Response to Sophie Chapter 7
I agree cigarette advertising has gone the way of the dodo. And to be honest I am not a smoker and really did not notice this particular product being sucked into the void of anti-commercialism until I read the passage in our text book about the cigarette ban being (at first) put into effect to curb advertising around schools and other public places in which children congregate.
In response to Sophie’s question on whether or not this ban would hold up to the 4th part of the commercial speech test I really don’t believe it does especially when you hold it up against the lifted ban on casino advertisements in states where gambling was legal. (The reasoning for the ban was to curb potential addiction to gambling.)
It seems to me that as long as an activity is legal (from what the case studies suggest) the advertising of the activity should not be restricted. It is up to each individual after proper warning to make up their own minds as to if they want to engage in such an activity.
So in light of the non-existent cigarette ads I believe that the 4th part of the test is violated especially when you hold the dangers of drinking up to those of smoking. Many more people die of alcohol related issues than die from cigarettes. Perhaps this form of advertising is allowed to continue because the states have a vested interest in continuing the unabated advertisement of liquor, which comes in the form of, DUI fines, alcohol treatment programs, ignition interlock systems, etc.
Also the lack of advertising hasn’t seemed to slow down the rate of teen smoking the only thing that has done that is due in large part to anti-smoking campaigns that have been primarily geared towards parents and exigency for them to stop smoking. (Especially, since most teens who smoke primarily get the cigarettes from parents or relatives who smoke.)
Friday, May 29, 2009
response to chapter 5
Response to CMJR 494/450 Chapter 5 question 2
The crux of the question is how can a person pre-determine the effect a piece of writing will have on another person and will that exposure cause them to go through with committing the crime which is being portrayed in the work.
I actually thought about this particular scenario while reading about the Paladin v Rice case in Chapter 3 and have outlined my response below.
My opinion is that if people already harbor the intent to commit a crime that they are going to go through with it. And yes some people such as the Columbine killers or the reader of the Hit Man manual will search out any means they can to plan and implement their crimes it does not mean that because these publications are/were in existence that they were the prime catalyst in going through with the criminal activity.
It is not the responsibility of the government to be the harbinger’s of what society is allowed to be exposed to. That is why we have criminal laws and a penal system to deal with those who misuse information. Many of the materials that are referenced by criminals before the commission of an offense have a primary purpose of being educational. Are we going to ban police or military manuals just because a sub-set of the population has gained access to these materials and used them to become better criminals? What about reference materials which deal with poisons? Take those away and what will be left for our toxicologists? I am not saying that the general population really needs access to materials that deal with how to build a bomb or hijack a plane but we are an information driven society and if you block certain materials from the pool than it makes it easier to keep blocking and then we are back in the era of book burning.
I do know that when reading books or watching movies people like to fantasize about living the life of the characters, they may wonder what it feels like to kill someone or get revenge on an ex-girlfriend or being an untouchable drug lord. Yet imagination is much different than reality and again those who do not have criminal instincts are going to close the book and return to their normal everyday lives those who are inclined to criminality are going to take notes close the book and start living that life.
The crux of the question is how can a person pre-determine the effect a piece of writing will have on another person and will that exposure cause them to go through with committing the crime which is being portrayed in the work.
I actually thought about this particular scenario while reading about the Paladin v Rice case in Chapter 3 and have outlined my response below.
My opinion is that if people already harbor the intent to commit a crime that they are going to go through with it. And yes some people such as the Columbine killers or the reader of the Hit Man manual will search out any means they can to plan and implement their crimes it does not mean that because these publications are/were in existence that they were the prime catalyst in going through with the criminal activity.
It is not the responsibility of the government to be the harbinger’s of what society is allowed to be exposed to. That is why we have criminal laws and a penal system to deal with those who misuse information. Many of the materials that are referenced by criminals before the commission of an offense have a primary purpose of being educational. Are we going to ban police or military manuals just because a sub-set of the population has gained access to these materials and used them to become better criminals? What about reference materials which deal with poisons? Take those away and what will be left for our toxicologists? I am not saying that the general population really needs access to materials that deal with how to build a bomb or hijack a plane but we are an information driven society and if you block certain materials from the pool than it makes it easier to keep blocking and then we are back in the era of book burning.
I do know that when reading books or watching movies people like to fantasize about living the life of the characters, they may wonder what it feels like to kill someone or get revenge on an ex-girlfriend or being an untouchable drug lord. Yet imagination is much different than reality and again those who do not have criminal instincts are going to close the book and return to their normal everyday lives those who are inclined to criminality are going to take notes close the book and start living that life.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Chapter 6 Questions
Questions from Chapter 6
1. In the case of Paul Robert Cohen and his infamous jacket I believe that the court did the right thing by not convicting him for his message. If Cohen had verbally spoken this particular sentiment in the lobby of the Los Angeles County Courthouse I do not believe he would have been arrested and charged with a crime.
But since the reverberation of his words were not verbally expressed and allowed to dissipate immediately many believed that he posed a public nuisance and even accused him of holding his audience captive to said message.
Are we only allowed to express a minority opinion, or hold a silent protest, or ask people to stop and think about current social atrocities when there is a group? In an era when anti-war protests were taking place every minute of every day in every city why was Cohen singled out? Is it because he was a single at a time when people didn’t believe that one person could facilitate dialogue and potentially stir debate on an issue that many Americans don’t take much time to question? – Apparently, one person could make a nuisance.
I believe the Supreme Court made the right decision based on the fact that Americans are allowed to assemble to hold public protests as long as they don’t interfere with other’s ability to go about their duties and as long as it doesn’t turn violent. Cohen should have never been arrested on the basis of a message that was written on his jacket because his speech did not meet the imminent danger test and did not reach a point of incitement among his audience and he also did not engage in “fighting words” as defined by Chaplinsky.
Upon further investigation it seems as if the government was partially convicting Cohen on the basis of bad tendency (that a person may be convicted of a conspiracy to obstruct recruiting by words of persuasion – Justice Holmes citing Schenk) as it came out of the Espionage Act of 1917 which “made it illegal to encourage insubordination in the armed forces or to promote resistance to the draft”- yet masking it through the newly adopted incitement standard.
Who can say that Cohen’s jacket was worthless speech? To Cohen and his fellow anti-war supporters his speech did have social value – it was pertinent – and it did help the public by stirring debate which would lead to truth. Yet, before Cohen’s case the government viewed his speech as worthless – not because of the message but because of the language used in transmitting the message – after Cohen’s case the government changed its views in regards to explicit (foul) language by stating “that even shocking language can serve a dual communication function: the cognitive, in which ideas are expressed, and the emotive, in which deep personal emotions are expressed.”
