Last Blog

I think my favorite section is the copycat one, it just seemed so weird and interesting to me. The fact that people copy so many things from videos makes you really think about what we actually have playing. This last class was the one that i think i disliked the most because of the fact that I'm not really a fan of diamonds but how the diamond companies made such an impact when they used media. I think it would be interesting to spend more time talking about the criminal cases and how they are portrayed in media, most of the time we allow the media to shape our views and thoughts about crime before all the information is given. I don't think i would change anything in the class but i would add a section based on religion.

LA Confidential

The movie I thought of when I we have to do this post about a movie dealing with a justice issue is LA Confidential. LA Confidential is a movie based in 1950's LA and follows three cops.  Sergeant Edmund Exley,, played by Guy Pearce, is the son of a legendary LAPD Inspector and is trying to be better then his father. Officer Wendell "Bud" White, played by Russell Crowe, is a violent 6-foot-tall brute and the most feared man in the LAPD, he typically does the jobs that no-one else would do. Sergeant Jack Vincennes, played by Kevin Spacey, is a slick and likable Hollywood cop who works as the technical adviser of a TV show, he often orchestrates celebrity arrests. The movie looks at Corruption and the different reasons why these police offices commit various crimes.

Music

Personally I don't listen to music too much for the most part I just have it as background noise. The only song I could really think of that had something to do was Rock star by Nickleback. I know there really isn't much of a justice theme present beside the fact that it discusses drugs and how people with money can get away with many things. I do believe that people who get rich and famous do not make the best choices because they believe that they can pay it off. I believe that they can still obey the law and be a good person while still having money however it seems as if the rich and famous people face too many problems.

Rockstar

I'm through with standing in line
To clubs we'll never get in
It's like the bottom of the ninth
And I'm never gonna win
This life hasn't turned out
Quite the way I want it to be

(Tell me what you want)

I want a brand new house
On an episode of Cribs
And a bathroom I can play baseball in
And a king size tub big enough
For ten plus me

(So what you need?)

I'll need a credit card that's got no limit
And a big black jet with a bedroom in it
Gonna join the mile high club
At thirty-seven thousand feet

(Been there, done that)

I want a new tour bus full of old guitars
My own star on Hollywood Boulevard
Somewhere between Cher and
James Dean is fine for me

(So how you gonna do it?)

I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair and change my name

[Chorus:]
'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars
And live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap
We'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat
And we'll hang out in the coolest bars
In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger's
Gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny
With her bleach blond hair

Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar
Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar

I wanna be great like Elvis without the tassels
Hire eight body guards that love to beat up assholes
Sign a couple autographs
So I can eat my meals for free
(I'll have the quesadilla on the house)
I'm gonna dress my ass
With the latest fashion
Get a front door key to the Playboy mansion
Gonna date a centerfold that loves to
Blow my money for me
(So how you gonna do it?)
I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair and change my name

[Chorus]

And we'll hide out in the private rooms
With the latest dictionary and today's who's who
They'll get you anything with that evil smile
Everybody's got a drug dealer on speed dial, well

Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar

I'm gonna sing those songs
That offend the censors
Gonna pop my pills from a pez dispenser

I'll get washed-up singers writing all my songs
lip sync 'em every night so I don't get 'em wrong

[Chorus]

And we'll hide out in the private rooms
With the latest dictionary and today's who's who
They'll get you anything with that evil smile
Everybody's got a drug dealer on speed dial

Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar
Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar

Suicide

The guest speaker in class  was very knowledgeable about suicide and had a lot of information that she shared with us. As an RA I have received quite a few lectures that are very similar so I had a hard time paying attention. The information presented was very down home and could relate to quite easily. The presentation though was quite long and could have been condensed down some, with such a heavy topic it made people not want to listen. The class participation assisted with keeping us involved and  paying attention. Overall the discussion was interesting and quite informative but was almost to much.

Halloween

When I think of Halloween I think of horror movies and how they are so popular around this time of year. In the past two weeks there have been so many horror movies shown on TV, AMC had 13 days packed with horror movies, FX had 2 days, and many more. I think everyone can agree some scare is a good thing but the fact that we have so many movies out nowadays that we can devote almost two weeks to them just for some cheap thrills is confusing to me. I admit that I did watch quite a few of them but that was because nothing else was on.
I did watch a movie that I fell in love with such as Zombieland and Slither in which the entire premise of the movies were to make money.It also seems that more horror movies are along the lines of seeing how gross they can get compared to how actually scary they are.

