Dirty Harry

One of my all time favorite movies starring one of my favorite actors is Dirty Harry.  In the movie Clint Eastwood plays inspector 'Dirty Harry' Callahan, who is a San Francisco police officer with a dirty attitude and uses little methods to what the law prescribes. In the movie it becomes a menacing task for Callahan to apprehend a menacing killer at all cost, which later unravels into a cat-and-mouse game between the two men. One killer with a sinister, distasteful laughter. The other, a killer with just a plain dirty attitude who holds the badge.
On several occasions  Inspector Callahan broke or bent the law in order to uphold the law.  In my opinion this is an aspect of real life that usually does not get much attention.  How much power is society wiling to grant the police to ensure their safety?  Is torturing a serial killer in order to find and save a little girl unethical?  But if police are granted to much freedom there is potential for a George Orwellian society.
I believe that 'Dirty Harry' acted completely reasonably in order to keep the streets safer, except when he twistedly played with the bank robber by lifting his gun and pulling the trigger after the robber dropped his gun.  The robber wanted to know the answer to whether 'Dirty Harry' had fired 5 shots or 6 but if he had only shot 5 the 'Dirty Harry' would have shot an incapacitated unarmed man in the face with his .44 magnum.

Kenji by Fort Minor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ckvmc_486U&feature=related

Fort Minor-Kenji

My father came from Japan in 1905
He was 15 when he immigrated from Japan
He worked until he was able to buy respect and build a store

Let me tell you the story in the form of a dream,
I don't know why I have to tell it but I know what it means,
Close your eyes, just picture the scene,
As I paint it for you, it was World War II,
When this man named Kenji woke up,
Ken was not a soldier,
He was just a man with a family who owned a store in LA,
That day, he crawled out of bed like he always did,
Bacon and eggs with wife and kids,
He lived on the second floor of a little store he ran,
He moved to LA from Japan,
They called him 'Immigrant,'
In Japanese, he'd say he was called "Issei,"
That meant 'First Generation In The United States,'
When everybody was afraid of the Germans, afraid of the Japs,
But most of all afraid of a homeland attack,
And that morning when Ken went out on the doormat,
His world went black 'cause,
Right there; front page news,
Three weeks before 1942,
"Pearl Harbour's Been Bombed And The Japs Are Comin',"
Pictures of soldiers dyin' and runnin',
Ken knew what it would lead to,
Just like he guessed, the President said,
"The evil Japanese in our home country will be locked away,"
They gave Ken, a couple of days,
To get his whole life packed in two bags,
Just two bags, couldn't even pack his clothes,
Some folks didn't even have a suitcase, to pack anything in,
So two trash bags is all they gave them,
When the kids asked mom "Where are we goin'?"
Nobody even knew what to say to them,
Ken didn't wanna lie, he said "The US is lookin' for spies,
So we have to live in a place called Manzanar,
Where a lot of Japanese people are,"
Stop it don't look at the gunmen,
You don't wanna get the soldiers wonderin',
If you gonna run or not,
'Cause if you run then you might get shot,
Other than that try not to think about it,
Try not to worry 'bout it; bein' so crowded,
Someday we'll get out, someday, someday.

As soon as war broke out
The F.B.I. came and they just come to the house and
"You have to come"
"All the Japanese have to go"
They took Mr. Ni
People didn't understand
Why did they have to take him?
Because he's an innocent laborer

So now they're in a town with soldiers surroundin' them,
Every day, every night look down at them,
From watch towers up on the wall,
Ken couldn't really hate them at all;
They were just doin' their job and,
He wasn't gonna make any problems,
He had a little garden with vegetables and fruits that,
He gave to the troops in a basket his wife made,
But in the back of his mind, he wanted his families life saved,
Prisoners of war in their own damn country,
What for?
Time passed in the prison town,
He wanted them to live it down when they were free,
The only way out was joinin' the army,
And supposedly, some men went out for the army, signed on,
And ended up flyin' to Japan with a bomb,
That 15 kilotonne blast, put an end to the war pretty fast,
Two cities were blown to bits; the end of the war came quick,
Ken got out, big hopes of a normal life, with his kids and his wife,
But, when they got back to their home,
What they saw made them feel so alone,
These people had trashed every room,
Smashed in the windows and bashed in the doors,
Written on the walls and the floor,
"Japs not welcome anymore."
And Kenji dropped both of his bags at his sides and just stood outside,
He, looked at his wife without words to say,
She looked back at him wiping tears away,
And, said "Someday we'll be OK, someday,"
Now the names have been changed, but the story's true,
My family was locked up back in '42,
My family was there it was dark and damp,
And they called it an internment camp

