en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/2443472 Comments by FulhamFC http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/21/if-prison-has-taken-anything-away-from-me/#IDComment145285893 This letter "if prison has taken anything away for me....." is very interesting and thought provoking. The points made in it are very different and insightful as to the thoughts of someone in prison and what their life is like. It starts out by saying that he is in his bunk starting at the concrete floor without being able to move or stop. He says it almost like he is watching a movie of all his failures and successes in his life. I can imagine this being very true if you are stuck in prison without being able to move or leave you would replay the days when you could whether they are god or bad. He then says he has been their so long and that way to many of his memories are from in prison now. Then he mentions that his life has been reduced to so much that he doesn't even feel how empty his life is now. He no longer allows him to spend time in silence because it make him think of the emptiness of his soul and being stuck with nothing. His greatest deire is love he wants to be loved and feel love. Love will remove the emptiness in his life. I would imagine that many prisoners would have similar desires beacause they are locked away without anyone to love, the desire to be in a woman's heart. To love that woman and have her love you too. Many people say love is the most powerful emotion in the world and it cause people to feel things they never thought was possible to feel. It is sad to know that the prioners will never have the chance to feel love and the emotions tied to love the rest of their lives. They will be stuck in the prison cells without the company of any woman. The author says his biggest regret it that he brought this on to himself and he alone is the reason why he is stuck in prison. The last line is very emotional when he says he will never feel love now. Overall this was a very emotional letter that makes me feel bad for the prison who will not get to feel love. Sat, 23 Apr 2011 03:46:48 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/21/if-prison-has-taken-anything-away-from-me/#IDComment145285893 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/03/what-a-man-is/#IDComment141135595 I found this article to be very interesrting and relevant to day to day life. All the points the author makes are very true points that every man should follow but very few do. The tone for the entire is set in the first sentence, "A man has respect for women." Then throughout the article he give specific examples of the things a man should do. Examples of this are things like holding doors, protecting your women, and seemingly simple but still important things. I think the paragraph on how a man should completely open up about all his secrets and weakness is interesting because many people consider not being very open with feelings is not a manly act and is seen as a sign of weakness. The author says a very important of the relationship between a man and a woman. He says if he is right, which I believe he is on all his points, that he wonders why it took him all this time to realize all of these. I believe this is because in many cases like this one you need to be completely seperated for the issue to truely understand it. Since, people not in prison interact and see how other interact with women makes them think that it is ok to not do the things the author writes about in his article. It is a little like how we discussed in class that the last one to understand water is the fish who is always in it. The last paragraph shows a lot of growth with him apologizing to all the women he has treated poorly in the past and promising to treat them better in the future. This article makes many similar points that the other articles do. It really shows the author has experienced great change and personal growth through his time in the prison. He understands things that many people outside of prison do not and probably nevr will. Overall, I think this article is interesting that was fun to read and can people useful in how people treat women and the respect that they should show them. Sat, 9 Apr 2011 01:30:36 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/03/what-a-man-is/#IDComment141135595 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/27/family/#IDComment139230417 I think the first paragraph in this article is very true. I believe most people myself included have no idea what prison is really like and believe it is like what they see on T.V and in movies. In almost every situation in movies prison is made out to be a terrible place filled with nothing but terrible people. IN movies there is always fighting among the prisonors and general bad behavior. This is the reason I think is describtion is interesting and very insightful. I think the fact that the number of letters a prisoner gets decrease is something that is true for pretty much everyone. Like it says in the letter people not in prison become busier and busier as time goes on and they don't have the time to write like they use to. Its interesting that he says the people who are "assholes" have the least amount of friends. This is true outside of prison too and its very interesting. Its also interesting that he s a prisoner can differentiate between whose an asshole and whose not. Going back to how hollywood portrays life in prison they ussually make everyone look like an asshole except one or two they try to make you like. I think him still being in contact with so many people from the past including his old teachers shows he is a very quality person because if someone is truely an not a good person people from their past will not care enough about them to keep in contact. Keeping in touch with his teachers is also meaningful because teachers are in a lot of cases the ones who teach us about the world and in many cases are good judges of character. His paragraph on how the prisoners fill in for families I think is very relatable for most people on some level because when you go through something that is challenging and difficult like I can only image prison would be you become very close to the people going through that with you. The last paragraph concludes the letter very well saying how family and friends are very important and how these relationships shape who you ultimately become in the future. Fri, 1 Apr 2011 23:53:03 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/27/family/#IDComment139230417 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/20/frost-bitten/#IDComment137627409 I found this poem to be both very interesting and insightful and sad and depressing at the same time. The prisoner in the form of a poem describes how he feels about his life and his situation of being in prison. The main point is found very quickly in the first to lines. He says he is numb and wonders why he feels so cold. I believe he feels that way because he is stuck in prison without all the people and things he loves. I think he realizes also that he will never be able to really see them again which makes him feel numb and cold. He then says he attempts to distract himself from this situation and feeling but he is seemingly unable. This is sad because he has no excape from his situation even within his own mind. He also says he feels like he is dead but others can still see him. I believe that this is probably a common feeling for prisoners because they are alive but they not free and can not truely live.. They really alive but not living. Then it goes on to say it feels like hes stuck in hell, the prison, surronded by evil beings the prisoners. I think this is an interesting comparison and in many ways is true. Hell is thought of as a