U.S. soldier faces murder charges from Afghan war

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/09/27/afghanistan.coverup.case/index.html?iref=allsearch

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39375104

Fox- nothing

The article describes how 12 soldiers of war are being prosecuted for conspiracy of murder to Afghan civilians and covering it up.  Specifically, five of the soldiers are being charged with murder, and the other 7 are being charged with covering up.  Jeremy Morlock is the main focus of the case.  Morlock is being charged with 3 counts of murder.  Also,  a man name Gibbs(who is also part of Morlock's brigade) is being held accountable for keeping body parts of war.  Supposedly Gibbs took a finger and leg bone, along with a tooth from a corpse.  

The CNN article does a very good job of giving you the general idea for the cases.  The article doesn't really go into specifics.  On the contrary to CNN, MSNBC gives you a more detailed description on each case in particular.  It also lets you know what each soldier is being charged with.  Fox doesn't even have the article.

I guess one of the possible reasons FOX didnt publish this article is because of their Republican background.  Maybe they didnt want to portray their military as unrefined animals.  Just an idea.

I definitely believe the public should be aware of this story.  The media is one of the only ways the general public can be informed on whats going on over seas.  Unless you know someone overseas personally, the media is a way we, the general public get a grasp on the war itself.

Hood Rat things with my friend

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcqOgnQyXp4

Minors and the justice system are always a highly controversial issue.  At what age should a person be responsible for his or her actions.  In this clip you have a 7 year old that stole his grandmothers car.  On his joyride he hits several cars and mailboxes.  The media catches the 7 year old saying, "I like to do hood rat things with my friend" and "he smoke with cigarettes".  The scary part about this whole story is that this kid is only 7 years old.  I don't think I even knew what a cigarette was at 7.  

So i go back to the question about what age should a person be responsible for his or her actions?  Honestly, in my opinion a 7 year old is a little young to be prosecuted for a serious offense.  I'm sure his grandmother is going to give him all the punishment he needs anyways.  On the contrary, what if this kid had killed someone on his drive?  He openly admitted to knowing he could of killed someone.  It definitely would have been a tough place to be in for a judge.

All in all, the media does a very good job of portraying this little kid as a corrupt individual.  It seems like the media tried to make this case as extreme as they could.  Im sure there have been other kids that have taken their parents car for a joyride.  Why did this story get so much attention?

Serial Killer

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/08/23/crime.grim.sleeper.case/index.html?iref=allsearch

This article is a about man who was accused of killing 10 women.  He was given the nickname the "Grim Sleeper" because he would take long breaks in between killings.  His killings range from 1985 to 2007.  His main targets were African American women and prostitutes.  Franklin was arrested on July 8th.  Police had found Franklin's DNA at some of the crime scenes in which led to his arrest.  His sons DNA was also found.  He is currently locked up in Southern California.  

The article focuses more so on the case itself.  I believe there is so much ambiguity in between cases its hard to give specific details for each one.  In which are the reasons why the author targets the case itself.    Franklin plead not guilty to 10 accounts of murder.  These 10 accounts were all located in South Los Angeles area.  The killings took a 12 year stint. No specific types of police were mentioned in the article.  The article talks a lot about Franklin's encounter with his cellmate.  The victims really aren't mentioned at all in the article.  They only mention what type of people Franklin targeted.  One interesting thing about the article was that in May, sketches of the serial killer were posted on billboards.   How would you feel driving down the road looking at billboards trying to find serial killers?

Football Player Story

 1)  http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/09/14/thomas.football.brain/index.html?hpt=C1

2)  http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/football/ncaa/09/13/penn.death.ap/index.html?xid=si_ncaaf&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

3)  http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/09/14/college-football-player-who-committed-suicide-had-signs-of-brain-injury/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:+DiscoverMindBrain+(Discover+Mind+&+Brain)

The articles I chose were about a football player from the University of Penn that hung himself.  Owen Thomas was the starting lineman for the team that was name second team All Ivy in his sophomore year.  In April he was found dead in his off campus apartment.  An autopsy was performed on the young man only to find that he suffered from CTE.  This syndrome is usually found in boxers.  Why you might ask? Boxers end up with this syndrome from the repeated blows to the head.  Repeated knocks to the skull tend to result in concussions.  After finding out that Mr. Thomas had this disease, it led to some explanation for the hanging.  Its effects are neurobehavioral, including erratic behavior, use of drugs and alcohol, depression and suicide.  The kicker in the story was that Mr. Thomas had never been diagnosed with a concussion.  Which brings up many scary factors/issues when thinking about our athletes.  