When we first got back from camp... uh
It was... pretty... pretty bad

I, I remember my husband said
"Are we gonna stay 'til last?"
Then my husband died before they close the camp.

Kenji by Fort Minor does a great job of of highlighting some of the injustices happening in the United States around WWII.  In the song Fort Minor shows how the mass paranoia that came from the attack on Pearl Harbor led to the wrongful internment of all Japanese-Americans.  Many innocent Japanese-Americans were forced to live in deplorable conditions all because of the fear installed via the President and the media.  Furthermore, all of this paranoia carried over to racism even after the war ended.  Many Japanese-Americans lost their homes and businesses because of the connotation of all Japanese as the enemy, despite the fact that many Japanese-Americans fought in the American military.  Sadly this issue is not an isolated incident.  Although we have not locked all of the Americans of Arabic decent there is a strong wrongful connotation of all Arabs as terrorists.  And because of this many bad things have been done to them.

The Big Talk

Suicide is rarely considered an easy topic to talk about or listen to, but I feel that the guest speaker did a good job.  She was clearly knowledgeable on the subject matter and portrayed herself as calm and approachable.  A trait that I find to be very important when discussing such a sensitive subject.  On several occasions I have talked to friends about suicidal thoughts, and now I feel a little more equipped to notice and handle the situation when things start to take a turn for the worst.  I found it very interesting that a sudden burst of happiness can be an indicator that a person has made the decision to commit suicide.
On another note, despite how helpful and informative this discussion was, I am unaware how it relates to our class.  I mean no disrespect, I always find these talks important, but other than the small part about how some suicides are not counted as suicides in the media's eye I failed to connect the two.  Maybe I am forgetting something or missing the point of the discussion, but in my mind there should have been more talk about suicide in relation to either the media or justice.

Restoring Sanity and/ keeping fear alive

As Halloween is at least partially based around fear I feel that it is justified to talk about the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert rally that happened this past Saturday.  Whether it was through the threat of peanut butter covered bees, or the demonstration of media consistently using fear as a tool to shape societies views I believe that Colbert did a good job of satirizing fear as an overbearing issue for discourse in everyday life.  Stewart and Colbert  were successful in driving the point that too many debate, news, or political programs are hurting the important discussions and thus causing an abundance of dead ends on the important issues.
At the end of the rally Jon Stewart told the crowd, “This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith, or people of activism, or to look down our noses at the heartland, or passionate argument, or to suggest that times are not difficult and we have nothing to fear. "They are, and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies, but unfortunately one of our main tools in delineating the two broke." He spoke of what he termed "the country's 24-hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflictinator." It did not cause the nation's problems, Stewart said, "but its existence makes solving them that much harder ... If we amplify everything, we hear nothing."
Overall, I believe that this rally looked at everyones problems with discourse, but mainly focused as a tool to critique the media.  A subject very near and dear to this class...

Movies made me do it...

I do not deny that many people take what they see in violent movies and try to enact those heinous actions in real life.  But I do not feel that it is not because those movies are corrupting all of the wholesome youths, rather they are being manipulated by impressionable youths already prone to delinquency.  In the movie we saw a person who said that he would copy whatever violent act that he saw in movies.  Who is to say that without violent movies this person would not have committed the crimes.  That person may have committed the crimes in a different manner, but I am positive that the person would still have acted out in violence.  These movies become more of an outline rather then a driving cause. The fact that people are acting out scenes from violent movies is awful and should be stopped.  No one deserves to die because some punk kids wanted to be "Scream" in real life.
I feel that we cannot blame Hollywood for making films that seem to glorify violence.  These films are in demand by the general public for their entertainment value.  In affect the public is the driving force behind the creation of such films.  Therefore, it should be the public's responsibility to teach against committing violent acts.