place where there is no hope, the worse possible place in the universe. In hell there is nothing. In many ways you could say that prisons are hell on earth. In prison there is very little if any hope the prisons are stuck with nothing. Towards the end of the poem he states that he want to live and love but for now he is cold and his heart is frostbitten. This is very sad and unfortunate for the author . The line that his heart is frostbitten is interesting because that in a unique way to descripe it and very true I suppose. His heart is frozen without the ability to love. Overall, I found this poem to be very interesting and made points and comparisons I have never previously thought of. Reading this poem was an eye opening experience for me. Sat, 26 Mar 2011 03:38:30 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/20/frost-bitten/#IDComment137627409 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/24/fear/#IDComment130681075 Fear is part of everyday life and is something everyone deals with almost at all times. Fear can be caused by the large scale important things like be diagnosed with a serious illness disease or failing out of school or small seemingly minuscule things like a spider. I believe that these fears play a part in everyday life but should in no way play the biggest part in life like the author says. He says that there are many choices in life that are made through fear and that fear keeps him on the path that he thinks is correct. I disagree that many decisions should be made out of fear, in my opinion making decisions out of fear leads to in many cases situations than they should be or even worse than before. I do agree with his statement that most men do not talk about fear. He then lists some of the things he is afraid of. Most of the things on the lists are normal things that just about every person fears. However I feel if you constantly think about or fear everything on a daily basis you really will not have time to live or do normal activities because you will spend all the time worrying about these fears. In my opinion it is not healthy or good for a person to continually fear so many things. For example, the first one on the list "I fear not waking up every morning" if you live in fear of not walking up in the morning that will affect your entire life in a negative way. If you are afraid of not walking up then it would be difficult to sleep at night which would have a negative effect of your entire life. I agree with him that fear can either be a good or bad thing depending how you deal with it but I do not agree with the statement fear is what helps keep you alive. I think in most cases fear makes a person less alive than more alive. Overall I think this was an interesting article but I have a much different opinion on fear than the author does. Fri, 25 Feb 2011 20:48:46 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/24/fear/#IDComment130681075 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/09/4092/#IDComment127453296 While reading this blog entry "Remember" I felt many different emotions and had many different thoughts through out. When I first read the first line I thought it was odd that he could not remember his first day in prison because I felt like it would be such a life changing and difficult day for him that there would be no way he could forget it. But then after I read the entire I realized that he has gone through so many significant changes in who he is as a person from the time that he was first put in prison to the current when he wrote this letter that, that day would be very insignificant to him and have no real meaning to him. I think the fact that he can write that he did change greatly and become a better person because i think a person who never changed will alway remember their first day in their new home of person. I thought it was interesting that he then talked about how the person he has now from outside of prison is now his mom and that everyone else from childhood friends to all the woman in his life now abandoned him and he can not remember the last time he has heard from any of them. I think this is probably a common situation for someone who is serving a life sentence in jail the people you grew up with and knew prior to your sentence abundant you. The last line of the first sentence is also interesting in the fact that he can no longer remember the last time he was thought of as a man. This would be a very demoralizing thing to no longer be able to remember the last time you were thought of as a person. The comparison to the things he remembers to the ones he does not are also very interesting. I think it shows he truly regrets his seconds of drunken stupidity as he calls it. He regrets what he did and says his reasons for doing it were not reasons at all. I think it is very powerful that he writes the line, "I can remember the pain, suffering and anguish that I caused his family" twice in a row because I think it really show that this was the hardest thing to get over the pain he caused the victim, Kevin's family. Overall I think this was a very powerful letter that has a lot of meaning. Sat, 12 Feb 2011 01:57:54 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/09/4092/#IDComment127453296 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/27/i-too-am-free/#IDComment124410166 I strongly agree with the author of this entry that being free to do what we pleased is the most under appreciated aspect of our lives. Similar to what we said in class freedom can not truly be understood by a person who is free and has been free for their entire life. To people like freedom is something they take for granted and thought of as of the most basic rights, thus not appreciating how lucky they truly are. On the other someone who is not free has a much better understanding of what freedom is and how important it really is. The author's list of some of the freedoms he missed most does a great job of showing this. His list consist of many basic everyday things like to shower or get a hair cut when he wants, to be able to pick his own clothes or even to vacuum the house. I know for me whenever I do any of these actions I do not think anything of it, there just basic everyday things that have no meaning behind them except for what there meant to do. I would even say I dread having to do some of the things he listed as the things he misses most. This shows how little appreciation for freedom that I and pretty much every other free person has for being free. I think it would be very interesting to have free person have their freedoms taken away for a short period of time and see how they would act and what they would do. I think it would be very difficult for everyone being told what to do and when to do it. At the same time I think it would be very interesting to give people who have never truly had freedom like someone who was born in a closed society, like North Korea, freedom and see how they would act. I think like what the article says they would have a much greater appreciation for it. I also believe that they would live their lives more productively than those who have always had freedom. Overall I think this is a great article that really makes everyone realize and consider how they are blessed to have freedom and that they should appreciate everything in life. Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:06:49 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/27/i-too-am-free/#IDComment124410166 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/10/last-name-%e2%80%9cm%e2%80%9d-%e2%80%93-intense-debate/#IDComment122584579 soc 001 Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:37:54 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/10/last-name-%e2%80%9cm%e2%80%9d-%e2%80%93-intense-debate/#IDComment122584579