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.
Monday, February 2, 2009
questions for 2/3/09
#1. Now I am all for drama in its various forms played out in the arts but I am not too sure about the dramatism. I understand the need to pull am audience into an imagined reality – a reality that asks us to connect with the actors, to feel their pain or happiness, to experience their struggles out of poverty or their fall from the top. We are asked to love them, hate them, but most of all identify with them. Even if we have had no prior experience (script) to guide us through the different acts of our new slice of life, each of us have gone in the span of two hours from being an individual to being a universal “we”.
This sounds good on the surface. Empathy, compassion, and a sense of right and wrong – the ability to feel justified when the hero wins out or injustice when helpless victims are preyed upon is a great gauge of a person’s moral fiber.
But I am not so sure that I want to agree with all of the assertions made in regards to the importance of dramatism as Burke lays them out. As is stated in Professor Philpott’s essay, Turning Tragedy into Triumph, “dramatism argues that the essential goal of effective contemporary rhetoric is constructing an alignment between and among audience and speaker based on shared qualities embodied in the symbols used in the discourse (“identification”).” This mirrors Burke’s argument “that you persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his.”
As I was reading this passage my thoughts were turned towards cult groups or groups of the outer fringes of society which tend to feed on their audiences’ fears. Fears which have weakened their morale or resolve. Fears which have allowed a victim mentally to crop up into their everyday lives. Fears which do nothing more than allow a pit of hate and loathing towards those they feel are getting preferential treatment (minorities), taking jobs away from them (illegal immigrants), or who may be contributing to what they perceive as an erosion in the moral fiber of our country (gays and lesbians).
Many cult leaders are well skilled highly charismatic rhetors who since they prey on people whose mental capacities may have been eroded via depression or a feeling of hopelessness are geniuses at recruiting initiatives into their hate mongering institutions through the ploy of identification “by invoking symbols and rhetorical patterns whose value is shared by the audience – whose members share a sense of identity.”
So my question is: the KKK just recently killed one of their own initiates because the 19-year-old decided against becoming a member of this particularly inclusive group. Do you think that he was killed due to the fact that the other members recognized that he was turning his back on their “shared sense of self”? And that the KKK could not allow their doctrine to be ingested and then spat back out at them – would his “turn coat” ways have cast an even longer shadow on the organization which still espouses its hate against African Americans but which cannot allow its members to stand in the light of day? Thus, throwing this particular groups consubstantial notions into the wild, for those of us, who are more enlightened, to pick clean.
#2. As I was reading another part of Professor Philpott’s essay I came across the section Rhetoric and Situation: The Strategic Transformation of Experience. In this section Philpott is explaining Burke’s theory of “symbolic action” which states that “rhetoric succeeds in modifying or adjusting situations by transforming interpretations of the situation and of ourselves.
This particular theory really hit home to me especially when I started to think about how we like to define or put everything into specific categories so that we are able to better deal with our everyday life. “Thus, the names and labels used to describe events contain an understanding of those events and of both the rhetor’s and audience’s relationships towards the situation’s features,” explains Philpott.
I agree with this perception because if it were not true than people would not feel the need to define themselves or others in terms of what do you/they do? Upon meeting a new person that is probably one of the top ten questions asked. Until recently when I was asked what do you do I would normally tell people that I was a server but that I was going to school. I am not very proud of the fact that I am in my mid-thirties and until recently have been working in a restaurant as my main source of income. I felt ashamed and as if people were going to look down on me – due to the general populations perception of restaurant workers. I always felt the need to qualify my occupation with the fact that I go to school.
Now I am able to say that I work in E-commerce which I feel is more “respectable” and more in line with where I feel I should be at this stage in my life. I never wanted people to see me as a waitress I never wanted to define myself in this way – so it always caused tension in my everyday sense of self. Even causing me to feel as if I were a failure.
However, as the section goes on I am validated in the knowledge that “naming is inherently an act of renaming, and serves to define the event and proper reactions to the situation: the human process of symbol using integrates, shapes, and controls both external and internal realities.” Thus, “understanding of both situations and of ourselves is continually transformed through rhetorical responses.”
Does anyone else feel this way in regards to how they feel people are sizing them up and perceiving who they are as people based on their career choices?
#3 This will be a short question. In Kenneth Burke’s Philosophy of Literary Form he argues that strategy is performed in many various forms – one being realism. He states that the author may forget that realism is an aspect for foretelling. Instead the author may do one of two things: 1. “he may take an ill digested philosophy of science, leading him to mistakenly to assume that “relentless” naturalistic “truthfulness” is a proper end in itself”, and 2. “a merely competitive desire to outstrip other writers by being “more realistic” than they.”
He goes on to talk about the American people having no shortage of rhetorical situations, and the recurrence of such situations – “singles out a pattern of experience that is sufficiently representative of our social structure, which recurs sufficiently often for people to “need a word for it” and to adopt an attitude towards it.”
Some of our more contemporary “authors” have tried to trademark common phrases which were used more as a catch-phrase to further their own economic gains – such as Donald Trump on The Apprentice with his “You’re Fired” slogan. Trump’s bid was not successful. However, basketball coach Pat Riley was successful when he trademarked his catchy phrase “threepeat” which helps the American population easily reference the accomplishment of winning three championships in a row.
So I guess my question is this: If language/words are the domain of the entire speaking world how is it possible or even ethical for a very elite portion of the population to be able to lay claim and potentially make money off of what is the only commodity which is truly free?
This sounds good on the surface. Empathy, compassion, and a sense of right and wrong – the ability to feel justified when the hero wins out or injustice when helpless victims are preyed upon is a great gauge of a person’s moral fiber.
But I am not so sure that I want to agree with all of the assertions made in regards to the importance of dramatism as Burke lays them out. As is stated in Professor Philpott’s essay, Turning Tragedy into Triumph, “dramatism argues that the essential goal of effective contemporary rhetoric is constructing an alignment between and among audience and speaker based on shared qualities embodied in the symbols used in the discourse (“identification”).” This mirrors Burke’s argument “that you persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his.”
As I was reading this passage my thoughts were turned towards cult groups or groups of the outer fringes of society which tend to feed on their audiences’ fears. Fears which have weakened their morale or resolve. Fears which have allowed a victim mentally to crop up into their everyday lives. Fears which do nothing more than allow a pit of hate and loathing towards those they feel are getting preferential treatment (minorities), taking jobs away from them (illegal immigrants), or who may be contributing to what they perceive as an erosion in the moral fiber of our country (gays and lesbians).
Many cult leaders are well skilled highly charismatic rhetors who since they prey on people whose mental capacities may have been eroded via depression or a feeling of hopelessness are geniuses at recruiting initiatives into their hate mongering institutions through the ploy of identification “by invoking symbols and rhetorical patterns whose value is shared by the audience – whose members share a sense of identity.”
So my question is: the KKK just recently killed one of their own initiates because the 19-year-old decided against becoming a member of this particularly inclusive group. Do you think that he was killed due to the fact that the other members recognized that he was turning his back on their “shared sense of self”? And that the KKK could not allow their doctrine to be ingested and then spat back out at them – would his “turn coat” ways have cast an even longer shadow on the organization which still espouses its hate against African Americans but which cannot allow its members to stand in the light of day? Thus, throwing this particular groups consubstantial notions into the wild, for those of us, who are more enlightened, to pick clean.
#2. As I was reading another part of Professor Philpott’s essay I came across the section Rhetoric and Situation: The Strategic Transformation of Experience. In this section Philpott is explaining Burke’s theory of “symbolic action” which states that “rhetoric succeeds in modifying or adjusting situations by transforming interpretations of the situation and of ourselves.
