We all have someone in our lives that we need to forgive. Its a good idea every once in a while to think back and forgive the people that have hurt you so that you don’t hold grudges against people. When you hold a grudge it can affect your life in ways that your not sure off. When you release that anger it allows you to feel free and happier. It’s also good so that you can be friends with as many people as possible. No one wants a bunch of people hating them. The video we watched today was interesting. The guy seemed to have a good grasp on the topic of forgiveness and he led us through the process fairly well. He said you need to forgive yourself before you forgive others, which is a very valid point. The only thing i though was weird was the triangle that he played at the end, it was to loud and disturbed me.
Embrase Your Inner Girl…Freewrite
Eve Ensler’s message focuses on how Girls are mistreated and undermined in the world. Girls are suppressed and do not get the same advantages as men. She states that everyone has an inner girl that we sometimes keep hidden. She is telling everyone to embrace your inner girl and be strong and confident. Eve’s message differs from others that we have heard this term because it focuses on feminism and the exploitation of girls and their sexuality all around the world. Eve describes through different stories how girls are sexually abused and in some other countries they are cut or sold in slavery for something as simple as a few cows and some other unimportant items. Eve’s message is also very similar to a lot of other social justice issues we have learned about this year. Women are just another group of people, like the Lokota Indians, who are mistreated around the world. All people should be created equal and have the same opportunities but in reality many people do not get these opportunities. In other counties many women do not get any justice at all. Some women are abducted and sold into sex trafficking, some women are sold as slaves and many others are looked down.
Research Process
So far the research process for me has been a pain in the butt. I have never liked researching and I still don’t like it. It’s very tedious to have to look up sources and then read them all to make sure you can use the information. If you need a lot of sources, you then have to find a bunch of different ones that don’t have the same information, which can be a hard thing to do because most of them say relatively the same things. Also I have only found one database that I like that actually pulls up decent sources and that is Academic Researcher. I have found a decent amount of information on this site, or at least enough to do my annotations, but a lot of the information is relatively the same. I think this research is proving difficult because I can not use the internet and I am use to googleing everything. The one thing I do like about using the database though is that it has a tab that will cite your sources for you and thats always nice to not have to do. As for my topic, I am finding it very interesting. I knew a basis about it but I never really understood the background on the information and what it was that they made the child soldiers do. All I can do is keep researching topics so that I get a broad perspective as well as detailed information.
Annotated Bibliography
Deanna Tutrani
Professor Harmon
Composition
10 October 2012
Annotated Bibliography
“Childhood’s End.” Vanity Fair 545 (2006): 58. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 10 Oct. 2012.
In this editorial from Vanity Fair Magazine, the author explains in detail what being a child soldier entails, and how Joseph Kony brainwashes them. He describes this through interviews he conducted with child refugees in the town of Gulu, Africa. One of the children, James, explains how he was savagely beat with a wire lash and then was forced to take part in murdering children who were too tired to walk any farther. He states, “First we had to watch, then we had to join in the beatings until they died”(James 2). The author also focuses on the background of Joseph Kony, showing what his beliefs are and how he uses them to manipulate the children. Kony claims to be following the Old Testament and imposing the Ten Commandments throughout Africa. Kony is predicted to have multiple personality disorder, and he believes he is profit mistaking his dreams for prophecies. The author goes on about how Kony deceives his followers and the Ugandan government. This source can be used in my paper to answer my research question, What happens to child soldiers once they are taken, and how does this affect them later in life? It can also help me to understand how Kony brainwashes the children, and why he thinks he is doing good for the people of Africa.
Dunson, Donald H. “The Child Soldiers Of Gusco.” America 186.2 (2002): 12. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 10 Oct. 2012.
In this article, “The Child Soldiers of Gusco”, Dunson relays first hand interviews he conducted with children at Gusco camp. Gusco camp is the Gulu United to Save the Children Organization, which is a nongovernmental organization whose camp in Uganda houses about 50 former child soldiers. Dunson also describes the lost identities of child soldiers and focuses on what happens to some of the girls who are taken by the LRA. Firstly, you learn how the children’s emotions and personalities are altered because of their trama. The methods of the LRA are to destroy deep personal feelings and human intuitions so that they can desensitize the children and make them killers. On another note, the LRA also exploits young women. Once they are captured they are usually used as sex slaves for the high ranking officers. If these young girls do return they usually end up coming back with STD’s or an unwanted child, not to mention personal trama and scaring. This article will be used in my paper to give me an insight on how the LRA rips away a child’s innocence and how they exploit these children and make them follow orders.
Smith, Gary. “Child Soldiers And The Lord’s Resistance Army.” America 190.11 (2004): 13.MasterFILE Premier. Web. 10 Oct. 2012.