If Cohen’s jacket was worthless speech then can’t we argue that the peace symbol was worthless speech? It advocated the same principles that Cohen believed in and stood for, it asked people to turn their backs on fighting and take up more passive methods of settling the conflict; it was definitely against the government’s agenda. It, like Cohen’s jacket, silently asked the American people to take a stand by not supporting our countries war effort, to question the draft and to seek out loopholes to keep young men out of the military.
2. “Speech is often provocative and challenging.” Justice Douglas in the decision of Terminiello
This is a case in which I did not agree with the speaker to have been brought to trial and convicted by a lower court.
While it is true that Father Terminiello did hold unpopular views in regards to Jewish people he was well within his rights to speak when invited to Chicago by a group holding his same belief system.
As I do not have both sides of the case here in this book I am not aware of any intended incitement to provocation on the Father’s or sponsoring group’s part. What is clear is that almost double the amount of protesters as listeners arrived with the explicit purpose of doing harm to the members of the Christian Veterans of America and its guest speaker. There is no other purpose in my mind for bringing weapons such as bottles, ice picks, and bricks to a completely legal gathering of individuals. Here is a case in which the police force failed to protect the speaker, (even in the face of being attacked by protestors) and instead arrested the Father citing a Chicago ordinance that states “ ’All persons who shall make, aid, countenance, or assist in making any improper noise, riot, disturbance, breach of the peace’ shall be guilty of disorderly conduct”.
Disorderly conduct? For speaking? This could never have been proven in the first place based on the fact that the protestor’s had no real knowledge of what was going to be said inside the meeting hall, they had no clue as to what materials would be presented or even if any action would be called for – they were only able to assume based on prior dealings with the group and on public reputation of the Father.
It is important to look back and ask the building which side of its walls was the glass shattered? Did the violent, pre-meditated actions of the protestor’s aid to the fervor of those inside the building – who may have feared for their own safety? It is important to know how misinformation can misguide so many.
1. In the case of Paul Robert Cohen and his infamous jacket I believe that the court did the right thing by not convicting him for his message. If Cohen had verbally spoken this particular sentiment in the lobby of the Los Angeles County Courthouse I do not believe he would have been arrested and charged with a crime.
But since the reverberation of his words were not verbally expressed and allowed to dissipate immediately many believed that he posed a public nuisance and even accused him of holding his audience captive to said message.
Are we only allowed to express a minority opinion, or hold a silent protest, or ask people to stop and think about current social atrocities when there is a group? In an era when anti-war protests were taking place every minute of every day in every city why was Cohen singled out? Is it because he was a single at a time when people didn’t believe that one person could facilitate dialogue and potentially stir debate on an issue that many Americans don’t take much time to question? – Apparently, one person could make a nuisance.
I believe the Supreme Court made the right decision based on the fact that Americans are allowed to assemble to hold public protests as long as they don’t interfere with other’s ability to go about their duties and as long as it doesn’t turn violent. Cohen should have never been arrested on the basis of a message that was written on his jacket because his speech did not meet the imminent danger test and did not reach a point of incitement among his audience and he also did not engage in “fighting words” as defined by Chaplinsky.
Upon further investigation it seems as if the government was partially convicting Cohen on the basis of bad tendency (that a person may be convicted of a conspiracy to obstruct recruiting by words of persuasion – Justice Holmes citing Schenk) as it came out of the Espionage Act of 1917 which “made it illegal to encourage insubordination in the armed forces or to promote resistance to the draft”- yet masking it through the newly adopted incitement standard.
Who can say that Cohen’s jacket was worthless speech? To Cohen and his fellow anti-war supporters his speech did have social value – it was pertinent – and it did help the public by stirring debate which would lead to truth. Yet, before Cohen’s case the government viewed his speech as worthless – not because of the message but because of the language used in transmitting the message – after Cohen’s case the government changed its views in regards to explicit (foul) language by stating “that even shocking language can serve a dual communication function: the cognitive, in which ideas are expressed, and the emotive, in which deep personal emotions are expressed.”
If Cohen’s jacket was worthless speech then can’t we argue that the peace symbol was worthless speech? It advocated the same principles that Cohen believed in and stood for, it asked people to turn their backs on fighting and take up more passive methods of settling the conflict; it was definitely against the government’s agenda. It, like Cohen’s jacket, silently asked the American people to take a stand by not supporting our countries war effort, to question the draft and to seek out loopholes to keep young men out of the military.
2. “Speech is often provocative and challenging.” Justice Douglas in the decision of Terminiello
This is a case in which I did not agree with the speaker to have been brought to trial and convicted by a lower court.
While it is true that Father Terminiello did hold unpopular views in regards to Jewish people he was well within his rights to speak when invited to Chicago by a group holding his same belief system.
As I do not have both sides of the case here in this book I am not aware of any intended incitement to provocation on the Father’s or sponsoring group’s part. What is clear is that almost double the amount of protesters as listeners arrived with the explicit purpose of doing harm to the members of the Christian Veterans of America and its guest speaker. There is no other purpose in my mind for bringing weapons such as bottles, ice picks, and bricks to a completely legal gathering of individuals. Here is a case in which the police force failed to protect the speaker, (even in the face of being attacked by protestors) and instead arrested the Father citing a Chicago ordinance that states “ ’All persons who shall make, aid, countenance, or assist in making any improper noise, riot, disturbance, breach of the peace’ shall be guilty of disorderly conduct”.
Disorderly conduct? For speaking? This could never have been proven in the first place based on the fact that the protestor’s had no real knowledge of what was going to be said inside the meeting hall, they had no clue as to what materials would be presented or even if any action would be called for – they were only able to assume based on prior dealings with the group and on public reputation of the Father.
It is important to look back and ask the building which side of its walls was the glass shattered? Did the violent, pre-meditated actions of the protestor’s aid to the fervor of those inside the building – who may have feared for their own safety? It is important to know how misinformation can misguide so many.
Sexting response to Mike B
In response to Mike Bs questions on Sexting…..
First of all, children should not be distributing nude or semi-nude photos of themselves for any reason to any person.
Now having said that I understand that kids are under immense pressure to push the sexual envelope to keep their boyfriend/girlfriend – in every generation there has been a sexual ante - which has kept parents, school officials and rule makers/enforcers on their toes in regards to combating the potentially dangerous behaviors.
Sex ed., PSA’s, statutory rape laws and free clinics (where your name is not needed and parental consent is not sought) all sprung up over the years to offer help and education for sexually active youth. However, never before has there been anything even close to legal intervention proposed or sought out against teens who have intentionally sent out explicit photos of themselves to what began as one person but ended up being disseminated throughout an entire school and/or social network (either physical or on-line).
I am not sure how I feel about these kids being branded as sex offenders for sending the photos and thus initiating the primary act of unlawful behavior but if it can be proven in court that the recipient has maliciously distributed said images to other individuals , (regardless of age) then they should face the consequences. To me child pornography – even if the participant was initially complacent in the act is still child pornography.