Stupid Criminals

When looking for an idea for my post for today I found a news article from CNN in which they discusses an attempted robbery in front of Feris Jones, a police officer. In the article a 19 year old Winston Cox attempted to rob a a beauty parlor on Saturday when he walked in saying "'This is no joke, this is a robbery. I will kill you." to one of thee clerks. Cox ordered the customers and employees to go into the bathroom in which Jones identified herself as a officer and ordered him not to move. Cox fired four shots at Jones, narrowly missing her head with one of them and Jones retaliated and ended up hitting ox in both hands and proceeded to shoot the gun out of his hand.
This reminds me of how stupid people are especially some of the criminals that are present. I can't tell if the stupidity of these criminals are a good thing or a bad thing.

Copycat

I found the DVD we watched in class to be very informational but it was almost funny to me also. The idea of people copycatting movies and the actions in films is somewhat scary too. The idea of "monkey see monkey do" comes to mind when I think of this. It seems as if we are in some cases following the idea "do as i say not as i do"
Some of the examples given in the DVD are scary, the fact that people would become so obsessed with these ideas and films that they would act it out makes me fear for our future. The Scream murders are very disturbing to me because they committed the murder of the mom just because they wanted to buy something.
The Copycat phenomenon to me is a scapegoat. It is a easy way out for people to me. What scares me though is the fact some of these horror movies are really plausible and are so well thought out. When I first saw the movie vacancy I was shocked by how much I could see it happen.

Copycat

I remember when I was younger, about 10 years ago all these violent cartoons were becoming very popular and were getting such a big following me and a couple friends decided to copy some of the moves. We were practicing kicks and playing around when we got a little rough and I ended up kicking a kid's tooth out. A couple of us got so scared we ran and hid so we wouldn't get into trouble. Since then I really haven't done much in terms of copycatting things too much.

Suicide Post

For this post I decided to look at some current news articles that dealt with the reading for this week. The one reading that stuck out for me was the suicide reading and decided to look up article about that. I looked at three major news sites, FOX, CNN, and MSNBC and searched for suicide and was shocked by how many article popped up within the past few days. FOX had five article that dealt with suicide in the past week, MSNBC had over fifteen in the past week and CNN had over twenty.

One article that caught my eye was is the article titled "3 teens in Mass. bullying-suicide appear in court."  In the article it discusses how these girls forced another student to commit suicide. In Hadley Massachusetts three girls, Ashley Longe, Sharon Chanon Velazquez, and Flannery Mullins were accused of bullying their classmate Phoebe Prince till she hanged herself. Apparently the three girls were part of a group of six students that bullied her earlier in the year. The girls are expected to go to trial later in early 2011 and have been charged as youthful offenders with violation of civil rights resulting in bodily injury. Two of the girls, Mullins and Velazquez were charged with stalking and all three of them have pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors believe that Mullins, Velazquez and Longe were angry over Prince's brief relationship with Austin Renaud, Mullins' on-and-off boyfriend which resulted with the bullying. Longe is apparently yelled crude comments, such as "Irish whore" and "stupid slut," at Prince in the school library a few hours before her suicide. Longe also threw an aluminum can at Prince and yelled insults again as the freshman walked home that afternoon, authorities said in court records. Mullins supposedly threatened to beat up Prince, cornering her in a school bathroom, and repeatedly called her an "Irish slut" and posting demeaning comments about her on Face book.

This article reminded me how cruel and unfeeling some people can be as well as how some people are very easily to broken down. This article was a reminder of what goes on in many of the school system and this could be a good place to focus on anti-suicide programs. While I was in high school I heard of 1 completed suicide and 4 attempted.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39334096

MisInformation

The riot last year is a perfect example of why there should be a Department of Information. There were so many different rumors floating around about what took place as well as how big it was that many people were freaking out. There were rumors floating about deaths, hundreds of arrests, anarchy, and calling in reinforcements from all over. While some of the rumors proved true there were some that were outright lies and they spread out and lasted for a long time when in reality it wasn't as big as it was made out to be.
The Idea of there being a Department of Information actually sounds appealing to me, mainly due to the reasons that the article listed. All of us have been made fools of when we spout what we believe factual information that we hear from different sources and this department would greatly help with the control of false information. The fact that so many people get away with lying to the public just to get ratings to go up and they tell others who believe them is very disconcerting. From a young age we are conditioned to believe people that are in a position of authority and when these people lie to us we take it as truth.
The idea of the Department of Information is a good one but would be unrealistic due to the fact that people sometimes don't want the truth to be known as well as the fact that the corporations would be completely against it.