This particular theory really hit home to me especially when I started to think about how we like to define or put everything into specific categories so that we are able to better deal with our everyday life. “Thus, the names and labels used to describe events contain an understanding of those events and of both the rhetor’s and audience’s relationships towards the situation’s features,” explains Philpott.
I agree with this perception because if it were not true than people would not feel the need to define themselves or others in terms of what do you/they do? Upon meeting a new person that is probably one of the top ten questions asked. Until recently when I was asked what do you do I would normally tell people that I was a server but that I was going to school. I am not very proud of the fact that I am in my mid-thirties and until recently have been working in a restaurant as my main source of income. I felt ashamed and as if people were going to look down on me – due to the general populations perception of restaurant workers. I always felt the need to qualify my occupation with the fact that I go to school.
Now I am able to say that I work in E-commerce which I feel is more “respectable” and more in line with where I feel I should be at this stage in my life. I never wanted people to see me as a waitress I never wanted to define myself in this way – so it always caused tension in my everyday sense of self. Even causing me to feel as if I were a failure.
However, as the section goes on I am validated in the knowledge that “naming is inherently an act of renaming, and serves to define the event and proper reactions to the situation: the human process of symbol using integrates, shapes, and controls both external and internal realities.” Thus, “understanding of both situations and of ourselves is continually transformed through rhetorical responses.”
Does anyone else feel this way in regards to how they feel people are sizing them up and perceiving who they are as people based on their career choices?
#3 This will be a short question. In Kenneth Burke’s Philosophy of Literary Form he argues that strategy is performed in many various forms – one being realism. He states that the author may forget that realism is an aspect for foretelling. Instead the author may do one of two things: 1. “he may take an ill digested philosophy of science, leading him to mistakenly to assume that “relentless” naturalistic “truthfulness” is a proper end in itself”, and 2. “a merely competitive desire to outstrip other writers by being “more realistic” than they.”
He goes on to talk about the American people having no shortage of rhetorical situations, and the recurrence of such situations – “singles out a pattern of experience that is sufficiently representative of our social structure, which recurs sufficiently often for people to “need a word for it” and to adopt an attitude towards it.”
Some of our more contemporary “authors” have tried to trademark common phrases which were used more as a catch-phrase to further their own economic gains – such as Donald Trump on The Apprentice with his “You’re Fired” slogan. Trump’s bid was not successful. However, basketball coach Pat Riley was successful when he trademarked his catchy phrase “threepeat” which helps the American population easily reference the accomplishment of winning three championships in a row.
So I guess my question is this: If language/words are the domain of the entire speaking world how is it possible or even ethical for a very elite portion of the population to be able to lay claim and potentially make money off of what is the only commodity which is truly free?
Thursday, January 29, 2009
minor analysis paper 2
Casey Penaluna
Assignment 2
PART 1
Argument/Counter-argument
Pathos: The heading of an article written by Glenn Sacks in 2001 and printed in the Pasadena Star News is a clear indicator of his personal pathos in regards to an upsurge of sensationalized newspaper articles in regards to parents (namely women) killing (or attempting to kill) their children.
The title of the article? Female Murderers Seen in a Different Light: Society Prefers to View Violent Women as Victims
Reading this article it is clear that Sacks believes that the mother who attempted to drown her 6-month-old son in an apartment pool, the woman who asphyxiated her three children with car fumes and the woman who drowned her five children in a bathtub, are not, nor should not be seen as victims. Even though (upon further investigation) the mother (Elsie Lazaro-Louis) who attempted to drown her children was found to be delusional and suicidal – having cited that she sold her other two children to The Salvation Army – when in actuality they were away at summer camp. And the woman (Andrea Yates) who drowned her 5 children was found to be suffering from extreme post-partum psychosis.
Sacks accomplishes pathos through the use of statistical information in regards to gender and punishment when it comes to the crime of parental murder.
Apart from the small vignettes which I reproduced from his article above he foreshadowed his use of statistics with the following verbiage:
All of these crimes shocked the nation during the past week. But
should we really be so surprised? The truth is female violence in
American families is anything but rare.
Ethos: Sacks’ ethos expands into his use of statistics in regards to the increase in female perpetrated violence as recorded by The World Health Organization (which attributes the majority of infanticide to mothers), the police and various academics (whom believe that at least 15% of all SIDS deaths; roughly 7,000/year; are caused by mothers smothering their babies), the Department of Health and Human Services (who published results that custodial mothers are five times more likely to kill their children than are custodial fathers), and the U.S. Department of Justice (which has documented that 70% of confirmed child abuse cases and 65% of parental murder is perpetrated by the mother).
For good measure Sacks adds one more statistic which illustrates that between the years of 1980-1999 female crime increased 200% while the violent crime rate for the rest of the nation was declining. However, he does not list a backing agency to this particular statistic.
Sacks is smart in this article to have found a female, Patricia Pearson author of When She Was Bad: How and Why Women Get Away With Murder, to quote who shares his same views on the injustice of women being given a “free pass” when it comes to the punishment phase of trials. Sacks and Pearson both contend that just because a woman is a mother does not instantly translate into that woman being good and caring and maternal. She can be just as callous and cold-blooded as any man and should be held to the same sentencing standards as a man – instead of disproportionately hospitalized or even as they put it “getting away with murder.”
Logos: Sacks and Pearson take issue with the enablers of these women – the judges and defense attorneys – who insist in coddling these violent women instead of seeing then for what they truly are – evil. The assertion made in Pearson’s book is that the American public doesn’t want to believe that the historically nurturing figure (i.e. the mother) could have intentionally wanted to cause harm upon her own flesh and blood. So when their attorneys throw out such language as battered wife syndrome, post-partum depression, coercion or mentally incapable of understanding what she was doing at the time they continue to build on societies belief that women are victims, that women are weak, and that women cannot think for themselves in a rational manner.
In the end Sacks makes a plea for society to rethink their attitudes of women (he is clearly writing for a male audience throughout the article) in America. He asks for us to consider this one last point, “Treating the violent woman as if she were a child, insane, or a victim worthy of sympathy – is this the way to protect society and our children from violent criminals?”
Pathos: Friday November 21, 2008 there was a posting by a man named Charles to his blog Heartache with Hard Work. This post came after the culminating article in a long drawrn out trial in the death of 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown. The New York Times article which was published on November 17, 2008 was titled Seeing Failure as Mother as Factor in Sentencing.
Charles’s pathos, unlike the NY Times and Glenn Sacks, is one that would like his readers to sympathize with the plight of Nixzmary Brown’s mother, Nixzmary Santiago. Whereas the prosecution in the case used Santiago’s status as a mother to convict her Charles insists that is the very reason she should have been, if not exonerated, then not so harshly punished.
Charles further establishes pathos by first making a personal comment in regards to the state of our country (Sometimes our country is truly depressing. For example…) and then forges ahead with a slice of supporting evidence from the NY Times article. In this case, his belief that a mother who allowed her husband, Cesar Rodriguez (the child’s stepfather) to beat her daughter continuously until she finally died did not deserve a longer prison sentence than what the actual murderer received.
He shows anger towards the prosecutor who in her final arguments used such inflammatory language as “Mommy”, and further asserting her belief that Ms. Santiago was “the one person that the little girl should have been able to count on”. Charles is further enraged that the female judge imposed a sentence on Ms. Santiago (convicted of manslaughter and two counts of assault) that was 17 years longer than the actual killers because she believed that the defendant had ignored her lawful duty as a parent to try and save the dying child. (Instead she bathed her and put her to bed while a neighbor called the police.) He even has some negative things to say against a female juror who was on the fence about convicting but after deciding that the mother showed intent to kill “by her lack of action.”
