of thousands of similar stories that all have the same ending. The opiate crisis is a problem that few recognize because it crept up on a majority of Americans. Young people throughout the nation were not using drugs in public, but privately in their own
Addiction is one of the hardest difficulties to overcome, yet people often find themselves caught in the world wind of addiction. We all ask the question to what makes a person an addict, or why is it so hard for drug addicts to overcome this problem. However, can we say that getting a hold of drugs is much easier in today’s society, or is it made available to easily. In this day and age, heroine seems to be a major epidemic; furthermore, opiates have been around for centuries. Therefore, people have been battling addiction for as long as opiates have been around. In Drugstore Cowboy, the film takes a look into the life of four people who rob drugstores in order to support
Alexander explains that in Canada there has been three major waves of drug intervention, the ‘“harm reduction’ techniques” (225) being the most resent consisted of: clean injectable heroin, clean needles, methadone, and housing. Although, each of the methods are devoted and knowledgeable they have done little to decreased the deaths or supress the unhappiness. While clean heroin did work well few addicts quit using and many found the conditions of reserving the drugs to be repulsive. Yet another method is legalization which is nothing new and will do little to help.
Aiming to gratify others has a tendency of making people act in ways other than their usual self. As one begins to act the way others want them to they begin to lose distinctiveness and individuality. For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange is about a specific set of women, who aim to please a certain man or different men. Each woman is hurt in some way by a man and as they progress throughout the series of “choreopoems”, they alter themselves in different ways to cause an effect upon the various men they associate themselves with. As the women describe their experiences, it is obvious that they make drastic changes in themselves. These women lose purpose and become confused, bitter, scared, and frustrated about their lives. Consequently, the ladies have negative outward reactions that are similar to each other, making the women easy to stereotype. The women in For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf have the opportunity to narrate their own stories; however, they choose to emphasize the influence of men in their lives, thus illustrating how susceptible they are to stereotyping and making them weakened as individuals.
...liams (in person) First hand account of drug trafficking, use, abuse, effects, and treatment in a Washington State male correctional facility.
The presence of symbolism throughout the novel is undeniable. Each of the symbols in the work are representative of a certain aspect of the characters lives. Dreams showed readers the desire of characters to escape their realities. The twins that Senora Valencia gives birth to are clearly meant to represent the neighboring nations of Haiti and The Dominican Republic. Water is primarily symbolic of life and death, but in this case readers are expected to come to their own conclusions regarding the river. Using these symbols allows the author to make discrete yet important additions to her writing without disrupting the format of the novel. Aside from serving as a benefit to the authors writing style, they can also be seen as an artistic addition which brings the entire novel to a different level. The use of symbolism in The Farming of Bones is not only extraordinarily well written but also completely essential to the story as a whole.
Imagine a sky full of dark fluffy clouds. The air feels wet and sticky, and rain drops begin to fall. Soon the drops become a sheet of rain and this makes you sad because your outdoor fun is over. But, just as you turn your back to go inside, you feel the sun break through the clouds and warm your back. A smile fills your face because you realize that rain plus sun equals a rainbow. You turn around to see a glorious rainbow in the sky. As you gaze, questions begin to pop into your head. What are rainbows? Who are some scientists that studied them? What makes the colors? Why is there a double bow?
What is the purpose of exchange in a heroin marketplace? Robyn Dwyer attempts to answer this question by analysing social relations within the culture of the heroin marketplace. However, her analysis contradicts the supply and demand model, which is the process most commonly accepted (Dwyer 2011, p.19). The secondary reason for her study is to question the derogatory constructions of heroin users and dealers, by showing that they have similar struggles and challenges as the dominant culture (ibid, p.19). Dwyer relates her research back to Davis’ quote (as quoted in ibid, p.19) which asserts that processes of exchange support a social hierarchy. When Zinberg’s and Manderson’s theories are applied to Dwyer’s research they support her conclusions
In the physical sense, a rainbow appears after a storm in the sky. It is made up of seven different colors. As it forms an arch, we may look at its shape as being a segment of a complete circle. From the rainbows physical dimensions, Shange draws out other qualities that suit the fluidity and logic of her choreopoem. While it can appear a simple natural phenomenon we take for granted, Shanges choreopoem delivers the rainbow as a complex sustaining figure which forecasts a change in the weather and a change in the life of `the colored girls.' The rainbow is a powerful symbol in Shange's choreopoem. It is not only beautiful in one sense, but it's meaning is rather complex. There is more to the rainbow than its seven colors.
The third symbol is the most important symbol of all and that is the ugly yellow wallpaper the narrator has to spend her time staring at and in the end g...
We live in a world where ‘education’ and the accumulation of skills have assumed fanatical proportions. We tch tch at heavy school bags, but continue putting noses to the grindstone. Always in the hope of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Except, that in the first decade of the 2000’s the way to that pot is no luminescent rainbow. And the sad part is, it needn’t be so. The proof of the pudding -- the training experience of companies including U.S.A.-based AT & T’s National Product Training Centre and Audi, IBM and Seimens in Germany; Pentagon’s Institute of Defense Analysis; and teacher Charles Gritton’s efforts in a Des Moines ghetto school that became a case study of success.
Drug abuse has been a hot topic for our society due to how stimulants interfere with health, prosperity, and the lives of others in all nations. All drugs have the potential to be misapplied, whether obtained by prescription, over the counter, or illegally. Drug abuse is a despicable disease that affects many helpless people. Majority of those who are beset with this disease go untreated due to health insurance companies who neglect and discriminate this issue. As an outcome of missed opportunities of treatments, abusers become homeless, very ill, or even worst, death.