Freakonomics and Gangs, Guns and Violence

Gangs are powerful. Getting involved in gang activity is easy, but getting out is sometimes not possible. In the documentary "On the Front Lines: Gangs, Guns and Violence" one girl said that many gang members don't live to see their 21st birthday, and if they do, they're behind bars. Gang activities range from violence and intimidation to the sales of illegal substances. On the Front Lines gives the perspective of the police on the outside looking in. They're doing everything they can to try and stop kids from becoming involved in gangs, but they're often too late or don't have the resourcest to do so. Many gang members are almost born into it. Their parents were involved, all of their friends are, so there's no way to stay out of trouble. On the front lines demonstrates this point through the testimony of former gang members about how getting involved was so easy. Freakonomics also makes this point when Levitt and Dubner talk about gangs in Chicago and how all of the members were like family. They grew up together and gang life was all they knew. Freakonomics demonstrates the power of gangs by comparing the organization of gang members to that of employees within a corporation. Members at the top make the big bucks, while the "foot soldiers" at the bottom make half of minimum wage. This only increases member involvement because they're all fighting to make it to the top.
When put together, Freakonomics and On the Front Lines work together to prove that gang activity is a major problem in urban America, but little can be done to stop it. This is due to how widespread the problem is, the power gangs have gained within their communities and the limited resources of our nation's law enforcement.
Both achieve this is different ways, but are effective. Freakonomics relies mainly on logos to make it's point, using facts and statistics to explaint the reasoning behind gang involvement. On the front lines, relies on the ethos of the government officials that are involved. Because it was visual, the audience views people such as the chief of police and the mayor of the focus community as more credible because they were seen in a positive light including nice clothes. It also relies on the credibility of former gang members to give and insider's view of what is going on. In additon, On the Front Lines relies on pathos. By showing photos of crime scenes, complete with blood and bodies, the viewer becomes emotional. Emotions also come through when member's of victims' families are interviewed about their experiences.
Though Freakonomics takes an indirect approach to addressing the problem with gangs by addressing the business side of their activites, Levitt and Dubner still include the underlying point that is very straightforward in On the Front Lines: Gang activity is a major problem and we need a new plan to stop it, because what we're doing right now isn't working.

Humor Examples

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfPoJw2uE0A&feature=related (Road Safety)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDgs1iroYyY (Photograph parody)

Crappy ends to a semi ok break

Winter break is ending and i'm really mad! Especially since it's ending in such a crappy way. I'll enlighten you and tell you my story from last night....when I almost died. So me and halle are driving to a friends house to hang out and play some hockey. We've never been there before so we're following mapquest directions which were apparently not accurate. They took us into a parking lot and we were super confused, so I turned around and halle was like, "I think you go right here." I started to turn right not realizing that it wasn't a road...it was railroad tracks. I notice this a little too late since my car's already stuck in the snow on the tracks. I instantly started crying and hyperventilating and called my dad. He was on his way, but Halle could see ryan's house, so she ran over and got our friends to help. While she was gone, I legitimately started to have a panic attack. My hyperventilating worsened and I was checking over my shoulder every two seconds to make sure there was no train coming.Two of our friends ran back with halle and started digging the car out with hockey sticks and the rest got in ryan's car and tried to drive there, getting his car stuck on the same tracks in the process. My parents and brother finally arrived and with the help of ryan's dad and like five other guys my car was finally freed after about 15 minutes of pushing. We were all freezing, but thankfully noone got hurt.To top everything off, the people we were hanging out with were friends of halle's and I barely knew most of them. Great first impression, right? At least now we all have a funny story to tell....

Break time

I posted about procrastination before and that's basically what I've been doing for the past week. Break's almost over and I'm just now opening my backpack. I have a terrible habit but I know it'll never change. My break hasn't even been a good one either. I've been working the whole time and my job sucks. After my shifts I just come home and sleep. My life is so boring right now. I didn't even hang out with friends that much. Maybe one night. This is a really boring blogpost. kinda like a freewrite. All of the sentences are short and choppy and i'm not even writing about anything. Just rambling. I'm a terrible blogger. What else did i do over break? hmmmmm i went to Lutsen for a few days. I suppose that was fun. My cousin, Celeste, and I thought it would be fun to try going over jumps on our snowboards....Let's just say that I was not very successful and my butt hurts pretty bad. Right now I'm kind of hungry. Guess I'll come back and blog more when I actually have an idea and thoughts that connect in some logical way. I need to work on my essay because i have to work three nights this week. And i need to do my math homework. Guess my Saturday won't be very fun. AND I work tomorrow: my last day of freedom. GREAT.

Response to "The Inner Circle"

C.S. Lewis makes such a valid point. There are so many unspoken heirarchies in our society. They aren't always talked about and not everyone is aware of their existence. I think that a good example of a modern, easy to understand inner ring is cliques. That group of girls that everyone knows ABOUT, but they don't really know them. You have to be invited to do things with the group. Once they decide they like you, you're in, but getting in is not always easy. It's like the movie Mean Girls. Regina, Gretchen and Karen make up the "inner ring" that is The Plastics. They decide they like Cady, so they invite her into their circle. Since she's new though, Cady is still not treated like an equal. She has to spend a little bit of time on the outskirts. With The Plastics, Regina is clearly the leader, and she makes the rules for the entire group and sometimes the entire school. She carries alot of influence with her peers. This is an example of an inner circle that is clearly defined but there are also the ones that go unnoticed as well like secret societies. While I have never encountered a secret society, you hear about them on t.v. and I'm sure they really exist. An inner ring like this would be one you're not aware of until you're in.
While I know what Lewis is referring to when he talks about inner rings, I'm not exactly sure what he means by good and evil ones. I guess an example of an evil inner ring could be the Ku Klux Klan. There's a heirarchy within it and at least they think they make the rules of society. They live by their own laws. Obviously the KKK's beliefs and their violent practices of hate and discrimination don't make them a good group to be associated with...so that leaves evil? I'm not sure if that was his meaning of evil...
The students that Lewis was addressing were probably interested in what he was saying because most people have had run ins with inner rings of some kind. This speech wouldn't be a completely foreign topic that they have to try and grasp. Lewis is just expanding on something that the students are will aware of. He presents the information in a candid and entertaining way so that the audience can get something out of his speech and not tune him out within the first five minutes out of boredom.

PROcrastination

I'm a pro at procrastination. Oddly, not something I'm pround of... and I'm definitely not the only one. Everyone procrastinates, which sucks. Basically I'm procrastinating right now. I should be reading "The Inner Ring." At least blogging, something that's semi related to school is better than what I was doing two minutes ago. Can you guess what it was? Yep. I was on facebook--the major contributing factor when it comes to my procrastination. I tell myself I'm just going to log on for a second to check things or tell my friend something and then and hour later I look at the clock and think, oh wait, I still haven't done my math homework...or my U.S. History reading....or my AP comp homework. My procrastination then leads to stress because I was on facebook while I should have been studying or working on a project, causing me to cram the night before a test and rush through a project (which I've become good at because I seem to work well under pressure--not a good thing because I use this to justify my procrastinating habits). So pretty much the point of this was to waste time. Which I think I sufficiently did. Maybe I'll finally move on to something productive. Or not...

Miracle pre-game speech (Coach Brooks)

This link is to a video clip from the movie Miracle. Coach Brooks is inspiring team USA to play the greatest game they've ever had because it wasn't just about hockey. It was about the entire country and the Cold War with the Soviet union. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwpTj_Z9v-c&feature=related