Sunday, October 31, 2010

TRICK OR TREAT... OR THE POLICE??

Police in Mecklenburg County visit sex offenders a night early this year. The county has made it a habit to go door to door and visit registered sex offenders on Halloween night to "raise awareness" from what they say. They have decided to do it a night early this year because Halloween falls on a Sunday and said it would be more of a surprise. Although a lot of registered sex offenders are allowed to hand out candy on Halloween the visits make sure that the offenders are following the terms of their parole and that their contact and address information is correct.

Although I think that this strategy is a good one to protect people, I think that it may be a bit speculatory to only check on the sex offenders around Halloween. What about all the other days of the year? Sex offenders are expecting police around the Halloween season every year and can easily prepare. I guess it is better safe than sorry. This particular news station actually rode around with a policeman and got statements from sex offenders. If I were them I would not want to be recorded for the nightly news. I am assuming they had to get permission but the sex offenders did not seem too excited to be on the news. Overall however I guess it is an okay strategy to keep children safe, I just think it is a bit strange to do it everyday on Halloween.

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/25580822/detail.html

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

"BLACKOUT IN A CAN"

A new, but fairly popular alcoholic drink has been dubbed "blackout in a can". Four Loko is an alcoholic energy drink that blends caffeine and liquor. If you haven't heard of it, or even tried it yet, it is fairly new and has been over the news all day today on various news stations. It is currently being evaluated by the FDA for safeness. The producers of Four Loko said that it sells its products to people of age and people have been mixing caffeine and alcohol in products for years and have been fine. One can of Four Loko is equivalent to six beers! So if you drink two cans then you have basically just drank a 12-pack by yourself. The product grew attention when college students in Washington state went to the hospital and the hospital though that they had been a victim of a date rape drug but later found out that the students were only drinking Four Loko. The drink has hospitalized 12 students and nearly killed one. Many Universities as well as some states are looking at banning the product. This shows that the copy cat effect is not only suitable for individuals but for states and institutions as well. Because I can bet that if one University or state bans this drink, there will surely be those that follow.

My opinion on the situation? The can clearly notes that the drink is 12% alcohol which is a lot more than most canned drinks with the average wine cooler having only 4-6% alcohol content. If you are old enough to drink I think that you should be able to judge how much you can handle. However, a specialist that was interviewed said that the mix of caffeine and alcohol makes it hard to judge how much you can handle and slows your reaction time (like every other alcoholic beverage). I say the students should take it as a learning experience. Personally I've tried it once, yes I'm 21, and it had a disgusting taste and I never want to try the stuff again. For those of you that do, and are 21, it comes in nine flavors, so pick your poison (literally). But please be careful! It packs a mighty punch and will probably leave you with one heck of a hangover in the morning if you don't watch it.

Monday, October 25, 2010

COPYCAT FILM

People will try almost anything and after watching this copy cat film, I know this for a fact. The things that not only children imitate but adults as well is ridiculous. As a society we should be able to tell the difference from what happens in a movie or on TV from what happens, or should happen, in reality. The guy that said he went on a killing spree and did it just like they did in the movie had to of had some sort of mental problem because one would think that you can understand in a movie a person is not really getting killed. I mean if a person would do that just because they think its okay to cut someone down the chest has a problem from distinguishing fact from fiction. The woman who gathered the girls to stage a bank robbery like that in "Set It Off" was actually kind of funny. I think it is because no one got hurt and it is just so ironic. I think that if one of the girls had not told her friend about the idea they may have gotten away with it. But more heinous crimes should not be blamed on movie producers. Their job is to provide us with entertainment and if some people can not distinguish what should happen and what is just fictional then it is the individuals fault and not the entertainment industry. If movie producers stop giving us horror and action films on the base that they don't want people to copy them, then America would produce an uproar about how its not fair. Yes, movie stars are sometimes depicted as being cool when they are actually doing violent things but it is all in the plot of the movie and most importantly of all fiction. The film was an eye opener of how crazy people can be, but no one can control the acts of a select few in society.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Kids Will Be Kids... Adults Will Be Dumb...

