Harmless By Dana Reinhardt

One common theme between good and bad priests is that the vocation they were called to never seems to completely leave them. This is a common theme in Silence, by Shusaku Endo. In the beginning of the novel, the reader discovers that Ferreiera apostatized, giving up not only his roles as a priest but his faith in God as well. Although Ferreira abandoned the priesthood and gave up shepherding the few Catholics of Japan, he still continues “to be useful to others, [which] was the one wish and the only dream of one who had dedicated himself to the priesthood” . However, once he is reunited with Sebastian, “there flashed into his eyes a servile smile and momentary shame”. Here Ferreiera feels as though he has failed Sebastian because if he had not apostatized, Sebastian, acting as a good priest, would never have gone to Japan to save him.

“Just mercy” written by Bryan Stevenson is a story about “justice and redemption”(title). Bryan Stevenson tells the story about Walter McMillian a convicted murder. McMillian was unjustly charged for the murder of Ronda Morrison by Ralph Myers even though there was clear evidence that McMillian did not commit this murder. McMillian’s story proves the inequities in the American justice system, and Stevenson proves the faults in the system by telling McMillian’s story. “Proximity has taught me some basic and humbling truths, including this vital lesson: each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done”(17). When we judge people based on their person not the facts innocent people can be charged for crimes that they never committed, and that is where are justice system is unjust.

Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy, is a lawyer from the rural south that advocates for mostly children on death row. He spends most of his time in low income communities with next to no hope. His TED talk was based on his experiences in these communities, his career, and his knowledge regarding minorities while addressing his predominately financially stable, White audience. Trying to persuade an audience that is not effected by what you are trying to speak against is hard, however, Bryan Stevenson is able to do so. Bryan Stevenson’s 2012 TED talk uses ethos to persuade his audience by using his status as a prominent lawyer and an everyday person who many people know and can relate to with strong respectable values in life to prove himself as a trustworthy person in order to argue his point on how the American justice system distorts the truth racial discrimination in the system, as well as the poverty t faces. His use of ethos enables him to establish trust in his audience that can make a major difference in the justice system with most of them being well respected people in society.

The novel, Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson covers many aspects of the legal system, including Stevenson’s quest to get prisoners who were convicted as adolescents out of adult prison. Through Stevenson’s experiences, he sees first hand experience of children that are sent to adult prisons. Specifically he saw how the prisoners who were convicted as children revert to a very low mental state and often have a great deal of trouble readjusting if they are even remotely capable of doing so. One of these experiences that Bryan Stevenson encountered was with a young fourteen year old named Charlie and the impacts of an adult world in a child’s head. Children should never be pushed into adult prisons or receive adult punishments because of their lack of clear understanding of difficult situations.

This is similar to the book because the filthies are fighting for acceptance and respect. This is important to the youth because teenagers are going to need the ability to fight for respect.

Girl Interrupted is Susanna Kaysen 's memoir a series of recollections and reflections of her nearly two year stay at a residential psychiatric program at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. She looks back on it with a sense of surprise. In her memoir she considers how she ended up at McLean, and whether or not she truly belonged there. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of her experience. Founded in the late 19th century, McLean Hospital had been a facility for troubled members of wealthy and aristocratic families. By the late 1960s, however, McLean had fallen into a period neglect. This was a time of great change in the mental health care field. Kaysen grew up in a wealthy and prestigious family. Like most teenagers, she was rebellious at times, confused and unsure about her future. She didn’t want to go to college and slept with her high school English teacher. She witnessed firsthand the widening generation gap that was developing in the late 1960s. Older generations looked at Kaysen’s generation 's world with alarm.

In his memoir Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson recounts the stories of several clients whose mental illness was ignored during their trial. Some had intellectual disabilities, others were dealing with the aftermath of severe trauma, but each one was changed in some way. Whether their reasoning had been altered or they simply did not understand what was happening, any crime they committed was closely tied to their mental state. Logically, a major detail like the defendant’s thought process and motivation behind the crime would have been discussed, but this was not the case. Any evidence of their illness was forgotten about or outright ignored by both the prosecution and the defense. When considering each crime with their mental illness in mind, sentencing the defendant to death row is needlessly cruel. Their avoidance of the topic shows a complete failure to understand how important it can be to an individual’s decision-making abilities.

