Post #3

Right now in the book, Bill is still a heavy drinker and uses cocaine.  But he is starting to go back to his publishing company that he owns.  His company is miraculosly making decent profit from a book that they recently published.  One night to celebrate a book publishing he drinks to much goes home wakes up and his boyfriend Noah tells him that his sister and two other close friends are there for an intervention sort of thing.  "I don't struggle, not yet.  I am quiet and cooperative as each of them, in turn-- Kim, Kate, Noah, David- tells me they will support my getting sober but won't support me, won't have anyrhing to do with me, if i continue to use." (Clegg 181)  I find this part very emotional and interesting mainly becuase I'm curious as to what Bill is going to do.  In the past they have told him to sober up but he has never gone through with it.  But now that they are all threatening to leave him, he realizes that he must make a choice to either keep using drugs, or to have his family with him.  The next couple of chapters will definitly be interesting.

Book Post 2

I am currently about 3/4ths done with Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man by Bill Clegg.  Bill is currently in a hotel room where he is with a man that he met at an airport.  They first begin drink alcohol and after a couple hours they start doing crack/cocaine.  While doing the drugs, Bills boyfriend calls him on his cell phone asking where he is.  His boyfriend, Noah, correctly assumes that he is doing cocaine, and demands that he go back home immediatly, thus showing that Bill does have people who care about him and want him to stop using the drugs.  Bill then hangs up on his boyfriend and starts a one night relationship with the man from the airport.  This shows that these kinds of drugs can destroy relationships with friends and family.  The next morning Bill discovers that alltogether he has less than $30,000 dollars in the bank.  He has spent all of his money on buying cocaine for himself and people that he does the drugs with.  He also somehow manages to help his mother with her finances that came with divorcing his father a few years before.  The drug abuse by Bill was a major factor in the downfall of his parents marriage. 

Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man

I am reading the book Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man, which is a memoir written by Bill Clegg.  Bill Clegg is a cocaine addict, an alcoholic, and a homosexual.  I am halfway done with the book so far, and a lot has happend.  Bill does crack-cocaine regularly and cannot control his urges to smoke it.  He smokes in public restrooms, such as in airports and restaurants.  He also does crack with random people that he meets, such asa taxi drivers.  The life of a crack-cocaine addict doesn't seem to be a very good life.  Bill used to own his own publishing company that he has driven into the ground because of drug abuse.  He spends all of his money on cocaine, almost every day he pulls 2,000 dollars out of his bank account to be spent on cocaine.  The book shows how drug abuse can destroy relationships, families, jobs and confidence.  He knows that he needs help but whenever somone tries to help him he just shuts them down. People in our society need to know that people do care about their drug abuse, but they also need to carry out the rehabilitation process.  So far this book seems really interesting.

Invisible Children

One thing that really stuck out to me during the video we watched is how it took seventeen years for this war going on in Africa to really get noticed by the media.  You would think that a war where kids and civilians are being killed and abducted would make the front page news everyday, but before Invisible Children was created hardly anybody knew of the war going on in central Africa.  I think that this program is doing a lot of good in giving the people of Africa a voice, but I think that the real goal should be to deploy more troops to central Africa.  Last month Obama sent 100 troops to Uganda to help out, but I think that he should send more.  I don't really think that the crisis tracker and protection plan help out that much, I think that the best thing to do would be to take action against the LRA.  I like the fact that we are helping out the Invisible children foundation.

Abortion

The pro choice NARAL website is a better website because it also agrees with the pro life website saying that we should try to lower the amount of abortions while still having the right to choose what you want to do with your unborn child.  The NARAL website gave better agruments because it talked about everything, not only why we should have the choice to choose if we want to have an abortion or not, but also how we can lower the amount of abortions by using birth control and taking sex education.  Personally I think that the Pro Choice side of the arguement is winning the debate over abortion.  I think that even though Pro Life takes more action, the Pro Choice side is more largely supported than the Pro Life side. 
As an 18 year old high school student, I support both of these arguments, I don't think that these unborn babies should be killed, but on the other hand I think that we should have the right to choose whether to have a baby or not.  I do think that the parent of the daughter should be notified and brought into discussion about the abortion, not telling the parent could destroy trust between the parent and the child.  But I do believe that the parent should have no say in whether or not the daughter recieves an abortion or not since it is the daughters body and it's her baby.
I don't think that the father of the child has to be notified in the event of an abortion.  There may be something that happend between the father and mother that could make the father angry at the mother.  The father should have no say in the decision because he is not carrying the baby around for nine months. 
I do support Illinois' choice of being pro choice.  I do agree that the parents should be notified if the child wants an abortion.  I feel that the laws in Illinois are fine and don't need to be changed.

Final Death Penalty Post

I believe that the abolishment of the death penalty was a very good idea.  I completly agree that there is something very wrong with the accuracy of accusations of death row inmates, if someone is on death row for 15 years and comes within 50 hours to being executed.  The article also says that we believe that Illinois has executed an innocent man, which would ruin our 30+ year streak of no innocent deaths.  I don't think that people should be killed for the murder of someone.  "People have a lot of lingering doubts about the possibility of a person being wrongly convicted.  They are willing to convict them, but when it comes to the death sentence, they want to be doubly sure of their guilt, even more than the system requires."  This quote may be true about how we never executed an innocent person, but we came very close back in 1999, I believe that even though they want to make sure the person charged with the crime is 100% guilty, this doesnt always happen, sometimes they send the wrong people to death row, for this reason we need to get rid of the death penalty.

Deadline

“Growing up black in this state, you know, you really didn’t have a chance when it came to a crime. You know, they say that justice is blind, but justice really isn’t blind.”  This quote is very true in some states.  Mostly in the south, there is a lot of racial discrimination, so people will blame things on black people just because they're black.  I think that when it comes to white people and captial punishment, they will not be given the death penalty as easily as a jury would give a black man the death penalty.  I also feel like jurys think that the murder of a white man is worse than the murder of a black man.  Jurys should understand that a murder is still a murder. Since people of color and people who have a low income get the death penalty the most, I think that jurys feel like they are less important than someone who is white or has a good income.  Jurys should be made where there are all different races of people, instead of just one race, by doing this bias will be taken out of the picture and ensure a fair jury.
“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”  This quote is directly from the 8th ammendment.  I believe that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment, therefore imposing the death penalty upon somebody is unconstitutional.  I think that places in the south support the death penalty more because they take pride in their death penalty.  I was watching the show "The Awful Truth" and Michael Moore went to an execution in Texas and outside of the place where they're killed people were out partying and cheering and chanting "USA".  I think that southerners get a strange sense of pride from executions.
I don't believe that our justice system will ever be perfected.  There will always be people who are wrongfuly accused of a crime they didn't commit.  I think that every once in a while someone being wrongfully accused is acceptable, but as of now 1 in 7 people on death row are found innocent, I think that is just too bad of a ratio, and it needs to be improved somehow.  If I could talk to the victims family, I would say that the death of another man will not bring back your loved one and that this death will not bring any justice to you and your family.  I believe that the family of the victim shouldn't have any input on the punishment of the accused.   The partners of the Washington DC sniper and Oklahoma city bomber were minors so didn't recieve the death penalty.  I respond to Stephen Bright's quote by saying that I agree with him, something is wrong with our justice system, its good to know that we have concerned citizens in the USA to help out every once in a while.