Cyberbullying!

Beware!

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-exboyfriend-nude-photos-pasadena-teacher-20141031-story.html

Band Hazing Case Study Update

If anyone wants an update and the hazing case study...

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-man-convicted-florida-band-member-20141031-story.html

How to Deny Evil

To me, it's unimaginable that someone would try to plaster a genocide with lies, false assumptions, and general dishonesty in order to greedily or shamelessly preserve something. Specifically, I cannot wrap my head around why the Turks or Japanese would not only ignore atrocities such as the Armenian Genocide and the Rape of Nanking, but actively deny that these are atrocities at all. The Turkish government in particular is guilty of ignoring the Armenian Genocide. The Turks have a perfect environment to cover this up with a little bit of dirt and say nothing is buried underneath. First off, they have a monetary motive to deny the Armenian Genocide. If they acknowledge the genocide, they would need to pay an obscene amount of money to compensate the Armenians. Lawsuits will be filed over atrocities, stolen goods, and possibly other claims. Another reasons the Turks deny the genocide is a sense of false national pride. The idea that the Turks embrace is that if that wasn't a genocide, their record is clean and they can continue being a proud people. However, if I was a teenager in Turkey with adequate access to information, I would be even more ashamed of the Turkish government trying to deny the genocide than the actual genocide. One of the worst aspects of this fiasco is that the Turks force all of their allies to say that the Armenian Genocide never happened. With all of the chaos surrounding the Middle East nowadays, Turkey is an important NATO base of operations. If some NATO nations suddenly said that the Armenian Genocide happened and was perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks, Turkey will kick everyone out and the Middle East situation could deteriorate even further. Because of all of the extortion, lying, and greed, the denial the Turkish government is spewing, the denial of the Armenian Genocide is immoral beyond belief and should be discontinued as a political policy as soon as possible.

A Possible Disposition for Murder

Is it possible for a person to be born who is almost fated to commit a murder due to certain mental triggers or conditions? For example, we saw a movie about Adam Lanza, who perpetrated the Sandy Hook shootings. He could have been screened and put into a mental hospital before he went on a rampage. To take this idea to an extreme, imagine a technologically advanced society that can scan people's brains and determine their capacity to commit a crime instantly. Assuming this technological system has no flaws, every person in society could be scanned and their mental state would instantly be uploaded to a supercomputer which classifies people as harmless or dangerous. If Adam Lanza was scanned by this system, he would immediately be detained and held as a dangerous person. This system is obviously impossible in America with its current Constitution, but as a system it would certainly be flawed. We have seen a documentary about a man who has psychopathic tendencies but manages to live a normal life. This system would detect the man, flag him as dangerous, and he would be dealt with without being able to live a normal life as he does now. The question is: "Is it worth sacrificing the freedom of people with violent predispositions for the sake of a peaceful society?" I say that a system like this is a terrible idea for two main reasons. The first is that if humans can build and establish a system, humans can also find loopholes and ways to break the system down. The second is that people could also be unjustly detained when they have a possibility to lead perfectly normal lives despite certain warning flags in their brains. In a sense, somebody has to be removed from society. Either a few normal people via death by murder or thousands of "irregulars" via detention. Death is extremely dark and extremely cruel, but in the grand scheme of things, stripping the freedom of thousands of people just because of the way they were born is even more evil.

Interesting Views on Gun Debate

You might find these links useful for your position paper...realize some articles present multiple sides while others are more argumentative.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/10/us/guns-race/index.html?hpt=ju_r1

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/15/opinion/frum-guns-race/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/09/politics/btn-guns-in-america/index.html?hpt=ju_r1

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/11/opinion/omara-oregon-shooting/index.html?hpt=ju_r1

Enjoy and utilize!

