4 Sorces

4 Sources

  Kubby, Steve, and Ed Rosenthal. Why Marijuana Should Be Legal. New York: Thunder Mouth Press, 2003. Print.

 Gerdes, Louise. Marijuana. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 2002. Print.

 Piper, Bill. "Should the U.S Decriminalize Marijuana." Washington Times. (2009): n. page. Print. <www.washingtontimes.com>.

  White, Deborah. "Pros & Cons of legalizing Marijuana." About.com. (2009): n. page. Web. <www.usliberals.about.com>.

writing 6

Ashtin Strelke

Michael Benton

English 102

September 14, 2011

                My topic that I’m writing on is about how I think that the government should decriminalize small amounts of marijuana in the U.S. Some of my reasons behind why I think this topic is important is because of the whole court system thing like how if you get caught with a little marijuana you get a ticket and a court date and the day you go to court you see that 75 percent of the people are in the court room for their same plant, then after you set there for an hour they call you and tell that you got to pay a fine for getting high or that you got to take classes or even go to jail. The way that they got it set up is jacked up they need to change it because now in the 21 century all kind of people smoke marijuana from business people to just regular everyday people so it’s not just real criminals it’s everyday people and it effects their lives by having to miss work or pay a huge fine or even go to jail if it’s your third time getting caught. If they decriminalize small amounts the government could do the whole medical weed and tax the hell out of it and then by doing that they don’t have to send your everyday people to court to get their money. On this topic my audience would be people that smoke marijuana so I guess pot heads and occasional marijuana smokers. Another problem I have with the law is that if alcohol is legal than I think that weed should be because I’ve never seen anyone OD or die from weed but alcohol on the other hand has killed tons of people from drunk driving and all type of other ways if makes you do things that you wouldn’t do if you weren’t drunk and weed does nothing to you but make you hungry, happy, sleepy you can still drive a car if your high you can basically do everything the same and with that said I think that how alcohol is a choice so should marijuana.

by saying decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana I’m not saying that a person should be able to grow it at their house of be able to ride around with pounds on you but I’m saying that if you get pulled over with a little amount of weed that they should just let you go and not take it let you keep it and go on about your business. I really feel like marijuana is just a plant and its form mother nature and god put it here on earth so I think it should be ok to smoke it without having to go to court or having to pay a fine. I think the government would make a lot more money with medical marijuana than by taxing everybody with court cost that gets caught with it but I’m pretty sure some states are doing just fine with the court system bring in money.             

writing 5

Ashtin Strelke

Michael Benton

English 102 Debate

September 6, 2011

 In this article “Education and the Structural Crisis of Capital” the author John Bellamy Foster voiced his opinion about the school system. He disagreed with the structure of the school system because he felt it was based on capitalist economies, a dramatic shift to financialization and the concentration of capital on a global scale. These three things shouldn’t have been the way our school system works. In my opinion, I agree with author John Bellamy Foster, to which education should have been more opinionated. My three reasons will explain greatly about why I agree with this author and his opinions/facts about school education.

   First, the school system separates students by which how old they are, how intelligent they are, and the neighborhoods they live in. In which I thought schools are just for kids/teenagers to go and get their education without being criticized by the school system and the staff. Education is supposed to be provided by the administrators given to the schools by the school board but instead, students are put in competition by the labored staffs who only teach because of the money. The structural content of the education system is effortless to which the students deserve. Secondary and Postsecondary schooling shouldn’t be based on their intelligence, age, and maturity. This crisis caused a lot of destruction to students itself because the education system has convinced the students and parents that the separation of students such as” Special Education” is based on the student’s intellectual statements they make.

   Secondly, the Education system only made Secondary schooling depending on the development skills and not much knowledge. In which parents put the trust into the school system to teach the students instead of going off development skills. The education system is supposed to be based on “Education” put into the schools for students to learn and help grow more knowledge for them to become smarter and wiser for the their future holds. Instead, the structure of the schooling is a terrible mess. The whole purpose of the education system has made a U-turn in providing the materials needed for the success of the students’ knowledge growth.

  Last, the education system has also divided students up by financial goals. The more money that’s being invested into the schools, the better education they have. The less money invested, the less education they receive. Publicly speaking, what happened to “Free” education? I’ll tell you what happened. Our school system got caught up in materialistic things in their schools instead of providing what they were created for in the first place. School shouldn’t be about how much it cost to get into a good school for better education, it should be about how much knowledge they received that will be put into their future.

               In conclusion, Author John Bellamy Foster, in my opinion, made a good point about the education system and they have changed dramatically over the years and why. We as a country need to change the way teaching works and how they are going to affect the students’ lives. Teach because you want younger people to succeed, not because you want money. Separation in the school’s shouldn’t be about their academics and their skills and how much money their willing to pay. The school system needs to change or ratings for students succeeding will keep going down.