Md. forest aims to curb drug activity

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/15/AR2010101506699.html?nav=mbot

This article states that Maryland's National Resource Police (NRP) have decided to try and reduce the amount of drug activity in Maryland forests.  Just last Saturday the NRP made 10 drug related arrests, accompanied by the 120 arrests mad in the first 9 months of this year.  The NRP has joined with MD State Police, County Police and the State Corrections Department and says they are committed to providing a safe family environment and will continue this joint proactive law enforcement measure to ensure the safety of the patrons to the State's public land is met. 
The NRP will be using an increase of patrolling officers as well as drug sniffing dogs in an effort to deter drug use in the forest.  But as the article stated, there are a lot of unspoiled and uncharted areas that can act as a cover for those who plan to use illegal  drugs in the forest.  As we discussed in class it may be a good idea for the NRP to employ education in an effor to deter people from wanting to use illicit drugs in the forest.

(mis)Information

I agree with the article that information is too often misused and even twisted to fit preconceived notions of truth.  Far too often are sites devoted to particular sides fill their arguments with more opinions and inferences then actual raw facts of the subject matter.  Generally these sights are used to either convert others or reinforce the beliefs of others.  By employing certain tactics, such as passion over the issues, people can sway others to jump on their bandwagon.  Take the "love-able" character Brother Micah for an example of using passion to try and sway people towards his own beliefs.  He travels around college campuses all over the country preaching and trying to convert people to his version of Christianity in order to save our souls.  Although many JMU students either ignore or mess with Brother Micah, we cannot escape the fact that he picks specific portions of the bible to try and fit his argument and then uses said portions with huge passion.  In an attempt to prove this people have stood next to him and preached other portions of the Christian Bible that seem to refute Brother Micah.
Sometimes people need to have something that they can just believe in.  But it is important to not base arguments on ill conceived facts.  A department of Information could help to fight pure passion arguments, but it could be hard to make sure all sides are represented as fully as possible.

Carwash Owner Slain

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/08/AR2010100806399.html

 The article I read was about how a man was murdered in his home.  The article title is Fairfax Carwash Owner Found Slain in Home but there seems to be no connection to the murder and the man's carwash business.  I would say that this article is not much of a entertainment piece, other then the fact that the killer is still at large with no suspects.
 The article states that the police refuse to reveal the cause of death other then trauma to the upper body and that the victims car is missing.  The rest of the article seems to be about the victim, Yung S. Yun. 
I feel that this article was printed prematurely for a crime article, as there are very little crime facts.  In my opinion this is more of an obituary.  I mean no disrespect to the victim or his family, I just dont think news agencies should put out articles that basically show how little they know.

Double Murder

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/07/AR2010100706504.html?nav=mbot

A Prince Georges man was convicted for murdering his wife and a family friend.  The man killed the two because he suspected them of having an affair.  Although the story mainly sticks to the facts, the facts seem to be entertaining.
1. jealously- the distraut husband (luckett) unloads over 13 rounds at his wife and her suspected lover
2. man hunt-  Luckett was on the run from the law for two days after the shootings
3. attempted suicide- Luckett tried to use a metro train to crush himself but only lost his legs in the incident
4. insanity-  Luckett's lawyer tried to argue that his client was suffering from a mental illness

Although this case is not getting too much attention I feel that a case like this could cause officials to look more closely at insanity pleas.

Taliban Foiled

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/03/taliban-attempt-attack-on-kandahar-air-base/

The article I read was only on CNN and it was a bout a failed Taliban attack on an air base in Kandahar Afghanistan.  I feel that this article was not the other news agencies because it is expected that the insurgents are constantly trying to carry out attacks.  CNN reports that 6 insurgents were killed while only two civilians and one ISAF soldier were only slightly injured.