Ethos: Charles just seems to slowly fume throughout his blog on the unfairness of this woman’s sentence. He is clearly on her side. However, unlike Sacks who has a ton of statistics and obviously did his homework, Charles’ blog was an emotional “in the heat of the moment” “knee jerk” response to a criminal law issue which he believes did a terrible disservice to a woman, Nixzaliz Santiago.
He states that the killing is a sad thing but that it is only made sadder by the hard ships that Ms. Santiago has had to endure – learning disabilities, an abusive relationship with her father and her miscarriage right before the 7-year-olds death – this has led Charles to assert that any reasonable person would notice these facts and recognize a troubled mind, a woman who needed help. Punishment? He is not so certain “that she, who merely witnessed but did not act, should receive a more harsh punishment than the man who actually killed the child.”
Logos: Charles takes issue with the criminal justice system and societal norms that insist women act as mothers. “In this case Nixzaliz Santiago is being punished for failing to comport with an idealized motherhood…..And the failure of motherhood in this instance makes her equally (in fact more) culpable.”
He wants us to imagine if not believe that there is a world out there in which “real” mother’s can just stand by and let these awful things happen to their children. He doesn’t want us to look further for motivations – because with motivations come punishment - he just wants the reader to accept that many of these mother’s are simply afraid to act.
However, he discounts the intelligence of his reader and I believe sends out mixed signals in his third from last paragraph. Charles wants us to believe that because Nixzaliz didn’t actually do anything to contribute to her daughter’s death (nor did she do anything to save her life) that she does not deserve such a long sentence and in fact due to pre-existing emotional conditions she more than likely should have been hospitalized. Although he artfully skirts the fact that many people, both men and women, are convicted as accomplices in a wide range of crimes because they simply had knowledge of the act (didn’t even have to be there at the time) and did nothing to stop/intervene the perpetrator.
Nixzaliz’s sentence according to Charles was based on “restrictive gender norms and the over reliance on an approach to criminal justice that emphasizes punishment over treatment and rehabilitation.”
Toulmin
Glenn Sacks
1. Claim: Sacks makes the claim that society prefers to see women as victims instead of violent offenders. He introduces his reader to numerous statistics dealing with an increase of violent crime being perpetrated by women over a period of roughly 20 years. These statistics are used not necessarily to put fear into the male population but to make society aware of a trend that is only increasing so that we are able to act and get it under control. Sacks merely wants the criminal justice system and most of America to start punishing these women and stop giving them a slap on the wrist (as he sees it) by advocating an approach of treatment because they have been historically looked upon as the weaker sex.
2. Support: Sacks backs up his claims by offering three short but relevant and timely vignettes of three violent mothers and one wife who murdered their children and husband respectively – these crimes all happening the week before he wrote his article. In each of these cases the woman was portrayed as a victim first murderer second –defenses ranged from suicidal, post-partum depression, and scorned wife. Typically two of these three defenses are tailored purely towards women.
3. Warrants: That even though the crime rate in the U.S. was declining among women it had raised 200% in a 20 year period. However, men are still being blamed for these crimes, especially in the case of Andrea Yates, whose husband Randy was practically crucified for leaving her home alone with five children “in her condition.” Sacks wants his audience to see the facts and reflect on how we are not doing our women or our children a service by treating these violent women differently than a violent man. Sometimes you need more than medicine and talk therapy.
4. No he does not respond to rebuttals.
Charles
1. Claim: That a person who did not commit murder should not have received a longer sentence than that of the one who did the killing. And that if that person has a history of abuse or mental illness that they should be given treatment not a prison sentence.
2. Support: Being a blog the author really did not have any authoritative support of his views. He relied on a more emotional type of connection with the audience by portraying the mother as a victim – even though she may have been complicit in many of the previous beatings and she did nothing to save her daughter’s life. He attempts to show the many female participants in the trial as women who don’t have a heart and who can’t feel compassion. He contends that there are more than a black and white version of motherhood that most of us refuse to see – a version where a mother can just stand by and watch her child being abused because she was afraid to act.
3. Warrants: I am pretty sure that I have already laid out the authors warrants. The only other thing that I would add is his belief that women are victims of outdated societal attitudes in regards to motherhood and his belief that women are unfairly treated in the criminal justice system due to restrictive gender norms and an over-reliance on punishment rather than giving these women the treatment and rehabilitation that they so clearly need.
4. The author does rebut his claims with what appears to be a lawyer named David. David believes the punishment is fair and follows precisely to the sentencing structures that judges are supposed to follow – after all she was convicted of manslaughter and two counts of assault while he was only convicted of manslaughter. But Charles does not give in and continues to assert the claim that she was used to spread a message or to further along the states agenda.
Assignment 2
PART 1
Argument/Counter-argument
Pathos: The heading of an article written by Glenn Sacks in 2001 and printed in the Pasadena Star News is a clear indicator of his personal pathos in regards to an upsurge of sensationalized newspaper articles in regards to parents (namely women) killing (or attempting to kill) their children.
The title of the article? Female Murderers Seen in a Different Light: Society Prefers to View Violent Women as Victims
Reading this article it is clear that Sacks believes that the mother who attempted to drown her 6-month-old son in an apartment pool, the woman who asphyxiated her three children with car fumes and the woman who drowned her five children in a bathtub, are not, nor should not be seen as victims. Even though (upon further investigation) the mother (Elsie Lazaro-Louis) who attempted to drown her children was found to be delusional and suicidal – having cited that she sold her other two children to The Salvation Army – when in actuality they were away at summer camp. And the woman (Andrea Yates) who drowned her 5 children was found to be suffering from extreme post-partum psychosis.
Sacks accomplishes pathos through the use of statistical information in regards to gender and punishment when it comes to the crime of parental murder.
Apart from the small vignettes which I reproduced from his article above he foreshadowed his use of statistics with the following verbiage:
All of these crimes shocked the nation during the past week. But
should we really be so surprised? The truth is female violence in
American families is anything but rare.
Ethos: Sacks’ ethos expands into his use of statistics in regards to the increase in female perpetrated violence as recorded by The World Health Organization (which attributes the majority of infanticide to mothers), the police and various academics (whom believe that at least 15% of all SIDS deaths; roughly 7,000/year; are caused by mothers smothering their babies), the Department of Health and Human Services (who published results that custodial mothers are five times more likely to kill their children than are custodial fathers), and the U.S. Department of Justice (which has documented that 70% of confirmed child abuse cases and 65% of parental murder is perpetrated by the mother).
For good measure Sacks adds one more statistic which illustrates that between the years of 1980-1999 female crime increased 200% while the violent crime rate for the rest of the nation was declining. However, he does not list a backing agency to this particular statistic.
Sacks is smart in this article to have found a female, Patricia Pearson author of When She Was Bad: How and Why Women Get Away With Murder, to quote who shares his same views on the injustice of women being given a “free pass” when it comes to the punishment phase of trials. Sacks and Pearson both contend that just because a woman is a mother does not instantly translate into that woman being good and caring and maternal. She can be just as callous and cold-blooded as any man and should be held to the same sentencing standards as a man – instead of disproportionately hospitalized or even as they put it “getting away with murder.”
Logos: Sacks and Pearson take issue with the enablers of these women – the judges and defense attorneys – who insist in coddling these violent women instead of seeing then for what they truly are – evil. The assertion made in Pearson’s book is that the American public doesn’t want to believe that the historically nurturing figure (i.e. the mother) could have intentionally wanted to cause harm upon her own flesh and blood. So when their attorneys throw out such language as battered wife syndrome, post-partum depression, coercion or mentally incapable of understanding what she was doing at the time they continue to build on societies belief that women are victims, that women are weak, and that women cannot think for themselves in a rational manner.
In the end Sacks makes a plea for society to rethink their attitudes of women (he is clearly writing for a male audience throughout the article) in America. He asks for us to consider this one last point, “Treating the violent woman as if she were a child, insane, or a victim worthy of sympathy – is this the way to protect society and our children from violent criminals?”