However, having said that if this is going to be a consequence that teens will potentially face then they need to be made educated as to the proper use of cell phones and how not to get caught up in this type of behavior, kids need to know what to do if someone sends them a sext unsolicited, and they need to know that there will be harsh penalties incurred if they are found to have these types of images on their phones – (sidenote – as I sit here writing this there is a PSA on t.v. talking about teen gambling and how to combat it – this would seem like something we need in order to educate teens in the ever expanding world of technology).
Sexting is not a one time and it’s over deal! Images last forever. You can lock them into your phone so that they won’t be accidentally erased, if your kid has an iPhone or Smart Phone they can download the photos from the phone onto their computer – or any computer – and where from there will that image end up? Put an image on your blog, MySpace, Facebook, etc. and they can all be easily lifted by anyone who happens upon your site.
There are some potential solutions to combating the sexting phenomenon without branding a kid for life. These solutions would be to add a device control to your child’s phone that would not allow them to take or send photos (this would be similar to controls already in use that regulate the hours your child can use their phone or receive text messages), also PSA’s are a good education tool. Another way to go would be to take these kids that are in the legal system now for sexting and require them to go to schools and talk about the dangers of sexting and the potential consequences it could mean to their lives (i.e. school, college, and professional).
First of all, children should not be distributing nude or semi-nude photos of themselves for any reason to any person.
Now having said that I understand that kids are under immense pressure to push the sexual envelope to keep their boyfriend/girlfriend – in every generation there has been a sexual ante - which has kept parents, school officials and rule makers/enforcers on their toes in regards to combating the potentially dangerous behaviors.
Sex ed., PSA’s, statutory rape laws and free clinics (where your name is not needed and parental consent is not sought) all sprung up over the years to offer help and education for sexually active youth. However, never before has there been anything even close to legal intervention proposed or sought out against teens who have intentionally sent out explicit photos of themselves to what began as one person but ended up being disseminated throughout an entire school and/or social network (either physical or on-line).
I am not sure how I feel about these kids being branded as sex offenders for sending the photos and thus initiating the primary act of unlawful behavior but if it can be proven in court that the recipient has maliciously distributed said images to other individuals , (regardless of age) then they should face the consequences. To me child pornography – even if the participant was initially complacent in the act is still child pornography.
However, having said that if this is going to be a consequence that teens will potentially face then they need to be made educated as to the proper use of cell phones and how not to get caught up in this type of behavior, kids need to know what to do if someone sends them a sext unsolicited, and they need to know that there will be harsh penalties incurred if they are found to have these types of images on their phones – (sidenote – as I sit here writing this there is a PSA on t.v. talking about teen gambling and how to combat it – this would seem like something we need in order to educate teens in the ever expanding world of technology).
Sexting is not a one time and it’s over deal! Images last forever. You can lock them into your phone so that they won’t be accidentally erased, if your kid has an iPhone or Smart Phone they can download the photos from the phone onto their computer – or any computer – and where from there will that image end up? Put an image on your blog, MySpace, Facebook, etc. and they can all be easily lifted by anyone who happens upon your site.
There are some potential solutions to combating the sexting phenomenon without branding a kid for life. These solutions would be to add a device control to your child’s phone that would not allow them to take or send photos (this would be similar to controls already in use that regulate the hours your child can use their phone or receive text messages), also PSA’s are a good education tool. Another way to go would be to take these kids that are in the legal system now for sexting and require them to go to schools and talk about the dangers of sexting and the potential consequences it could mean to their lives (i.e. school, college, and professional).
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
response to questions 3/10
In response to Jasmine (#1)
I will admit that politics have never really excited me. I really couldn’t have cared who the president was once I became old enough to vote and because of that attitude never bothered to register to vote. I believe that most of my aversion to the whole political process is purely from negative ads. I think that the candidates could and should be spending those hard earned political contributions to actually make positive change (before elected since they run on a platform that is full of hot-button issues and dreams for how they would make life better – it would be nice if their words matched their actions)not negative vibrations in their constituencies.
I do agree that there is a certain amount of bias towards and leveraging of certain candidates over others on certain networks but I am not sure that is what tips the scale for most voters. Especially in the most recent election.
It was full of firsts and I think that really threw off the status quo in how past elections have been handled in the media. It was my first time registering to vote and even though I didn’t set out to pay more attention to the debates I found that the debates were seeking me out. I was confronted with them at my place of employment, (The Washington State DNC held two rallies during the primaries in our banquet rooms – and yes they were simultaneously watching CNN and FOX), newspapers, radio, conversations on the bus, even in several job interviews I had. No matter where I was I couldn’t get away from it. And yet I somehow still did not know what the issues were – I was terrified to vote I didn’t know what to do – I was probably one of the only people who liked Palin and if I said I liked her I was instantaneously attacked. So consequently I didn’t vote even though I had all the intentions to go out and rock it.
The main thing I noticed was that the conversation seemed to be slightly fixated on race and I once again found myself not knowing or understanding what the issues were about. I knew for the most part where the candidates stood but their ultimate visions for the country was not so blatant.
I think that it is the media’s responsibility to introduce us to the candidates but it is our civic responsibility to get out there and be pro-active. To write letters to the candidates, to attend town halls where they will be speaking, to pore over public records from their home states where they have previously held public office, to demand their attention, to let them know that the American public does not need nor want their smear campaigns but there assurance that what they say they are going to do they do and if not they should step aside, admit defeat and hand the reins over to someone who is more capable.
I will admit that politics have never really excited me. I really couldn’t have cared who the president was once I became old enough to vote and because of that attitude never bothered to register to vote. I believe that most of my aversion to the whole political process is purely from negative ads. I think that the candidates could and should be spending those hard earned political contributions to actually make positive change (before elected since they run on a platform that is full of hot-button issues and dreams for how they would make life better – it would be nice if their words matched their actions)not negative vibrations in their constituencies.
I do agree that there is a certain amount of bias towards and leveraging of certain candidates over others on certain networks but I am not sure that is what tips the scale for most voters. Especially in the most recent election.
It was full of firsts and I think that really threw off the status quo in how past elections have been handled in the media. It was my first time registering to vote and even though I didn’t set out to pay more attention to the debates I found that the debates were seeking me out. I was confronted with them at my place of employment, (The Washington State DNC held two rallies during the primaries in our banquet rooms – and yes they were simultaneously watching CNN and FOX), newspapers, radio, conversations on the bus, even in several job interviews I had. No matter where I was I couldn’t get away from it. And yet I somehow still did not know what the issues were – I was terrified to vote I didn’t know what to do – I was probably one of the only people who liked Palin and if I said I liked her I was instantaneously attacked. So consequently I didn’t vote even though I had all the intentions to go out and rock it.