Genocide and Gun Control

The Armenian Genocide is a very volatile topic that has been discussed everywhere from modern diplomacy to humanitarian conventions. In class, we were given background events in the Ottoman Empire that led up to the Genocide. There were several causes for the anger that allowed this atrocity to happen. The Ottomans were losing battle after battle all over the edges of their vast empire, and the nation had shrunk considerably since its prime. The Turks did not want to admit their weakness, so they started blaming all of the ethnic groups they subjugated. This was especially bad after the Balkan Wars since a huge wave of fear and distrust of Christians swept the Ottoman Empire. The unstable political climate of the Ottoman Empire did not help. Control of the government was seized in a coup d'etat by the Young Turks from the sultan, and the Committee of Unity and Progress seized the government from the Young Turks shortly after. I believe that much of the anger that caused the Armenian Genocide was due to the CUP's incompetence. For example, the minister of defense failed miserably at war, losing to the mediocre Russian army by invading over a mountain. If the Ottomans focused more on their own people and problems instead of forcing down the Armenians to make themselves feel better, not as many Armenians would have defected to the Russian army and the climate before the genocide would never have happened.

The gun control issues movie continued with a look at proposed gun control laws and possible limits and regulations on civilian owned arms. One popular idea is to ban the sales of any fully automatic weapon, but this does not make any sense. The idea that someone could shoot up a crowd to kill thirty people with thirty bullets in a clip is flawed. If someone can kill with an assault rifle, then someone can kill with a large clip handgun or a wide spread shotgun. If gun laws are to be stricter, then all types of guns would need to be limited. The way to do this is to limit who can buy a gun by enforcing stricter tests to see who is capable of owning one. As an extreme example, a diagnosed psychopath should not be able to buy a gun from a large retailer. Laws aimed at the people rather than the weapons will be more effective, although the constitutionality of these laws may be questionable.

Ottawa Canada Shooting

Today as some of the biggest and most memorable shootings were brought up in class I remembered that not even a week ago I heard about a shooting in Ottawa, Canada and when I got home I decided to look into it. As I understood it, on October 23rd Canada's national parliament was attacked by a gunman, leading to the death of a solider. And on Thursday the prime minister Stephen Harper led a tribute to the soldier as well as the official who took charge and shoot down the gunman. Many leaders including the former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee have used this sad event as examples in criticizing Obama's gun control plans. Huckabee talked about how a what could have been a mass murder was stopped by a guy who had a gun on him. Besides the fact some people believe that gun control is a violations of their right but they also believe that in times such  as the Ottawa incident guns have been proven to prevent mass shootings and save the lives of hundreds of people. 

Gun Control Day 1

After every big shooting over the past few years whether it was the 2012 Aurora Shooting or 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting or the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing the media is filled with the never ending controversial debate about Gun Control. I have never done any research of my own and have previously tried to stay away from such a controversial topic. However, after today's video it brought to my attention many important aspects that must be taken into consideration before deciding what side of the gun control topic you are on. I had also never realized how important weapons have been in forming our society and country.  Anywhere from the Revolution in Great Britain, to the Civil War, to both World Wars, to present day guns have had a great impact in our lives and as our lives improved the quality of guns has as well and they still continue to become more advanced and more powerful. Mr.Stewart along with the video brought up many important questions about Gun Control; What is the role of guns in our society? What ways can it and should it be limited? What happens to the populations when the government doesn't allow them to have guns? I hope by the end of the week as we continue learning about the effects of weapons in our society and I have the opportunity to learn the views of both sides and be able to answer those important question about such an important and controversial topic and even possibly make my own opinion about it because as of Day 1 I am in the middle.

Potty mouthed princesses

Everyone should watch this awesome video! http://vimeo.com/109731596

Self-Reflection

      Self-reflection is a common theme in our class now that we have started the Personal Portfolio Project and I have realized how much of myself I really either don't remember or understand. When starting this project my initial thoughts were, "How hard could this be?" and "It's a project about us, how could anyone struggle about writing about themselves?", now that I am much deeper into the project, I have realized what a struggle it could be to just think of ourselves for once. Where did we come from? Where are we going individually? What defines our lives and the world around us? These are all questions all of us probably will have to face at some point while doing this project. This project is being a great help for college personal statements, however, I have uncovered so much about myself that I have forgotten that could seriously aid me in my application process. My experience of the PPProject so far has been very confusing not because it is a difficult project to understand, but because I find myself difficult to understand.