Pathos: Friday November 21, 2008 there was a posting by a man named Charles to his blog Heartache with Hard Work. This post came after the culminating article in a long drawrn out trial in the death of 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown. The New York Times article which was published on November 17, 2008 was titled Seeing Failure as Mother as Factor in Sentencing.
Charles’s pathos, unlike the NY Times and Glenn Sacks, is one that would like his readers to sympathize with the plight of Nixzmary Brown’s mother, Nixzmary Santiago. Whereas the prosecution in the case used Santiago’s status as a mother to convict her Charles insists that is the very reason she should have been, if not exonerated, then not so harshly punished.
Charles further establishes pathos by first making a personal comment in regards to the state of our country (Sometimes our country is truly depressing. For example…) and then forges ahead with a slice of supporting evidence from the NY Times article. In this case, his belief that a mother who allowed her husband, Cesar Rodriguez (the child’s stepfather) to beat her daughter continuously until she finally died did not deserve a longer prison sentence than what the actual murderer received.
He shows anger towards the prosecutor who in her final arguments used such inflammatory language as “Mommy”, and further asserting her belief that Ms. Santiago was “the one person that the little girl should have been able to count on”. Charles is further enraged that the female judge imposed a sentence on Ms. Santiago (convicted of manslaughter and two counts of assault) that was 17 years longer than the actual killers because she believed that the defendant had ignored her lawful duty as a parent to try and save the dying child. (Instead she bathed her and put her to bed while a neighbor called the police.) He even has some negative things to say against a female juror who was on the fence about convicting but after deciding that the mother showed intent to kill “by her lack of action.”
Ethos: Charles just seems to slowly fume throughout his blog on the unfairness of this woman’s sentence. He is clearly on her side. However, unlike Sacks who has a ton of statistics and obviously did his homework, Charles’ blog was an emotional “in the heat of the moment” “knee jerk” response to a criminal law issue which he believes did a terrible disservice to a woman, Nixzaliz Santiago.
He states that the killing is a sad thing but that it is only made sadder by the hard ships that Ms. Santiago has had to endure – learning disabilities, an abusive relationship with her father and her miscarriage right before the 7-year-olds death – this has led Charles to assert that any reasonable person would notice these facts and recognize a troubled mind, a woman who needed help. Punishment? He is not so certain “that she, who merely witnessed but did not act, should receive a more harsh punishment than the man who actually killed the child.”
Logos: Charles takes issue with the criminal justice system and societal norms that insist women act as mothers. “In this case Nixzaliz Santiago is being punished for failing to comport with an idealized motherhood…..And the failure of motherhood in this instance makes her equally (in fact more) culpable.”
He wants us to imagine if not believe that there is a world out there in which “real” mother’s can just stand by and let these awful things happen to their children. He doesn’t want us to look further for motivations – because with motivations come punishment - he just wants the reader to accept that many of these mother’s are simply afraid to act.
However, he discounts the intelligence of his reader and I believe sends out mixed signals in his third from last paragraph. Charles wants us to believe that because Nixzaliz didn’t actually do anything to contribute to her daughter’s death (nor did she do anything to save her life) that she does not deserve such a long sentence and in fact due to pre-existing emotional conditions she more than likely should have been hospitalized. Although he artfully skirts the fact that many people, both men and women, are convicted as accomplices in a wide range of crimes because they simply had knowledge of the act (didn’t even have to be there at the time) and did nothing to stop/intervene the perpetrator.
Nixzaliz’s sentence according to Charles was based on “restrictive gender norms and the over reliance on an approach to criminal justice that emphasizes punishment over treatment and rehabilitation.”
Toulmin
Glenn Sacks
1. Claim: Sacks makes the claim that society prefers to see women as victims instead of violent offenders. He introduces his reader to numerous statistics dealing with an increase of violent crime being perpetrated by women over a period of roughly 20 years. These statistics are used not necessarily to put fear into the male population but to make society aware of a trend that is only increasing so that we are able to act and get it under control. Sacks merely wants the criminal justice system and most of America to start punishing these women and stop giving them a slap on the wrist (as he sees it) by advocating an approach of treatment because they have been historically looked upon as the weaker sex.
2. Support: Sacks backs up his claims by offering three short but relevant and timely vignettes of three violent mothers and one wife who murdered their children and husband respectively – these crimes all happening the week before he wrote his article. In each of these cases the woman was portrayed as a victim first murderer second –defenses ranged from suicidal, post-partum depression, and scorned wife. Typically two of these three defenses are tailored purely towards women.
3. Warrants: That even though the crime rate in the U.S. was declining among women it had raised 200% in a 20 year period. However, men are still being blamed for these crimes, especially in the case of Andrea Yates, whose husband Randy was practically crucified for leaving her home alone with five children “in her condition.” Sacks wants his audience to see the facts and reflect on how we are not doing our women or our children a service by treating these violent women differently than a violent man. Sometimes you need more than medicine and talk therapy.
4. No he does not respond to rebuttals.
Charles
1. Claim: That a person who did not commit murder should not have received a longer sentence than that of the one who did the killing. And that if that person has a history of abuse or mental illness that they should be given treatment not a prison sentence.
2. Support: Being a blog the author really did not have any authoritative support of his views. He relied on a more emotional type of connection with the audience by portraying the mother as a victim – even though she may have been complicit in many of the previous beatings and she did nothing to save her daughter’s life. He attempts to show the many female participants in the trial as women who don’t have a heart and who can’t feel compassion. He contends that there are more than a black and white version of motherhood that most of us refuse to see – a version where a mother can just stand by and watch her child being abused because she was afraid to act.
3. Warrants: I am pretty sure that I have already laid out the authors warrants. The only other thing that I would add is his belief that women are victims of outdated societal attitudes in regards to motherhood and his belief that women are unfairly treated in the criminal justice system due to restrictive gender norms and an over-reliance on punishment rather than giving these women the treatment and rehabilitation that they so clearly need.
4. The author does rebut his claims with what appears to be a lawyer named David. David believes the punishment is fair and follows precisely to the sentencing structures that judges are supposed to follow – after all she was convicted of manslaughter and two counts of assault while he was only convicted of manslaughter. But Charles does not give in and continues to assert the claim that she was used to spread a message or to further along the states agenda.
response to critical space
Jasmine's question 1 has to do with Verderber and the importance of relying on the art of persuasion as an important rhetorical tool. Verderber confounds me to the degree that he wants the audience to follow his rules of thumb. However, those rules are slightly ambiguous. It is only as if he is taking into consideration one side of the coin - or if he has bothered to look at both sides he sees the same thing - basically a double headed coin. I agree with Jasmine and her example of going to an economics speech and in one instance sharing the same views as the speaker and in another instance feeling as if she is being "gently" persuaded/pushed to change her views. I have had several issues with Verderber especially when it comes to his belief that the personality of a speaker makes them more compelling or allows the audience to see them as more knowledgeable than someone with a lackluster personality. I find this hard to believe because then you are discounting the true genius of people such as Steven Hawking - is he listened too, admired, followed, and published because he rolls around in a wheelchair and talks through a computer - or is he truly given credit for his incredible mind? If he walked like the rest of us and talked in a human "robotic" monotone would we still flock to hear his lectures? And what about Bill Gates? He's not much to look at and in any other profession he would definately be on the underdog/outcast side of the fence - but since he broke out with an incredible new-fangled computer software package before anyone else he is someone to be respected, looked up to, and sought out for advice. Dignataries from other countries even go to his house for dinner- how many of us in the personality overload department can make that claim? Is this just a fluke? So I believe everythig comes down to perception just as Jasmine is asserting and no matter how much we try to keep an open mind our perceptions still rule how we act and think.