The main thing I noticed was that the conversation seemed to be slightly fixated on race and I once again found myself not knowing or understanding what the issues were about. I knew for the most part where the candidates stood but their ultimate visions for the country was not so blatant.
I think that it is the media’s responsibility to introduce us to the candidates but it is our civic responsibility to get out there and be pro-active. To write letters to the candidates, to attend town halls where they will be speaking, to pore over public records from their home states where they have previously held public office, to demand their attention, to let them know that the American public does not need nor want their smear campaigns but there assurance that what they say they are going to do they do and if not they should step aside, admit defeat and hand the reins over to someone who is more capable.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Questions for 2/10
Casey Penaluna
Questions for 2/10
1. In Charles Larsen’s book Modern Media and Persuasion he writes, “Literacy opened the remarkable door to opportunity for Franklin and for many others, but it also enslaved us to some degree.”
Larsen goes on in the paragraph to talk about how with this new and great advent of the written word we would have to dedicate large numbers of hours to “’learn’ all the things that literacy had led to and as a result we had to invent ‘childhood’”. This seems a strange statement to me because I have never been aware of a time, especially in the pre-literate days when people were born as adults.
I know that there were not many options for children in those days to have much leisure time considering that without the advent of modern machinery, gas stoves and food processors many of the children had to assume the same responsibilities as their parents to help out with the chores at home so that their family could continue to eat, be sheltered, stay warm and in many cases prosper.
Children were still children it is just that literacy afforded a new reality of what childhood could be and what it has become. But still many children in the early days of the written word could not afford to attend school, nor could the family afford to lose them during the crucial harvest seasons and if that wasn’t bad enough teachers were in short supply since many of the adults knew barely more than the children they sought to teach.
And I am not sure what he means by remarking, “Naturally, the length of childhood has had to be expanded several times as the amount of information to be learned has increased.” I guess if you think about the fact that child labor was a daily practice in early America and that schooling was not seen as a necessity and contrast that to today’s society where even the most mundane household chore can be perceived by some as child labor and school takes up an eight hour “work” day then sure it makes sense we have merely swapped the school for the work. Today’s reality is not the same as that of the pioneers coming up in the new literacy and I think that Larsen has failed to take that fully into account as he wrote this particular passage. I feel that he is not acting in good faith by glibbing over the subject in such a manner and recklessly making this particular comparison between generations.
2. Moving on to Larsen’s thoughts on the sight script. He talks about how advertisers use an ad campaign in such a manner that the information they are trying to get you to “buy” into is presented in a form which “resonates with the experiences stored in the conscious or unconscious minds of the audience” (consumer). This is the most highly effective way to guarantee that you will indeed think of their product the next time you are out shopping.
He goes on to talk about a clever ad that TV Guide used on one of its covers. The celebrity on the cover was Oprah Winfrey and the message was basically – look how good Oprah looks after her latest diet. The issue I have is that the cover image was not a true representation of how Oprah really looked after this latest diet. Yes it was her head and she did look beautiful with all the make-up and hair styling but her head was sitting atop Ann-Margaret’s body.
What I don’t understand is how anyone can say that the ads messaging, about Oprah’s weight, is neither true nor untrue only memorable and has no more relevance to the public except that this particular “planted” audience resonance can be drawn on at a later date to sell any number of products (diet I assume).
Isn’t this blatant false advertising? I guess super-imposing one star’s head onto another’s body is o.k. as long as that body is clothed and as long as that image is being used to help promulgate the yearly stock-dividends of the various companies that make up the diet industries empire.
3. Larsen then moves onto the age of the computer. He talks about how the computer has turned many of us into anti-social members of something he calls the “lonely crowd”. He laments that computers have driven us inward “to a world occupied only by the self, the machine and the task at hand”, but how is that possible when there are millions of people on line? When there are countless social networking sites, online book clubs, weight loss meetings and photo sharing communities. We can make contacts and perhaps life-long friends with people in Europe, Asia or even Antarctica who many of us would never have had a chance to meet otherwise. We can self-publish our memoirs, locate lost relatives and even obtain a college degree.
Our work duties have been sped up through the invention of the internet, meetings can be held via webcam, client interaction can be done totally online in a real time chat session and many companies employ an inter-office IM policy.
Gaming which in its early onset was very much a solitary pursuit has busted out into the virtual world courtesy of WI-FI capabilities and the ability to represent yourself to the online gaming community through a personalized avatar. Gamers have the ability to not only play with someone in their own living room but they can challenge someone on the other side of the world.
Now I ask Mr. Larsen how do these examples of the use of the internet via the computer lead to his conclusion of the “lonely crowd” and his theory that those of us who choose to spend our time on a computer are wallowing in isolation and don’t desire human contact?
Questions for 2/10
1. In Charles Larsen’s book Modern Media and Persuasion he writes, “Literacy opened the remarkable door to opportunity for Franklin and for many others, but it also enslaved us to some degree.”
Larsen goes on in the paragraph to talk about how with this new and great advent of the written word we would have to dedicate large numbers of hours to “’learn’ all the things that literacy had led to and as a result we had to invent ‘childhood’”. This seems a strange statement to me because I have never been aware of a time, especially in the pre-literate days when people were born as adults.
I know that there were not many options for children in those days to have much leisure time considering that without the advent of modern machinery, gas stoves and food processors many of the children had to assume the same responsibilities as their parents to help out with the chores at home so that their family could continue to eat, be sheltered, stay warm and in many cases prosper.
Children were still children it is just that literacy afforded a new reality of what childhood could be and what it has become. But still many children in the early days of the written word could not afford to attend school, nor could the family afford to lose them during the crucial harvest seasons and if that wasn’t bad enough teachers were in short supply since many of the adults knew barely more than the children they sought to teach.
And I am not sure what he means by remarking, “Naturally, the length of childhood has had to be expanded several times as the amount of information to be learned has increased.” I guess if you think about the fact that child labor was a daily practice in early America and that schooling was not seen as a necessity and contrast that to today’s society where even the most mundane household chore can be perceived by some as child labor and school takes up an eight hour “work” day then sure it makes sense we have merely swapped the school for the work. Today’s reality is not the same as that of the pioneers coming up in the new literacy and I think that Larsen has failed to take that fully into account as he wrote this particular passage. I feel that he is not acting in good faith by glibbing over the subject in such a manner and recklessly making this particular comparison between generations.
2. Moving on to Larsen’s thoughts on the sight script. He talks about how advertisers use an ad campaign in such a manner that the information they are trying to get you to “buy” into is presented in a form which “resonates with the experiences stored in the conscious or unconscious minds of the audience” (consumer). This is the most highly effective way to guarantee that you will indeed think of their product the next time you are out shopping.
