Follow up on Nineteen Minutes

I finished the book Nineteen Minutes last night, and the ending really shocked me. It was a total twist to what i would have expected. In the ending Josie admits to shooting her boyfriend, Matt with Peter (the gunman). This unravels a lot of Josie, about how she had been living a life of lies and hated her friends who were so judgmental and her boyfriend who wasn't the nicest guy to her. She felt so trapped in living like this to be "cool" that she had no other way out than to shoot her own boyfriend to break free. Peter who was Josie's former best friend in the eighth grade also felt the same way about having "no way out" of always being bullied and having no friends to turn to. This is a huge reality check, I feel that kids these days especially in high school aren't socially excepted and get bullied so much they feel the only way out is violence to get back at the bullies. I hope kids at our high school dont feel this way, and definitely is an eye opener that if someone appears to have the best life (for example Josie) inside they could be wanting to just break free.

walk two moons

I just read the book Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. This is about a girl, Salamanca Tree Hiddle goes on a six day trip with her Grandma and Grandpa while telling the story of her close friend Phoebe Winterbottom who's mother like hers, unexpectedly leaves home. Her and her grandparents are driving to Ohio from Kentucky to where her fathers "friend" lives. Later in the book Sal's grandma becomes ill and needs to be rushed to the hospital. Since her grandpa wont leave her grandmas side he lets her take the car down the hill in the dark to see where her mothers bus had crashed from when she left home. She figures out that her mother had died and then finds out her grandmother had died too. Sal learns how valuable life is and decides to be nice to her new life with her father in Ohio. The theme of this book is "Dont judge a person until youve walked two moons in its shoes" which relates to life I feel. People in society today judge people right away whether its on looks, ethnicity, age, gender etc. This is terrible, but true and I think people should start to look in depth into a person rather than judge them on a first glance like this book when Sal talks about her friend Phoebe and figures out there was more to her and their random adventures.

Changing topic Question....Is it OK to tortue a prisoner of war?

Nelson, Deborah and Nick Turse. "A Tortued Past." 20 August, 2006. http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SMN0307-0-5875&artno=0000252212&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=%22prisoner%20abuse%22&title=A%20Tortured%20Past&res=Y&ren=N&gov=N&lnk=N&ic=Y

Deborah and Nick are writters for the Times and contribute stories from the Vietnam war of soliders of Luteniet

Annoted Bibliography

Topic Question: Are prisoners being protected under the Cruel and unusual punishment (amendment 8)?
Sandalow, Mark. "American treatment of prisoners assailed." San Francisco Chronicle. 26 May 2005.

Mark Sandalow is a reporter for the San Fransisco Chronicle and is a well respected political contributor to the paper. This article Sandalow says that "U. S. behavior grants a license to others to commit abuse with impunity and audacity." He also says that prisoner abuse in other countries such as Sudan and London are worsening. Interviews were done with prisoners and it was reported that countless numbers of beatings, humiliation and sexual abuse. Sandalow goes on to interview John Podesta who was former President Bill Clinton's chief of staff who said "The way we've treated prisoners in our custody is not only counter to our values -- it's a strategic and tactical blunder...'' He goes on to say millions beyond millions of cases are being reported of assualt, rape and abuse in prisons by fellow prisoners and even guards in and outside of the U.S and nothing is being done about it.

Phee, D. Ralph, The Treatment Of Prisoners-Legal, Moral or Criminal? Nova Publishers. 2006

This is a book written by Ralph D. Phee about the treatment of prisoners since the Geneva Convention. He talks about the tortuing and "dark sides" of being in prison and what the after math of 9/11 has caused on prisoners. Phee goes on to talk about the political debates this topic has brought up and the moral, legal and criminal tactics guards use against these prisoners. In his book, popular passages include specifics of reported abuses prisoners have reported and wounds that have been shown to interviewers.

Nineteen Minutes

The past week over Thanksgiving break I started reading the book Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Piccolt. This book is about a terrible school shooting in a small town neighborhood and the social diversities that brought upon this terrible event. The story starts off with the day of the terrible incident and then Piccolt unwinds this story by doing flash back and forths between Peters childhood growing up with his best friend Josie and then gets betrayed by her for the popular group. Peter gets picked on often by the "popular group" and Josie doesn't ever stick up for him or tell her so called friends to stop. Peter then goes to the extremes and brings a gun to school and shoots the people that have been mean to him so that he could "make it all stop." I feel like this book really touches home with how bullying can take the worst on people. The whole time I was reading this I wondered if this could happen in my school or this is what happened at Columbine. I thought about my past and if I ever have picked on kids not to the extreme like Peter got called "gay", "fag" and people would beat him up all the time but just not sticking up for someone. It really made me think about how I treat others and how much effect just plain old body language could change someones self esteem.