Monday, January 26, 2009
cmjr205 Verderber questions
1. During Plato's lifetime he asserted that the spoken word is the superior form of communication giving the reason that the written word can not be counted on to give any other explanation than what is already presented on the page - written words "go on telling you the same thing over and over forever."
I don't agree with this particular thought process of Plato's. I believe if anything that it is a bit outdated for the reality which we live in today. Plato's reality included many illiterate peoples who still relied on gaining information and finding out about social norms through oral traditions. Our reality includes the printing press - allowing for mass production of books and in mre recent years the internet which allows for the dispersment of electronic books, newspapers, television transcripts, editorial opinions all within reach of the average citizen. This development not only allows for the dissemination of critical information but also for the public to create an active dialogue with other people (and, in essence, the written work) to change and re-interpret what the written word is telling us.
Plus I believe that if the written word were so inferior to the spoken word than noone would have ever found it necessary to write anything down. History would have been lost. As is, the way things stand, history may have been manipulated to fit the authors perceptions or agenda - but thanks to many unacknowledged active participants (activists, relatives, war survivors) who saved letters and diaries and who had the courage to stand up and challenge the popularly accepted events of history have definatley contributed in giving the written word more weight - it has even allowed the written word to challenge thoughts/ideas which we may have carried with us since childhood.
Plus without the ability of the written word to change there would be no need for expensive new addition textbooks. I am just curious as to if any one else would agree with me?
2. Rudolph Verderber outlines the steps of relevance in a speech. His second step states "a second way of demonstrating relevance is to show that the infomation has a direct impact on a listener's personal space." As I read this paragraph further I came to the conclusion that the relevance is implicit to the speech. My reasoning is as follows: Most of the speeches that people attend have some importance to them already- people go because they are interested in the subject, are fascinated by the person who is speaking or are attending some type of seminar.
I don't know of many people who go to hear a speech by accident or because there is nothing better to do. So since relevance is implicit, in my opinion, why would it really be necessary to (as the author says) "let me bring this closer to home by showing you that..."? The only way that I see bringing the subject closer to home or showing relevance might be if the speaker is trying to change an audience members attitudes towards the subject - such as is happening at this time with the Seattle school closures or the town hall meetings about allowing sex offende housing in their neighborhood.
3. Verderber also talks about facilitating audience understanding or, as I am understanding it from hs writing, allowing people to remain ignorant. Speakers are encouraged to "err on the side of expecting too little knowledge rather than of expecting too much." I find this rule of thumb to be condascending.
I agree with prefacing your speech material but I also believe that many rhetors take this piece of advice too far and end up spoon feeding the audience with all of the necessary information needed to at least follow along with the speaker for the duration of his presentation.
However, I find fault with this approach when it takes away or deters audience members of joining with the dialogue by feeling as if they are not encouraged to ask questions or contribute in some other meaningful manner. The prefacing statements which Verderber uses as examples, ("As we all learned in our high school courses...", "As we have come to find out...", "As you will remember...") shut down a potential portion of the audience who may be immigrants whom didn't graduate from high school, or who may be new to the community. But when you talk to an audience as a collective it does not make for an especially open environment for the exchange of ideas. And nobody wants to stand up in the middle of a crowd and admit to the fact that they are not familiar (a part of) with the recollections (memories/history) of the group. Prefacing allows these people to "act as if they do in fact remember."
I don't beleive that anyone should be talked to in this manner. Some people will go home and look further into the material that they have just received but many more will blindly accept because they have been spoonfed so much during their lives that they either don't know how to think for themselves anymore or even know where to go to explore different views or gain a better understanding of what they just heard.
Does this create a sheep in the herd mentality or am I totally off base?
I don't agree with this particular thought process of Plato's. I believe if anything that it is a bit outdated for the reality which we live in today. Plato's reality included many illiterate peoples who still relied on gaining information and finding out about social norms through oral traditions. Our reality includes the printing press - allowing for mass production of books and in mre recent years the internet which allows for the dispersment of electronic books, newspapers, television transcripts, editorial opinions all within reach of the average citizen. This development not only allows for the dissemination of critical information but also for the public to create an active dialogue with other people (and, in essence, the written work) to change and re-interpret what the written word is telling us.
Plus I believe that if the written word were so inferior to the spoken word than noone would have ever found it necessary to write anything down. History would have been lost. As is, the way things stand, history may have been manipulated to fit the authors perceptions or agenda - but thanks to many unacknowledged active participants (activists, relatives, war survivors) who saved letters and diaries and who had the courage to stand up and challenge the popularly accepted events of history have definatley contributed in giving the written word more weight - it has even allowed the written word to challenge thoughts/ideas which we may have carried with us since childhood.
Plus without the ability of the written word to change there would be no need for expensive new addition textbooks. I am just curious as to if any one else would agree with me?
2. Rudolph Verderber outlines the steps of relevance in a speech. His second step states "a second way of demonstrating relevance is to show that the infomation has a direct impact on a listener's personal space." As I read this paragraph further I came to the conclusion that the relevance is implicit to the speech. My reasoning is as follows: Most of the speeches that people attend have some importance to them already- people go because they are interested in the subject, are fascinated by the person who is speaking or are attending some type of seminar.
I don't know of many people who go to hear a speech by accident or because there is nothing better to do. So since relevance is implicit, in my opinion, why would it really be necessary to (as the author says) "let me bring this closer to home by showing you that..."? The only way that I see bringing the subject closer to home or showing relevance might be if the speaker is trying to change an audience members attitudes towards the subject - such as is happening at this time with the Seattle school closures or the town hall meetings about allowing sex offende housing in their neighborhood.
3. Verderber also talks about facilitating audience understanding or, as I am understanding it from hs writing, allowing people to remain ignorant. Speakers are encouraged to "err on the side of expecting too little knowledge rather than of expecting too much." I find this rule of thumb to be condascending.
I agree with prefacing your speech material but I also believe that many rhetors take this piece of advice too far and end up spoon feeding the audience with all of the necessary information needed to at least follow along with the speaker for the duration of his presentation.
However, I find fault with this approach when it takes away or deters audience members of joining with the dialogue by feeling as if they are not encouraged to ask questions or contribute in some other meaningful manner. The prefacing statements which Verderber uses as examples, ("As we all learned in our high school courses...", "As we have come to find out...", "As you will remember...") shut down a potential portion of the audience who may be immigrants whom didn't graduate from high school, or who may be new to the community. But when you talk to an audience as a collective it does not make for an especially open environment for the exchange of ideas. And nobody wants to stand up in the middle of a crowd and admit to the fact that they are not familiar (a part of) with the recollections (memories/history) of the group. Prefacing allows these people to "act as if they do in fact remember."
I don't beleive that anyone should be talked to in this manner. Some people will go home and look further into the material that they have just received but many more will blindly accept because they have been spoonfed so much during their lives that they either don't know how to think for themselves anymore or even know where to go to explore different views or gain a better understanding of what they just heard.
Does this create a sheep in the herd mentality or am I totally off base?
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Letter to Editor
Patroit Act -
I am responding in regards to an article that was recently published in the Seattle Times. I can really feel for Tamera Jo Freeman who was just trying to perform her parental duties by disciplining her children who were being disruptive to nearby passengers and herself. Now I know that many of us dont condone corporal punishment (i.e. spanking) of children but does her behavior on that flight really measure up to the consequences. I say no! Three months in jail is ridiculous and follow that up with 12 months of probation with no ability to fly back to Hawaii to be with her children (who's foster parents are now petitioning for custody). The fact that she is now losing custody of her children is abhorent. Unacceptable! The fact that the government thinks this is proper punishment is sickening.