He goes on to talk about a clever ad that TV Guide used on one of its covers. The celebrity on the cover was Oprah Winfrey and the message was basically – look how good Oprah looks after her latest diet. The issue I have is that the cover image was not a true representation of how Oprah really looked after this latest diet. Yes it was her head and she did look beautiful with all the make-up and hair styling but her head was sitting atop Ann-Margaret’s body.
What I don’t understand is how anyone can say that the ads messaging, about Oprah’s weight, is neither true nor untrue only memorable and has no more relevance to the public except that this particular “planted” audience resonance can be drawn on at a later date to sell any number of products (diet I assume).
Isn’t this blatant false advertising? I guess super-imposing one star’s head onto another’s body is o.k. as long as that body is clothed and as long as that image is being used to help promulgate the yearly stock-dividends of the various companies that make up the diet industries empire.
3. Larsen then moves onto the age of the computer. He talks about how the computer has turned many of us into anti-social members of something he calls the “lonely crowd”. He laments that computers have driven us inward “to a world occupied only by the self, the machine and the task at hand”, but how is that possible when there are millions of people on line? When there are countless social networking sites, online book clubs, weight loss meetings and photo sharing communities. We can make contacts and perhaps life-long friends with people in Europe, Asia or even Antarctica who many of us would never have had a chance to meet otherwise. We can self-publish our memoirs, locate lost relatives and even obtain a college degree.
Our work duties have been sped up through the invention of the internet, meetings can be held via webcam, client interaction can be done totally online in a real time chat session and many companies employ an inter-office IM policy.
Gaming which in its early onset was very much a solitary pursuit has busted out into the virtual world courtesy of WI-FI capabilities and the ability to represent yourself to the online gaming community through a personalized avatar. Gamers have the ability to not only play with someone in their own living room but they can challenge someone on the other side of the world.
Now I ask Mr. Larsen how do these examples of the use of the internet via the computer lead to his conclusion of the “lonely crowd” and his theory that those of us who choose to spend our time on a computer are wallowing in isolation and don’t desire human contact?
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
response to questions 3/3
Response to Shelsea’s first question:
I agree with you. On the surface we are all autonomous creatures. We are all able to think for ourselves, we claim that we can make our own decisions and when the heat is turned up to high through violence and sex in movies and television we are convinced that we can just change the channel – or turn it off all together. So it would stand to reason that we are smart enough to control what seeps into our psyche.
But I beg to differ if you peel back the superfluous layers that pass for our daily niceties and freedom of choice you will see that we are all truly media driven. In other words media has so saturated our everyday lives that even
Our weight, our standard of beauty, our conception of how our peers live, even how and when to spend our money is all carefully orchestrated by media and the corporations that own it. The news spews out story after story all warning us about the newest cancer, the latest kidnapped child, or delivering death to our doorstep all to keep us in fear and to keep us buying products that we really don’t need but are guaranteed to keep us safe (i.e. GPS trackers, cell phones for our eight-year-olds,
Media messages on how to live and look even creep into those avenues of entertainment that we are viewing as a release from our everyday lives.
The best example I can think of right now is the movie The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep tells Anne Hathaways character that she didn’t hire the normal type of girl but instead “went with the smart, fat girl”. The subtle weight issue comes into play again in the film when women’s sizes are being summed up as 2 is the new 4 and 0 the new 2. Hathaway states that she is a size 6 and Stanley Tucci replies “which is the new 14”. I mean do we need any clearer proof that media is promulgating an unhealthy, unrealistic version of women?
When shows like The Hills take a nineteen year old fashion design student and film her life and pass off an edited 20 minute glimpse of the glamour and glitz ,the heartache and house-hunting, the clubbing and back-stabbing we are lulled into being not only passive observers into her and her friends lives but passive observers of our own. I mean really how many fans of The Hills have really taken the time out to think about how she afforded to buy that home in the Hollywood Hills (that was priced in the millions) and then move onto her new condo which comes with a rental price of 15,000 dollars. How many actually believe that she afforded a 15 hundred to two-thousand dollar a month apartment while being an intern (even if paid) at Teen Vogue? Then there are all the nights she was out at the hottest clubs partying – underage mind you; and the designer clothes. How many of those kids that are watching right now any of the numerous reality shows and coveting the glamorous feel, the glossy look and thinking that they are going to be in that same spot the second they get out of high school?
They too will meet local celebrities and be invited to all the right parties and meet their most-excellent boss at the bar-top while they are ordering rounds of tequila shots.
How many of these kids don’t look closely enough to be able to see where the money is coming from? To be able to see that this girl would not be where she is now if it weren’t for some chance location decision back when she was a junior in high school – and that she has only advanced so far so fast because of the ties held between the networks and magazines. She is a great commodity for which the network and her various employers have made quite a pretty penny on – which of course takes me back to how she affords her life-style. The network pays her for her life; she is nothing more than an actress – living the life which has been purchased for her by the media. – In essence inventing her reality and keeping us behind the curtain of consumerism.
Her life has been packaged and compartmentalized served up to us through a very scientific information gathering process called demographics. Whether Nielsen, truckads.com or tracmedia.com they have us and whether we like it or not, entertainment and media, will always have a hold on us.
I agree with you. On the surface we are all autonomous creatures. We are all able to think for ourselves, we claim that we can make our own decisions and when the heat is turned up to high through violence and sex in movies and television we are convinced that we can just change the channel – or turn it off all together. So it would stand to reason that we are smart enough to control what seeps into our psyche.
But I beg to differ if you peel back the superfluous layers that pass for our daily niceties and freedom of choice you will see that we are all truly media driven. In other words media has so saturated our everyday lives that even
Our weight, our standard of beauty, our conception of how our peers live, even how and when to spend our money is all carefully orchestrated by media and the corporations that own it. The news spews out story after story all warning us about the newest cancer, the latest kidnapped child, or delivering death to our doorstep all to keep us in fear and to keep us buying products that we really don’t need but are guaranteed to keep us safe (i.e. GPS trackers, cell phones for our eight-year-olds,
Media messages on how to live and look even creep into those avenues of entertainment that we are viewing as a release from our everyday lives.
The best example I can think of right now is the movie The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep tells Anne Hathaways character that she didn’t hire the normal type of girl but instead “went with the smart, fat girl”. The subtle weight issue comes into play again in the film when women’s sizes are being summed up as 2 is the new 4 and 0 the new 2. Hathaway states that she is a size 6 and Stanley Tucci replies “which is the new 14”. I mean do we need any clearer proof that media is promulgating an unhealthy, unrealistic version of women?
