Tweak post 4

After going back to L.A. to live in his old apartment and receive help from his old friend Spenecer, everything seems to go right for a while. He starts going to rehab meetings, succesfully gets through the withdrawl symptoms, gets a job that spencer offers him at a buety salon as a receptionist. As a part of the "12 step prgoram" which is the rehab program aimed at staying sober, a crucial and early step is accepting that a higher power has control over what happens to him and he needs to ask for guidence from that higher power. This has been a problem thorughout the book that nic just doesn't beleive in god. He truly doesn't, but with the help of Spencer and constantly trying to talk to god through prayer Nic eventually starts beleiving in him. He starts riding his bike a lot like he used to before he relapsed this last time. He rides very far almost every day and almost becomes an addiction or habit. He realizes that without the excersize in the morning the rest of the day he is too anxious and can't do anyhting as calmly. This is a much better addiction to have but shows me as the reader that he is not over addiction he just temporarily switched what he is addicted to. He meets up with some old friends from rehab at 12 step meeting and this proves to be good for him. He is back socializing which he didn't do for a while. However Spencer becomes very ill with spinal meningitis which could prove deadly. This is a test to Nic I beleive and I think if Spencer dies there is a good chance that Nic will go back to using. That's becuase Nic has completely turned his life around and stands for everyhting good in his life and his strength to get rid of his addiction. This past 50 pages really showed me how hard it really is to get off of drugs. Not only the physical pain but also getting a job is hard for a recovering drug addict and getting used to normal life again is a real struggel. Without the help of Spencer I hihgly doubt he would've completed becoming sober.

Tweak response #3

After introducing his girlfriend to heroine and she overdoses and has to go to the hospital, her parents find out about the overdose. Having overcome drug problems in the past and been sober this relapse really scared her parents. They tell her that she must go see a drug counselour and go to rehab. Originally Nic was going to go with her to the rehab and they were going to become sober together. Nic talks to his friend from L.A. who talks him into coming back there becuase he has an apartment there. Nic realises that going to rehab with his girlfriend would be bad for bothhem becuase they won't be able to get sober together. That's becuase when they are together they both make each other want to use. Nic, with his last $300 goes to the airport and gets a plane to L.A. wehre he got picked up by his friend. His friends name is Spencer who used to also use and became sober. He tells Nic that he is going to take him to rehab meetings where people talk about their journy to becoming sober. Even right after he goes through the worst of the withdrawl symptoms he still thinks a lot about the drugs that he left behind. It seeems to me that he will relapse atleast one more time in the future. This is scary becuase he talks in the book about how if he did relapse too soon then he would just die of overdosing.

Tweak response #2

After Nic starts dealing meth with his dealer he realizes some of the dangers of dealing. One time a customer didn't give him enough money so he went back and had to threaten him before getting his money. That could've been any crazy meth head who isn't afraid to stab or kill someone and he could've been the victim of that. Another problem that comes up is he is using more than he is selling, has an expensive heroine addiction, hasto pay for his girlfriends and friends drugs and other expenses prove costly. During this time he also introduces heroine to his girlsfriend. After about a week of her using it she overdoses and almost dies. This shows the dangers of the types of drugs that they were using every day. A combination of this, him running out of all of his savings, and other things he decides to become sober he leaves his girlfriend who was getting ready to go to rehab and goes back to where he lived when he was sober a month before. It had only been a day and he was going through terrible withdrawl symptoms. This is one reason why  a lot of people don't quit drugs and other people don't realize their danger. Not only do they need to have the will to quit the one thing they feel they need to survive, but also they need to have the will power to get through the withdrawl symptoms from the drugs.

Tweak response #1

The book that I chose for outside reading is called Tweak by Nic Sheff. It starts out with him talking about a girl that he used to date in high school talking about how his drug addiction, like I imagine is true for so many others, started in high school with weed and drinking. He was a great student and felt that after all of his hard work he deserved to smoke weed on ocassion. Then he talks about how he had been sober for 18 months straight before he just recently relasped. He then goes through his life day by day since he had relapsed often having flashbacks where you learn a lot about the other charecters and his life. He is addicted to mainly cystal meth, but also uses heroine, pills, and drinks heavily. He picks up dealing meth with his dealer to pay for his habit and talks about some of the horros of drugs. The part that is most interesting to me is how normal all of these things were to him. In poor places like places not far from deerfield addiction is a part of a lot of peoples lives. There is a nasty vicious circle that goes along with addiction. Eventually he would always end up stealing from friends and loved ones, often had nowhere to sleep becuase no one wanted to enable him, getting a job was very difficult and keeping one harder, and people like his girlfriend or only friend and drugdealer constantly pressuring him into using.