I know how trying it is to fly with children, whom I might add get very bored very easily, so of course she felt as if the flight attendant was attacking her when she came over and asked Ms. Freeman to stop disciplining the kids. What parent wants someone else to come up to us and tell us how to handle our own children? It makes me truly afraid to fly with my child. It seems as if the flight attendants have been given carte blanche to harrass and mete out punishment to anyone they feel doesnt fit their ideal passenger. And I have one thing to say to flight attendant Amy Fleming unruly does not translate to terrorist - which is the group of people that the Patriot Act is protecting you all from.
I am responding in regards to an article that was recently published in the Seattle Times. I can really feel for Tamera Jo Freeman who was just trying to perform her parental duties by disciplining her children who were being disruptive to nearby passengers and herself. Now I know that many of us dont condone corporal punishment (i.e. spanking) of children but does her behavior on that flight really measure up to the consequences. I say no! Three months in jail is ridiculous and follow that up with 12 months of probation with no ability to fly back to Hawaii to be with her children (who's foster parents are now petitioning for custody). The fact that she is now losing custody of her children is abhorent. Unacceptable! The fact that the government thinks this is proper punishment is sickening.
I know how trying it is to fly with children, whom I might add get very bored very easily, so of course she felt as if the flight attendant was attacking her when she came over and asked Ms. Freeman to stop disciplining the kids. What parent wants someone else to come up to us and tell us how to handle our own children? It makes me truly afraid to fly with my child. It seems as if the flight attendants have been given carte blanche to harrass and mete out punishment to anyone they feel doesnt fit their ideal passenger. And I have one thing to say to flight attendant Amy Fleming unruly does not translate to terrorist - which is the group of people that the Patriot Act is protecting you all from.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
WBCA
As in any other church this one is ripe with hypocrisy. Just look at its founder Fred Phelps; a man, who spouts racist propaganda and pickets against homosexuals yet who has received awards from anti-defamation groups such as the NAACP.
I would never want to sit down and talk to anyone in this group. For the mere fact that ignorance breeds more ignorance and I would not be able to have a civil or educated dialogue with any of its members. I don’t necessarily believe in changing anyone’s world views but for the mere fact that I don’t agree with their belief system and find many of their public acts abhorrent means that I would not even be able to give them one ounce of my attention.
I am not a religious person I do not go to church or read the bible or say prayers but I don’t believe that God is a hate monger. Everything I do know about the lord is that he loves everyone, he created us all in his image, and that as long as you don’t break any of the ten commandments you have a great shot of winding up in heaven.
However, the churches, in an effort to further their own agenda twist bible stories and tragedies into whatever balloon animal works for them. Into whatever they believe their followers will swallow – they spoon feed their congregations little morsels of hate and bile and prejudice until soon enough these people are marring soldier’s funerals, bombing abortion clinics, and brainwashing independent thought.
I would never want to sit down and talk to anyone in this group. For the mere fact that ignorance breeds more ignorance and I would not be able to have a civil or educated dialogue with any of its members. I don’t necessarily believe in changing anyone’s world views but for the mere fact that I don’t agree with their belief system and find many of their public acts abhorrent means that I would not even be able to give them one ounce of my attention.
I am not a religious person I do not go to church or read the bible or say prayers but I don’t believe that God is a hate monger. Everything I do know about the lord is that he loves everyone, he created us all in his image, and that as long as you don’t break any of the ten commandments you have a great shot of winding up in heaven.
However, the churches, in an effort to further their own agenda twist bible stories and tragedies into whatever balloon animal works for them. Into whatever they believe their followers will swallow – they spoon feed their congregations little morsels of hate and bile and prejudice until soon enough these people are marring soldier’s funerals, bombing abortion clinics, and brainwashing independent thought.
part 2 minor analysis
Part 2
Slate magazine writer Dahlia Lithwick postulates about the reasons men and women kill their children. In her article, When Parents Kill, Lithwick looks at several recent cases of parental murder namely, the Andrea Yates case; a mother of five who drowned all of her children in a bathtub and was subsequently hospitalized after a not guilty by reason of insanity ruling.
Lithwick looks at the punishment which mothers and fathers normally face when they have been convicted of this particular crime. Through statistics she finds that men are disproportionately jailed while women are normally hospitalized with some type of psychosis.
She goes on to explain some of the rationales for this disparity and how the media is partially to blame for the circus that most of these cases turn into; i.e. Caylee Anthony.
I disagree with the method of punishment and how it is doled out to both sets of parents. Men it is true are more physically violent when murdering a child but just because a mother thinks that suffocation or drowning are more humane does not make it so - those children are still aware of what is happening to them and they are just as terrified as if they were being bludgeoned to death or stomped on or ran over or thrown off of a bridge.
I do agree with the author’s assertion that we need to stop thinking of children as property. I have personal experience in this area and it does nothing but causes heart break. I believe that if parents could just grow up and think beyond their own selfish, spiteful, hurtful selves that they would truly know what was best for that child and that most of the time a child has no real responsibility for where the court places them – nor if given the chance would they want to make that choice – they are after all children and they love both of their parents equally. Selfishness and revenge is one reported motive of fathers who kill their children. While women are more apt to kill to keep a new lover in their lives instead of just turning over custody to an ex.
Slate magazine writer Dahlia Lithwick postulates about the reasons men and women kill their children. In her article, When Parents Kill, Lithwick looks at several recent cases of parental murder namely, the Andrea Yates case; a mother of five who drowned all of her children in a bathtub and was subsequently hospitalized after a not guilty by reason of insanity ruling.
Lithwick looks at the punishment which mothers and fathers normally face when they have been convicted of this particular crime. Through statistics she finds that men are disproportionately jailed while women are normally hospitalized with some type of psychosis.
She goes on to explain some of the rationales for this disparity and how the media is partially to blame for the circus that most of these cases turn into; i.e. Caylee Anthony.
I disagree with the method of punishment and how it is doled out to both sets of parents. Men it is true are more physically violent when murdering a child but just because a mother thinks that suffocation or drowning are more humane does not make it so - those children are still aware of what is happening to them and they are just as terrified as if they were being bludgeoned to death or stomped on or ran over or thrown off of a bridge.
I do agree with the author’s assertion that we need to stop thinking of children as property. I have personal experience in this area and it does nothing but causes heart break. I believe that if parents could just grow up and think beyond their own selfish, spiteful, hurtful selves that they would truly know what was best for that child and that most of the time a child has no real responsibility for where the court places them – nor if given the chance would they want to make that choice – they are after all children and they love both of their parents equally. Selfishness and revenge is one reported motive of fathers who kill their children. While women are more apt to kill to keep a new lover in their lives instead of just turning over custody to an ex.
minor analysis paper
Casey Penaluna
Minor Analysis Paper
Part One
Introduction to my topic
According to F.B.I. statistics for 2006, the most recent data available, 462 of the 14,990 homicides for which an offender was identified were parental murder. Of these 462 murdered 283 victims were boys and 179 victims were girls.
United States statistics also go on to show that more than 200 women every year kill their children which has helped to lead to an average mortality rate of 3 to 5 children per day.
Statistics can be staggering and in a country where women commit only two crimes as frequently as men; shoplifting and parental murder, in a land where they commit less than 13 percent of all violent crimes, they have found equal footing with men by committing 50 percent of all parental murders.
Many researchers don’t like to talk about the statistics. They are more concerned with the causes than with the aftermath.
What is it that drives a parent to kill their own?
This is probably the most prevalent question in regards to a phenomenon which has been occurring since Biblical times. In the U.S. we are not victims of famine or genocide. We do not live in war torn nations or reproduce knowing there is a cap on how many offspring we are allowed. We do not struggle with life threatening diseases or watch with hopelessness as our family members are stolen away from us and either imprisoned or enslaved. We do not need to save face and we do not consider financial hardships as a disgrace upon which our entire extended family will be shunned for.