I grew up with two brothers, so I was around guys all the time and was a big "tomboy". We would always act out different things we saw on television although most of them were just like fighting like Power Rangers or Ninja Turtles or something of that sort. I even tried to jump off of the monkey bars with an umbrella like Mary Poppins, like a lot of kids, but fortunately did not end up getting hurt. One of my most memorable memories from my childhood however was not done by me although I got to witness it. My brothers and I liked to play with fire and gasoline, terrible I know. We never caught anything major on fire, although now that I look back we could have done some serious damage. I remember a Tom and Jerry episode where Tom lit a ring of fire around Jerry and my brothers and I had been watching it one morning. So during the week when my parents were at work we had gone out to our little "houses" we had built in the woods behind our house. My brother got mad at my oldest brother for some reason and decided to pour gasoline around his "house and set it on fire. Thank goodness my brother was not in the house (and he knew he was not in there) because we just sat there and kind of laughed knowing that our older brother would be really mad when he came outside to see his house area was ablaze. We eventually put the fire out but we always joke about it and say "we could have caused a huge fire because of all the trees and dead leaves around!" I just think it is crazy that he got the idea from Tom and Jerry, which was a pretty violent show if you think about it. The incident could have turned out a lot worse and I can only imagine (and now I really don't have to since we read stories in class) how many kids tried to mock cartoon shows and movie scenes that were purely fictional. I guess children don't understand the relationship fully between fiction and reality.;

There may be an excuse for children, but when adults try and copy things they see on TV, like Jackass and Wildboys, it is just plain stupidity. An instance that I remember that turned out to almost end in a trip to the ER for a guy I knew. It was wild when it happened but now we laugh when we think about it. Basically he had seen on TV where a guy lit his shot on fire and drank it and he thought he could do the same. I don't know the logistics of how to drink a flaming shot, but when he did it, it did not go down like it did in the movies. Instead he threw the shot back and his entire mouth had blue flames coming out of it! He jumped around yelling and screaming but made his way to the sink where he was able to put it out. Amazingly he didn't have any burns but it was still dumb. If people try things like this I can envision the people who think it would be cool to do all the other stuff that they see on different media sources; maybe even kill.

Monday, October 18, 2010

WARNING!!! GRAPHIC PHOTOS! VIEW AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION

VERY GRAPHIC
 
If you look at this, you'll never text or use your cell phone
While driving again!!!  

                        
THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT BE TEXTING OR USING YOUR CELL PHONE WHILE DRIVING. 
This is the last few feet of a car that hit a semi head on!!


This guy was texting a friend when he crossed the center
Line!!!!



THIS IS WHY...

AND THIS ....

AND THIS....



AND THIS ...

AND ESPECIALLY THIS ...




WE'RE NOT DONE YET... But If you have a weak
Stomach you might reconsider scrolling any
Further.  



















 This is not the way you want your picture to be taken.  
Every time you make a call or pick Up the phone while driving,
think about how this guy's day ended.
STAY OFF THE PHONE! HANG UP
AND DRIVE!
OR PULL OFF THE ROAD!!!!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

SAMOAN WEDDING

           The “Samoan Wedding” was a film made in 2006 that focused on a group of friends. The friends were depicted as a group of men around 30 years old who still acted like they were teenagers. There was Michael, the handsome ladies man, who was a bike riding delivery boy; Albert, a timid business man; Stanley, the one that met various women through chat rooms; and Sefa, who loved to party and had a girlfriend he always left at home. In the beginning of the movie the group of friends was called to a house where most people in their community were and they all looked upset. The men were sown videos of previous weddings they have spoiled in different ways and told that they were not allowed to Michael’s brothers wedding who they all looked at as a little brother. The preacher decided that if they came to the wedding with female dates then they could go because they would be too busy with the women to mess up.
                The movie then basically shows them on a quest to find dates. The group even land in jail the night before the wedding but got bailed out in time. Michael got turned down by many of his girls because the relationships were mainly sexual. Albert was going with his cousin but lost her to Michael because she seduced him and had sex with him; she then told Michael after the wedding that it was only sexual giving him a taste of his own medicine. Albert ended up going with a woman he worked with and had liked for a while; they turned out to be a great couple and would keep dating. Stanley who met people in chat rooms never found a date because he kept getting stood up by Latifa. However, Alberts mother told the preacher that he was with her and that he was a “good boy”. Stanley met Latifa in the wedding because she was a server and they agreed to start off as friends. Sefa had his girlfriend leave him but found out that she was pregnant and asked her to marry him.
                So in the end, all of the men basically found themselves during the process by either finding a girlfriend or realizing that they only like to date white women. It was a very good movie and I definitely recommend going to see it if you missed it.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

