Obama's Notre Dame

The speech Obama gave for the graduating class of Notre Dame was an admirable speech in my opinion. The way he stated his views on the topic of abortion showed what an understanding person he is, and how he is a reasonable guy. The message he was giving to the audience about the abortion topic is that he is willing to compromise. We should try to understand both sides of the conflict and like he said, “fight for what we consider right , without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side.” He made it clear to the audience on how he was going to handle the abortion situation trough this speech.

For example, he showed ho his willing to compromise by starting his abortion talk on a personal experience he talked about. He talked about this email he got from a doctor. In the email the doctor told him that he had voted for him in the primary election, but was not sure of voting for him again in the general election. He was not sure because of a slogan he saw in Obama's website referring to pro-life’s individuals as a simply ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women. He himself was pro-life. He asked Obama not to change his opinions on abortion but to speak about it in fair minded words. He showed he was willing to do this by changing what he had written in his website.

Also, he talked about how he is going to avoid the abortion issue. He understood that a topic was a complex problem with any different views. He knows that each side will fight for the side they are on the matter with passion and conviction. I very agree much agree with this statement. It shows with these words he said in the speech that he is not only looking at the problem from his point of view, but also trying to comprehend the other side.

At last, he talked about ways to reduce abortion. This is something both side will agree to want to do. One of the ways he talked about is to reduce unintended pregnancies. We could do this by talking to the teenagers more about protecting themselves, because teenage pregnancies are really high rate now. Also he talked about making adoption more available. And at last another thing we can do is support the women who carry out to have there child. These ideas are something we all can agree on to reduce abortion.

These are all really good ideas he mention in the speech to let the audience know how willing he is to compromise with the people affected by this issue. He truly shows how he wants to make a change in abortion rates. The way Obama handle the problem with the pro-life people in the audience showed what a reasonable guy he can be. All the things he mention about the doctors note, how he is going to confront the abortion issue and ways to reduce abortion are things we can look at and makes us open our eyes more and see the problem in a whole new different way with more understanding eyes to both sides.

LITTLE MISS PERFECT

There is a pageant called “Little Miss Perfect” for little girls. This pageant comes out on TV exposing the things the little competitors go trough to get prepared for the pageant. There is a “Wow Wear” in the competition that is similar to a talent show. The girls are asked to pick a beautiful outfit that will impress the judges. They are asked to do some kind of routine to model the outfit. They also ask them to answer a question, and of course there is the bathing suit and evening wear. The child is qualified on there physical beauty and also on how comfortable they look on stage. The girl with the highest score wins. I believe it is wrong to put a child through these kinds of pageants; they are put through things they shouldn’t be put through and makes them an obnoxious and brat.

For example, the moms put the child through a lot of pressure to win. They are expected to do well and are put through hours of practice. When they get tired they are just forced to keep on practicing until the routine to them is perfect. They start to get irritated with the child if she is not doing it how they want it, and start yelling at them and make them cry and fill awful about themselves. I don’t think is fair to steal there childhood away with this type of things; they are making them act like adults not letting them act like children. They should instead of practicing for hours be outside playing with there friends.

Also, another thing I disagree with what the moms of the pageant are making the kids do is wear mass of makeup. The girls that are in this type of pageants are sometimes like three years old and its not write to put makeup on them. They look more like adults then what they are, just kids. The people that are in charge of the pageants should make them not use makeup. They should be judge like kids and there natural beauty. It’s a kids pageant not an adult one.

At last, what I would like to point out is how some of the kids turn out who enter these pageants. They become very obnoxious kids and think they are better than all the rest of the little kids. I’ve seen how they become really conceded and bratty, they want to act like adults. They also become very spoil they know how much there parents are spending on them on each pageant they enter which could but thousands of dollars per pageant. All this things are bad for them spoiling them making them practice for hours and putting makeup on them.

