Argument Essay for ENG 1010

In the article “Teens Locked Up for Life without a Second Chance,” Stephanie Chen describes the predicament of Quantel Lotts, who at fourteen years old, was convicted of the first degree murder of his stepbrother.  On a broader spectrum, this article is about the increase of minors being tried and convicted as adults and the injustice of such sentences.

In the article, Chen refers to (unspecified) attorneys who argue that life in prison without parole is “cruel and unusual punishment” for minors.  That could be taken one step further to say, “Life without parole is cruel and unusual punishment for a person of any age, but even more so for minors.”

Most children are in the midst of a self-imposed formation.  The majority of individuals spend their childhoods discovering who they are, how they fit in and where they fit into society.  By saying a person is an adult at eighteen, our society is also saying anyone under eighteen has not fully formed and is not ready to fully integrate, as an individual, into society.  At eighteen, an American individual is expected to be solely responsible for him/herself.  Children are assumed to be under the guidance of a legal guardian before they are eighteen.  This guardian is also to be held responsible for the child.

Prison is supposedly an institution of reform.  If we sentence anybody to life without parole, we as a society, are saying, “We are incapable or unwilling to help correct your behavior.”  In essence, we are giving up on this individual.  In some instances, there very well may be individuals who are beyond reform.  However, sending someone who is beyond reform to an institute for reform seems wasteful for the institution, the individual, those who believe the institution works, as well as for those funding the institution.

Change is something of which people of all ages are capable.  However, change is also directly connected to the willingness of the parties involved; the reformer and the reformee.  Of all people, children have proven to have the most potential for change.  Children up to the age of eighteen (and beyond) are in a transitive and constant flux of self-defining formation, hopefully under the watchful and corrective guidance of a guardian.  Sending an individual who has not fully “formed” to an institute of “re-form” seems hypocritical of our societal definitions of responsibility.

Every other child in America is the responsibility of their guardian.  How is it that we can make an exception for heinous crimes or any other case?  Why are the parents not being punished?  Why do the parents walk away without as much as a slapped wrist?  How is it that these sentenced minors are expected to shoulder the weight of their own responsibility when every other child can rely on their parents to shoulder it for them?

Of course, there are instances where the guardians cannot be held responsible, for instance, if they were the victims of their child’s heinous crime.  In these instances, there is still opportunity for the reformation of the minor.  To say any child is beyond reform without first trying is ignorant, weak, rash, unsupportive and defiant of the very idea of reform.

Life without parole is a costly and hypocritical sentence for everybody, let alone minors.  To what purpose do we “save” these people from death?  We have stripped them of their ability to re-integrate, to pay penance for their mistakes, to attempt correction, to be forgiven, to live, or to thrive.  Instead they will sit in a cell for the rest of their lives (which at fourteen is a long time) and rot.  Death, it seems, would be a more merciful sentence.  If these people’s lives are so worthless that we are giving up on them, why should we as tax payers, pay to keep these people alive?

When our justice system rules against the laws it is sworn to uphold, that system loses its integrity.  If we disregard the purpose of our prisons (reform) and we ignore who we say will be responsible for minors (guardians), we open the gates for a flood of “exceptions” and the integrity of our laws will dilute until they no longer serve a purpose.  There will always be another “exception” and we will continually refer to one exception in order to make another.

I Remember... First Vacation for ENG 1010

Irrational fears are difficult to explain, mostly because they’re not rational.  When I was a child, I was deathly afraid of witches.  I’m not sure where or when the seed was sown for this fear, but it matured into a full-fledged phobia.  I remember using the bathroom and opening the door before I flushed the toilet so I could more easily evade the witches escaping from the gurgling toilet.  With a little luck, my cat-like reflexes and a lot of running, I avoided the toilet witches every time.

During my struggle with this phobia, my family decided to go on vacation to visit my Grandparents in Southern California.  During this trip, my parents thought they would “treat” us kids with a trip to Disneyland.  I had never been to Disneyland before, but I knew what it was and my anxiety began growing.

By the time we reached the gates of Disneyland, I could barely contain my excitement and I’m sure my anxiety exhausted my parents before we’d finished walking the distance from the car to the gate.  We visited all the typical attractions, The Tiki Room, The Submarine Ride, Space Mountain, It’s a Small World, the Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean.  We even met Donald Duck and saw Michael Jackson’s Captain Eo in 3-D. 

