Sierra Leone

There has been a lot of stuff that Sierra Leone has been put through. According to human rights watch, over 50,00 people have been killed and over one million have been displaced. The RUF-Revolutionary United Front has been accused of doing horrible things like raping people and amputating human limbs and more. Another really bad thing that's going on in Sierra Leone is that there are children that are being turned into soldiers which is to me the worst thing going on. These kids are not kids there like 8 years old but there being forced into doing things they don't want to do and almost turning an 8 year old into an adult. The whole child soldier thing is the thing that sticks out the most for me. That is just straight up wrong and cruel.

Why I Fight

The book that i read was Why I Fight by J. Adams Oaks. I think so far that this book is really good. This is a very exciting book about a boy named Wyatt Reeves who is adopted by his uncle Spade. As his Uncle already has a bad problem with gambling and when he finds out that Wyatt is a very talented street fighter he gets money hungry. What I love about this book so far is that it is very intense and you could almost feel every punch that was thrown. The author used a really good vocabulary too. So you could get a really good picture in your head of what is going on in the book. This book is a perfect size it's not too long and it's not too short. I think that this is a very good book for sports fans and people who like a lot of action.

Quotations

"It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder

How I keep from going under"

This verse comes from the song "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash. I think that this verse relates back to the book A Long Way Gone because it is like a jungle where he is and it makes me wonder how i keep from going under would be true because so many people died back then.

"I can't take the smell, I can't take the noise no more

Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice"

This is another verse that comes from the song "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash. This relates to the book very good because the smell in the air was probably nasty cause of all the dead corpses and what not. The noise would be lots of gun fire and people screaming so not being able to take the gunfire anymore. It's hard enough for them to even get food so they definitely don't have any money and they have no choice on what to do and what comes next for them.

RUF Sierra Leone

RUF stands for Revolutionary United Front. The RUF was also considered the death squad. The RUF was a rebel army that fought a 11 year war in Sierra Leone. There goal was to overthrow the government of Sierra Leone. They were fighting for control and freedom. They are still trying people for the holocaust and some of the people from the RUF were convicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Hip-Hop Growth

I’ve noticed myself that technology has probably played a major role in the growth of hip-hop. Also another big thing is the beats, the lyrics and clothing and what not. The environment that the rappers have been born into is also a really big thing with the changing of hip-hop. In old school hip-hop there was a lot more record scratching in the beat so it gave it a lot more of a jump around effect. The artists back then would wear more of a throwback retro look. Back then people would just write there rhymes around things that they actually have gone through or witnessed but now a days people just write there lyrics in a way so they rhyme, not things that has legit happened to them or that they have witnessed.

Book Review: Hole In My Life

Author: Jack Gantos

I read the book Hole In My Life by Jack Gantos. I thought that it was a really good book. It was just pretty much about a teenager who makes a choice of crime to escape his home life. So he ends up sailing a boat that is full of hash from St. Croix to New York City and tells about his life after being busted and put into a federal prison. I think personally that this book relates to a lot of teenagers cause a lot of teenagers make bad choices when they were young that affect them the rest of there life.

Blogging

I love the fact that now we basically do all our work through blogging. I like this a lot because I am horrible at writing and on this all we have to do is type it up on our blog hit post and you just go there and give us grades. I think that starting the whole blogging was probably your smartest idea ever. It is so much more convenient to do the work on the blog then the paper. Thank you so much for making it easier on me, I hope you like it just as much as I like it.