Although I can understand why other networks would chose to not report on this, I still see how it is important to know everything.  Even though the attack was a  failure it was still an attack, and if attacks go unreported people can get the wrong message about progress in Afghanistan.  People need to know that it is not all quiet on the battlefield. 

Once Were Warriors

*Spoiler Alert*

I would like to start off by saying that this was a good, but pretty depressing movie.  The movie takes place in what looks like the slums of New Zealand.  The area seems to only be filled with the native people, which makes me think  that segregation was still rampant in New Zealand during the 1990's.  Back in the old tribe the mother was "the chosen one" but the tribal elders did not approve of her marring a man from a long generation of slaves.  They left the tribe to join modern society and poverty. 
Even though the family is dirt poor there are late night parties every night where their friends eat basically all their food.  When the mother refuses to make more food for the husbands best friend she gets maliciously beaten and then raped by the husband.  The eldest son is off joining a gang and the middle son has been taken away by social services.  One of the husbands friends rapes the 13 year old daughter during one of the loud parties, she later cant take the violence surrounding her and commits suicide.  At the funeral the girls journal is read and the husband beats the life out of his once friend, but it is too late and the wife decides to leave him and takes the children back to the tribe.

In the beginning the living conditions reminded me of the ghettos you would expect to see in troubled areas in America:  The family all depending on the terribly paying jobs the father can get.  Violence at every corner.
But at the end of the movie I was wondering why the natives would ever want to join modern society.  I seemed like tribal life was much more tranquil and honorable.  In society everyone seems to be slaves to violence, booze, and poverty.

The Chessboard Killer

http://www.skcentral.com/articles.php?article_id=692

This article states that Alexander Pichushkin, otherwise known as the Chessboard Killer, was convicted on 48 counts of murder and 3 counts of attempted murder in Moscow, Russia in October of 2007.  This article focuses more on Alexander Pichushkin himself rather then the court case.  The article makes the presumption that Alexander Pichushkin may have been in competition with another one of Russia's most famous serial killers, Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted of 52 murders in 1992.  It was even around the time of Chikatilo's trial in 1992 that Pichushkin committed his first murder. Pichushkin was even quoted in saying that "this first murder, it's like love, it's unforgettable".  
The article stated that after this first killing in 1992 Pichushkin did not kill again until the early part of 2000.  Pichushkin's killings began to get more and more gruesome until the authorities finally caught up with him in June of 2006.  Pichushkin had killed a woman he worked with at a supermarket. It was because she had left a note for her son to tell him that she was taking a walk with Pichushkin that the authorities were able to catch him. While he was aware of the risks involved in killing his co-worker, he still murdered her.  Pichushkins states that it is not only a desire to kill, but also a need to kill.  For Pichushkin a life without killing is comparable to starvation from food for a normal person.
The article made no mention to which authorities caught up to Pichushkin, only that he was caught.  Also that the police found a chessboard with 61or 62 of its 64 squares filled with dates.  Pichushkin had been trying to fill a chess board with murders, hence his media given name.  Although Pichushkin was only convicted on 48 counts of murder and 3 counts of attempted murder, as 3 victims survived, Pichushkin claims to have killed 11 more people in his 2007 trial.
The jury only deliberated for 3 hours before sentencing Pichushkin to life imprisonment.  But in the wake of these hideous acts committed by Pichushkin there was a renewed interest in re-instituting the death penalty in Russia.

Christine O'Donnell

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/us/politics/16elect.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/14/hours-polls-close-gloves-come-delaware/
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/senate/christine-odonnell-upsets-mike.html

All three articles I read have to do with Christine O'Donnell's win over Mike Castle in the Delaware Senate Primary.  Each article makes a point of highlighting the fact that the win was an upset.  Along with this each article brings up the fact that O'Donnell was backed by the Tea Party.

-The NY Times brings in the percentages of votes won by O'Donnell and includes an interview with O'Donnell.