In this essay I intend to explore the narrative conventions and values, which Oliver Smithfield presents in the short story Victim. The short story positions the reader to have negative and sympathetic opinion on the issues presented. Such as power, identity and bullying. For example Mickey the young boy is having issues facing his identity. It could be argued that finding your identity may have the individual stuck trying to fit in with upon two groups.

Are some lives worth more than others? Are some lives worthy to be considered lives at all? Bryan Stevenson aims to answer that in his book Just Mercy. In it, he explores the American justice system and its systemic prejudice, whether it’s based on race, income, or gender. Stevenson is a lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), an Alabama-based nonprofit that aims to defend those who have been unfairly represented or unjustly imprisoned, and Just Mercy is a compilation of some of the cases he encountered during his time. Just Mercy is a collection of redemption and corruption--almost everyone he represents in the story finds their freedom from the unnecessarily harsh sentences they were given. In every other chapter he details the stories of multiple people punished by the legal system, including women and children. It is notable that throughout these chapters Stevenson emphasizes real, human connections with his clients to shine light on how distant and unjust the prison system is. In a system where these people are given subhuman treatment, Stevenson reaffirms their inherent dignity and cares for them. This has a profound effect on them and the people around them, seen especially in the cases of Charlie (Chapter 6), Joe Sullivan (Chapter 14), and Avery Jenkins (Chapter 10).

While reading the story Opening Skinners Box wrote by Lauren Slater there was a chapter that made me look at the world like I do and how sometimes the world relates to a story. The chapter was On Being Sane in Insane Places” while reading this chapter I seen and I was thinking that some of the things being said in the book was true. Sometimes people make wrong choices and they chose paths that lead them to bad consequence. Then we have those people that are born with this, bad consequences. Sometimes we have to face the world and how the world is. Sometimes it is not their fault that they are the way that they are. Some of them are just born that way because of their chromosomes that are way too much or some that don’t fully develop.

The novel that I have decided to make a report on is the book Ashfall by Mike Mullin. My reaction to the book Ashfall was "Wow, Alex is really brave". If I was in his situation , I don't think I would have reacted the way he reacted. Alex took control and focused on one thing and that was finding his family.

In chapter eight, Kill the Messenger, from Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century, the author Gary Delgado discusses how certain states do not follow a colorblind system that they claim to. Delgado first brings up the concept of colorblindness and how many conservatives claim that they live in a colorblind society. Many individuals who believe in colorblindness claim that people of color are now equal and that the racism, discrimination, murder, and exploitation they underwent in the past five centuries no longer matter (Martinez, LaBennett, & Pulido, 2012). They argue, however, that the only kind of racism there is, is reverse racism against whites. Delgado refutes this by claiming that just because more diversity is being put into governmental offices does not necessarily mean America as a whole is past its racist and discriminatory actions.

In “Everything Bad is Good for You” by Steven Johnson he explains in pages 175-199 that the Internet is significant in three courses as per Johnson: by excellence of being participatory, by compelling clients to learn new interfaces and by making new channels for social collaboration. Johnson gives a rundown of online collaborations that unite individuals and make them more intelligent. Johnson gives a "qualified yes" to the suggestion that motion pictures have experienced an indistinguishable change from TV. In chapter 5 of "The Shallows" Carr initially talks about how the Internet has supplanted first the printing press, photographs, sound, lastly video gadgets.

The novel, Girl, Interrupted is a memoir of author Susana Kaysen’s life and her journey through early adulthood as she suffered with Borderline Personality Disorder. The novel captures her time at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital located in Belmont, Massachusetts. Kaysen divides the novel into separate anecdotes of events and fellow patients she encountered during the two years she was admitted at Mclean.

One of the reasons that I like this book is that most all of the characters are near my age and could certainly relate.