Rough Draft and Thoughts on Labels

Scientific View of Race - Can’t Be Rid of the Labels

Looking back at my notes from the Scientific View of Race documentary I’m personally realizing society needs the labels of race. Labels, in general, can be good or bad. They’re good because they categorize different subjects. However, this categorization can be used to demean and discriminate. When I think of race I realize that we need the label and we can’t just change the categorization of human being to be just “human beings.” Labels and race have been integrated so deep into our society for centuries that it would be impossible and irresponsible to try and reverse this. The human population will always feel the need to categorize and label objects and organisms that aren’t truly known to us. To be rid of this would be to try and reverse the way humans think. Without the label of race we would not feel the need to be different or the need to belong to a group. These to feelings of need is necessary for society because these are the basics of belonging to a society: joining it or separating from it. Without labels, without race, there would be neutrality. When society is neutral there will be less opportunities to advance the name of the label and the natural fight to be the best. If there are no labels, if there is no race we will have a plain form of society. With labels, with race, we can learn to try and become the best; we learn to defy our improve our given label and race because humans always desire to be the best naturally. We can’t have a neutral society; humans must advance, must fight to be the best and the only way we can do this better is to keep or incorporation of race and labels in our society.

Obfuscated Defenses

      Defense Attorneys really have a talent of finding the most ridiculous stories as defense for their clients, but what is terrifying is that it sometimes works. Cases like the case study we saw today where the client is obviously guilty and there is a mountain of evidence pointing to how the murders White perpetrated were premeditated and despite all the evidence, the defense attorney managed to use twinkies as a defense stating that the sudden binge of sugar caused White's depression to escalate to the point where he didn't know what he was doing. That may sound absolutely ridiculous, but it worked and it begs the question, is White's defense attorney a genius or just lucky that such a seemingly desperate defense worked? 

      

      Mr. Stewart brought to light today how the legal system functions properly if both the prosecution and defense do their job really well, as well as the rest involved with the whole trial. I would agree, but I believe there are additions to that. The legal system functions properly if everyone does well without falsifying any information and if the jury withdraws all bias. So with that, like Mr. Stewart said, the legal system is not perfect. I believe this to be true because in order for it to be perfect, all of those involved have to be completely objective and unbiased, which again, I do not believe is possible (my argument To be Unbiased?). Also, there are a lot of times when irrelevant defenses are used and succeed to convince the jury that the defendant is innocent. So do you think the justice system still functions properly even with people bringing false and irrelevant information to persuade a jury, or is it unfair?

fights at the games

Fights in stadiums were starting to get more and more common especially with people starting to drink alcohol and get more confident and start to use profound language, which can lead to violence and someone can get hurt. When watching this video I rememberd that my dads friend went to a baseball game, started to drink and started to insult people for going for the other team and he got in someones face, and the other guy didn't hold back which led him to punch him in the face because he was getting fed up that he kept talking back to him. But my dads friend didn't get hurt like the people in the video, he just got a bruised nose. This made me realize that in the future whenever i go to a game its better to keep quiet and to keep on walking than to get in a fight that can risk your life or can cause severe damage.

Pamela Smart's Jury

As our class looks at the Pamela Smart trial we see that many jurors are rejected because they admit to having bias before the case due to the media coverage concerning Smart. I say this is an easy out for many selected jurors. The media did cover Pamela Smart and establish biases against her before trial but that does not necessarily mean the bias has to come into play during trail. As a juror, their job is to determine guilty or not guilty by the evidence and defense provided. The media does create a form of bias but as jurors it is their job to empty that bias and make a decision based off whether or not evidence proved Pamela Smart was guilty or not guilty. I know it is hard to do but easy to say "simply empty one's bias" but to me it seems a simple concept. The media is doing their job, providing stories and entertainment to the public. These selected jurors were not doing their job by allowing media bias to get in their way. Jurors need to act as judges, look at the evidence, look at the arguments and defense then make a decision based on the materials provided. Media influence did not have to be an issue during this trial but I feel people allowed it to distract from the actual function of being a juror.

