Cruel and Unusual or Fair and Justifed?

I recently read an article that discussed the Supreme Courts discussion on “whether the Constitution's ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” should be applied in such cases” as the case from West Kensington Philadelphia where a 17 year old boy beat, raped and murdered a twelve year old neighbor.
The topics in their discussion will deal with whether or not it is constitutional to limit “a state's ability to impose incredibly tough sentences on either the young, or in some cases, the mentally retarded," stated Thomas Goldstein, a leading Washington attorney. They also are posing the question, should a minor be able to receive a life sentence with no parole?
In my opinion, I think that someone of that boys age knows right from wrong. He obviously knows its not right to abduct his twelve year old neighbor and beat, rape and kill her. I think he deserves to spend the rest of his life in jail because he took the life away from a little girl and he should give up his own life for the loss of hers. I think that a minor should be able to receive a life sentence because older teens such as 16 or 17 year olds are capable of thinking like an adult and shouldn't be babied in court after they have done something as horrible as murdering someone. However, I do not think those who have mental disabilities should have the same sentencing. I think a minor with a mental disability, in some cases, don't know what is right from wrong as a person the same age would.
Should a minor be able to receive a life sentence without parole? Do you think it is constitutional to do so?

"Why on the rich kids get good schools?"

I recently read an article that was about a man who opened a school in which the goal was to send 100% of its students to college afterwards. They mainly focused on minorities from bad neighborhoods to give them the opportunity to have a learning environment similar to that of a school such as New Trier. I found it interesting when he posed the question, “why only the rich kids get good schools?” It got me thinking about the constitution and what it says about the right to equal opportunities. I think that this article proves that many poor kids do not get that right. They are deprived of a stable educational environment in which they are encouraged to work hard and get into college like we are in Winnekta. A stunning report states that after graduation, 53 percent of poor high school students are ready for college, while 86 percent of wealthy graduates are prepared. This study proves that the kids from poor families don't have the same opportunity as kids from wealthy families to get into college and have a good education.


This poses the questions, how do we change our educational systems to create the same opportunities for everyone? Why is it that poor kids have to work so much harder than a kid born into a privileged life? And lastly, is the right to equal opportunities a granted right in the US?

I've Got My Eye on You

In class today, we discussed the never ending topic of privacy on the internet. Do we really have any privacy once we log onto sites such as Facebook, MySpace or Gmail? Intrigued, I decided to do some further research. But of course, before I delve into my homework mode, I always check my emails and I found a message from my friend who suggested a band she likes. Being the procrastinator I am, I decided to check it out before I started my work. I listened to a few songs on iTunes and found myself logging into Facebook. Right when I logged on, I noticed an ad that stood out to me. It was an ad for the band I had just looked up. I have never listened, talked or heard of their music before today and I was stunned that this ad happened to appear right after I had been searching for them online. Disturbed, I began my research of Facebook Ads. What I found was pretty disturbing; “We continually strive to build core featured that enhance our users' experience on Facebook, which include Facebook Ads. Facebook Ads was built to transform traditional marketing into messages that are tailored to each individual user based on who they are and how they interact and affiliate with their friends, family, brands, music artists, and businesses they care about.”

I thought to myself, “How can they possibly know who I am and how I interact with my family and friends without going through my messages?” Is this a constitutional way to treat their users or is what Facebook is doing just another sacrifice users have to make when logging on to a social networking site?

Firefighters vs. Celebrities

The heroic acts of a firefighter or police person may not seem comparable to actors, singers and models in Hollywood. However, when I was looking through an entertainment magazine, I was shocked to see that Hiedie Montag of the Hills earns $100,000 per episode. I immediately went to the computer and looked up the average salary of a firefighter. The average hourly wage of a firefighter is a little over 18$ and hour. A fire chief makes between 70 and 80 thousand dollars a year in Chicago (Wiki Answers). Compared to actress Jennifer Aniston, a fire chief makes less than 1% of her 27 million dollars. If you compare their hourly wages, Jennifer would rake in $3,080 an hour if she worked 24 hours a day 7 days a week while the chief would only make $9.13 working the same hours. What these numbers are saying is that we feel running into a fire to save people is a less valuable job than acting in a movie for other people's enjoyment. I don't believe we all feel this way but I wonder why the paying system isn't changed. Why does Tyler Perry make 125 Million dollars in one year while the starting salary for a Chicago police officer is $43,104. (Wikipedia) I think that this difference isn't due to the fact that we value an actress more than a firefighter, I think it comes down to people not realizing how much the police and firefighters do for them. They only praise them when it directly effects their lives, which may not be very often while most people watch television or go see movies a lot. I think people take these people for granted and don't realize what their lives would be like without them.

