From a victim to a survivor

As a child I thought like a victim now that I am an adult I think as a survivor.

Having my father taken from my life at the young age of eight, I thought as a victim that revenge was the best solution to the situations. I wanted the person who murdered him sentenced to death or far worst, for someone to kill him and watch him die slowly as my father had, but after I recently visited Angola prison my outlook on the death penalty and life imprisonment has changed.

Due to the amazing experience I had at Angola I am able to think as a survivor and see that revenge is not the best decision for it does exactly the same thing that was done to me, takes someone from their family. Seeing and speaking to several prisoners was like talking to the dead, for most of the individuals I spoke to are going to die there. Before going I had a pre-existing conception that prisoners never change and they deserve to rot in the hell they created from the actions they committed. Since I got to talk to several and hear their stories my opinion has changed. One particular gentleman had a great impact on that opinion, he is 47 years old and serving a life sentence for a murder he committed when he was 17 years old. I asked him if he thought being in prison had change the way he looked at life and he told me “no, it’s not prison that has changed him its life.”

I asked him how. He said “because some people been in prison just as long as he has and they’re still acting and doing the things they did when they were out while some changed because they were tired of doing the same thing.”

After thinking about what he said I began to realize that even though we as a society thinks it is retribution to confine an individual to an eight by ten cell with someone telling him when to eat, shower or anything else is the best decision, it is not because no matter what he is still a human being. For a judge and jury to decide what someone’s punishment should be is the same as the murder who decides how his next victim should be killed. We are committed a crime for another crime. So when I think about the young boy who took a father from a young girl and six boys who needed a man in their life, I think he shouldn’t have to spend his life confined because that want change him. He will only change when he’s ready, jail does reform prisoners it just houses them, keeping them from society but it also produces a war zone.

What is this blogging thing all about?

Blogging is driving me insane. At the beginning of ever week I find myself panicking, loss, trying to figure out what to blog about. Sometimes I think “why did Beth have to require me to do this, is it really helping to improve my writing?” I watch the news, read magazines and newspapers only to realize that there is nothing that interesting to me that I would like to blog about, so I decided to blog about how blogging is beginning to driving me insane.

 Blogging is causing me to lose sleep for my mind is racing, thinking about all the possibilities of topics I can write about, however when I put a pen to paper I get writers block which usually ends with me having only written one sentence. I also find myself “feeling lucky” when searching recent news event on Google only to be told that my luck has ran out. The constant reminder that attention span is very short is causing me to pull out my hair for the frustration of receive a bad grade from not blogging. So please if anyone could, will you explain to me what is this blogging thing about?    

The Blues...

At three o’clock in the morning I found myself scratching this out of my head

I had to find a way to write it so that it wasn’t so red

So I put it to some music and this is what BLEED…

As I watch my mom fight the fight that so many lose

I catch myself singing the blues

Trying to figure out how this pain keeps finding its way…

Into our homes,

Into our bones

As I watch her fight to keep tonight’s supper down

I find myself asking God “why so many of us got to suffer”

NOW…

It’s not as if we wished for this

Thing or expects it to seep through

We just find ourselves

Finding it in our sleep

It’s so hard not to weep

 But as we see them suffer we began to REALIZE

That weeping won’t make this MINIMIZE

It only MAGNETIZE

Taking it from something we thought so simple to something BIG                                                       

We find ourselves letting it take our dreams

Cause we’re so busy focusing on what’s so SUPREME

LIFE…right now is our focus

But if we DON’T take the time to let this PROVOKE us

We’ll NEVER find a cure and life will NEVER be so pure

 Cause we’ll find ourselves

LOST in the RAIN

DROWNING in our PAIN

As we watch so many fight the fight only to LOSE

Cause we STEADY singing the same old BLUES

PLEASE Donate to find a CURE!!

Is it ok to talk about a politicians weight?

Yesterday, during New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie's press conference, in which he announced that he would not participate in the Republican presidential race, the issue of him being obese was discussed and whether it is appropriate for a reporter to write about it and if it affects his job performance.

Since he is a public figure and a role model, I think that his weight is an issue that should be discussed, especially with the invention of recent government programs like first lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Campaign, which was created to help get our youth active and reduce the extremely high rates of childhood obesity found in America.

 According to the statistics, over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled, and today, nearly one in three children in America are overweight or obese. The numbers are even higher in African American and Hispanic communities, where nearly 40% of the children are overweight or obese. In his state alone the obesity rate is 28.1 %. As governor how can he promote programs like Let’s Move when he’s not doing anything about his own weight issues. So for Christie to say “it is ignorant for the people who consider themselves to be serious commentators to say that he is undisciplined because of his weight,” is ridiculous, when it is actually an issue that should be discussed; because he is creating the illusion to some children that it is ok to be obese and unhealthy just because he is a politic.