-Fox News talks about how O'Donnell stood her ground and how this was an important win for the Tea Party.

-The Washington Post focuses on how although this was a big upset and was a big win for the tea party there were also big political battles in New York and New Hampshire.

Although there are these small differences, with small twists from bias, I believe that each source keeps their stories essentially identical.  In this instance, it can be easy to say whether you support a person or party but there can be little differences in the facts.

Cooking with Anarchy!

http://anarchistcookbook.com/activity/

As you can tell from the URL the anarchist cookbook is a site devoted to anarchy.  This is a forum based website that allows people to talk on any topic, whether it is about how to make bombs, other weapons, drugs, and conspiracies.  One of the main slogans of this group is that government is not the solution it is the problem.  These members are devoted to rebelling against the government any way they can.  As this is a public forum a good portion seem to be playing it safe by not being to open but their are clear cases of people talking about effective bomb and drug recipes.

Whether these people are supporting each others illicit endeavours for fun or for more destructive motives I feel that this is definitely  a site devoted to promoting a deviant behavior.  Many members of the anarchist cookbook end up getting arrested for being too public, But others are smarter and use the wiki chat function to secretly talk about different recipes, something that must be done as the federal government is watching this site pretty closely.  One of the reasons I decided to use school computers rather then my computer

I know first hand that the draws to make a small bomb, even if it is not for a sinister purpose, can be overwhelming.  But when it comes down to it  this is definitely an activity that goes against the social norm of being non destructive and to follow the rules.  And when there is a site promoting the complete opposite of that norm it must not only be labeled a deviant but must be monitored.

Appeasing Google

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/howard-kurtz/2010/09/appeasing_the_google_gods.html

The article I chose to read deals with how online new papers now have to focus more on catchy subject matter in order for their articles to pop up on search engines like Google.  It is interesting to think of the news as selling out to the public.  But it is also very apparent that an article about how many mistresses a celebrity has or whats the newest natural disaster will get more hits then an article about politicians passing ordinances.

I do not see this as only a criticism of Google, or any other search engine, but also a look at journalists willingness to report certain articles.  The author of this article fears that journalism will soon become another popularity contest.  I feel that the article does a good job of looking at the public's obsession with using search engines to search for what hot and journalists desire for views.  Although many journalists are only concerned with the news aspect many are concerned with getting their work seen by the masses.

The author offers no real solutions to this problem, but seems confident that the track record of real news proves that it can outlast the problem.  But the author does jokingly right hot topic search items at the bottom of his article.  Although this is a joke it could be used to trick people into opening a link from a search engine.

Media Fast for 9/2/10

Looking back on this media fast, it was not as difficult a task as I thought it would be to carry out.  I found that instead of listening to music in the morning I could sleep in a little later and take a longer shower.  I missed the music, but it was nice to sleep in.  Instead of listening to my i-pod between classes I  decided to read the Breeze and complete the Sodoku puzzle inside of the paper.  I would have prefered the music, but sodoku is always a fun challenge.

Later, intead of watching TV or going on facebook I went over to a friends house to drink a little and play a couple games.  Between the drinking, beer pong, chess and conversations from all of us I didnt even realize how much time had passed.

I had specifically chose this day for my e-fast.  I knew that because of the Hillel wing night I would be able to talk to a lot of friends without relying on phones to set up any plans.  But even though I planned this out, I found myself cheating a little bit.  I had left my phone on in case of any emergencies and I did my best not to respond to any text messages.  But I did remind a friend when he asked what time our class was that day.

Overall, the music was the hardest to give up for the e-fast.  But I do feel that the e-fast helped in showing that most media is more for pleasure than necessity.  It would have been harder to make plans without the use of a phone if I was not already meeting with a large group of friends, but it still would have been possible

Media Log for 9/1/10

- listened to music on pandora for 30 minutes while getting ready for class
- set up lunch with friends through texting and listened to i-pod for an hour
- went on facebook and email for about 2 hours
- watched news and other programs with housemates for approx 3 hours
- played N64 with housemates for  about 2 hours