Rehabilitated?...to me it's just a made up word. A politician's word..

The Shawshank Redemption, 1994
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtwXlIwozog

1967 Parole Hearings Man: Ellis Boyd Redding, your files say you've served 40 years of a life sentence. Do you feel you've been rehabilitated? 
Red: Rehabilitated? Well, now let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means. 
1967 Parole Hearings Man: Well, it means that you're ready to rejoin society... 
Red: I know what *you* think it means, sonny. To me it's just a made up word. A politician's word, so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie, and have a job. What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did? 
1967 Parole Hearings Man: Well, are you? 
Red: There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit. 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/quotes


     This dialog is form one my favorite movies of all time and probably one of the most critically underacclaimed of the last 20 years. The entire movie is about justice from the perspective of Prison spectatorship and the perceived harsh life of prison. The movie underscores the long prison terms given, especially through Red, a man serving life for a murder he committed while a teenager. We have seen Red go through other parole hearings in the past attempting to feed the panel the same lines that he thinks they want to hear. This dialog brings an alternate perspective to the sentencing laws in the United States.

Five Finger Death Punch - Death Before Dishonor (explicit)

http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/f/five_finger_death_punch/death_before_dishonor.html


"To the haters, the takers, the liars, all the vultures and the bottom feeding scum
The FCC, the FBI and every tin god with a badge and a gun
You talk and talk, you preach and bitch but your words don't mean a thing
You get what you give, you give what you get
Just the way it's always been

I choose death before dishonor
I'd rather die than live down on my knees
Bury me like a soldier, with my dignity!

You imitate the ostracized, put your head beneath the sand
Your cup it runneth over, must be rough to live so grand
You reap what you sew, you pay what you owe unless you bathe yourself in greed
You rob and you take, your world is fake
There's no honor amongst the thieves

I choose death before dishonor
I'd rather die than live down on my knees
Bury me like a soldier, with my dignity!

Fuck!
You're self righteous, self pretentious
Your ways are not for me
You're deluded, so confused
Your world is not for me

I choose death before dishonor
I'd rather die than live down on my knees
Bury me like a soldier...

Bury me! (Bury me!)
Bury me! (Bury me!)
Bury me!

With my dignity!"

This song came to my mind when I was reading the article about the modern neo-conservative oppression of the ostracized classes in the United States. The Band is rebelling against the government and in particular, law enforcement for being hypocritical. The band says it might not live up to their standards but at least they have their dignity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-dwBhrevgw

Newlywed shot dead after Halloween party

After conducting a quick search for on Google for "crime" and "Halloween" I found this interesting article. The article is pretty sparse and just reports that there was a newlywed woman who was murdered in Atlanta. The woman had been shot several times in her home after returning from a party and her husband has been taken into custody for the event. The report also claimed that the woman's husband was arrested for walking naked in a nearby park and was later charged. This kind of crime may be just another intoxicated violent act and in which case as college students we can see the same types of incidents around our community. I could not help but think that since it took place during Halloween, that maybe this killing was inspired by the bad energy of a morbid holiday.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39945566/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

Copycat Crimes

I still have to say that I think copy cat crimes are an interesting phenomenon that is being blamed entirely too much on Hollywood and not enough on the ind9vidual. As John Douglas said, these people would find other ways to be violent if they did not have the influence from the movie in the first place. The fact that "Natural Born Killers" was so popular seemed fairly frighting to me though. How could so many people be so inspired by this one film? I think copy cat crimes are committed by disturbed people who lack enough creativity to come up with interesting crimes on their own. They in turn take the crimes depicted by other more imaginative people and copy them.

