Dont ever let anyone change be who u are and stay true to yourself your friends and family hit the books and gat that money

I seriously like the thought of writing a letter to your younger self. It really shows that you and only you know your faults. Thats a great quality to have in your personality.

Dear Ryanly, i really like the thought of written a letter to my younger self. it will really show us the old stuff we use to do as younger kids. Thank you for writtening. i look forward to seeing what u write next time becuase this was a good idea.

Rylan,
I really like your letter, I think it is important to be who you are.

Dear Rylan:

I am pleased with your letter, “Letter to myself” because I feel as though it was a really good idea to write a letter to yourself. It shows that you know and are able to earn up to your faults and learn from them later in life. A couple sentences you wrote that stands out for me is “You will meet people who tell you that you must act a certain way or be a certain thing. Don’t put too much stock into what comes from people you don’t want to emulate. Remember that your family will always be there for you, even when your friends are not. ” I think this is very meaningful because a lot of people in life can learn from those words. Another sentence that I noticed was ” It will be easy to compare yourself to others and to determine your own success based on what others say.” This stood out for me because many people struggle with acceptance and if somebody that is struggling reads this, it will really help them out. Your letter reminds me of something that happened to me. I use to ask others for acceptance and tried to change who I was to fit others needs. But now i realized that there is no need for that. Thanks for your writing. I look forward to seeing what you write next, because it seems like you inspire people and a really stand up guy.

I very much enjoyed your story, especially the ending! It is also cool that, because this is a kid’s story, it has a message that the reader could take away. In this case it is very obviously “don’t take what’s not yours.” Great job!

Great article, Rylan! I think the idea of a more extensive space program is very interesting. In my opinion, America has a lot of things it needs to spend money on here on the ground (such as helping the homeless and equal rights for women) before it can really invest itself in exploring the new frontier that is space. Once living conditions are improved, i thing it would be really great to do more research into space and space travel. Who knows what new discoveries could be made?

Rylan,
In my opinion, I think we should help the government fund a space program, it might be amazing to see what is out there. I sometimes get scared at the thought of space travel, don’t know why. I want to see if there exists another world for us to be able to inhabit in the future years generations to come. As we see in the movies they make it look easy im sure they i’ll need tons of money and materials to do something in that magnitude, but it can happen eventually that why I think it would be suitable to fund something that can help the future generations.

I think the main argument for funding space travel is for the minerals that could be gained from other planets and the resources that have not been touched yet. Those that do not want to fund space travel are not saying that it wouldn’t be helpful, but that we have more important issues that the tax payers money could go to.

I think you raise a very important question, one that is continuously asked in all of politics today. Although I think that our government doesn’t need to be spending money on things we don’t necessarily need, I am for the continuance of the NASA program. The reason for this is that I am just a big nerd when it comes to space and I hope that we can continue exploring the unknown.

I think this you pose a very interesting question. I feel like funding NASA is a necessity but how much we should fund them with is another story. Getting an exact answer to this question would be very difficult so I think you should try and focus on the pros and cons of a large NASA budget compared to a low NASA budget.

Good Job!! I too am very intrigued by the idea of space exploration. I recently watched a video about 6 astronauts who lived on the side of a volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii in total isolation for a year. I too think space travel is important and that research must continue. But like Alea said, there are more pressing problems here on Earth that we should try to take care of first. However, even though physical exploration may not take place, I think research should continue as much as possible so that when we do go out and beyond, we are as prepared as possible.

Hello Rylan!

I can totally get where you are coming from. Horrible people deserve to pay for their actions. I don’t believe that getting the death penalty will stop murderers from murdering. The only place where it will possibly prevent people from doing their dirty deeds would be if this was extended to different crimes, such as rape. But this is where the waters get murky. People are constantly accused wrongly. I have also heard about how much more expensive it is to have people get the death penalty. The criminals are not worth the money.
Great post!

I stand firm in the belief that everyone is better off with guns. And when you say “horrendous acts”, I assume you mean various attacks such as the recent marathon bombing, the Orlando shooting, or the fresh Republican HQ bombing in North Carolina. To be clear, the death penalty will not stop attacks or petty crime. It’s long been proven that the infamous “three-strikes” incarceration program has been a complete failure. Negative incentives in general do not work. The only thing that does work is fear of immediate reprisal a la hot lead. That’s why we never hear anything about mass attacks or “horrendous attacks” in places like Sweden or Texas. The people there are armed.

Thanks for writing this, Rylan. I am particularly struck by your comment “I believe that there has to be a bigger deterrent when it comes to crime. While prison is not fun I do not think it truly rehabilitates criminals.”

I agree that our prisons are not rehabilitating people, and that this should be the goal. Prisons often seem to turn people into even more hardened criminals, and the rates of people committing more crimes after they are released from prison (“recividism”) is very high. If we focused more on rehabilitation in prison, I think crime rates would go down significantly.

Regarding the death penalty, I agree with your statement that it is not ok to kill people — neither for criminals nor for us as a society.

I believe there is considerable research that shows that deterrents like the death penalty don’t really reduce crime (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/study-88-criminologists-do-not-believe-death-penalty-effective-deterrent), but fortunately, there are many other ways that we can decrease crime, including improvements in rehabilitation, education, economic opportunities, and social justice.

Hey Rylan!

Like Karen, I was also struck by your comment “While prison is not fun I do not think it truly rehabilitates.” I also agree that Prisons are not rehabilitating the offenders that are in the system.

In my opinion our Criminal Justice system is broken. It is based off of a retributive justice system which is punitive, impersonal, and state centered. Underlying issues that may have led to the crimes in the first place are not addressed, and because offenders are given punishment rather than treatment, the cycle of crime will continue. In the US alone, Inmates released from state prisons have a five-year recidivism rate of 76.6%.

Karen mentioned that the death penalty will not reduce crime but improvements in rehabilitation, education, economic opportunities, and social justice will. I completely agree. I believe a Criminal Justice reform would be more beneficial. We need to move towards more of a restorative justice system. In Alaska, the recidivism rate for peer court cases that implement restorative justice is 6%, compared with a 23% recidivism rate for cases handled by the traditional juvenile justice system.