Dead Teen Walking

Both White Fang and Dead Teen Walking, relate to the theme nature vs. nurture. In the article, it tells us a true story of a teen, Shareef Cousin, 16, who was convicted of murdering a 25 year old man, Michael Gerardi, and was sentenced on the death roe, in New Orleans. He was one of 63 juvenile offenders on death row in prison in the U.S.
I believe in nature vs. nuture, however as a society, we cannot make excuses for teenagers that rebel the law and murder because of how they were raised. This is my opinion, however it is still on a teeter-tauter after reading White Fang. I can understand both ways and I feel more strongly that there are no excuses for murder, but then going back and reading what Cousin had to go through as a child and being hit in the head, I feel bad for him and then I think about the reasons behind him killing were not out of hatred toward the man he killed but his father, his family and his childhood. Yet, even with all those excuses, there are always choices a person can make, then to murder.
White Fang definatly changed my opinion of this article. Normally, I would say that there is no excuse for killing a person; "Children mature enough to murder are mature enough to be punished for it" (pg 3). In a way I still think like that, but I can fully understand the nature vs. nuture. In White Fang, he was raised wild, then brought into a "family" where he had to obey a master that was cruel to him and where the other animals didn't except him. He was beaten and tormented, so he had to become a strong, vicious beast to survive the hurt he felt deep inside. "They were White Fang's environment, these men, and they were molding the clay of him into a more ferocious thing than had been intended by Nature" (IV.3). As soon as he was free from his master, Scott took him in and showed him love. White Fang had changed into a loving dog basically. This book did show that the nature vs. nurture theme worked. "The basic life that was in him took charge of him. The will to exist of his body surged over him. He was dominated by this mere flesh-love of life. All intelligence was gone. It was as though he had no brain. His reason was unseated by the blind yearning of his flesh to exist and move, at all hazards to move, to continue to move, for movement was the expression of its existence" (IV.4.).

Issue 20

From reading this article, my opinion sided with Andrew Sullivan. I don't believe in wars and so my opinion was already at the "No" side. I couldn't believe the opinion of the "Yes" side of Charles Krauthammer. First, he says "...we don't do that because we do not descened to the level of our enemy...because we are civilized. Even though terrorists are entitled to no humane treatment, we give it to them because it is in our nature as a moral and humane people." Now my question is, then what was Abu Ghraib?? Then, he talks about McCain and how his position on torture is incoherent, but what is still best for this country, and he agrees with him. I think that Charles Krauthammer has a one-sided opinion that only looks at the torture onto others that deserve it, only because they look like they could be terrorists. Also, what made me disturbed is how he made a scenerio on the first page of the "Yes" side, second to last and last paragraph. Here is a hypothetical question, yet is explained as if it happens everyday. I can understand if this situation ever came up and you knew who was planning to bomb a city, you would want to get information out of him anyway you could, but you can't just go around assuming these things, which is what they were saying earlier in the article.
The "No" article was interesting to read, especially since I agreed with what Anderw Sullivan had to say. One of my favorite lines in this piece was "Something broken can be put back together, but it will never regain the status of being unbroken--of having integrity. When you break a human being, you turn him into something subhuman. You enslave him." I think those few lines summed the whole "No" side article up. I believe that it is not right to torture people for benefits regarding yourself or other people. It is hard in a situation knowing you could save your country if you could get this information that would prevent millions dead. But the actions someone could take are more than just torture, unlike what some people may think. These peopel have options and if they don't want to look at all of them, they have to live with the pride of saving their country, yet torturing someone who never deserved the torture (if they were innocent). I just don't believe that anyone deserves punishment like that to experience.

Morals

I thought this article gave a really good understanding of the way humans behave and the difference between each individual. Our morality of good and evil varies from one another, yet the concept is the same for all of us. For example, in the article it talked about the way we as humans are capable of dumbfounding kindness. One minute we need someone the next minute we are stabbing that person in the back. For some reason, this act of kindness will always lead to meanness towards a person.
The Moral Ape concluded that the give-and-take process is the same as humans. However, I didn't get a very good understanding of the empathy in animals (First paragraph on the third page). I understand the 'I feel your pain' scenario, but I don't understand the experiment they used. How could they put stimulants into someone to feel someone elses pain. I don't know I am really confused about that part.
I really enjoyed reading about the scenario that of the trolley dilemma. Saving someone versus killing someone is combined to a 5 to 1 ratio and to save the 5 people you are faced with a choice to kill one person. Some people, cannot make that decision. For me, I think I would be able to make the decision of killing 1 innocent man in order to save 5 lives. It's hard to think about and say that I would when I haven't been put in that situation. And it may be completely different when you're actually under the pressure to choose at that moment could be different.
I believe the article on How We Stay Good. "It's the people around us who do that teaching." Our surroundings change us every day and make us who we are; good and evil.

September 11

On September 11, 2001, I remember coming in the kitchen to get cereal for breakfast. I had just woken up. The kitchen television was on and my mom was watching it. The breaking news was on. My mom had said something along the lines of "Planes have crashed. The twin towers in New York." It's a little sketchy. I didn't understand what she was saying. After eating breakfast and getting ready for shcool, my mom drove my sister and me to Bryant Elementary where I was attending fifth grade, in Mrs. Parenteau's class. As soon as we got in the classroom, the televisions were going. The whole day we had to watch the news and what was happening. I remember the teacher's trying to explain to us, little kids, on what was going on. All I knew was this was big. After school I remember coming home and my mom and dad talking more about the attacks. "Tourists..." Wait what?? I was confused. Aren't those people exploring sites. "Terrorist." My parents were trying to explain the difference to me, but I wasn't understanding. A couple days had gone by and the news got to my grandparents that my grandma's sister's husband's brother had died in the attack. He was working in the building. Still, this whole terrorist attack was unclear to me and I can only remember the television pictures and videos.