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.