Today in Ms. B's class we watched a video on road rage and how people can take their anger to a different level, and people that you would never guess to be violent like for example when I saw the video it showed a lawyer and a retired officer fighting, I would expect them to be more professional in public and workout it not using violence. This video made me think about the time an ederly lady was honking at my mom, knowing my mom couldn't move because there was traffic my mom got out of the car and started to use profound language to the elderly woman, knowing my mom should've handled the situation better, road rage got the best of her as well also for the elderly lady because she drove off and flipped off my mom minutes later. It makes me realize that we leave our house not knowing what will happen in the road which can lead to dangerous situations, like how an older man got out of his car and started to be violent to these teenage kids and they started to defend themselves and gave the older man a bloody nose but couple minutes later the older man's wife handed him a gun and he started to shoot as they drove off and hit the back window. This made me look at how people can react on the road and not care about their safety and others.

To be Unbiased?

Today, we touched on the concept of, is it possible to be completely unbiased? I believe that it is completely impossible for someone to be unbiased. There is always something in the back of peoples' minds that influence the way they think of people, even if people attempt to think positively of others, that counts as a bias. There have been many cases that we have viewed in class that show this, namely the Rodney King case. That particular case was moved to another location to avoid media coverage bias for the officers that were tried, but they moved to a location where they were mostly conservative and more likely to favor the police and put a negative bias against Rodney King. So, in order to avoid a bias, they moved to a new location that automatically had another bias. Bias comes from our standards in morals and ethics as well as the society we come from and the experiences had in it. For a person to be completely unbiased, they would have to have no moral standards, no experience in society, and masters of controlling their minds. It is because humans can't help but to formulate opinions and assumptions that I believe that being completely unbiased is not possible.

Psychopaths or Good People gone bad?

Check out this article relating to hazing.  The second link is an opinion piece so feel free to agree or disagree.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/10/us/new-jersey-football-abuse-scandal/index.html?iref=allsearch

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/12/opinion/robbins-sayreville-football-sex-assault/index.html?iref=allsearch

The Court of Public Opinion

      The Court of Public Opinions is a concept mentioned a lot in most of the case studies we view. Today, we saw how the public can influence the direction of a case by giving the Jurors a bias. Pamela Smart couldn't have been tried fairly due to the fact that her case was under a lot of publicity and that the publicity in question was severely biased against her being innocent. That portrayal of her almost forced the Jury to be biased against her, one Juror even said after a trial that there was no defense for her, they had to vote guilty because that is what the public wanted.

      The Pamela Smart case was not the first case we have come across that takes into question the strength and place of the Court of Public Opinion. Cases like the dog mauling in San Fransisco and the "Thou Shalt not Kill" case are more great examples of  how the public have greatly influenced a Jury's decisions. In the dog mauling case, the couple was also hated by the public greatly because the case was televised and they were portrayed as people without remorse and rather selfish, not to mention the completely irrelevant introduction of Cornfed only weakened their public image to the point that they were sentenced for crimes that the evidence did not merit. In the "Thou Shalt not Kill" case, Bob was just acting completely abnormal for a person whose wife was just killed, even if they were getting a divorce anyway.

      When I look at these cases where the Court of Public Opinion had influenced the outcome of a case, I noticed that the publicity of the case honestly just went too far. In my opinion, I believe that crimes should be only publicized with minor details and with the restriction of the mention of names to insure that the trial and the Jury are unbiased. What is your opinion on the matter, should cases be publicized despite the risk of biases forming, or do you believe that the Court of Public Opinion doesn't have the proper strength to influence a case in such a way?

A reminder about the justice system...

One thing to realize the justice system works only if every participant fulfills their role effectively.

Check it out.

http://www.latimes.com/local/great-reads/la-me-c1-murder-conviction-doubts-20140930-story.html#page=1

10/10/14

Today in class we watched another case study. This one was especially interesting because it involved the spouse actually being responsible for the murder of her husband. Even though she had an alibi and wasn't home she was still responsible for her husbands death. She had an affair with one of her students whom she convinced to kill her husband. He did it because he was scared that she would break off the relationship. This shows how you can never discredit a suspect even if it seems like they would never be capable of the crime. 