Stopping Gangs

" Understanding can begin a friendship without being convicted for the past, so we must give a little to receive a little"-Nanon Williams
We need to first understand why kids would consider joining a gang in order to find solutions to stopping gangs, or maybe just reducing the gang memberships in the United States. People who don’t know anything about what goes on in the ghettos, and other places like this, where most of the gang members are coming from, who have low income families, drugs everywhere, and lack of parents at home because of having to work all day to maintain the household, will never understand the gang scene, and like Williams said in his essay," Understanding Gang Life”, “We will always have separate world in the same country." We need to find solutions and ways to prevent kids from joining gangs and to those who are involved already ways to keep them out of trouble and possibly get them out.

For example a solution I would give is to try to have a stronger family environment at home. What I mean by this it’s the parents need to be involved in the child’s life. Take the time to communicate more with them. Be involved in there life as much as possible, such as school, know who they are hanging out with, congratulate them on there accomplishments, and things like that. Let them know you care about them, and that you are with them in every step they take in life. These things are important to do in a child’s life, because lack of parent’s interest is one of the reasons a kid joins a gang. Feeling lonely and the need of attention can cause them to join in a search for acceptance and the feeling of being needed.

Also, another solution is to have more employment training, and have more placement programs. It is known that gang members come from very low income families. Thats one of the reasons gang members start committing crimes, such as stealing and selling drugs in order to survive. If they had something to look forward to in life, such as a decent job that can support the household, they wouldn’t be so angry at life and wanting to go in the streets and cause trouble. More money should be invested in poor communities to help them have a better life.

At last, another thing is having more organizations like the Homeboy Industries. These types of industries help out gang members in many ways. It was created by Father Greg. At first it was called "Job for the future", then he made a small bakery to place the most challenging, difficult to place young people in a safe environment. The Homeboy industry has made a great impact on Los Angeles gang problem. They provide job training and placement assistance. They help gang members that want to better there life do it. They also provide tattoo removal services. We need to all work together in trying to stop gang violence to help make our

Torture Memos

“Torture is prohibited, and committing it is a crime, under both the law of the United States and international law”- Oren Gross. The interrogation methods we used against captured suspected terrorist were a wrong way to get the information we needed, and this methods should never again be used in a country like ours. Torture is illegal and no one should be aloud to do it in this country. What they did to these terrorists is no doubt torture. We convicted Japanese for using waterboarding and other techniques like the ones we used in World War two. There is evidence that shows that enhanced interrogation was not used to get the truth out of this suspected terrorist, but o get what they wanted to hear out of them. In our case, they wanted to find a link between Al Quaida and Saddam Hussein.

Furthermore, one of the most common methods they used was waterbording, how can they say this method is not torture when it has been considered torture for 100 of years. Even though this is used when training our soldiers, unlike our soldiers the suspected terrorist didn’t have a say in them getting this treatment which our soldiers volunteer to it. Torture under no circumstances is right in this country, even if we did get useful information or not it does not make it legal to do what we did. We could have just used regular interrogation methods.

Also they did this without even being sure if the techniques would even work, and knowing Korea and other countries had used in on our soldiers. The information we might had gotten out of them might had even most of it been made up. Who wouldn’t want to tell the person that’s torturing them what they what they think they want to hear to make it all stop. Why did they think they could get out of the 50th tried they waterboard al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in the first or second time they waterboard him. It was wrong to do those kinds of things without even knowing if this techniques were affective, I think we could have just used regular interrogation methods.

Mara Salvatrucha

“They grab three or four young people wandering around and present them as suspects… blaming them for every single crime without justification.” –Maria Luisa Barjas
Violence and discriminaton is not the correct way to put a stop to the Mara Salvatrucha gang, and it’s also not just. The Mara Salvatrucha also known as MS-13 gang, started here in the United States by Salvodarians as a result of discrimination. Immigrants who came from El Salvador to escape the civil war that was taking place in there country were victimized and discriminated against by local gangs. Soon this immigrants though of a way to stop the way they were being treated by creating a gang to be protected. They soon became as one of the most dangerous and violent gangs. Members were caught in illegitimate doings and were deported back to there country, that’s how they spread trough Central America.