Stabbing

For the post this week I decided to look for recent news article that has to deal with random violence and discuss the possible implications that it has on the public.

The article I found is about a eight year old boy who was stabbed multiple times with a knife in a restaurant. The boy and his family were at Dave & Buster's and while the boy was playing video games a 23 year old man, Evan Sachs, came up behind him and stabbed him with a 3.5 inch knife five times. some of the injuries acquired include a punctured lung as well as deep lacerations. The boy is now recovering in a hospital and Sachs is facing charges of second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault and possession of deadly weapon. The attack on the boy is supposedly random due to the fact that Sachs didn't know the child.

The fact that he attack is random and it received so much publicity due to it's randomness has led me to believe that there is going to be much more paranoia among parents in public places. It seems to me that this is going to be scaring people to do keep a closer eye on their kids and to not trust people in common areas.

 http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/09/new.york.boy.stabbed/index.html

Brianna Denison

The case I decided to look at is the Brianna Denison Case. Brianna Denison was abducted on January 20, 2008 from a friend's house in Reno, Nevada. Her body was discovered on February 15, 2008 in a field near a Reno business park after being murdered by a serial rapist.
Here are the facts.

• Brianna was last seen on January 20, 2008 at approximately 4 am at a friend's house
•  At 9 in the morning a friend decided to check on her and found a bloodstain on a pillow she used
• The Reno Police Department conducted a forensic investigation on the room where Brianna was sleeping and found DNA belonging to an unidentified male
• A massive search for Brianna began which involved over 1700 volunteers and searched within a 100 square mile area around the University of Nevada
• On February 15, 2008 a worker discovered a body in a field, partially covered in the snow, and later determined that it was Brianna's
• On January 29, 2008 a description was released to the public about the suspect.
• The person in question is also linked to at least 2 attempted sexual assault in November and December 2007, and the rape of a woman in October in the Whalen Parking Garage

• On Tuesday, November 25, 2008, James Michael Biela was arrested and charged of murder, 1st-degree kidnapping, and sexual assault
• On Thursday, May 27, 2010 James Michael Biela was found guilty and was sentence of death for the murder of Brianna Denison

The case received prominent national media attention, including coverage by national news services FOXNews, CNN, ABC News, MSNBC,and CBS News.

 The articles I found seem to play more on the emotions of people but was not in the form of entertainment but rather letting us know what happened. I didn't get the feeling that the story was being sensationalized too much but was rather letting us know what types of things have been happening and really happens.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/06/02/nevada.biela.sentenced/index.html?iref=allsearch

War in Afghanistan

 http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/27/background-u-s-soldiers-charged-with-murder/?hpt=T1
 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39375104

When looking at CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC for news articles about the war in Afghanistan I found a news article about US Soldiers Facing Murder Charges for crimes committed. I found articles about the same story on CNN and MSNBC but could not find the story on FOX News.

The news articles contained the a few key facts such as:

• Dead bodies being staged by US forces
• Two of the victims were grenaded and shot while the third was just shot.
• The murders took place between January and March of this past year.
• A total of 12 Army personal are charged with the crime of murder
• 4 of the soldiers are also charged with keeping body parts as trophies such as skull, fingers, teeth, and bones in general

 MSNBC mainly gives out the pertinent information and looks at what happened while CNN has a copy of a tape in which a soldier admits what happens and gives an account of what happened while FOX does not have anything listed about this case. There is a few differences between the stories on CNN and MSNBC but for the most part are reporting the same thing. FOX news hasn't reported this story yet but it was just announced to the public recently so it may not have been uploaded yet onto their website.

This story is one that is very important for many reasons, if this is currently going on then the military should definitely keep a close eye on the other forces overseas because most likely others are committing the same crime as well. We should also hold each other accountable saying that this is unacceptable and we should be held to a higher standard. Also this case is going to be a political nightmare and we are going to lose support in anything we do in the future.

 http://cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2010/09/27/griffin.soldiers.afghanistan.cnn

Castle

For the free blog I decided to look at one of my favorite shows that deals with crime Castle. Castle is a crime comedy in which Rick Castle, an author who focused on crime novel, is suspected of murder when people are being killed based on his books.  Kate Beckett, the NYPD detective investigating the murders, eventually become friends with Castle and they start solving crimes. Castle decides to use Beckett as an muse for his new novels and start to write stories based off of her and named her Nikki Heat, which becomes a best seller.