10/09/14

Today, in class we watched another case study. I thought it was an interesting case, because it had to do with a 12 year old boy killing a 6 year old girl very violently. The big question was if it should be dealt with in juvenile court or in actual court that usually deals with people that are 18 and above. They decided not to put him on trial in juvenile court because of the degree of the murder. During the case, the biggest question was if this murder was involuntary man slaughter or in fact, first degree murder. The boy claimed that him and the girl were wrestling and that he was trying out wrestling moves that he had seen on tv. His story was questionable, because he never mentioned any of that in his original statement that he gave right after the girl got hurt and the consistency of the injuries on the girls body could not have happened, unless he actually tried to hurt her. She had 40 different blunt trauma injuries which said that this must have been a very violent beating. I definitely think that his trial went well, except the fact that his mother did not take the plea bargain the first time around.

Issues With Lionel Tate's Trials

First Degree Murder is defined as "unlawful killing that is both willful and premeditated." I do not know how this definition relates to Florida's state laws concerning First Degree but for the moment let's assume their state law fits this definition. Lionel Tate is charged for the murder of Eunick as an adult when he is 12 years old. His first trial continues with him being charged as an adult, when clearly this is extreme. The jury, judge and Florida Justice System should have stepped in with logic and changed this child's charge to juvenile status. That is my first issue: how the system didn't recognize his age and charged him as an adult. Now, even if he was tried as an adult he does not fit the role to being charged with first degree murder successfully. There is no evidence provided during the whole trial of premeditation, intent to kill, or malice aforethought (which can be viewed as premeditation). If Florida State's Justice System follows the general definition of First Degree Murder then Tate's indictment would be viewed as unjustified. I also have an issue with Tate's lawyer and how he didn't acknowledge Tate's absence of motive, intent to kill, and premeditation. If he was a good lawyer he would've argued this to the end. The Justice System should have taken many factors into Tate's favor. We know he is guilty of Eunick's murder but we can argue it was unintentional and can be charged as manslaughter. I don't understand how motive, a very large factor, could be so easily overlooked when charging of 12 year old (as an adult) of First Degree Murder; it all could've been done and argued better. Again, this is all an argument revolved around the assumption of Florida's law concerning First Degree Murder to match the general prerequisites of the charge.

How does someone come to be sociopathic or psychopathic?

Today while watching the "Good or Evil" video I really contested their method and way of determining whether the child was morally good or bad because it related to determining whether someone was capable of psychopathy or sociopathy; this made me think if we can even determine sociopathy or psychopathy at such a young age. In the experiment the child had to choose between just two dogs to decide whether they were "good" or "bad". This is a ridiculous way to determine because the margin of error is so high. The baby has a 50/50 chance of being categorized as good or bad. If feel adults who are psychopathic or sociopathic are effected by nurture instead of nature too. As far as we can tell these kind of people have had traumatic experiences or upsets that have influenced their motives and the way they think. Who knows what other factors play a role into the development of a sociopath or psychopath too? It is very logical to assume many traits and characteristics inherited from their mother and father can play a role into this too. But this is a more vague area of determining this character. Many traits are capable of influencing each category and when they mix with nurture we do not know how they will affect childhood development. In the end I feel it comes down to nurture. There are other factors that contend or agree with the nurture like if someone doesn't really connect with people and feel their emotions. However, if this person is raised right and understand the rules and laws of society he can be  a perfectly normal human being but without emotional attachments.

10/3/2014

    In the small group we watched the video of the first black quarterback and it made me think about how there should always be a first person. The first person who breaks off the spell and how someone should step up and be the first person to make a move for moderation and change. If no one would've stepped up, now we wouldn't have had any civilization.
    In the big group we also discussed the power and importance of stepping up. We talked about how evil would be able to do anything if the good doesn't do anything. If there is no person disagreeing with someone doing something wrong we would never stop the evil.

10/07/2014

Today in class we continued watching the documentary on the way people are wired mentally from a social point. I was really surprised when we watched the clip of the woman getting stabbed to death in front of her apartment building because no one helped her even though they all knew that there was something wrong. The person who lived on the bottom floor even opened his door and saw what was going on but still did nothing. From this scene I concluded that the reason why this happened was because if there are a lot of people witnessing an incident then they all assume that someone else has already called 911 and won't do it themselves anymore. This relates back to the office fire experiment. In this experiment people take a survey and smoke starts coming from under the door. When there was only one person taking it he got up right away and told someone about the fire. On the other hand when there were 3 people in the room taking the survey, the smoke started to rise from the door but no one did anything. They all looked like they assumed that the other person would take action for what was happening.