When shows like The Hills take a nineteen year old fashion design student and film her life and pass off an edited 20 minute glimpse of the glamour and glitz ,the heartache and house-hunting, the clubbing and back-stabbing we are lulled into being not only passive observers into her and her friends lives but passive observers of our own. I mean really how many fans of The Hills have really taken the time out to think about how she afforded to buy that home in the Hollywood Hills (that was priced in the millions) and then move onto her new condo which comes with a rental price of 15,000 dollars. How many actually believe that she afforded a 15 hundred to two-thousand dollar a month apartment while being an intern (even if paid) at Teen Vogue? Then there are all the nights she was out at the hottest clubs partying – underage mind you; and the designer clothes. How many of those kids that are watching right now any of the numerous reality shows and coveting the glamorous feel, the glossy look and thinking that they are going to be in that same spot the second they get out of high school?
They too will meet local celebrities and be invited to all the right parties and meet their most-excellent boss at the bar-top while they are ordering rounds of tequila shots.
How many of these kids don’t look closely enough to be able to see where the money is coming from? To be able to see that this girl would not be where she is now if it weren’t for some chance location decision back when she was a junior in high school – and that she has only advanced so far so fast because of the ties held between the networks and magazines. She is a great commodity for which the network and her various employers have made quite a pretty penny on – which of course takes me back to how she affords her life-style. The network pays her for her life; she is nothing more than an actress – living the life which has been purchased for her by the media. – In essence inventing her reality and keeping us behind the curtain of consumerism.
Her life has been packaged and compartmentalized served up to us through a very scientific information gathering process called demographics. Whether Nielsen, truckads.com or tracmedia.com they have us and whether we like it or not, entertainment and media, will always have a hold on us.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
my idea for change
This is something I have been thinking of in my head for years. The form keeps changing as the issues keep evolving. I know that my foundation is going to deal with helping children. I am very passionate when it comes to children that are killed in their homes by either their own parents or a "surrogate" parent; i.e. step-parent, boyfriend/girlfriend, or foster parent. I am appalled that most of these cases of filicide have resulted after numerous contacts with police and child protection agencies. The common belief that the family should stay together at any cost is literally killing the family - and it is an ideal which has carried over from the stone ages.
Who is going to protect the child and punish the adult? I would like my foundation to do both. I would like to help pay for hospital costs, rehabilitation services, therapy, plastic surgery (in certain cases), anything that will help the surviving abused child to grow up and lead a normal life. If the child has not survived I would like to be able to help the states pay for the prosecution and investigation of these crimes. States have gone into massive debt in trying these high profile cases such as the Casey Anthony case and taxpayers deserve some relief.
This is just a small piece of what I would some day like to offer with my foundation.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
my rough draft
Here is a very heavy quote laden article driven rough draft..The final will be much more refined and put together but as I am not a great draft writer this is more outline formatted.
· The body of Trenor's daughter, two-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers, was found in October 2007 in a large blue plastic container on an uninhabited island in Galveston Bay. Authorities didn't know the child’s identity, until the grandmother came forward after a sketch of the child was released nationally, and thus dubbed her "Baby Grace."
· Entwistle’s spouse had been shot in the head and their nine-month-old daughter had been shot point-blank in the heart with a .22-caliber pistol that belonged to the father-in-law. The bodies were then covered with a comforter, the gun was returned to the in-laws’ home, and Entwistle fled to England, according to police.
· Holton got to spend an afternoon with the four children on November 30, 1997, they went to an amusement park, and a McDonalds before going home, where Holton shot them with a Chinese-made semi-automatic rifle. Shortly after killing the children Holton went to the nearest police station and confessed to the crime.
· According to Stallworth, Hill spanked the 3-year-old boy whenever he misidentified numbers and letters on flash cards and when he wet the bed. The prosecutor showed the jury switches, belts and flash cards that police seized from Hill's home. Stallworth said the assaults occurred repeatedly in the last month of Cha Cha's life, (he died September 20, 2003) in what the prosecutor called the "30 days of hell." An autopsy showed that the 40-pound toddler died of multiple injuries, including a cerebral hematoma, a blood clot in the brain brought on by the beating.
· A few jurors fought back tears and averted their eyes as the prosecutor showed them enlarged photos of each boy with gunshot wounds on the head. At the time of the killings, Brandon was 14, Austin, 7; Brigham, 6; and Matthew, 4.
· The trouble started Friday night at the family's Maywood home the baby started crying and woke Dilworth up. Dilworth called 9-1-1 Saturday morning from the family's home. Prosecutors say when the ambulance arrived, the front door was padlocked. The rescuers could not get in the front door and Dilworth could not get out. So, authorities say, Dilworth took the baby in a car seat and handed him over a locked, six-foot fence.
· The morning of Dec. 14, Bernsdorff drove to the Monterey Lakes apartment complex in Largo. Dressed all in black, removed a screen from the window of apartment 2113 and climbed in, passing the ex-spouses lovers’ 4-year-old daughter, Annie Rose, asleep on the living room floor. The spouse was shot seven times and the lover twice. Later that morning, police found the dead bodies of six-year-old Olivia and three-year-old Magnus in the bedroom of the Powderhorn Drive home.
· An 8-year-old Richmond boy died after allegedly being beaten, tortured and possibly forced to drink household cleaner in what police said Monday was one of the worst cases of child abuse they've ever seen. The boy, who was covered head to toe with injuries in various stages of healing, lived in horrible conditions, staying in a locked room outfitted with a surveillance camera and eating food that was mixed in a blender, police said. Police found signs that Raijon had been restrained on his bed, where the sheets were duct-taped.
At the end of the day it really doesn’t matter what gender these parents are. Only that they all share one thing in common – having a beautiful young child and then callously treating that child as if it were no more than a piece of common disposable property, an accessory to be brought out to make them look good, a bargaining chip and worst of all garbage. Many parents who have killed their children use these poor little beings as a receptacle for bad feelings, family secrets, mirrors that reflect their failures – mirrors which can be thrown down and broken when they can’t stand
· "I just kept hitting her with the belt again and again. I don't know how long, but I remember her trying to get away and me knocking her back down," the journal said. – Excerpt from the journal of Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 20, mother of slain child Riley Ann Sawyers.
· “Neil Entwistle had suffered major financial problems and was dissatisfied in the marriage, prosecutors said. Just days before the killings, police said, he had trawled the Internet for "blonde beauties" and "half-price escorts" and searched Google for "knife in the neck kill" and "quick suicide method."
· That Daryl Holton, 36, killed his four children (Stephen Edward Holton (12), Brent Holton (10), Eric Holton (6), and Kayla Marie Holton (4)) was not at issue, nor that he killed them in a premeditated manner, making it a capital crime; he methodically blindfolded them and told them not to peek, as he shot one after the other through the heart. He felt it was the correct moral choice: to save them from being brought up with a mother having a history of alcoholism and abuse.