This show mainly focuses on thinking outside the box in order solve cases and the fact that sometimes a fresh set of eyes can help with the solving of crime.While the show is completely fictionalized and has very little meaning in real life but it is still entertaining. This show does go into the mind of the criminals though and that is one of the ways that they try to catch criminal. The crimes are usually ones that are fairly common and ones that are possibly problematic.

Serial Murder

To find this article about a serial murderer I typed in a search engine "serial murder 2010" and found an article on Fox News about an arrest of a serial stabber who was caught by an airport intercom. This article focused mainly on the background and events leading up to the arrest on Elias Abuelazam and gave information about his various victims.

Elias Abuelazam is suspected of stabbing 18 different people in three different states which has left five people dead. In Michigan where the stabbings began an arrest warrant was placed into effect in may for "assault with intent to murder." Abuelazam was on the way to his family home in Tel Aviv Israel and was arrested in front of passengers on their way to back to Israel. Abuelazam responded to a page and was carrying an expired passport and was arrested by Atlanta police. Many different law enforcement agencies were involved in the arrest of Abuelazam, including 3 different state police and the FBI.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/08/12/report-police-detain-man-connection-mich-serial-stabbings/

 

Media Comparison

The media comparison that I looked at was an story about a woman that made a false claim about someone throwing acid in her face. I looked at FOX news, MSNBC, and CNN and what their take on the story is. The main points of the story is  as follows.

• Bethany  Storro made a claim to the police that someone threw acid in her face 
• Bethany has now stated that her injuries are self-inflicted.
• Bethany who was hospitalized, and now may face charges
• Police conducted search of her residence and did not find any evidence

CNN has more background information such as the events that led up to the acid being thrown to her face as well as more specific information. Fox News and MSNBC are identical in their story and does not change at all.

 http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/16/police-say-washington-woman-fabricated-attack-threw-acid-face/
 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39222892/ns/us_news
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/09/16/washington.acid.attack/index.html?hpt=T1

Deviant Behavior

 http://www.free-lock-picking-guide.com/


When thinking about this assignment it was kind of difficult to come up with a type of behavior that is different from what others had picked and wasn't copying others.With the definition of deviant behavior being "behavior that violate cultural norm" it is hard to come up with behaviors. I found a site that had to deal with lock-picking and it explained the different ways of picking various locks as well as showing videos. The reason that the behavior is considered deviant is due to the fact that unless the person is a locksmith or is part of a law enforcement agency then it is considered wrong and is against the social norms. This site support the learning of how to pick locks as well as the giving out general information about locks.
I believe that the lock picking can be considered deviant but in many instances it can also be considered acceptable, such as if it is done to protect others that are locked inside places or to allow the law enforcement to search without damaging goods.

Media Criticism

www.lifenews.com/nat5992.html
Th article i picked is titled "MTV Show 16 and Pregnant Criticized for not Promoting Teen Abortion". This article written by Steven Ertelt of Life News discusses the disagreement that some people have with the renewal of the show "16 and Pregnant."The article brings up a a situation that many people have brought up bout reality shows, why don't they show what is actually real. the show "16 and Pregnant" does not show the whole story about teenager that are pregnant, the show only shows teenager that choose to actually give birth instead of the teens that have actually have abortions.
The criticisms in the article is mainly pointed at the executives of MTV because they are portraying one set of ideals when there are many other ideals. The show is supposed to show what some of the teens that are pregnant goes through however the show does not show the other side of the coin where teens who are pregnant decide to not go through with the pregnancy and instead have abortions. This does show where there is a problem in the reality show, the fact that reality shows only show one point of view and does not show the truth.
While there is no recommendation made by the article to "fix" the show it seems as if the apparent solution for the show would be to actually show the whole aspects of a teenage pregnancy including the teens that choose abortion rather then to give birth.
Personally I'm against the use of abortion except in the instance of rape and if there is a threat to the health of the mother.

Media Fast

The media fast was not that hard for me to do as long as i could find something to do. It was allot easier when I had someone to hang out with and was not stuck with just reading. It did allow me to catch up on some of my classes and wasn't to bad overall. The majority of the interactions I have with others is face to face rather then cellphone and facebook. some of the things that helped with passing the time during the fast was playing board games and reading as well as just hanging out with people.

Media Log Thursday September 2

Woke up at 830 and went online.
Class from 915-11
Listen to radio from 11-12
Class from 1215-230
Surfed internet from 230-5
Phone for 15 minutes
Watched TV till 7
Played games from 730-930
Watched TV from 11-12

Due to my schedule I don't have classes on Wednesday and Friday so I decided that i would do the Media fast on Saturday and media log on Thursday to show what a typical day is like for me.