Then we visited the Snow White ride.  Snow White might seem like an innocent and romantic story, but the story also has a witch.  Riding in a small vessel, in a confined area, in the dark and having the thing you’re most afraid of jump out at you is a terrifying ordeal, even if you are sitting next to the comfort and protection of your father.  Somehow, I made it through the ride but not undamaged.

I was traumatized for the rest of the day.  Suddenly all of the rides lost their appeal.  Between this traumatic experience, my ever growing anxiety and the heat of the day, the Spinning Tea Cups was a bad choice for the next ride.  I threw up and hated Disneyland for a long time after.

Essay: Annoying for ENG 1010

Being on fire is annoying.  Most of people have, at one point or another, burned some skin or singed some hair.  I have yet to meet someone who has burned some skin or singed some hair and was happy with the results.  Usually, they’re quite annoyed by this condition.  Now imagine the source of fire being you, yourself.  It’s annoying just thinking about it.

My physical self is not a source of fire, nor was it meant to be.  While I can’t say my body has ever really been the source of a fire, it has hosted a few.  Generally, my body is very comfortable in what has come to be accepted as typical “room temperature” (range of 68°F to 84°F).  Anything outside of this range is usually uncomfortable and can be quite annoying.  Since even the coolest fires average around 1,292°F, this puts me out of my comfort zone and into the annoyed zone.

I’ve heard stories of people who are, allegedly, the source of fires, usually smoldering slowly until the body is burnt to a crisp.  This “spontaneous combustion” has been a mystery for some time.  Nobody really understands it and unfortunately there are rarely, if any, survivors to describe how they are feeling (in fact, they suspect most victims are dead before combustion).  However, by transitive inference, I would imagine most of them would be annoyed, to say the least.  Also, there are historic records of people screaming anxiously while being on fire, most likely to vent their frustration.

While I have had a few brief episodes of being on fire, I’ve never been completely engulfed in flames.  My few instances have involved a small portion of my hair, my shoes and a pant leg.  In each instance, the fire was not only uncomfortable; it proceeded to destroy every article it touched.  As if the temperature weren’t annoying enough, the destruction of person and property conclusively categorizes “being on fire” annoying. 

I can, with certainty, say that I enjoy the state of “not being on fire.”  Not being on fire is much more comfortable and relaxed than the constant, irritable and anxious state of being on fire.

Free-Writing 15 for ENG 1010

Three things that annoy me are:

1. Being on fire.  It's not that I have anything against fire.  In fact, I'm fascinated by it.  But being on fire is just a little uncomfortable and annoying.  Someone else being on fire is funny.  It's always funny until it happens to you.
2. Fish.  I mean, who do they think they are?!! Breathing underwater and whatever.  This is earth, most of us "smart" animals breathe air.  Get with the program, fish, living in water was so 215 Billion years ago.  Evolve already.
3. Gravity.  Who's brilliant idea was that?  It's really limiting.  I feel pigeonholed by gravity.  At least give me some options.  Plus, maybe we'd have another planet to live on by now, but no, Gravity is always holding us back.

Evaluation Essay: Movie Franchising for ENG 1010

There seems to be a trending theme, in the movie-making industry, of re-distributing pre-defined franchises.  It’s rare to find a movie in a theater which is original in story or concept.  Imagery, however, is progressing uninhibited.  This strange dynamic has (d)evolved the movie going experience within the last two years.

Re-making a movie has been a long-standing tradition of “Hollywood.”  There was a time, not too long ago, when re-makes were done in good taste and stayed true to the original concept.  I remember watching the 2001 version of Ocean’s Eleven, for example, and thoroughly enjoying it (the original Ocean’s Eleven was made in 1960).  However, Ocean’s Twelve (2004) and Thirteen (2007) were completely unnecessary, weak in concept and thoroughly disappointing.

There are times where a movie can be remade and even improved on.  In all of its incongruence, The Star Trek 2009 “reboot” (the 11th film in the Star Trek series) comes to mind as one of those improved films.  Perhaps this film’s success as a remake leans heavily on the fact that Star Trek has been an established franchise of longevity, changing sets, alternating characters and continues the defined theme of “exploring the unknown.”  All of these elements add up to allow a wide interpretation and speculation of its origins, future and concepts.  The longevity of the series has brought with it a solid demographic of Star Trek fans who generally accept the fluctuation of characters, themes, sets and concepts throughout the existence of the franchise and are most likely open to the continued fluctuations and changes of upcoming stories.