Homecoming Tailgating

The JMU football atmosphere is smaller than a lot of Division one schools but for the size of the institution I don't think we do all that bad. In the past students were able to get excited about the games, tailgate freely, and get loud at the games. Post spring 2010 all of that has changed.  The ability of students to tailgate has been reduced drastically with the institution of a police presence that outnumbers fans in student lots. On the other side of campus, conveniently the side that costs $1000-$1500 to park a car, the sight of a police officer is rare if non existent. The militant police presence has resulted in a calm game day atmosphere and a lack of student excitement in their university. The lack of media coverage has caused some fans to cover the matter themselves.
http://jmusportsblog.com/?p=1399 is a blog run by an alumni which calls out the administration for its ludicrous use of law enforcement to give tickets to students alumni and even parents this year. I feel if there is not formal attention called to the behavior of the administration there might soon be a revolt by the student body.

Obama's a Muslim!

Yes, sadly but truthfully i hopped on the Obama's a Muslim bandwagon back in 2007-2008. The bandwagon effect really took a hold of me and until i was actually able to do some research on the topic I believed that Obama was in face a Muslim. In my defense I did not nor do I associate Muslims with automatically being terrorists. I am in fact more scared that I know Obama is actually an extremest United States hating Christian radical. Initially I gave the man credit for running for high office with such a natural handicap as sharing the same religion as a group of terrorists that killed over 2,700 Americans in 2001. I think the department of information is a great idea, right with the rest of our current administration's insane big government ideals. Sounds like another great way to jeopardize the consumers right to choose for themselves. If I see something like a department of information I will be forced to start up a militia for the impending coup.

Boardwalk Empire

I'm not sure how many of you have HBO at home or access to it but they have come out with yet another great series. Boardwalk Empire is set in 1920 right at the institution of the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States. The show takes place in Atlantic City, NJ where the county treasurer uses prohibition to make money on the distribution and sale of alcohol. The attention to historical detail is pretty well done and makes the show worthy of view by its self. The issue of organized crime and extortion of the public is an issue that is relevant to the Justice Studies major and especially for the track A majors.

VA man killed in California

 In oakland California George Huggins, 24, and his girlfriend, 33-year-old Althea Housley, are charged in connection with the death of 45-year-old Jinghong Kang, who was visiting the Bay Area for a job interview from Fairfax, Virginia. The two took seventeen dollars from the man and then shot him according to prosecutors. This type of article follows the episodic format of news reporting, treating the story like a single event. The story makes not push for criminal justice policy change. This crime is entertainment because it is an act of violence that is played upon due to the randomness of the violence that would scare many. Many people do not experience this ever in their lives so the news brings the crime to them in this format.


http://www.ktvu.com/news/24998455/detail.html
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/27/AR2010072705800.html

Australian soldiers face serious charges in Afghan children's killings

I started a search for Afghanistan war news in foxnews.com.  Recent news included a story of Australian special forces troops facing multiple charges including manslaughter, dangerous conduct, failing to comply with a lawful general order and prejudicial conduct. The story god its attention because 5 children were killed in a firefight. The story gave specific details and quotes from both the soldier's advocates and the Afghan prosecutor's office about the blame for the incident. After searching for the same story on MSNBC and CNN I found that CNN did not have a matching article but MSNBC did. The FOX and MSNBC stories were almost identical. This seems to be because most of the info came from the AP. The story is pretty recent I think it is likely that CNN just hasn't gotten a chance to post the story yet.  I think this story is one that is important as a reminder about the effects on conflict in the area but I don't think that this kind of story is rare. After many of these small stories we begin to become desensitized.


http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/09/27/australian-soldiers-face-manslaughter-charges-children-killed-afghanistan/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39375689

Virginia to exicute a woman for first time in almost a century.