"Mis-Information"

             Mis-information. The first thing that comes to mind when I ever hear this word is that someone was basically lied to or lead to believe something under false pretenses or mis-guidance on the informers part. The articles mentioned some various aspects that all deal with mis-information that I find unethical. The first is the Bandwagon effect where people believe things that others do, simply because others believe them. I think that if you are subjected to this type of information you deserve it because i feel like people who conform to this effect are followers. I can understand if you are misinformed and agree with a person, but if you don't have your own thoughts and feelings about a situation and don't express them because you want to follow the crowd it is terrible. Confirmation bias was another one that I take interest to. I think that people who are subjected to this are somewhat narrow minded and maybe a bigot at times. This is because most people who conform to this are will not accept others ideas or try to look at a topic from a different point of view. If someone wants to make their argument stronger, I feel as if they should look at the other side of an argument and find ways to argue against it instead of dismissing the ideas and finding information to support their own beliefs; instead of finding arguments only for you idea, find some valid proof that would falsely the opposing idea to make your argument stronger.
            The article that we read had a lot of information that I agree with included in it and one that I found particularly interesting that I wanted to touch on before describing a personal instance where I, and most of America, was misinformed is what the author says about free speech. The author posed the assumption that many may believe that limiting information may deny us our first amendment rights. However, he makes the valid point that a man who yells "FIRE" in a theater is not protected under this amendment. This, I feel, is true for media sources that falsify information. I agree that there are times where maybe the media source itself was misinformed and report falsely, but this may be the same as a man yelling "FIRE" when he truly believes that it really is a fire. For media to misinform their views, readers, or subscribers so that they may have the view point that would benefit them or a political standpoint, whatever it may be, is extremely detrimental to America in my belief.
              One time that I remember I was misinformed was after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Shortly after this tragedy that was imposed on all of America the United States invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Former President Bush made the report that the reason we were invading Iraq was because of "weapons of mass destruction". Surly most citizens felt it was necessary to go in an remove these weapons so America could feel safe. However, after a few months the story came out that there were no weapons of mass destruction found in the country and it is assumed that there never were. The speculation was that President Bush, and I am sure other members of his staff, wanted to invade Iraq, as well as Afghanistan for terrorism, was to find the person that was believed to be behind the 9-11 attacks, Osama bin Laden. After finding out that Osama was not even in Iraq but hiding in Afghanistan the invasion was targeted at rebuilding Iraq and its government. The war in Afghanistan was a legal war against terror, whereas the war in Iraq was illegal (according to the UN charter) and not approved by the United Nations. The misinformation led me to believe that we had a legitimate reason for entering Iraq and I was not as opposed to it before I found out that there were never any weapons of mass destruction. However, once the troops were in the country, they were not going to be deployed as easily. Many people are misinformed everyday whether intentionally or unintentionally. I think that the cycle will never stop but needs to be improved in media sources.
^^^^Misinformation^^^^ =)

Monday, October 11, 2010

Glee Endorsing Drug Abuse, Masterbation, and Burlesque.... Really?

