fourth outside reading post

In this blog i will be anaylzing and summarizing the novel "A few Kind Words and A Loaded Gun" by "Razor" Smith, pages 185-262. In this section Razor gets off from his three year sentence and gets back on the gang scene. When he first gets out he thinks to himself, " I was a bundle of spite and visciousness clothed in a teenage boy, a war, looking for a place to declare itself" (smith 208). By saying this Smith tells the readers that he is angry with the system but is willing to take out his anger on anyone who crosses him or looks at him incorrectly. We can look back at his beginnings and start to realize that he is no longer a man of morality but a man of anger and rage. This change came from the constant abuse of the prison management and the lack of encouraging role models in his life. Smith then goes to his part of south london and organizes a gang called the Balham wildkatz. He makes plans to take his group to the top and fight the "skin heads". While doing this his crew goes around doing random smash + grabs, and assorted crimes to get money for drugs, alchohal, and style. This is also a serious change in Smith's character from before. He commits crimes not only to stay alive but to have fun and to make life easier. From our viewpoint we can tell that smith is slipping ethically and probably will continue to slip. Later in this section he has a run in with a rival gang member and promises to have a straight fight, he commences the fight and it is fairly even until some of Smith's friends join in and start to beat on his adversary. When Smith finaly pulls them off he gets verbal abuse from the adversary. This abuse causes Smith to run up and kick the other guy in the face with his steel toed boots. We can clearly see that Smith's anger dominants his actions and controls who he is. Finally we see a faint glimmer of the old smith when he is watching another "straight" fight between to guys. When he sees another guy try to intervene with a weapon smith attacks the guy for the sake of the two fighters.
In the second half of this section smith is captured by his age old enemy, the police. He gets out shortly and is seeing a girl named allison. When he finds out that own of his best friends was having a go at her while he was in jail he gets infuriated and starts a fight. Both of them fight for 15 minutes and then get to tired to even throw another punch. To put an end to the battle a bouncer jumped in and declared the fight a draw. We can see the pride and honor that Smith still retains from before.After this gang violence escalates and Smith is nicked for GBH and wielding a dangerous weapon, the razor blade. He is now in an adult jail getting his first real taste of adult jail.

Citation on previous posts

Third outside reading post

In this blog i will be summarizing and anaylzing pages 134-184. To open up "Razor" and his friends in his current cell area are terrorizing the nounces and the sex offenders. This abuse gets to the point that they aren't allowed out of their cells while the nounces and offenders are out. In a few weeks "Razor' and Jel both get transfered to the Borstal system. The Borstal system is reservered for the hardest of Under-age delequents. He is seperated from his known buds and has only one real ally who slips him a blade the moment he gets there. Withen the first couple of hours he tangles with the wrong people and is sneak attacked during social time. The first blow almost knocks him out but he manages to hold his own then using his devoloped fighting skills he whips out his blade and cuts his assailant's hand open. He continues pressing the attack and slices his foe across the stomache. After this his attacker tries to flee and drops his weapon but "Razor" grabs him by the hair and is about to slice his neck open when he is tackled by "15 stone" screws. When he is taken away he yells, "Next time i'll fucking kill ya!" (143). I think that Smith at first is completly justified in defending himself with a blade but as he gets more into the battle he continues the assault just for enjoyment and an increase in reputation. In this section of the book you can clearly see the difference between the beginning Smith and were he is now.
In the second half of this section Smith is taking to the punishment block and meets the first nice screw he has ever met. The Screw's name is Mr. Black and offers Smith a ciggerate. Smith cleverly relates this to the time when the germans and british came out of their trenches and played football on december 25th. Smith finally realizes that not all management and powers are abusive, however this has no lasting effect on him. After his chapter at Rochester Borstal he is sent to a prison hospital. Upon is arrival he is beaten sensless and a "doctor" comes to him with a medication to help with the pain. He doesn't have any choice but to take the medicine and becomes mentally impaired. He is taken to his cell where he sits like a vegatable realizing what is happening but helpless to stop. He manages to stop drinking his tainted water but the gaurds notice and force him to drink it. With this comes an unreleaseable rage that builds up. Speaking ethically the doctor is extremly corrupt because he is destroying lives that still have potential, and enjoying it.

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Whistle blower Vs. traitor

In the movie "On the Water Front" the main character Terry has two different ideas of stool pigeons and traitors. At first he believes that if you tell on someone that wouldn't tell on you or someone who has helped you before that you are a traitor. Later in the film he realizes that even though they might not tell on you and that they helped you before you probably should tell on them. He also understands that most of the time if the person has done something so bad that you need to tell on them, that person probably helped you for their own personal gain. Another character takes an extreme view on this, Edy. She thinks that no matter what you should be a criminal informant. She doesn't fully understand the slight feeling of guilt that Terry gets because she has no real connections with the mob.
My personal opinions on Stool pigeons and traitors is as follows. Rule number one: check the severity of the crime, if it goes completly against your morals you probably should turn them in. Rule number 2: would they turn you in? If not then try to return the favor, if so well refer to rule number one. Rule number 3: do you owe them anything? If you do then you might want to compare the severity of the debt to the severity of the crime, then use this as a guidlines. If you use these rules to help you decide when to tell and when not to tell life will go swell. For all the people who think of only the extremes, AKA always tell or never tell, life is not perfect, and the best way is a moderate middle of the road way.

All my sons

In All My Sons, a Play (book) by Arthur Miller, characters are contrasting each other in their ethical beliefs about society Vs. family. On one side of the spectrum there is Joe Keller, who believes that one's family is the most important thing that they have. He does all that he does only for his sons and their well being, "Don't think like that. Because what the hell did I work for? that's only for you, Chris." (17). In the middle of the spectrum leaning towards the pro-family is the mother. She understands society and it's rules better, but she also tends to be more supportive of the family, "You above all have to believe" (23). In this quote she is telling her husband that he has to believe that their son is alive because if he isn't then Joe isn't justified in sending away the cracked airplane parts. On the other side of the spectrum there is Larry and Anne, who both believe that society's morals are more important than family. Anne shows this by completly discommunicating with her father and Larry shows this by killing himself as a final act of disjustification of his father's actions.