Law and Order

Unit 5. Law and Order

Viewpoints: What Should We Do About Joyriding?

DanW I´ve seen a lot of news reports lately about car crashes in our community, and many of them seem to involve stolen cars. I´m really angry and frustrated about this. Everyone knows that joyriders don´t usually get sent to prison. So that´s my solution: Put them in jail!

GenXr Well, I think penalties for joyriding should be increased, but not for the joyriders themselves. Most of the time, these are kids who are joyriding in their parents cars. I mean, they´ve taken their parents´ cars without permission, but the parents area at least partly to blame. So I think the parents should be fined.

Gailmd One thing´s for sure – we don´t need more laws. After all, joyriding itself isn´t the problem – it´s the fact that many joyriders drive recklessly, have accidents, and sometimes hurt or kill other people. We already have laws against all that. They just need to be better enforced.

BobbyinNY We should consider the background that most joyriders come from. Most of them are young people from poor backgrounds. They´re joyriding because they don’t have anything better to do. We need to provide more money for youth programs so they can get involved in sports and things like that.

Unit 6. Strange Events

What Causes Déjà Vu?

Déjà vu is the strange feeling that you have been in a situation before, even though you are experiencing it for the first time. Though many people have experienced déjà vu, and it has been widely studied, it remains a mystery. Experts (scientific and otherwise) offer a number of possible ways to explain a déjà vu event.

1. It actually happened before. You had an earlier experience, forgot about it, and then experienced something similar. 1. _____

2. It didn´t happen, but it wasn´t really new, either. If you had the opportunity to learn about something without experiencing it directly, it may still seem familiar. For example, you read a description of a location, forgot the description, but then saw the actual place. 2. _____

3. It occurred in a dream. You dreamed about something, and then had an experience that was similar to the dream. 3. _____ This may also explain the “strange” feeling that accompanies the event.

4. It isn’t real at all. In this view, the brain isn´t working properly. Something has caused the mind to remember something that just isn´t real. 4. _____

5. It happened when I was another person. For people who believe in reincarnation (the idea that after people die, they´re born again in a new body), a déjà vu event could be the memory of an experience from a past life. 5. _____

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