So what is it here in America that prompts women to kill their children and in the case of men their entire family along with themselves?
Researchers have split the reasons parents kill their children into five main categories according to Dr. Susan Hatters Friedman, a forensic psychiatrist and a senior instructor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. Sometimes, parents are acutely psychotic. They may be schizophrenic or manic depressive or hearing voices. There is no rational, comprehensible motive for this type of killing. Psychosis and severe depression can lead women to believe they are killing their children to end their suffering or because they believe they are demonically possessed.
In other circumstances, classified as "altruistic," parents say they killed their children out of love. They may kill a child who is sick as a form of euthanasia. Or a depressed parent, who could be suicidal and hates the world, might think killing a child gently protects the child from terrible events in the future.
"When you're psychotically depressed the whole world appears as if you're looking through dull gray glass. When you look at your children, you see them through your own suffering and emotional pain and believe they, too, are suffering. You begin to think they and you would be better off in heaven. This is an altruistic delusion. The results are horrific, but it's done in the hopes of stopping suffering," said Dr. John Bradford, head of the forensic psychiatry department at the University of Ottawa.
Another category, experts say, is fatal maltreatment. A parent may be neglectful from the time of the child's birth. This neglect, such as leaving a child unsupervised in a bath, may lead to an unplanned death.
Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, said some men who kill their offspring do so in a continuing pattern of child abuse.
Another motive is termed "unwanted child," where a young mother may hide her pregnancy then kill the baby when it's born because she's ashamed. Children also can be killed because parents decide they're "getting in the way" of a parent's life.
Dr. Appelbaum tends to share the unwanted child theory in his assessment into why women kill their children. He asserts that mothers who kill their children tend to fall into one of two categories. “Immediately after birth, a mother may kill a newborn in order to hide its existence,” Appelbaum said. "Often, that's a young unmarried mother who is in a state of panic and fearful of discovery and takes what seems to her to be the only available option."
On the other hand, mothers who kill older children "typically do so when they are psychotic and out of delusional motivations. They may hear voices, the voice of God commanding them to kill children."
The least common type of parental murder is spouse revenge.
The murder of children is split proportionately between mothers and fathers but the punishment is not.
Doug Saunders observed recently in the Toronto newspaper the Globe and Mail that the media is complicit in treating maternal killers as newsworthy and paternal killers as ordinary criminals.
The reason for this is simple enough. We created this type of thinking our society perpetuates it and any anomaly which threatens that belief is to be dealt with swiftly and punitively. Jill Korbin, a child abuse expert who co-authored a report on parental murder for the American Anthropological Association stated that “we have a cultural view of good motherhood and it acts to the detriment of women and fathers who are having substantial problems parenting.”
Mother love is not universal. The idealization of women as natural loving mothers is a cultural belief that gets us into trouble. "We should detach from the idea of universal motherhood as natural and see it as a social response," Nancy Scheper-Hughes, medical anthropologist says. Women in jail reported that no-one believed them when they said they wanted to kill their children. "There's a collective denial even when mothers come right out and say "I really shouldn't be trusted with my kids."
So are these women ill or are they cold blooded killers having committed a crime against nature? The prevailing thought among feminists and legal researchers tend to claim that such women must be extremely ill. Judges and juries mostly agree, with the result being that women who kill their children in this country are disproportionately hospitalized or treated, while men who do so are disproportionately jailed, even executed. Women were hospitalized 68 percent of the time and imprisoned 27 percent of the time; fathers convicted of killing their children were sentenced to prison or executed 72 percent of the time and hospitalized only 14 percent of the time.
One may ask why men aren’t afforded the same mental health care as their female counterparts. Simple, when it comes down to the central legal truth children are still considered to be the mother’s property. While it is considered crazy to destroy your own property it is labeled criminal to destroy someone else’s. So while a mother can murder her child and basically get away with it by having a nice comfortable stay in the mental hospital the father is more often than not whisked away to a cold hard jail cell.
Minor Analysis Paper
Part One
Introduction to my topic
According to F.B.I. statistics for 2006, the most recent data available, 462 of the 14,990 homicides for which an offender was identified were parental murder. Of these 462 murdered 283 victims were boys and 179 victims were girls.
United States statistics also go on to show that more than 200 women every year kill their children which has helped to lead to an average mortality rate of 3 to 5 children per day.
Statistics can be staggering and in a country where women commit only two crimes as frequently as men; shoplifting and parental murder, in a land where they commit less than 13 percent of all violent crimes, they have found equal footing with men by committing 50 percent of all parental murders.
Many researchers don’t like to talk about the statistics. They are more concerned with the causes than with the aftermath.
What is it that drives a parent to kill their own?
This is probably the most prevalent question in regards to a phenomenon which has been occurring since Biblical times. In the U.S. we are not victims of famine or genocide. We do not live in war torn nations or reproduce knowing there is a cap on how many offspring we are allowed. We do not struggle with life threatening diseases or watch with hopelessness as our family members are stolen away from us and either imprisoned or enslaved. We do not need to save face and we do not consider financial hardships as a disgrace upon which our entire extended family will be shunned for.
So what is it here in America that prompts women to kill their children and in the case of men their entire family along with themselves?
Researchers have split the reasons parents kill their children into five main categories according to Dr. Susan Hatters Friedman, a forensic psychiatrist and a senior instructor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. Sometimes, parents are acutely psychotic. They may be schizophrenic or manic depressive or hearing voices. There is no rational, comprehensible motive for this type of killing. Psychosis and severe depression can lead women to believe they are killing their children to end their suffering or because they believe they are demonically possessed.
In other circumstances, classified as "altruistic," parents say they killed their children out of love. They may kill a child who is sick as a form of euthanasia. Or a depressed parent, who could be suicidal and hates the world, might think killing a child gently protects the child from terrible events in the future.
"When you're psychotically depressed the whole world appears as if you're looking through dull gray glass. When you look at your children, you see them through your own suffering and emotional pain and believe they, too, are suffering. You begin to think they and you would be better off in heaven. This is an altruistic delusion. The results are horrific, but it's done in the hopes of stopping suffering," said Dr. John Bradford, head of the forensic psychiatry department at the University of Ottawa.
Another category, experts say, is fatal maltreatment. A parent may be neglectful from the time of the child's birth. This neglect, such as leaving a child unsupervised in a bath, may lead to an unplanned death.
Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, said some men who kill their offspring do so in a continuing pattern of child abuse.
Another motive is termed "unwanted child," where a young mother may hide her pregnancy then kill the baby when it's born because she's ashamed. Children also can be killed because parents decide they're "getting in the way" of a parent's life.
Dr. Appelbaum tends to share the unwanted child theory in his assessment into why women kill their children. He asserts that mothers who kill their children tend to fall into one of two categories. “Immediately after birth, a mother may kill a newborn in order to hide its existence,” Appelbaum said. "Often, that's a young unmarried mother who is in a state of panic and fearful of discovery and takes what seems to her to be the only available option."
On the other hand, mothers who kill older children "typically do so when they are psychotic and out of delusional motivations. They may hear voices, the voice of God commanding them to kill children."
The least common type of parental murder is spouse revenge.
The murder of children is split proportionately between mothers and fathers but the punishment is not.
Doug Saunders observed recently in the Toronto newspaper the Globe and Mail that the media is complicit in treating maternal killers as newsworthy and paternal killers as ordinary criminals.
The reason for this is simple enough. We created this type of thinking our society perpetuates it and any anomaly which threatens that belief is to be dealt with swiftly and punitively. Jill Korbin, a child abuse expert who co-authored a report on parental murder for the American Anthropological Association stated that “we have a cultural view of good motherhood and it acts to the detriment of women and fathers who are having substantial problems parenting.”