As a result of them forming the MS-13, when they went back to there on country they got discriminating on as well for being a gang member. Honduras was the first country to established anti-gang laws in an attempt to stop the MS-13. Soon after that, El Salvador established laws anti-gang laws such as La Manu Dura. Foolish laws like this one where taking many innocent people to jail. People that were suspected to be violating where arrested and faced to a 12 year sentence in prison even if no crime was committed. Something ridiculous as having a tattoo could be the trigger to your arrest. The police where abusing there authority. They where acting exceedingly unjust to the people.

All this anti-gang laws lead to a group forming called the Sombra Negra who kills the gang members. The Sombra Negra Started killing anybody that was thought to be from the MS-13 gang. People think that this death squad has sponsorship from the Salvodorian government, they deny it. It is also said that the members are compromised of off duty police and military personnel. Nobody has the right to kill like that just because you may be involved in a gang, they at least should receive a trial and see what there crimes have been if any, and be sentenced to prison and not be killed. There has even been prisons caught on fire that housed many MS-13 gang members, and there are rumors that the government has to do with it. All this discrimination going on has lead to many bad things, as bad as the MS-13 gang is they don’t deserve to be discriminated or killed, we need to reach out to them and find ways to cope with this major gang in an attempt to stop it.

Gang Protection

"My gang will protect me”- Unknown
This is what most of the kids that join a gang think, and there wrong. Being in a gang only increases the risk of them getting problems, and getting confronted by other gang members. Becoming a part of a gang suddenly gets them many enemies just like that. They no longer can go out of there house without any worries or fear; all of a sudden they become a target to many of the gangs out there. They are in a constant fear when they go out of there neighborhood or even inside. They don’t even know when they might get confronted. It could be anywhere and with anyone they might be with, putting the person they are with in danger also, maybe a girlfriend or family member. At last, the greatest level of danger they could get caught up in, bigger then just being confronted or being afraid of walking outside there house, is death.

Being in a gang means them becoming a target for death as well. Having that many enemies of that character, people that don’t care about what they do, that are dangerous, drug addicts, revengeful and relentless, don’t bring nothing but problems. Members live with daily concern of getting shot. They have to be careful everyday when they go out to the street, and have to be careful in what territory they step into. A gangster has many enemies and they don’t know when they step out of there house if there coming back; being in danger of when its there turn to get shot at because there in the wrong neighborhood is a thing they deal with everyday.

Gangs and Drugs

Gangs and drugs go hand in hand. For many street gangs the more market they have management of; the more gross income they get. In order for them to have control over the maximum drug market, they either have to use force, or make peace between there other gang competitors. Some gangs take domination of other inferior gang drug vends. When such an action as using force to get control, in some cases wars are made between the gangs involved. Many of gang related murders in prison are because of the wanting of power or trying to maintain it. In other cases instead of causing war and conflicts between the gangs peace is made. This kind of action is done to facilitate the selling of the drugs. For some gang members the drug market is a great way to make easy money. But like I said this kind of earnings is only for very some gang members not many.
According to a research done by a former gang member; the gang he was in consisted of a leader, two officers, 75 foot soldiers, and 200 rank and file individuals. The leader made up to 100,000 a year, the officers about 1,000 a month and the others no more then the minimum wage. Only a few realize that there’s not much money in for many of them.

Some gangsters that didn’t let the problems the drug market business brings you are the Gangster Disciples. This gangster that originated from Chicago has been making millions in the illegal selling of drugs. They consist of 300,000 members in Chicago alone. There rumors that some gang members even become police officers. They have ability to corrupt correctional officers, inside jails, and this way contraband smuggling operations take place. Gangs and drugs are compatible, they both can cause great harm.