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.