Being the track A major that I am I could not stay away from this one. Tomorrow night, Teresa Lewis, 41, will be put to deat by the commonwealth of Virgina for hiring the killings of her husband and stepson. The social implications of the act of the state executing a person has become the topic for many hot button debates. In the US 15 states and the District of Columbia do not allow capital punishment, but the rest do allow for it (whether the exercise it or not). The fact that the state will be executing a woman has little added impact on me although it seems to be stirring up some conflict with others. The funny part of this story to me, or rather the part pertinent to our media and justice class, is that i heard of this execution not through the state run institution classes (such as "Punishment and the State") that I am paying far too much to attend, but rather through the radio. Over a rock station that i was listening to on my smart phone on the way to an 8 AM class. So to cut to the point I was able to take a step back from the liberal arts university view of the world for a minute and realize that even the professors I have for "Justice Studies" courses don't always acknowledge the same topics that are the foundation of their profession; all thanks to FM radio on my phone.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/22/virginia-execute-woman-nearly-century/

Virginia, Michigan and Ohio Killings

A late August Washington post article (found below) follows the initial capture of a suspect from a "rash" of serial killings in Virginia, Michigan and Ohio. The lead Michigan prosecutor portrayed the man as "evil" and said that he "...should get the maximum sentence of life without parole."  The man's nationality of Israeli was brought into the article stirring up the topic of middle eastern citizens in the US causing trouble. It seemed to be a mild fear mongering tactic saying things such as "...he thinks the attacks in Leesburg were racially motivated. Sixteen of the victims in the three states were black, one was a dark-skinned Hispanic man and one was white." This plants the seed that outside of his race, all other races in the US are at jeopardy for attack. The article mentions only the prosecution from different states and unspecified law enforcement agencies related to the transportation of the criminal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/26/AR2010082605949.html

JMU Football News

As everyone on the campuses of JMU and Virginia Tech knows; the dukes of James Madison pulled off an upset on September 11th when they beat the VT Hokies in football. A large portion of the nation also knows thanks in part to the games coverage on the internet. Following the game jmusports.com, washingtonpost.com, and espn.go.com have all covered the story. jmusports.com has posted a series of at least 5 articles related to the JMU win with most of the attention being given to the performance of the players and coaches on the JMU team. The washington post article gave more of a 2 sided story with attention given to both JMU and VT's  team hopes for the year as well as the win's impact on the national title hopes of Boise State. Finally the epsn was very play by play in nature and concentrated mostly on the players opinions. The only main difference was with the jmusports website which concentrated, as could be expected, on JMU's achievements predominant. None of them seem to distort the facts but some concentrate on only bringing to light what is important to them. The most obvious common link is the surprise and weight of a FCS team beating a  ranked FBS team.

Devience

While browsing the web looking for sites that were designed for the purpose of enjoying a deviant behavior i stumbled on some pretty obscure websites. One really caught my attention. http://www.popthatzit.com/ is a website dedicated to sharing videos of its posters popping their zits and viewers rating them. The main goal of the website appears to be just be entertainment for those who enjoy watching people pop zits.  The media appears at this time to only be in video form.  This site is not offensive in its existence as many other deviant websites are but it is still culturally deviant. Popping of a pimple of zit in public is generally considered gross by most. If someone were to do it in class, many of those who saw it might flinch. It is also considered unsanitary and something to keep in the privacy of ones lavatory. 

Media Fast

For my media fast I chose Saturday, Primarily because I thought it would be easy to entertain myself outside on a day when there was a home football game.  I found it hard to communicate with friends as i tried to leave my phone off for most of the day. Instead of surfing the web or watching TV, tailgating activities such as corn-hole games and grilling took over.  I cheated inadvertently when i looked at the scoreboard during halftime to check on other teams scores but other than that there was not much media usage.The hardest thing to give up was the internet to communicate with friends, especially Facebook. The fast made me feel less connected to people anf left out of social happenings that evening.

Media Log

9/3/10

Between waking up an my first class I used my cell phone to check my email, and communicate to friends via text messages for about 10 minutes. After class I used my phone to surf the web and check sports scores for a total of about 15 minutes. After getting home I watched TV for about 2 hours and spent 1 hour on my computer. later in the evening I listened to music on the radio for 15 minutes before going to sleep.