10/06/2014

Today in class we started discussing the effect that people of authority can have on an individuals behavior. I thought it was very interesting how in the shock experiment ruffly %66 of the people who were tested would shock the victim until they had hit the highest voltage. They had to shock the victim every time he gave them a wrong answer. They kept going even though they knew they were hurting someone. They even continued after the person stopped yelling which meant they knew that there was something wrong. The reason why they went so far is because the experimenter overseeing everything said that he would take full responsibility if anything happened to the person. Many of the people reacted to the screams of the victim with laughter and other kinds of behaviors that indicated that they were uncomfortable with the situation. They concluded that the reason why the germans had committed the Holocaust was because they were all under a certain figure of authority which made them feel like it was okay to do so. People tend to think that they are not responsible for their actions if someone of authority tell them to do so.

Supreme Court Action!

Check it out...you can probably find more stories about this on any major newsfeed.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-supreme-court-gay-marriage-20141006-story.html

Human Behavior Experiments

In small group we started watching clips mainly focused on Human Behavior and the different experiments that had been conducted in the past to test why ordinary people had conducted these horrific events in history. A main example of this was the Holocaust, histories questioned why the German people acted the way they did under Hitler's rule. An experiment was conducted where two men were "randomly" chosen to participate in a study. In reality only one person was chosen at random and had no idea what to expect. The other man was part of the social experiment and knew what was going on. The man that the experiment was going to be tested on was told to give an assessment to the other person while he was in the other room "hooked up" to an electricity panel. As the assessment went on every wrong answer would result in the man sending an electric current towards the man in the room. As a tape recording played the man being experimented on would continue to zap the student being tested. He would question whether it was correct but every time he was told that he wouldn't bare any responsibility so he would continue. Later we saw an act done not as an experiment but by a random person. He had pretended to be an Officer and called various fast food services and had convinced managers to treat their employs inhumanly such as strip searches. It's things like these that make me question how truthful and how much thought people put into answering the question of what would they do when put in these situations.

David Cash -- Is Inaction Illegal?

If you knew that a young girl was to be raped and then strangled to death in a casino bathroom, would you do anything and everything in your power to prevent this? For most of us, nothing would stand in our way. Even if we suffered as a result of our intervention. However, what if we didn't know that the end result of the the incident resulted in the rape and murder of a young girl. What if we were scared for our own well being and safety. These factors were just a few of the myriad that David Cash had running through his mind that early morning. David choose to run away from the scene, effectively washing his hands of the responsibility just as Pilot had done. It is no secret that what David did was morally bankrupt. Throughout history, men have been held accountable and consequently punished for their actions. Is it now possible to punish a member of society for something that he didn't do? I personally do not think that that men should be held accountable for their inaction. While I do believe that what Cash did was very weak and morally wrong, he should not be held accountable for his actions in a court of law.

Another Dog Mauling Case

Feel free to read and compare...

http://www.latimes.com/local/crime/la-me-dog-mauling-sentence-20141004-story.html

Andrea Yates, knew it was wrong?

    Andrea Yates was a mother of 5 who murdered all of her children knowing what she was doing and then she called 911 requesting police and ambulance. She believed she was a bad mother and she wanted her children to go to heaven before then sin. She had committed suicide multiple times and had been in psychiatric hospital. The doctor didn't mention that she is diagnosed with psychosis which is rare to her husband. The question is weather she knew what she was doing was wrong or not? I believe people who are mentally ill should go to psychiatric hospital and they can't be charged with the same crimes as mentally sane.

Interracial Dating, Race in America

    Morals in families generally are like we are not racist, we think everyone have the same rights, and stereotypes are wrong. Yet dating and intimate relationships are completely different in the minds of parents and the whole family. It's interesting how the race of people matters when a friendship becomes a relationship. One of the other factors that parents could worry about is rejecting one's own culture/race.
    On the other hand we watched the beginning of a documentary about the science and social-psychological facts about race. By science there is no such thing as race. Scientists have tried and tried and tried to prove there is some difference in different races but were faced to a dead end. Social-Psychological view shows that we in the past have tried to use race as an excuse for saying a certain race in inferior.