This magazine article, “Child Soldiers and the Lords Resistance Army,” focuses mainly on the background of the LRA, how they were founded, what they believe, and who is involved with them. Many of the head members of the LRA are between the ages of 16-25. They usually outsmart the Ugandan Army which explains why they have not been taken down yet. When the Ugandan Army goes after them they do end up killing some of the members but those are usually the children. Smith also describes one of the abductions that took place at a parish. He states how the children and adults were woken in the middle of the night and told to run out of the compound. Most of the adults that were taken and did not escape would be killed for the children to witness. Amidst all of horror, there are still people out there trying to help states Smith. Among these are the JRS or Jesuit Refugee Service, who helps refugees mainly from Sudan and Northern Uganda who have been affected by the LRA. This article will be used to help me to understand the background of the LRA and how they operate. I will also use it to understand the JRS and their efforts in helping the refugees who must flee from the LRA.
Library 101
During this library session we looked at how to look up accurate information through databases. Unfortunately people on the internet have to lie and make facts up about whatever they feel like, so not all online websites are accurate. Thanks to these lovely people, they have ruined it for the rest of the researching world. The fact that some online websites are not credible reflects badly upon the entire internet, banning it from research papers. But of course this is for good reason. You wouldn’t want wrong information being published in a formal research paper, especially one that weighs heavily upon your grade. Anyway, during this library session we looked at a few of the different databases that the library offers us as students. In total there are about 50 or so databases available to us for research. Some of the ones that I found were useful was academic search complete, CQ researcher, ebsco host and CREDO researcher. These will be useful because they focus on human rights issues and international topics. They also have a lot of different credible information from newspapers, periodicals and journals. The databases also provide for us an easy way to cite the sources so that we can ensure we are not plagiarizing any information, and that the citation is properly cited.
Huey and the Lakota Indians
By the looks of it Aaron Huey finds the treatment of the Lakota Indians to be an injustice. He describes how the Lakota moved off their land to prisoner of war camps, which would be the reservation. As we all know Genocide is a social Injustice and that is exactly what we did to the Indians. It may not seem like it but we did in fact commit a Genocide. We pushed them out of their land, we murdered them, we brought disease and we took a lot of their food and crops. The Native Americans did not have social justice at all. In this case social Justice for them would be obtaining the land that was theirs, and being re-payed for what we have destroyed. Many of the Lakota Indians on the Reservation are living below the poverty line. There houses are cluttered and dirty, children have to bath in the sinks, and the living conditions are beyond unsafe. Many of the children don’t even get to live their lives, the infant mortality rate is very high. Another sad thing is that a lot of the Lakota Indians are unemployed and unable to find jobs. Huey shows all of this turmoil through pictures that he took of the Reservation. He also describes all of the uprisings, treaties and Acts that were set between the Americans and the Indians. By the looks of it, during the 1800’s there was a lot of wars between the Indians and Americans and there were a lot of treaties and Acts made that were not always kept. America delt the Indians a lot of broken promises. There were many times where the US invaded the Native Americans land because they had something like Gold that we wanted. And a lot of the times America never apologized or took responsibility for the situation.
Social Justice/Injustice
Once again we are on the topic of Justice. As I have stated many times before Justice is unachievable. There is no way to completely satisfy every party in a situation, therefore no one will feel like they have achieved justice. In Brian Stevenson’s TED talk “We need to talk about an Injustice,” He has some good points yet some bad ones. He talks about how there are many people on death row, how children are given life with out parole for certain crimes and how there is a poverty cycle. For the people put on death row, he claims that a lot of it has to do with race. He says that if a white man is victim and criminal then they are 11 times more likely to get put to death. If a white man is the victim and a black man is the criminal then they are 22 times more likely to get put on death row. Death is a serious punishment for a crime. No judge and jury will put someone to death unless they absolutely deserve it. If there are any doubts then the chances are they won’t put them on death row. I do not agree with the statement that some criminals are mis judged and put on death row because of their race. It’s not because of their race that they were put on death row, it’s because of what they did. The reason he believes African Americans are more likely to be put on death row is because their are more of them committing crimes. I do not want to sound racist at all. But coming from a family where my mom is a crime scene detective, I hear a lot of stories and most of the crimes that are commited where she works are from the African American community. Stevenson actually talks about the reason for this. He says that these people are stuck in a poverty cycle, which is one hundred percent true. When this life style is all you know and you watch your parents grow up with it, then of course that is how you are going to live your life too. And that is an injustice in itself. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to live a fair life, but it’s not like the government is doing much to help certain people. Sure there are some programs like welfare and what not, but is that really helping someone get out of poverty? NO. “It’s like the saying if you give a man a fish he he has food for a day, but if you teach a man to fish then he will have food for a lifetime.”
