Posting and linking sources

Today, as part of our post, let's use the Link feature.  If, for example, I wanted to take you away to a poem by the Puritan poet Anne Bradstreet, I could just ask you to click here:  http://www.annebradstreet.com/the_vanity_of_all_worldly_things.htm


Enjoy!

journal two

Holding on is really going great for me. The best part of the book to me is the way the book is set up, for instance, the book talks about stories or random people regardless of their class, race, gender, sexuality, and religion background. I am not having a problem with active reading except that sometimes I get distracted, so it took couple of times to read it to get the whole meaning.
The profile that most stand to me is Moreese Brickham. “ don’t worry everything will be alright.” I like how the person has hope, even though his chance of him getting out of jail is very slim, he kept his hopes high and kept on believing.

Journal two

Holding on is very good and is talking about lots of interesting stories. So far i didnt see anything bad about this book. And my active reading about this is really good i dont have any problems about it but there are some words and sentence that are really hard for me to understand other than that is really good. Steam train Maury Graham was my favorite profile because his story was really interesting touching. He started beaing a hobo at age of 13 and started going from state to state. "you in those bum camps and you might not come out of there. they will rob you and then hit you in the head," This was really good the way hobos help each other and that little secret they have to have few pebbles in their pocket and then throw the pebble in to the ground.

Writing Exercise 2

According the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 7,225,800 people were on probation, in prison or on parole in 2009. This number represents 3.1% of adults in the U.S. resident population. Of this number, 2,297,400 were behind bars. The United States has the most number of prisoners in the world. This number has grown by nearly a factor of 5 since 1980. This growth has been mostly due to the War on Drugs which sends people to prison for nearly any drug offense. The other concern is the financial impact as it cost $22,632 in 2002 per year to imprison a single inmate. Lately it appears every federal and state tax dollar is being cut which either means more prisoners will have to be released early or more inmates will have to be crowded into smaller and smaller cells. In either case this situation will not end well unless the government helps inmates prepare for their new lives. I'm not certain if I have a lot of hope for these inmates as it's so difficult to find a job today. Some of these people may commit new crimes just so they can go back to prison in order to have a warm bed and a roof over their head.

My favorite story so far would have to be Segundo Mugarra, Basque sheepherder. Segundo in my mind is a happy guy. He herds sheep and lives in isolation. What gets to me is he happy. He seems like a minimalist and does what he loves. This outlook of being content with one’s life is something I believe we all try to achieve.

Incarceration Rates

In my journal I reserached how many people are in prison in the United States. I found that more than 7 million people are incarcerated in the U.S. today. That makes around one percent of people in U.S. behind bars. I also found that the U.S. has the most people incarcerated in the entire World. Many people worry about why so many people are in prison in our country. Many worry that the reason we have so many people in prison is because our law enforcers would rather put someone behind bars than to keep possible dangerous people on the street. We use a lot of money to put people in prison. Many people think that instead of putting so many people in prison we should use that money to educate people about crime prevention. The law enforcers think that by putting more and more people in prison our crime rate will go down but it obviously doesn't work that way.

Jim Searles was an extraordinary man. He stood out to me because of his passion. When I first started to read about his love for checkers I thought it was just a little hobby he had. After reading more and more into the story I realized that he really loved checkers to the point that it was his life and passion. Checkers went back to slavery where he said historians found that slaves would play in Lousiana. I think this gave him a connection to history and he wanted to keep up a tradition. On page 114 he said he was not happy with a particular way of life so he changed it. He wanted to make the most of what he was doing. The other men took care of eachother no matter what the situation was. They would never give up on each other which was a great part of this story. "a man don't quit what he love. Love is a great thing!" (116).

Prisoner

For my journal two I decided to write about the story Prisoner. This was a really sad story about Moreese Bickham. It talked about how a black man served a jail term, because he was trying to protect himself. Bickham killed two officers before they tried to shot at him. “When he walked up to finish me off I shot him” (pg.35). “The other one, he run an’ grabbed his shotgun and pulled it around, and I shot him” (pg.35). This happen back in the days where black people barely had any rights. He pleaded quilty and served nearly his whole life behind bars. My two favorite quotes by far are “hope does something for a man-it makes him hang on to what little he got to get more” (pg.37). This shows that this guy never gives up on anything, and that even during the worst time in his life, he always has a slim hope. My other favorite quote is, “I might be too old to walk, or might not be worth anything, but I’m goin’ to get outta this” (pg.37). This quote also tells us more about Bickham that he never gives up anything , and that and doesn’t care how old he is he will always accomplish what he has to do.

Prisons In America

In 2009 there were 2,297,400 people in prison, which is .75% of our population, according to Wikipedia. The cost per inmate per day is roughly $62.01, which is even more incredible to me. That is $142,461,774 a day to fund our prisons. I could understand that a little more if everyone in prison was a threat to those around them, but for the cost, there are too many people in prison for things that they do not need to be. Offenses such as fraud can call for jail time. I think the confiscation of the stolen money and a large fine could rectify it instead of spending all the money on them. I think that amount of money is appropriate to keep dangerous people off the streets, but maybe some punishments for certain crimes should be reevaluated.

The profile that stood out most to me was the one about Hinkel Schillings and Shade pate, the hunters. I admired their shared culture in hunting. They both fell in love with it at a very young age, and had families very involved in that type of sport. I also appreciate the respect they show for their dogs. Even though one of the dogs, Corene, only had a single eye they still enjoyed watching her hunt with the others.