Tonights the Night, Lets Live it Up

I read a previous blog post discussing the topic of current movies and how they are not as good as older movies used to be. I found this interesting because movies should be getting better with technology but it seems they are getting worse and worse. A similar topic is the fact that popular music these days is in the gutter as well. Most music played on the 'hits' stations such as Kiss FM, b96 and WGCI are not up par with the type of music popular music played 10 or 20 years ago. I feel like there are many good songs out there that aren't recognized by radio stations. So many of the songs played on the top 100 are unintelligent songs that talk about things like woman, how much money they make or a song dedicated to a dance move. While I do enjoy some songs that are out now that are considered popular, I do find myself questioning song such as Party in the USA (#1 on itunes) and I Got a Feeling (#6 on itunes) which are songs basically about nothing at all. I wonder why songs have lost meaning and depth and concentrate more on how good the melody is or how strong the bass is. Could this be due to an incline interest in partying or a decline in intellect?

Disagree or Disrespect?

As I flipped through the channels today, I stopped on MSNBC when I saw people carrying signs in the street saying things such as, "Congress: are you stoned or just stupid? Please wake up and save America," "We are under attack by our own government!" (UPI.com). I was appalled by some of the disrespectful and insulting things that were written on the posters, most worse than what stated above. Some related him to an African monkey in a zoo! Most were targeting Obama as a person and degrading him as an African American man. Some were even trying to say he was like Hitler by holding a sign stating, "Hitler made good speeches too." The videos of the people rampaging down the streets and yelling and screaming only made the images and signed more frightening. One poster, which in my opinion was the scariest, made it clear they were not armed, however in parenthesis under it stated, "Not this time."


After seeing all these horrific video clips, I changed the channel and tried to forget about it. I was so disturbed that I hopped up and opened my computer because I felt it was so wrong for these people to be saying such horrible things that I had to post my opinion. It would have been much more respectable if they had gotten their views across without insulting and attacking Obama as a person and his race. I couldn't believe it when not only were 'average' American's rallying, there was a senator from South Carolina rallying along with them.

Why is it that people feel it is OK to disrespect the president. Whether you agree with him or not, he is the president and he should be respected. People shouldn't agree with every single thing he says but there is a way to disagree without attacking someone personally.I feel these people failed miserably at staying classy and not making a fool of themselves

The Modern Family

When I saw a commercial for a new TV series called The Modern Family, I automatically started wondering: What exactly is a 'modern family'. In my opinion, a modern family breaks the traditional barrier and is comfortable with being different. A modern family could consist of two moms and a kid or a multiracial family or even the traditional parents and kids. You might wonder how a traditional family can break traditional molds. I think that if a family isn't ignorant of other ways of life and embraces and accepts people different then they are, they are considered a modern family.

Our modern culture is becoming more and more tolerant of people breaking the mold and moving outside of the box into a more realistic mindset where people do date out of there race or fall in love with someone of the same gender. As stated on MSNBC.com, "Factoring in all racial combinations, Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld calculates that more than 7 percent of America’s 59 million married couples in 2005 were interracial, compared to less than 2 percent in 1970." These numbers prove that non-traditional families are on the rise in our modern society.

While the numbers do prove more people are breaking the mold, when will the society as a whole accept these families as no better or worse than a traditional non-mixed, heterosexual family? We live in a country where not everyone is allowed to marry who they would like. Not till the 60's was anyone allowed to marry someone of another race. In conclusion I ask, when will the majority of society, if ever, come to accept the changes in our nations family life?