Book post 4

I'm still reading the book Kasher in the Rye.  A lot has happened in the past couple chapters.  Moshe has gotten a ticket for vandalism and spraying graffiti.  He also has started using harder drugs like inhalents and acid.  He has begun selling drugs too.  "'I'm fucked, man.  That kid  Justin had a fucking heart attack.'  It seemed hard to believe.  This tiny piece of paper had somehow short-circuited a kid's fragile little coronary system."  (Kasher 122)  Moshe didn't know that acid wasn't good for people with heart problems, and had accidentally sold acid to someone with a messed up heart.  I've heard a lot of things about how bad acid is for you, like how some of the chemical can get stored in your back and when you crack your back a certain way you release the chemicals which can make you trip years after you originally took acid.  Moshe just doesnt seem to know when to quit.  He is messing up his life more and more.  He talks down on people older than him saying they are losers who won't get anywhere in life, but the sad thing is that it doesnt seem like he is going to go anywhere in life either at this rate.  Moshe has a lot of growing up to do if he wants to turn his life around.

Post #3

I am still currently reading Kasher in the Rye.  Moshe just told one of his old friends who moved out of Oakland and into a suburb that he smoked weed.  His friend, Richard, told Moshe that he had to quit smoking weed or they wouldn't be friends anymore.  "'I can't be your friend if you do drugs.  You have to choose.  That shit of me.' I never saw Richard again." (Kasher 66)  Doing drugs can destroy families and friendships.  Weed shouldn't come between friends.  This book also brings religion into play.  Moshe's father is forcing him and his brother to be jewish.  "My brother and I went the exact opposite way with Judaism."  (Kasher 69)  Since Moshe is being forced in to being Jewish he is rebeling against his fathers wishes.  I as a child was not baptized by my fathers wishes because he wanted me to choose my own religion.  I think that this was very bold and smart of him.  Religion shouldn't be forced upon someone. 

Post 2

I am still reading the book Kasher in the Rye by Moshe Kasher.  He is about twelve years old at this point is has no friends.  He is looking for social acceptance since he is currently an outcast.  He turns to smoking and stealing cigarettes from the local food mart.  He then starts hanging out with older boys who also smoke cigarettes.  They then start hazing him and making him do horrible things in order to gain their acceptance.  "Every P.A.G. initiation ritual I went through was somehow deemed insufficient afterward and then they'd ask me to perform some other pain ritual or sexual humiliation in order to be acepted in."  (Kasher 59)  This can be related to alot of people who go into college wanting to be accepted.  Someone joins a fraternitiy because they want to be accepted by people but then they have to do painful and humiliating things to themselves.  Do you really want to be accepted by people who justt want to see you get hurt? Also Moshe smokes weed for the first time.  "I smoked and smoked and every hit chipped away another part of my life...puff puff... gone were my worries."  (Kasher 62)  People think that smoking weed will just make all of your troubles go away.  People use marijuana as an escape from reality, but not all of the long term effects of weed are known.  I find that this book is very interesting.  Even though I don't have a hard a troublesome life like Moshe does, there are some parts of this book that I can relate to.

New book

For my outside reading I am reading the book Kasher In the Rye, by Moshe Kasher.  This book is the story of Moshe Kasher a young troubled boy from Oakland, California.  At this poing in the story we have found out all about his family.  Both his parents are deaf and he, his mom, and his big brother ran away from their father at around age 4 because he was abusive.  We also learn that Moshe has anger management issues and must see a therapist.  "Six-year-old therapy looked like this: Ruben would hand me a Nerf sword and I would beat him as savagely as I could around the legs, buttocks, and genitalia." (Kasher 12)  Moshe would attack people, even complete strangers, this became so bad that his mother had to put him on a leash everytime they went out.  Also while he was a baby, Moshe drank a bottle of his mothers perfume and had to be taken to the hospital, which can easily be assumed that it is foreshadowing what is soon to come.   This book is kind of slow in the beginning but later on it starts to pick up with drug use and more violence.  I am really excited to keep reading this book.

Trayvon Martin case

Lately I have been hearing a lot about the Trayvon Martin case in the news.  But I didnt really know what had happend.  Reading the Rolling Stone article gave me a lot more information.  Supposedly George Zimmerman was acting in self defense by killing Trayvon Martin, and his actions are protected by Floridas Stand Your Ground law, which lets you more or less kill someone if it is an act of self defense.  George Zimmerman said that Trayvon Martin had come up to his car while he was in it.  But somethings don't add up, why would a teenager say to someone "you're going to die now" while in a brawl with that person.  But Zimmerman supposedly suffered from a broken nose and a scratch on his forehead from the fight with Trayvon. 
George Zimmerman was just charged with Second Degree Murder yesterday.  The maximum penalty if found guilty is life in prison.  I believe that if what George Zimmerman says holds up to be true in court, I think that he will be found innocent.  But right now he is one of America's most hated men, and even if he is found innocent I dont't think he will ever really be able to return back into normal society.  I also feel that the community is making a bigger deal out of this than they really should just because Zimmerman is white and hispanic.  Obviously killing someone is a big deal, but when a black person kills a black person, it doesn't become national news, I think that people like Jesse Jackson are just trying to start a race war, because someone who isn't black killed someone who is black.

Affirmative Action

I do think that colleges should use affirmative action.  I think that the diversity of schools should be much bigger.  It seems that most great schools are usually all white, with Asians being a close second.  "At the University of Michigan, Jennifer Gratz decided to sue the school (and ultimately won) because the year she was rejected, around a hundred blacks, Latinos, and American Indian students were admitted despit having lower test scores and grades than her." (Wise 75)  I personally admire the University of Michigan for admitting minorities over some white students in ordder to gain more diversity.  I wouldn't want to go to an all white school because I would want to go to a school with more than just white people.  I don't think that a school should be allowed to get sued just because they admitted someone who has lower test scores than someone else.  A university should be able to admit whoever they want to.  When you bring in more minorities, the minorities can bring more to the table than a bunch of white people, I do not mean that in a racist way, I mean it in a way that white people generally have it easier that minorities, since a lot of minorities live in the inner-city, and have it a lot harder than us.  In order for a minority to succeed, they must try a lot harder, because they usually do not have the same amount or quality of resources that we do here in a place like Deerfield.  Overall, I do think that race should play a part in the admissions process at colleges.

Wrongful Convictions

After reading going to the wrongful convictions website and listening to Terril Swift speak to us in class, I have a better understanding on just how much people are wrongfully convicted.  Terril Swift was obviously an innocent man, but police detained him for so long that he confessed to the rape and murder of a woman.  It seemed that the police used illegal ways to make Terril confess to the crime.  Terill didn't know his rights so he signed the confession.  Terill served seventeen years in prison, until DNA evidence showed that he was not the killer of the woman.  Terill told us that it's practically impossible to make a living while a sex offender.  I don't know why the state of Illinois would classify him as a sex offender even after he was proven innocent.  I don't know if the police officers who treated Terill so badly did it because of his race or what, but they should be prosecuted for forcing him to confess.  I think that DNA evidence is very helpful and should be used no matter what, in every case.