              

writing 2

Ashtin Strelke

Michael Benton

Eng 102

August 24, 2011

                What Julian Assange is doing with his website wikileaks is something that I think is great for the American people and is something that I think should have been done a long time ago. Somebody needed to show Americans what really is going on with our government besides what they show us in the newspaper or on the news. Julian website got his first big break when he released a video of U.S. helicopter gunship killing 12 Iraqi civilians. Now this is something that the government want release on the news but they’ll show you when U.S. troops die. Which is U.S. troops are over there killing civilians than I think that the government needs  to show both sides of the story not just the Iraqi civilians killing our troops but are troops killing innocent Iraqi civilians, Shortly after the release of the video Wikileaks published 90,000 U.S. military war logs of the war in Afghanistan.  After doing so Wikileaks hit its biggest leak ever when they published 390,000 classified U.S. documents on the war in Iraq. With all the things the government hides from us I think that it’s good to have someone that will basically stand up for the American people and show us what’s really going on inside the government. Because the government wants to run things how they want to and not what’s right for all the civilians in America. They hide things from us and try to manipulate our minds to think a sertain way about the government and what’s going on in the world they would never tell the people what’s really going on so that’s why I like what Julian is doing with his website by hacking the government and showing the people what really going on. Julian efforts of showing Americans what’s really going on in the government got him targeted by U.S. and other governments around the world.

writing 4

Ashtin Strelke

Michael Benton

Eng. 1202

August 31, 2011

                In the video changing education paradigms they talk about a lot of things concerning education. Such as school being set up as a factory lines other than a place to learn. They also talk about how kids are losing focus in school because of all the distractions they have and the teachers are saying it’s not the distraction that something is wrong with the kid and that they need to take the kid and drug them up so they can focus. They also talk about things like classification, standardized testing, and how the current school system is designed for a different age.  

                The way the video talks about the school system being like a factory line is by the ringing bells, separate subjects, and educating by batches of the same age group. I feel like the school systems does do this in a way  they do just throw us in with people our same age and like the video said who’s to say that kids learn better with people the same age or in batches some kids might learn better on their own than in a group. They talk about how teachers are trying to say that there is something wrong with someone’s kid because they can’t focus in school and they say they have ADHD when really nothing is wrong with them it’s just that the way their teacher the kids is boring and if it’s boring the kids are less likely to stay focus and with all the electronics that kids have accesses to it’s hard for them to focus. The thing that I hate the most about the school system is standardized testing I don’t think that a test can tell how smart you are or how you are going to learn. I think that it is something that they need to take out of the school system.

                In the article Communique form an absent future they talk about how universities set people up to be in debt in the long run. They talk about how a university diploma is worthless now days. They also talk about how we work for jobs we already have. How the universities set us up to be in debt is that they let you take out these loans that they throw interest on it and it just builds up over time and most people die owing on student loans. Why a university diploma is worthless now days is because after you graduate if you didn’t pick a job in high demand than it very difficult to find a job and how we work for jobs we already have is most students in college have jobs and when they graduate they can’t find a job so their stuck working the same job they had the whole time.

                In both of these they are against the schools and how we run things in this country. in changing education paradigms they look all ages of school while in communique form an absent future they just focus on how messed up the universities are. But I’m on the side of both of them I totally agree with what both of them are saying I feel like standardized testing, and giving drugs to kids are wrong and that they school is set up like a factory line. I also agree with communique form an absent future with how the universities are setting us up for failure with the student loans and worthless diplomas.

Writing 3

Someplace like America is about seeing things throught the eyes of regular people in America that went through the great depression and other hard times. They traveled around the country interviewing and photographing workers white collar and blue collar whose lives were growing worse. Springsteen talks about when he first wrote the book it was about the then raging bubble economy, but then things took a turn for the bad when in 2008 when the stock market tanked and two years after officials brag that another great depression has been avioded but nothing was done for workers and low-income Americans.

He talks about how america has been taking care of the wealthy for the last 30 years and not helping the low class with jobs and things. He says that the country is in a depression and we been in one for a very long time and the word great recession is misleading because if we appiled it to what went on in 1930 the great depression was technically two great recession. He says one thing that he discovered about American people is that there strong and survivors. I think a book like this has needed to be done to show what regular people go through with losing their jobs and becoming homless.

I think that the government is messed up. They just take care of the wealthy and could carless about the poor and it keeps getting harder on the poor and the middle class. People in the middle class are losing jobs and losing homes and becoming homless. The way they traveld around the country and interviewed regular people that were affected by thy economy is something that you don't hear about everyday if you hear about the economy they never talk or show how it affects everyday people out here. This book breaks down a little of what regular americans went through during the great depression and what their still going through with the economy today.

quiz

where are you from?
I'm from louisville
what's your experience writing?
i hate writing but can do it
what do you care about/religion?
my religion is baptist i care about family and having fun
what culture or music?
hip hop
why are you in college?
to get a better job in life.

political compass