My beliefs on "Designer Babies'

          The article "Designer Babies" by Patricia Smith is about parents being able to give certain traits to there babies before they are born. Parents can choose if their baby is tall or short, athletic or book smart, etc. Researchers are using three people to create a baby that has no birth defects. Doctors are happy and scared with their new discoveries on fertility. I believe that this is the parents decision, so as long as they agree its cool.
          This genetic altering can lead to future genetic research. So parents actually trying this method can help other parents in the future. Diseases can be prevented from this new style of genetics. Scientists have already gotten the genes to prevent these things, now they just need "test subjects." Also, if this actually works, babies are going to be blessed with perfect genes.
         There are some downsides with this new technology though. If the genetic procedure is messed up, there can be serious consequences. If the baby does get abnormally changed, the genes are still inheritable. Also, new diseases could be developed and that is never good. So this method could be dangerous 
too, that's probably why people are opposed to this idea.
          So even though this could be dangerous, I believe its okay if you want to "genetically alter your baby."There are many dangers in this process, its not perfect. New diseases, abnormalities could happen if the genetic process is messed up.  The upsides are still plentiful though. Your idea of a perfect baby, research for the future, new technology, etc. Designer babies would be, as Dr. Alan Cooperman said, "...exiting and scary."

Who was responsible for the death of Romeo and Juliet?

Many people in the story are eligible for this title, Tybalt, Capulet, Montague, etc. But the one who gets the honor is Friar Lawrence. He was the priest of the story, the holy and right figure. He was Romeo’s confidant, not Romeo’s father, Montague. For such a smart man, he made very idiotic choices on his part.

            Friar’s first mistake was marrying Romeo and Juliet secretly. Doing such an important and life-changing thing in secret is never good. When Tybalt tries to fight Romeo, Romeo says no because they are family now. “And so good Capulet, which name I tender/As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.” But Tybalt, for some reason hates Romeo so much, still tries to fight. This leads to the banishment of Romeo.

            His second mess up was when he gave Juliet the concoction to imitate death. If he was going to do something that drastic, more people should have known besides him. He should have let the Nurse know or at least someone that could help. In fact, instead of giving Juliet a sleeping potion, he should have just been safer and told her to run away or something. But things didn’t happen like that.

            His final mistake was that he didn’t deliver the letter with a perfectly reliable person. He sent it with a Friar who didn’t even know that the letter was extremely significant. “The letter was not nice but full of charge…” He should have let the person bearing the letter know that delivering this was a matter of life and death. Or even better, Friar Lawrence should have just delivered the letter himself.

            So I blame Friar Lawrence for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. He wasn’t the only one who did something wrong, far from it. But he was still a big factor of this outcome. Something good did come out of this tragedy though. The feud between the Montagues and the Capulets was finally over, all thanks to Romeo and Juliet.

Should a Hated Word be Banned? by Jodi Rudoren

In the article, "Should a Hated Word be Banned?" Rabbi Dov Lipman says that "every country has to establish certain value- based limits" to free speech. Do you agree? Why or Why not? Use evidence from the text to support your response.

             My position on this is that I do not agree. Freedom of speech is something people hold dear to them. People do use this part of the amendment to their advantage. One race would call African-Americans the N-word. But we cant do anything about that. And that word is usually used friend-like, not in a demeaning way.
            Reading the article, the author even says most of the time the word Nazi is used, its in a joking way. Like how people will sometimes say "You're such a grammar Nazi." I understand if a word is used in a mean way, but you cannot just ban a word the people use. It wouldn't be cool to ban the phrase "smarty-pants." That is used in a mean way, but it can also be used in a joking or friendly manner.
            Everyone cannot always get what they want. So it wouldn't be fair if your own opinion ruined everybody else's rights. So no, that word Nazi should not be banned. Its as if the politicians are trying to erase the Holocaust piece by piece. Even though they said you should get a fine for that.

Sonnet

Shall I compare thee to the bluest sea
Your style is like mine if I could show it
Your presence washes over me like a hot cup of tea
The force of it makes me ungracefully sit
I've never touched you hair
but I bet its soft
The most I could do when it comes to you is stare
And if you catch me, you should've noticed that I always coughed
I could never look you in the eye
For if I do that, I will surely die

Martín Espada

Martín Espada is a very successful Latino poet that expresses his thoughts about Hispanics rights in his poetry. He is fighting for Latino rights and Hispanic social justice in the United States. But Espada also includes a different idea in some of his famous work. He gives the idea that someone has power in his poems. Sometimes it someone else, a different character, but other times it is him himself.