One of the main differences between the articles is the sense of empathy.  Source number 2 had a lot of quotes from his mother.  It definitely was a lot harder to read when you felt the compassion of the mother to the son.  Source number 3 was mainly focused on prevention of CTE in the future, and how it’s been a problem throughout the NFL.  

The story in each article for the most part remained the same.  The differences were the focus points of each article.   They all focused on different aspects when talking about CTE.  It was pretty evident on how each article differed.  The bulk of the paper was about what the author wanted to get across to the reader.  None of the articles really distorted the facts of the story, but deliberately focused on what the author was pushing for in the article.  

Common links that were found throughout the stories were Mr. Thomas had never had a concussion before.  He was a good student and well liked.   The NFL in the past has had trouble with CTE.  His parents were in great shock when it happened.  CTE is a serious disease.  

Deviant Cockfighting

http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/best-cockfighting-website


I found this website that shows videos of cockfighting.  For people that dont know what cockfighting entails, its basically dog fighting but with chickens.  The website has hundreds of videos on it.  Unfortunately you have to subscribe to the website to actually watch the videos, so my viewings were limited.

The act of being involved in cockfighting is deviant by itself. A good example of this was the Mike Vick case a couple years back  with dogfighting.  Vick was sentenced to several months in jail.  Different animals but same concept when talking about deviance.

I guess the purpose of this website is to support avid cockfighting fans.  I didnt realize that cockfighting was such a popular activity to be involved with.  Cockfighting seems to be quite popular around the world internationally, not so much within the U.S.  In my opinion cockfighting is quite deviant.  Anytime you force two animals to fight to the death it will and should be labeled deviant and inhumane.
Forcing two animals to kill each other is on another level than just being deviant.

Media on Media

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2686_131/ai_90683550/

This article starts off by asking the question, where does this "American" image come from that are lives revolve around drugs, crime and prostitution?  The author makes it a point to say that almost all American films have been, or can be translated into foreign languages.  Not only are American films being shown throughout the world, but CNN as well.  As we all know CNN does a fabulous job of keeping the world posted on our daily sex scandals and horrific oil spills.  Further along in the article he asks the question about the  realistic images and values that our country portrays, are they non-existant?

The author criticizes not only the media itself and how it portrays Americans, but certain outlets as well.  CNN was certainly focused on throughout the article and how it portrays our nation as a whole like violent drug addicts.  The criticism is pointed out as a national tragedy.  It brings up several first hand experiences in the article about how we are looked upon in such a negative manner to some people.  Which makes one think of the stereotypical "American".  In my opinion the author does a fine job of bringing up valid points on why we are viewed like that throughout the world.  First hand accounts are about as personal as it can get for evidence.

The author finishes her article with several solutions to this problem.  In my opinion the most important solution to this problem that she presented was that people should start taking responsibility for oneself, when in foreign countries.  Even if the movies portray us in a certain way, by showing them in person that all Americans aren't drug dealing coke heads, could actually have an immediate impact on our perception throughout the world.

Media Fast

I chose to do my media fast on Saturday.  One of the main reasons I chose to do it on this particular day is because I sleep for most of Saturday.  Instead of watching TV when I woke up I chose to read a book.  Within an hour I fell back asleep for a couple hours.  By the time I chose to get out of bed my buddies were ready to go to UREC.  After spending a couple hours there I went home and cleaned up for the night.  For the rest of the night I went to my friends house for a party, and left my cell phone at home.  All in all the experience was somewhat relaxing, not having to worry about constant communication with people is nice. Not to be hassled by emails and text messages all throughout the day came at an unexpected pleasant surprise.  The only problem I had was with the non-usage of the I-pod.  I listen to my I-pod non-stop, 24/7.  Music makes everything more enjoyable without a doubt.  The only time I cheated was when my parents had to get in touch with me about school.  

Media Log

9:00am - Alarm went off on my phone

9:30am- Checked e-mail while watching Sportscenter

1:00pm- Worked on the computer

3:00pm- Talked on the phone

6:00pm- Internet

8:00pm- Television

11:00pm- Internet/E-mails

*Text throughout the day (around 10 times)
*I-pod usage around 3-4 hours throughout day