· In an interview with Oakland police, Chazarus Hill Sr., 27, "had the audacity" to make "the understatement of the year – probably of the century," Stallworth said in his closing argument, quoting Hill: "I may have hit him harder than I was supposed to." Hill’s attorney William Daley said the case "deals with, in an extreme way, the discipline of children" that went "horribly awry." Hill, who had limited education, disciplined his son in the only way he knew how, the defense attorney said: by observing how parents around him treated their children. "Mr. Hill had nothing to look at except his own experience," Daley said. "That is how we got here."
· Defense attorney Garcia wanted jurors to forget about case facts, such as her alcohol consumption on the day of the murder and her penchant for revenge in regards to her boyfriend, ex-boyfriend and estranged ex-husband, when he asked jurors to consider that Susan Eubanks, 35, was brought up by alcoholic parents in a home where violence and abuse were prevalent. Howard-Regan, however, argued that Ms. Eubanks' dysfunctional childhood served only as a smokescreen."The problem with that argument is look at people who have that same background and their children are still alive. They haven't killed their children," Howard-Regan said.
· "The child was in a baby seat. He (Charles Dilworth, 34) stomps the child (Christopher Dilworth three-months-old), picks the child up, shakes the child violently back and forth," said Simpson.”He then threw the child on the bed, beat him again, picked him up by his ankles, and shook him a second time. Dilworth's mother says that he has been depressed all of his life and has been taking medication.
· Oliver Bernsdorff was not happy. He incessantly phoned Jennifer, asking her to come back. He told Jennifer and his mother he was battling depression. His mother now says he was "self-medicating'' with alcohol and was in "extreme emotional pain."
· Moses, who works as a United Parcel Service supervisor in Richmond, told police she had disciplined her son, 8-year-old Raijon Moses for what she perceived to be misbehavior, such as urinating or defecating on himself, police said. Moses admitted that she poured a caustic substance on her son's genitals shortly before his death to discourage him from urinating on himself, Peixoto said. “From what I've seen and heard about this case, I just don't understand how a mother could do this to her child." Moses also told police that she had been punishing her son, whom she home-schooled, since November 2005, because he ran away by jumping out a second-floor window and then stole toys at a store because he didn't have any, authorities said.
Mental illness, discipline, under the influence of alcohol/drugs, revenge these are all valid reasons for a parent to kill their child(ren).
· "These crimes are incomprehensible," Judge Diane Kottmyer said, handing down a sentence of two concurrent life terms. "They defy comprehension because they involve the planned and deliberate murders of the defendant's wife (Rachel Entwistle, 27) and 9-month-old child (Lillian Rose) in violation of bonds that we recognize as central to our identity as human beings, those of husband and wife and parent and child."
· "Our dreams as a parent and grandparent have been shattered by the shameful, selfish act of one person, Neil Entwistle," said Priscilla Matterazzo, "For him to have tried to hide behind an accusation of murder-suicide of this beautiful woman and perfect mother is low and despicable."
· "Families should stay together; a father should be with his children." Holton told Shelbyville police investigators. He admitted to also planning to kill his ex-wife and himself but had changed his mind.
· Witnesses testified that the boy came up to them when he wasn't with his father, telling them, "My daddy punched me," and "Shh, my dad hurt me, don't tell anybody," Stallworth said.
· After Ford told Hill that she was done with their relationship, an enraged Hill said, "If you leave, I'm going to f— him up," the prosecutor said.
· "Remember the children and consider the horror they must have felt as their mother took aim and fired," prosecutor Bonnie Howard-Regan told jurors. "If this defendant does not deserve the death penalty, then who does?"
· "It's probably the worst baby murder I've seen in a long time. It's a tragic waste of life - unnecessary - pick up the phone if you can't take care of a child and ask someone else to help you out," said Colin Simpson, Asst. State's Attorney.
· "He cared very much about that baby. That's all I have to say at this time," said Dilworth's mother.
· Pattie Davis remembers the time little Magnus worked the room, toddling from one family member to another, giving out hugs. When he came to Bernsdorff, the child turned away. "Daddy mean.''
· "He wanted his family," Jutta Bernsdorff said. "It was all he wanted in life. His dream of a family was broken. The most important figure is the mother figure and that was gone."
· "She said she thought he was playing mind games with her" whenever he defecated on himself, said Richmond police Sgt. Mitch Peixoto. "That little kid has been going through a living hell," Peixoto added. "I think he was scared to death of his mother."
· Raijon had whip marks, burns, cuts and scars "over every inch of his body," said Lt. Mark Gagan. "It's obvious that this was a sustained and prolonged pattern of abuse.”It was the most disturbing crime scene I've ever seen."
This will be a section devoted to punishment of these criminals. Perhaps how their remorse (or lack thereof) played a role in the sentences they received. And a wrap up of key points.
· The body of Trenor's daughter, two-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers, was found in October 2007 in a large blue plastic container on an uninhabited island in Galveston Bay. Authorities didn't know the child’s identity, until the grandmother came forward after a sketch of the child was released nationally, and thus dubbed her "Baby Grace."
· Entwistle’s spouse had been shot in the head and their nine-month-old daughter had been shot point-blank in the heart with a .22-caliber pistol that belonged to the father-in-law. The bodies were then covered with a comforter, the gun was returned to the in-laws’ home, and Entwistle fled to England, according to police.
· Holton got to spend an afternoon with the four children on November 30, 1997, they went to an amusement park, and a McDonalds before going home, where Holton shot them with a Chinese-made semi-automatic rifle. Shortly after killing the children Holton went to the nearest police station and confessed to the crime.
· According to Stallworth, Hill spanked the 3-year-old boy whenever he misidentified numbers and letters on flash cards and when he wet the bed. The prosecutor showed the jury switches, belts and flash cards that police seized from Hill's home. Stallworth said the assaults occurred repeatedly in the last month of Cha Cha's life, (he died September 20, 2003) in what the prosecutor called the "30 days of hell." An autopsy showed that the 40-pound toddler died of multiple injuries, including a cerebral hematoma, a blood clot in the brain brought on by the beating.
· A few jurors fought back tears and averted their eyes as the prosecutor showed them enlarged photos of each boy with gunshot wounds on the head. At the time of the killings, Brandon was 14, Austin, 7; Brigham, 6; and Matthew, 4.
· The trouble started Friday night at the family's Maywood home the baby started crying and woke Dilworth up. Dilworth called 9-1-1 Saturday morning from the family's home. Prosecutors say when the ambulance arrived, the front door was padlocked. The rescuers could not get in the front door and Dilworth could not get out. So, authorities say, Dilworth took the baby in a car seat and handed him over a locked, six-foot fence.