             First let me start off with the disclaimer that I am in no way a Britney Spears or Glee fan; I have never even seen Glee. Although I have heard interesting things about the show, a story that I came across on the internet surprised me when I read “Britney Spears's Glee show blasted by parents for endorsing 'drug abuse, masturbation, and burlesque'.  From what I had heard about the show it was a show about kids in a high school show choir so I was interested on what was going on.
              Apparently, Glee aired a tribute show for Britney Spears in which she played herself and there were various times where the Glee cast performed acts to some of her songs. One included her past hit I’m a Slave 4 U in which some of the cast wore “skimpy outfits” and did “sultry grinds”. This did not sit too well with parents because Parents Television Council (PTC) has approached FOX and said that it was inappropriate for the young audience it is directed towards because of the sexual content. There was a tribute to Madonna that the PTC said had plenty of “girl-girl bumping and grinding”. The group felt as if Britney Spears was not an appropriate role model because of her troubled past. The PTC said, “Considering her stints in rehab, her very public breakdowns, and her questionable parenting skills, there is absolutely no way Spears should be considered a role model.” Britney was apparently not fazed by this because she has yet to comment and continues to go on with her normal living.
            If the PTC tries to promote this issue further the issue may grow because it may make parents think about the “so-called” sexually explicit content on the show when they may have not thought about it before. Media usually tries to exaggerate instances and I feel that this is one of them. Although I have not seen the episode, I am sure that what was featured was not anything that the children have never seen before in a music video or PG-13 movie. I think that people take things out of hand and tend to amplify situations to unnecessary levels. I also think that if the media feels like this would become a bigger story and draw attention to the majority of the public, they may pick it up and make it an even bigger story.  

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978590226

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

The Whale Rider

The Whale Rider is a film mainly about a little girl who grows up with her grandmother and grandfather in a broken tribe. Her father left after the girl’s mother and twin brother died during her birth. The grandfather resented the girl at first because she was not a boy but still loved her although he would not let her do the things boys were supposed to do. When the girl tried to fix the boat motor and participate in sacred teachings of the tribe, the grandfather yelled at her and told her that she could not do these things. The girl secretly watched the tribal teachings that she was not allowed to attend and learned how to fight by her uncle teaching her. When she beat a boy in the tribe with the “sticks” her grandfather told her that she ruined everything and sent her away to live with someone else. When the grandfather took the boys on the boat for a final test, none of them could come up with his whale tooth. He was disappointed and spent days in bed. One day the girl and her uncle, with some of his friends, went out in the water looking for food and the girl asked where her grandfather had thrown the tooth. She dove in to get it and stayed down in the water for a long time causing her uncle to jump in to look for her. She came up behind the boat with her grandfather’s whale tooth and a lobster! The girl’s uncle showed it to his mother and the mother said that the grandfather was not ready to see this because it meant that the girl was the prophet.  When the girl invited her grandfather to her school play where she had dedicated a speech for him, he did not show up and she cried while making her speech. However, the reason that he did not show up is because whales had washed up on the shore and he was trying to save them. The girl had called them because apparently they did not hear her grandfather. The tribe spend all night trying to save the whales and when a huge whale washed onto the shore the grandfather said that if they got him back in the water the others would follow. He did not want the girl to help because he said she had did enough already. They could not get the whale back in the water and the tribe got tired and needed to rest. The girl went down to the water and climbed on the back of the big whale and the whale amazingly got back into the water with the girl on her back. The family screamed for the girl but she said that she was not afraid to die. The girl did not die however, she was put in the hospital and when she awoke her grandfather was by her side with his whale tooth around her neck that the grandmother had given him when the girl left on the whales back. It then cut to a scene where the tribe was together in what seemed like a ritualistic ceremony and in the end it was the girl that brought the tribe back together.
                Thinking in relation to my understanding violence class, it is a theme of violence that occurs in the movie. The violence that occurred mostly is institutional and structural violence. The violence was institutional in the family because family is one social institution. This was mainly by the grandfather because he may not have accused the girl physically, but abused her mentally and emotionally causing her to question what was wrong with her and to go sit on her father’s unfinished boat and cry. Structural violence can be found in the culture. Girls were not allowed to be involved in sacred teachings that boys experienced and her grandfather would not even let her help fix the broken boat motor. The girls grandfather yelled at her and made her feel guilty for wanting to participate in the rituals. Interpersonal violence may be seen in this film too in regards to the whales. The girl called the whales when they did not hear her grandfather. She thought she was wrong because she called them at the wrong time causing them to wash on shore and have some of them die although in the end it turned out that it may have been the correct time to call them. This film is a good example of violence that is not physical in an institutional or structural sense. But overall the film was a story that showed that although someone may not think you can do something, if you have it in your heart you can accomplish anything. If you haven’t seen this movie, I would highly recommend it.