            In Espada’s poem “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School,” the power gets switched over from the students to the principal. The Spanish students have power over the principal because they can speak Spanish, which the principal cannot. The power is then transitioned when the principal bans Spanish in the bathrooms because he is not comfortable. “…The only word he recognizes/is his own name/and this constipates him…” The principal abuses his power by taking away the students language, which is part of their culture. So the principal is taking away these students culture, and that is definitely abuse of power.

            Another poem called “Two Mexicanos lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877,” Espada shows that the white people had the power. They lynched two innocent Mexicans because of their race, just like they did to African-Americans. The problem was that they didn’t even think about what they had done. He shows this in the last stanza, “…a few stunned/in the blur of execution… all/crowding into the photograph.” The white ‘vigilantes’ as Martín Espada called them, abused their power also. They abused it by taking away people’s lives because of their own wrong beliefs.

            In “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson,” by Martín Espada, he is the one that holds the power! When his name is mispronounced, he says he want to dress up like a criminal. He then gets irrational and says he wants to hijack a tourist bus with white republicans inside, and use them against their will. He says in his poem “…wait/for the bilingual SWAT team/to helicopter overhead/begging me/to be reasonable.” Espada is not using this power he has for good or even reasonable issues. Mispronunciation of a name should not be taken to such great lengths.

            These poems all have a sense of power, but just like in the poems, power in the real world is abused just the same; for example, the government and taxes. Just because they are the government they will raise tax prices, and we can’t really do anything about it except demonstrate. And what about gas prices; they are 4 dollars and on the rise, and we don’t say anything to the government, we just survive. So power is not only a problem in Espada’s poems but in our world too. We just have to live the best we could and ignore it.

Smoke Signals by Alessandra Potenza

How does this text make you think about justice in the world?

         This article is about teen offenders being tried as adults. One teenager, 17, took his own life because he was tried as an adult in a drunken manslaughter. This helped the juvenile justice experts in their decision to help these unsuspecting teens. States all over the country are not taking such drastic measures and are ensuring that teenage offenders do not get sentences like adults. This makes me think that justice is not always fair and can be unreasonable.
       Juvenile justice experts say, according to the article, that teenagers' minds are not fully developed. So even if they commit a crime when they are a teen, it doesn't mean they will become a criminal when they become an adult. So it's not fair that they are locked up with murderers and cold criminals. This information stopped the government from sentencing teens to adult sentences to scare them off the streets. This happened 20 years ago, since then people are trying to keep juvenile offenders in the juvenile system.
       But some people don't agree with all these ways to keep teens out of prison. Some people think that its not fair to the victims of these crimes to let their killer or offender off so easily. People are worried that teenage offenders will start getting off to easy and keep doing crime. 

What's the Deal With Iran? By Patricia Smith

What really hard things are happening in this text? Are they happening in the world now? Where?

        Iran and the U.S. have been rivals since 1953, we have been trying to find a way to make peace between us. The U.S. thinks that Iran has plans to fire nukes, and that is not good. Iran and the U.S. are trying to make treaties and agreements so that doesn't happen. Some people think that this is a bad idea while others support the peacemaking. Young adults from Iran want freedom like the ones in the U.S., so they support this.
        Iran has a problem with the economy that's making living hard. The U.S. put economic sanctions, rules made on another country's economy, on Iran. I guess this is another why Iranian young adults want to go to American. They did this because of the nuclear problems they were having with Iran. I guess they did this for leverage on them or something along those lines.
         This article is happening right now, its about a deal on nukes between Iran and U.S. America thinks that Iran is planning a nuke attack on us and they want to prevent it. The deal is that the U.S. will ease the economic sanctions if Iran pauses their nuclear program for six months. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu does not agree with the deal and called it "a historic mistake." While others such as Asal Khalilpour, think its a miracle. He said "After i read the comments saying a deal was made, tears started rolling down my cheeks in happiness."