I find it shocking on how often I seem to find myself reading about horrible events like the shooting at the school in Parkland, Florida. I am sure most of you, if not all of you, have been seeing the coverage around the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, but here is some basic information. A nineteen year old male opened fire at the high school on Wednesday. He killed seventeen people with an AR-15, a semi-automatic weapon.
This morning in my cultural diversity class, our topic of discussion surrounded the shooting and gun control in the United States. I realize that there are a lot of controversies and issues surrounding this topic, and I am not going to take any specific side in this post. I simply wanted to share some of what we talked about in class.
My professor had only planned for the discussion to take about ten minutes or so, but, to her surprise, the discussion took thirty minutes and would have gone the whole class time if she had not had us move on to today's activity. The students had all kinds of different views on gun control. Some were completely for it and could not be swayed to see the other side of the discussion. Others were completely against it and did not see any benefit in guns being so available to people. Some were somewhere in between the two views. The discussion began to get pretty heated among the class, but at the end of it all the questions that remained were: when do tragedies like the Parkland shooting stop? and should weapons of a military level be available to people outside of the military? No one could provide the right answer.
The discussion left me thinking. I learned that since the start of 2018 there have been eighteen school shootings in the U.S. alone. It is truly tragic. Last night, the principal at the high school I attended and the one my siblings currently attend sent out an email to all of the families. He said that he sadly is not able to promise that something like the shooting in Florida will not happen at this high school or in the surrounding community. It is scary to think like this but that is the world we seem to live in. I don't know what needs to happen for this to stop being the case, but I know we can always hope for a safer future.
Friday, February 16, 2018
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
Maze Runner: The Death Cure
Since the first movie of the Maze Runner series premiered in 2014, this series of films has been one of my favorites. It became a tradition to go watch each film with my sister and three of my cousins as soon as it premiered in theaters. We would wait for months for the announcement of the premiere date for the next film and make plans to go see it as soon as it was announced. After having watched the second movie, we waited in anticipation for the third and final film. There was so much that still needed to be answered and revealed. However, this third film took the longest time to be released because of an accident one of the actors suffered on set, but it finally premiered on January 26, 2018, over two years after the premiere of the second film in the series.
I had the chance to see Maze Runner: The Death Cure on Saturday, January 27. I walked into the theater full of excitement and walked out with watery eyes. The movie was nothing like I expected it to be, but it did answer almost all of the questions I still had. I would say it was a lot better than what I had expected because it ended very unexpectedly. The movie was about two and a half hours long and filled with action and suspense. Although the plot took some turns that I didn't see coming ( and didn't necessarily like), I thought it was very well done and worth the wait.
If you are fan of the Maze Runner series, or are looking for movies to watch, I highly recommend this movie and the rest of the series. It is a fantasy/science fiction series with a story line that had me wanting to keep watching. I'll leave the trailer to the final film below.
I had the chance to see Maze Runner: The Death Cure on Saturday, January 27. I walked into the theater full of excitement and walked out with watery eyes. The movie was nothing like I expected it to be, but it did answer almost all of the questions I still had. I would say it was a lot better than what I had expected because it ended very unexpectedly. The movie was about two and a half hours long and filled with action and suspense. Although the plot took some turns that I didn't see coming ( and didn't necessarily like), I thought it was very well done and worth the wait.
If you are fan of the Maze Runner series, or are looking for movies to watch, I highly recommend this movie and the rest of the series. It is a fantasy/science fiction series with a story line that had me wanting to keep watching. I'll leave the trailer to the final film below.
Friday, January 26, 2018
Documentary Reflection: After Innocence
1. A specific scene that got to me was when Vincent Moto, a man who was wrongly convicted for ten years, was talking about how he could not be a father in prison because he had nothing to give to his child. He explained that he could only be a dad who talked about his kid, but he could not actually do anything to better the life of his child. The scene made me feel really angry because this man was an innocent man who was paying for another person's crime, and his child was paying for it too because they took her father from her. I was mad that a mistake in the criminal justice system was affecting the life of a child who needed to have her father to care for her and to guide her as she grew up and experienced life. Instead, she went years without the presence of her father.
It was made clear that cases like these affect the family of the person who is wrongly convicted just as much as the person who is convicted. Families will spend years without their loved one because of mistakes made in the criminal justice system. I cannot imagine what it must feel like to know a loved one is innocent and not be able to do much to prove their innocence. It is sad to know both the families and the wrongly imprisoned lost years and years of valuable time together.
2. Something that surprised me in the film was the case of Wilton Dedge. In this case, DNA evidence had already proven him innocent, but the criminal justice system basically ignored this fact for over three years. It was very clear that this man was innocent, but they still took more years from his life, in addition to the many years they had already taken from him, before they set him free.
The people that were fighting to prove Dedge's innocence worked so hard to make a case, but it was just pushed aside and argued against. It shocks me that people were perfectly fine with continuing to convict a man who had done nothing in order to not admit that they made a mistake. I do not know how someone could continue to live life without feeling guilt for imprisoning an innocent man.
3. After viewing the film, I still wonder how much of a change these men have managed to make in regards to fighting for those who are wrongly imprisoned and if the criminal justice system has done anything to prevent more cases like those of these men. I am still a little shocked as to finding out how many people are wrongly imprisoned in the United States because I never imagined it to be such a high number.
I would like to continue to research cases of others who are wrongly imprisoned. I found this to be a very interesting subject that turns out to be more common than I imagined it to be. I would like to research more current statistics, facts, and cases of the wrongly imprisoned today and what is being done to help their cases.
It was made clear that cases like these affect the family of the person who is wrongly convicted just as much as the person who is convicted. Families will spend years without their loved one because of mistakes made in the criminal justice system. I cannot imagine what it must feel like to know a loved one is innocent and not be able to do much to prove their innocence. It is sad to know both the families and the wrongly imprisoned lost years and years of valuable time together.
2. Something that surprised me in the film was the case of Wilton Dedge. In this case, DNA evidence had already proven him innocent, but the criminal justice system basically ignored this fact for over three years. It was very clear that this man was innocent, but they still took more years from his life, in addition to the many years they had already taken from him, before they set him free.
The people that were fighting to prove Dedge's innocence worked so hard to make a case, but it was just pushed aside and argued against. It shocks me that people were perfectly fine with continuing to convict a man who had done nothing in order to not admit that they made a mistake. I do not know how someone could continue to live life without feeling guilt for imprisoning an innocent man.
3. After viewing the film, I still wonder how much of a change these men have managed to make in regards to fighting for those who are wrongly imprisoned and if the criminal justice system has done anything to prevent more cases like those of these men. I am still a little shocked as to finding out how many people are wrongly imprisoned in the United States because I never imagined it to be such a high number.
I would like to continue to research cases of others who are wrongly imprisoned. I found this to be a very interesting subject that turns out to be more common than I imagined it to be. I would like to research more current statistics, facts, and cases of the wrongly imprisoned today and what is being done to help their cases.
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