An end to Bone
The main conflict in Bastard out of Carolina was man vs. man. The climax of the story happened the night Daddy Glen decided to rape Bone in the hospital parking lot. This is where the story took a turn for the worst. After this all you read about is the downfall of Bone and her emotions and everything that she has to go through, which is when the conflict also turns into man vs. self. The conflict in this book is never revolved. At the end of the book Bone gets beat and raped very badly by Glen. Her mother walks in and finds her and takes her to the hospital. After that you see Bone and her mother “trying” to work things out. But at the end of the story Bone’s mother just decides to go back to Glen even after all that he did to Bone.
Bone also changed throughout this book drastically. In the beginning she was just a normal little girl doing things that a little girl would do . But after Daddy Glen rapes her she starts to become hard inside. Her whole attitude and personality change. She becomes meaner and her face becomes harder and angrier. She closes her self off to people and to the world. She doesn’t want to allow anyone in because she just knows they’ll disappoint her. When the rapping’s start Bone also just lets them happened and she doesn’t yell or try to get away. This continues throughout the book until the last rape scene. At this point Bone just doesn’t care anymore and she decides that she is going to try and fight. When Daddy Glen is attacking her she talks back to him, she stabs him with a knife and she trys to yell to get someone’s attention. At the end I think Bone learned that she has to stand up for herself and she has to move on and start a new life. She also learned not to expect much from people and that life is going to disappoint her. (Not a very good discovery I might add). The one thing I was surprised about at the end was that Bone’s mother goes back to Daddy Glen. Actually I can’t say I was surprised but I am just disappointed that the mother would do that to her own daughter. What kind of mother goes back to someone who beats, rapes and wants to kill her daughter.
Conflict in Bastard out of Carolina
The conflict of the main character Bone in Bastard out of Carolina is man vs. man and man vs. self. Man vs. self would be that conflict that Bone has with herself. She thinks that she is worthless and that all the bad things that Daddy Glen does to her is her own fault. She also feels ashamed of what she does to herself (masturbating) and she feels ashamed because of what Daddy Glen does to her. Now this is another conflict all in itself. Daddy Glen vs. Bone would be a man vs. man conflict. Daddy Glen sexually abuses, rapes and hits Bone all the time. Bone never fights back she just lets it happen to herself, which connects to her man vs. self conflict. The book is mainly about how Bone is struggling and how she is afraid of Daddy Glen. She always wants to run away from him and stay out of his way when he’s home.
Unfortunately for Bone, I don’t see this conflict getting any better or being resolved. I feel like this book has no happy ending and that she is never going to tell anyone about what is happening to her. Because of this neither of these conflicts will get resolved. I would have to say that my favorite scene in the book so far is in Chapter 8 on page 108-109. During this scene Bone is explaining her fear of Daddy Glen and how it is getting stronger and stronger. This scene also ties in greatly with the man vs. man conflict. Bone explains how Glen takes advantage of her and acts like he’s angry but then he rapes her or sexually abuses her. Also she tries to explain or put a reasoning behind why Glen does these things to her when there really is no reason at all. I just like the descriptions and details Allison uses during this scene to show the terrible relationship between “father” and daughter.
A walk in the woods…
During this “wisdom” walk I was able to find a place to start with. I started in my favorite scene in nature, I was sitting in the middle of the woods on a dirt path, the sun was shining brightly and warming my skin ever so much. It was clean in the woods, there was no one around, the trees stretched to the skies but the light still shown through them, and there was a little creek with water running downstream to the side. As I went on my walk in the woods I did indeed find a talking tree. It was extremely tall and had a large round base. It looked like the tree from the movie Pochohantus. It had wrinkles in on it and was light gray in color; it looked like it had been around for hundreds of years. The tree didn’t have anything to say to me, the minute you mentioned a talking tree my mind shut down and thought this is stupid, trees don’t talk to people. So at this point I just looked at the tree and didn’t imagine it telling me anything. As I kept walking there was a doorway with many doors. I opened the first door and to no surprise there was a king sized bed inside. (Clearly you can see where my mind was). There was a squirrel inside too and the room had dirt walls. The bed was made of gold and had red sheets and a white comforter. It looked like somewhere Whinnie the Pooh would live. When I tried to walk into the room something kept pushing me back and telling me I wasn’t allowed in there. Maybe it was the talking tree? So soon after I decided to leave and walk back to my original spot which was so peaceful and relaxing, I think I’ll visit there more often.
Deetutrani 