Mother love is not universal. The idealization of women as natural loving mothers is a cultural belief that gets us into trouble. "We should detach from the idea of universal motherhood as natural and see it as a social response," Nancy Scheper-Hughes, medical anthropologist says. Women in jail reported that no-one believed them when they said they wanted to kill their children. "There's a collective denial even when mothers come right out and say "I really shouldn't be trusted with my kids."
So are these women ill or are they cold blooded killers having committed a crime against nature? The prevailing thought among feminists and legal researchers tend to claim that such women must be extremely ill. Judges and juries mostly agree, with the result being that women who kill their children in this country are disproportionately hospitalized or treated, while men who do so are disproportionately jailed, even executed. Women were hospitalized 68 percent of the time and imprisoned 27 percent of the time; fathers convicted of killing their children were sentenced to prison or executed 72 percent of the time and hospitalized only 14 percent of the time.
One may ask why men aren’t afforded the same mental health care as their female counterparts. Simple, when it comes down to the central legal truth children are still considered to be the mother’s property. While it is considered crazy to destroy your own property it is labeled criminal to destroy someone else’s. So while a mother can murder her child and basically get away with it by having a nice comfortable stay in the mental hospital the father is more often than not whisked away to a cold hard jail cell.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
what does the election mean to me
To me the election means a new start. New hope. New blood. It will usher in a man, i.e. a family, who knows what it means to be on the bottom rung of society. Who knows what it feels like to be written off. Who knows what it means to break out of a statistical category. Who truly knows hard work and not the all empowering hand of nepotism.
I feel very optimistic about this new president. Already I have heard him talking about taking control of the bailout money and changing its intended recipients from high powered corporations to the everyday business man. The life blood of our country. This man is made up of more than merely written words and spoken promises. He is not some publicists/lobbyists/oil executives personal juggernaut sent into our homes to spew forth their personal agenda.
He is a man made of substance and fulfillment of not only his American dream but of all American's dreams. He is America's white knight in shining armor come to save a collective Sleeping Beauty from the fire breathing dragon.
I feel very optimistic about this new president. Already I have heard him talking about taking control of the bailout money and changing its intended recipients from high powered corporations to the everyday business man. The life blood of our country. This man is made up of more than merely written words and spoken promises. He is not some publicists/lobbyists/oil executives personal juggernaut sent into our homes to spew forth their personal agenda.
He is a man made of substance and fulfillment of not only his American dream but of all American's dreams. He is America's white knight in shining armor come to save a collective Sleeping Beauty from the fire breathing dragon.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Graff,Birkenstein vs syllabus
Authors Graff and Birkenstein argue in the introduction of their text, They Say I Say, that the best way to engage in argumentative writing is to follow a tried and true conversational template (i.e. the They say I say model). The authors state that to truly be a master at anything you need to have learned the basics - hence to be a great rhetorician you need to find a way of entering into a conversation with the other persons views (they say) and then tell them how and why you differ or agree (I say) with their opinions.
Our syllabus however, implies that rhetoric invites the average person to take up a platform in any manner necessary to try and convince a person, group, etc. to agree with the speakers opinion. Rhetoric appears to be an either or type of conversation; there is no middle ground and even though the speaker may have looked at the issue from both sides and may have compelling arguments for pros and cons the speaker takes a side and in so doing is asking the reader to share his/her views.
Their is not alot of overlap that I have come across so far in these inital readings except for the fact that both Graff and Birkenstein and the syllabus share the idea of rhetoric and academic writing in the following way:
1. Enter the conversation using what others say as a platform to then assert your own ideas and opinions.
2. The goal is to not only state your own ideas but to listen closely to others
around you - summarizing their views in a recognizable manner - and
responding with your own ideas.
Our syllabus however, implies that rhetoric invites the average person to take up a platform in any manner necessary to try and convince a person, group, etc. to agree with the speakers opinion. Rhetoric appears to be an either or type of conversation; there is no middle ground and even though the speaker may have looked at the issue from both sides and may have compelling arguments for pros and cons the speaker takes a side and in so doing is asking the reader to share his/her views.
Their is not alot of overlap that I have come across so far in these inital readings except for the fact that both Graff and Birkenstein and the syllabus share the idea of rhetoric and academic writing in the following way:
1. Enter the conversation using what others say as a platform to then assert your own ideas and opinions.
2. The goal is to not only state your own ideas but to listen closely to others
around you - summarizing their views in a recognizable manner - and
responding with your own ideas.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama and the Four Tenets...
Michelle Obama has a powerful presence and comes off as everybody's best girlfriend during this speech.
She takes a perfect starting approach and humanizes herself - she succeeds in showing the audience that she is a down to earth everyday woman. Obama opens with an approach that is near and dear to my heart - and I am sure the sentiment wasn't lost on the multitude of Americans watching - her daughters. She opens up about how her girls are the first thing she thinks about in the morning and the last thing she thinks of at night.
She manages to let the world know that she - like the rest of us- is concerned with the state of the world they are growing up in and she gives us a glimpse of the world that she hopes they will inherit when they are older.
She states how she is adamant about instilling in them the values of hard work not of entitlement. She wants her girls to have a world class education and to grow up in a safe loving environment where they can feel a part of the community and not like an outsider looking in. And not only are these values that are important to her but she believes that they are important to all of us - no matter what community or financial circumstance we may be in- she advocates for every American child to be able to walk down the street unafraid and is adamant that the American dream should be accessible to all.
Michelle also took the time to talk about her role as a daughter and how much she admired her father - who battled MS for much of his adult life - for the fact that he never quit. He persevered through the pain, made slight adjustments to his everyday life so that his family wouldn't see his struggles, and he never complained.
Michelle made it obvious that her father didn't quit and by his example Michelle and her brother didn't quit.
It is obvious by watching Michelle that her love of family is genuine. That she is truly happy with where her life has taken her and given her. She infects us all with her all encompassing smile, her nostalgic stories, and her want/need to lift us all collectively to her bosom and deliver us from our pain, our heartaches, our uncertainties in regards to where we are going as individuals and where we are heading as a nation.
Michelle Obama has a powerful presence and comes off as everybody's best girlfriend during this speech.
She takes a perfect starting approach and humanizes herself - she succeeds in showing the audience that she is a down to earth everyday woman. Obama opens with an approach that is near and dear to my heart - and I am sure the sentiment wasn't lost on the multitude of Americans watching - her daughters. She opens up about how her girls are the first thing she thinks about in the morning and the last thing she thinks of at night.
She manages to let the world know that she - like the rest of us- is concerned with the state of the world they are growing up in and she gives us a glimpse of the world that she hopes they will inherit when they are older.
She states how she is adamant about instilling in them the values of hard work not of entitlement. She wants her girls to have a world class education and to grow up in a safe loving environment where they can feel a part of the community and not like an outsider looking in. And not only are these values that are important to her but she believes that they are important to all of us - no matter what community or financial circumstance we may be in- she advocates for every American child to be able to walk down the street unafraid and is adamant that the American dream should be accessible to all.
Michelle also took the time to talk about her role as a daughter and how much she admired her father - who battled MS for much of his adult life - for the fact that he never quit. He persevered through the pain, made slight adjustments to his everyday life so that his family wouldn't see his struggles, and he never complained.
Michelle made it obvious that her father didn't quit and by his example Michelle and her brother didn't quit.
It is obvious by watching Michelle that her love of family is genuine. That she is truly happy with where her life has taken her and given her. She infects us all with her all encompassing smile, her nostalgic stories, and her want/need to lift us all collectively to her bosom and deliver us from our pain, our heartaches, our uncertainties in regards to where we are going as individuals and where we are heading as a nation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