Abortion

People who are for abortion call people who aren't for abortion anit-choice. They make a good point that people who are against abortion will do anything to make abortions harder for the women to acess no matter the circumstances. They don't take into account if the woman was raped, has AIDS that could transfer to the baby, has a drug addiction that could transfer to the baby, if she's homeless, and countless other circumstances that would only get worse with a baby involved. The other side who call themselves pro-life or right to life also have a good point. It is somewhat like killing the person, you are taking away all of the chances of the child. They can argue that in some cases the person who aborts on the baby will regret that choice but in well over half the women is happy that she had an abortions. I think that the pro-choice side is winning becuase it has been ever since Roe V. Wade. Until that gets overturned or changed I think that they will still be winning the debate. I think that as a 17 or 18 year old girl who wants an abortion their parents should be informed of the abortion. That is for the reason that the parents should know what is going with their kids lives and if they are having a baby. I don't think that they should have consent. That is becuase the woman who is having the baby is the one who knows best what is the best option for her. If she thinks that she needs an abortion and her parents don't in the end it is her body, the kid would be her responsibility, and therefore doesn't need the consent of her parents. With the issue of the father knowing and consenting it i feel the same way about the consent that it should be the womans ultimate decision. But for the father being notified I don't think that should be necesary. If she hasn't told him then they aren't on good terms or she doesn't want him to know for some reason which I think is o.k. The Illinois laws are about as good as I think the abortion laws are going to be. There will never be a law that everyone agrees with, or works for everyone, I don't think. If there was a simple solution we would've already found it.

Death Penalty part 3

After reading the whole process behind a criminal getting the death penalty I see that there are more steps than I thought. This makes the chance of prosecuting an innocent man less likely. This doesn’t guarantee that all criminals are guilty, but it is the best I think that we can do without saying that half of the people convicted are innocent. One step that is designed to help less innocent people have to go to trial is the preliminary hearing where the prosecutor shows evidence to the court that must prove to be sufficient. Another step is the defendant’s case where the defendant has a chance to respond to the evidence against him that the prosecutors provided. This helps get the convicts half of the story.

After learning about the different types of execution that could be used, the most humane seems to be the lethal injection that all but one of the states that have the death penalty use. Out of all of the ways to be executed the least-humane seems to be hanging. This often times breaks the victims neck before strangling them of all of their oxygen. That being said I think that we should use the cheapest way of executing people which I doubt is the lethal injection. None of the other remaining ways are much more inhumane than the others and who says that they deserve to die in a humane way. Sure it is in the Constitution but there are other rights that are taken away when people are convicted of a crime like when they go to jail. Unless a murderer goes out of their way to make the death of their victim more pleasant, I don’t think that we should makes there’s more pleasant. Having in-humane death penalties could prevent even more crime than the humane one because it is not a good way to die. With the lethal injection they have nothing to fear because they won’t feel any pain so they are less afraid of the punishment making them more likely to commit the crime.

There is a lot of data about what types of people were on death row and it is hard to draw conclusions from these numbers. For example there are about the same blacks on death row and white people. This may seem like obvious discrimination towards blacks since there are so many less of them and yet there are the same amount of death row, but there are other factors that come to mind like what percentage of murderers are blacks which I’m sure is higher than the percentage of whites just because there are so many more white people in America and the same amount on death row. One thing that I can conclude is that the numbers of women are not even a percentage of the amount of men and yes fewer women commit murders than men but I think there is more to it. I think people would feel worse about putting a woman to death as opposed to a man which is unjust. One other conclusion that I came to is that there are a lot more people on death row than I thought. This forces me to believe that out of the thousands of people there have to be at least a couple who don’t deserve it. This goes back to a quote I remember that said I would rather set 100 criminals free than have 1 wrongly accused. After looking at all of the charts, despite the raw data there is more to it than those pie charts. I don’t think that race is involved in the decision of whether or not to give the death penalty, I could see this happening in the past when there was more racism in America, but now decisions need good reasoning. That makes the execution of one race or mostly just executing one race impossible.

Clifford Boggess execution

There are a lot of people who say that the death penatly is a good solution to extreme crimes that jail doesn't justify. They say this without looking at the criminal as a person but as the crimes that they commited. The reason I think we watched this film was to get to know Clifford as a person before we see him get killed so we can realize everyone who is killed by the death penalty are people too who made a mistake. I still think that he deserved the death penatly even though there were a lot of signs that showed that he was a good person. He strudied the bible, was a devoted christian, admitted that he had done the crimes, and he doesn't seem like a danger to society. However none of these things matter. He killed the two victimes simply for money and he didn't seem like a threat to society when he commited the crimes. No matter how much anyone changes in prison or the size of a relization they have, they are still a danger to society if they could've received the death penalty. There were a lot of signs that showed that he was a danger to society. he didn't feel anything for the victims, he even kept a picture of one of their tombstones with him in his cell. He was sober and stomped on one of the mens face and chest. There are other things that show this too. It is cheaper for him to be killed instead of paying for his meals, him taking up a cell, and other costs associated with being a prisoner. Also, the woman who told police that he was the killer was scared for her life even moving every couple of months. Killing him was the only thing that could bring her peace of mind. Also, life in prison which would be the sentence that he would recieve if not on death row proves to be dangerous because the inmates have nothing to lose, he is clearly capeable of killing so why not kill a prison gaurd or another inmate. Also, he could escape, in the video there was a painting that he had and under it was a painting of the prison fence which was thought to be part of an escape plot. Some would argue that he is a value to society as a christian and as an artist. I say that he had his change in society which he messed up, and the ammount of good he can provide isn't even close to the amount of bad he has done, and can still do.