· The morning of Dec. 14, Bernsdorff drove to the Monterey Lakes apartment complex in Largo. Dressed all in black, removed a screen from the window of apartment 2113 and climbed in, passing the ex-spouses lovers’ 4-year-old daughter, Annie Rose, asleep on the living room floor. The spouse was shot seven times and the lover twice. Later that morning, police found the dead bodies of six-year-old Olivia and three-year-old Magnus in the bedroom of the Powderhorn Drive home.
· An 8-year-old Richmond boy died after allegedly being beaten, tortured and possibly forced to drink household cleaner in what police said Monday was one of the worst cases of child abuse they've ever seen. The boy, who was covered head to toe with injuries in various stages of healing, lived in horrible conditions, staying in a locked room outfitted with a surveillance camera and eating food that was mixed in a blender, police said. Police found signs that Raijon had been restrained on his bed, where the sheets were duct-taped.
At the end of the day it really doesn’t matter what gender these parents are. Only that they all share one thing in common – having a beautiful young child and then callously treating that child as if it were no more than a piece of common disposable property, an accessory to be brought out to make them look good, a bargaining chip and worst of all garbage. Many parents who have killed their children use these poor little beings as a receptacle for bad feelings, family secrets, mirrors that reflect their failures – mirrors which can be thrown down and broken when they can’t stand
· "I just kept hitting her with the belt again and again. I don't know how long, but I remember her trying to get away and me knocking her back down," the journal said. – Excerpt from the journal of Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 20, mother of slain child Riley Ann Sawyers.
· “Neil Entwistle had suffered major financial problems and was dissatisfied in the marriage, prosecutors said. Just days before the killings, police said, he had trawled the Internet for "blonde beauties" and "half-price escorts" and searched Google for "knife in the neck kill" and "quick suicide method."
· That Daryl Holton, 36, killed his four children (Stephen Edward Holton (12), Brent Holton (10), Eric Holton (6), and Kayla Marie Holton (4)) was not at issue, nor that he killed them in a premeditated manner, making it a capital crime; he methodically blindfolded them and told them not to peek, as he shot one after the other through the heart. He felt it was the correct moral choice: to save them from being brought up with a mother having a history of alcoholism and abuse.
· In an interview with Oakland police, Chazarus Hill Sr., 27, "had the audacity" to make "the understatement of the year – probably of the century," Stallworth said in his closing argument, quoting Hill: "I may have hit him harder than I was supposed to." Hill’s attorney William Daley said the case "deals with, in an extreme way, the discipline of children" that went "horribly awry." Hill, who had limited education, disciplined his son in the only way he knew how, the defense attorney said: by observing how parents around him treated their children. "Mr. Hill had nothing to look at except his own experience," Daley said. "That is how we got here."
· Defense attorney Garcia wanted jurors to forget about case facts, such as her alcohol consumption on the day of the murder and her penchant for revenge in regards to her boyfriend, ex-boyfriend and estranged ex-husband, when he asked jurors to consider that Susan Eubanks, 35, was brought up by alcoholic parents in a home where violence and abuse were prevalent. Howard-Regan, however, argued that Ms. Eubanks' dysfunctional childhood served only as a smokescreen."The problem with that argument is look at people who have that same background and their children are still alive. They haven't killed their children," Howard-Regan said.
· "The child was in a baby seat. He (Charles Dilworth, 34) stomps the child (Christopher Dilworth three-months-old), picks the child up, shakes the child violently back and forth," said Simpson.”He then threw the child on the bed, beat him again, picked him up by his ankles, and shook him a second time. Dilworth's mother says that he has been depressed all of his life and has been taking medication.
· Oliver Bernsdorff was not happy. He incessantly phoned Jennifer, asking her to come back. He told Jennifer and his mother he was battling depression. His mother now says he was "self-medicating'' with alcohol and was in "extreme emotional pain."
· Moses, who works as a United Parcel Service supervisor in Richmond, told police she had disciplined her son, 8-year-old Raijon Moses for what she perceived to be misbehavior, such as urinating or defecating on himself, police said. Moses admitted that she poured a caustic substance on her son's genitals shortly before his death to discourage him from urinating on himself, Peixoto said. “From what I've seen and heard about this case, I just don't understand how a mother could do this to her child." Moses also told police that she had been punishing her son, whom she home-schooled, since November 2005, because he ran away by jumping out a second-floor window and then stole toys at a store because he didn't have any, authorities said.
Mental illness, discipline, under the influence of alcohol/drugs, revenge these are all valid reasons for a parent to kill their child(ren).
· "These crimes are incomprehensible," Judge Diane Kottmyer said, handing down a sentence of two concurrent life terms. "They defy comprehension because they involve the planned and deliberate murders of the defendant's wife (Rachel Entwistle, 27) and 9-month-old child (Lillian Rose) in violation of bonds that we recognize as central to our identity as human beings, those of husband and wife and parent and child."
· "Our dreams as a parent and grandparent have been shattered by the shameful, selfish act of one person, Neil Entwistle," said Priscilla Matterazzo, "For him to have tried to hide behind an accusation of murder-suicide of this beautiful woman and perfect mother is low and despicable."
· "Families should stay together; a father should be with his children." Holton told Shelbyville police investigators. He admitted to also planning to kill his ex-wife and himself but had changed his mind.
· Witnesses testified that the boy came up to them when he wasn't with his father, telling them, "My daddy punched me," and "Shh, my dad hurt me, don't tell anybody," Stallworth said.
· After Ford told Hill that she was done with their relationship, an enraged Hill said, "If you leave, I'm going to f— him up," the prosecutor said.
· "Remember the children and consider the horror they must have felt as their mother took aim and fired," prosecutor Bonnie Howard-Regan told jurors. "If this defendant does not deserve the death penalty, then who does?"
· "It's probably the worst baby murder I've seen in a long time. It's a tragic waste of life - unnecessary - pick up the phone if you can't take care of a child and ask someone else to help you out," said Colin Simpson, Asst. State's Attorney.
· "He cared very much about that baby. That's all I have to say at this time," said Dilworth's mother.
· Pattie Davis remembers the time little Magnus worked the room, toddling from one family member to another, giving out hugs. When he came to Bernsdorff, the child turned away. "Daddy mean.''
· "He wanted his family," Jutta Bernsdorff said. "It was all he wanted in life. His dream of a family was broken. The most important figure is the mother figure and that was gone."
· "She said she thought he was playing mind games with her" whenever he defecated on himself, said Richmond police Sgt. Mitch Peixoto. "That little kid has been going through a living hell," Peixoto added. "I think he was scared to death of his mother."
· Raijon had whip marks, burns, cuts and scars "over every inch of his body," said Lt. Mark Gagan. "It's obvious that this was a sustained and prolonged pattern of abuse.”It was the most disturbing crime scene I've ever seen."
This will be a section devoted to punishment of these criminals. Perhaps how their remorse (or lack thereof) played a role in the sentences they received. And a wrap up of key points.
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