However, Star Trek may be the exception to the rule that reboots and re-makes are unnecessary, generally disappointing and often alienate the original fans of the story.

Unnecessary films remakes are probably the most abundant.  For Example, Let the Right One In was a Swedish vampire film made in 2008 and adapted from a Swedish book.  The film was a huge international success and received praise by both critics and fans.  However, two years later, the film was re-made from the exact same script, this time called Let Me In.  Aside from the setting (from Sweden to New Mexico) and the character names, the only change to this film was the language.  Apparently “Hollywood” believes its American audience is too lazy to read subtitles.  The mere two year gap between the original and re-make must have been a devastating blow to the original director’s pride.  As if “Hollywood” is arrogantly saying, “Nice try, Swedish Film Industry, but we can make your ideas even better.”  Any fan of the original film would tell you that this remake was absurd, unnecessary and even insulting to what was already a great film which needed no revising.

Almost all film remakes are isolating to the original fan-base, but some are more so than others.  For example, in 1999, The Pang Brothers made a film called Bangkok Dangerous, a Thai action movie about a deaf and mute hit man in Thailand.  In 2008, The Pang Brothers made a film called Bangkok Dangerous, an American action movie about an American hit man developing a conscience in Thailand who was capable of both hearing and speaking.  These two movies, by the same directors, with the same titles, same setting and yet two completely different stories, could be confusing and alienating for any fans of the original story.

There are also the repetitious franchises, which produce mass sequels to a single film which eventually results in creating the same movie over and over and giving it an incremental roman numeral at the end of the title.  Saw I, II, III, IV, V, VI, and 3D are great examples of this repetition.  Saw did well in the theaters due to its shocking graphic violence and gritty cinematography.  This dynamic created an atmosphere of suspense and terror for the audience.  When the sequel, Saw II, was released, the audience watched in anticipation of suspense and terror and they weren’t disappointed.  When Saw III came out, the fans of the franchise were so desensitized to the shock, suspense and terror that the movie and franchise lost its appeal for most fans of the original Saw.

This repetitious franchising seemed to have been at home in the Horror movie genre, but is more recently finding its way into all genres.  Look how many American Pie movies there are (7) or Alvin and the Chipmunks (7) or Harry Potter (7).  More and more, franchises are being squeezed and wrung of every last drop of marketable entertainment until they’re hollow shells of what they once were.  Ideas are even being brought back from retirement and re-franchised for “Hollywood’s” newfound squeezing obsession (Tron, Friday the 13th, The Karate Kid, etc.).

While stories and originality in “blockbuster” films is on a steady decline, film technology is rapidly improving.  While there’s not much “new” in this area, several older ideas have been revisited and “enhanced.”  3-D technology was once popular in the 1950s and 1980s and it seems it’s back again in the 2010s.  This “new” 3D technology has improved drastically from its predecessors.  Where we once used color separations and filters to give the illusion of 3-D (anaglyph imaging), we now embrace our technological advances and use special cameras which capture images from multiple perspectives, which when viewed with the correct polarized filters, gives the illusion of 3D (polarization).

Unfortunately, most 3-D technology is being applied to movies that have already been seen; to stories that have always been heard.  It would be like someone telling you, “You’re going to re-read all of the books you’ve already read, but this time, Morgan Freeman is going to read them to you.”  That’s all good and well and you would probably be pretty excited at first, until you realize you know all the stories.  Then you’re apt to say something like, “Morgan, your soothing voice is great, but I think you missed a part.”  Eventually, you might not want Morgan Freeman to read to you because of his tendency to abridge what you’re already familiar with.

There was a time when I was excited to go see movies in the theaters.  I was excited to hear a new story, to experience new adventures.  Now I have to be bribed to go to the cinemas, and even then I don’t always want to go.  Aside from the monetary costs, I just don’t have any desire to hear the same stories “enhanced.”  Thanks, “Hollywood,” but I’ll hold out for something new, unique, and God-forbid, maybe even creative.  Also, please keep Morgan Freeman away from my books.