Racism Runnig Rampant in the Land of the Free

We began watching a documentary called "Race in America" today in class. Apparently the "Land of the Free" isn't as accepting and loving as it is made out to be. White children and their families were interviewed, and asked about what would happen if they brought someone of "color" home. The answers were shocking to say the least. One boy said that if he were to start dating a black girl, he wouldn't think that his parents would approve of it because if they were to get married the two families would be tied together and you don't know what the black family has done. Another family was interviewed, this time black, and their son was the first to be approached. He was in elementary school and was already being put down by fellow classmates because of his race. He was told racist jokes that aren't appropriate in any given social setting; especially not in elementary school. This just goes to show that even though America has come to be known as the land of the free and equal, racism may never go away.  

Thursday: Andrea Yates case

Today's case of study was by far the most disturbing and difficult case to both watch and discuss about. This was the case of the mother Andrea Yates drowning her 5 children in a bathtub one-by-one. The case overall introduced us the history before the murders which really looked like a completely healthy and well-functioning family of God with Andrea Yates and Rusty Yates being the married couple. All was in the norm until the 4th child was born. By this time, Andrea reached a sudden point of severe depression and postpartum psychosis which was basically an extremely rare effect that mothers can receive after a series of child births. Unfortunately, Andrea was a victim to it and went rather mentally unstable for she attempted suicide twice and was institutionalized. Over time she attempted to recover with medication, until a 5th child was born and she stopped her medication without her doctor's permission. Afterwards, she reached an even worse condition and was once again institutionalized and made a turn for the worst. She was actually released very early for her state of mind in the other institution and had no choice but to return home. As she tried to live normally once again, it was until mid 2001 where she drowned her 5 children.
The difficulty of this case is the fact that Andrea had many mental issues that could have been the reasons for these atrocities to occur and there's no telling at the moment for the class to decide if she intentionally murdered them. She stated however that Satan told her to literally murder her children for they have sinned and their lives could only be saved if they were to be ended innocently.
The case shall continue with more factors being discovered that will tell in which if she's guitly or just completely mentally insane.

Wednesday: Discrimination, etc. Docs

Today in class we went completely over the few selected terms that we learned about yesterday which were Discrimination, Prejudice, Bigot, Racism, Stereotype, and Scapegoat. We specifically went over documented events of some of these words taking proper place and examples of them. First was being Gareth Thomas, a famous rugby player, being discriminated against for his secretly gay orientation and the documentary went in depth towards why he was afraid to open up because he feared of not being accepted and his reputation being gone since rugby is known for being extremely manly and masculine. It ended with him being open and proud and currently a competitor ice-skater however.
After watching Gareth Thomas, we pursued to watch Chivas USA which was all about the Mexican soccer team, the Chivas, being only open to Mexican soccer players. These were examples of discrimination and racism since they were only open to Mexican players. The most shocking part of the case to the class was that two non-Mexican coaches for the youth soccer team were fired because of the fact they weren't Mexican, despite the fact they were excellent coaches. Afterwards we watched Interracial Dating which was mainly in depth towards how parents of one specific race view their children dating others of different ethnic backgrounds. The results were rather neutral for the parents that were interviewed since they didn't really have a fixed view of whether it's fine. However, the parents did state that they taught their children to respect all races and to hate none. Overall, each of these cases showed solid examples of certain negative acts of others like discrimination and stereotypes, and racism and these will surely guide the class later on in the course.

Tuesday: Dog Mauling (cont), and other assignments

In class we basically continues the same case as of yesterday and spoke of the dog mauling towards Diana Whiple. This time we specifically went in depth towards the court case itself and who was really behind the dogs. The actual real owner was an Aryan Brotherhood gangmamber who was named Paul Schneider (aka: Cornfed). Also, the two were officially charged with second-degree murder along with involuntary manslaughter due to the fact the dogs were prone to violence and attacking, yet didn't provoke them to.
Besides the dog mauling case, we also went over specific terms in which give others obstacles to thrive in a stable society. These words were Discrimination, Prejudice, Bigot, Racism, Stereotype, and Scapegoat. Each contains a rather negative connotation and we learned of specific cases of these words being true to others. Everyone in the class was also capable of relating one or more of these words at some point of our lives as well. This overall taught us of what exactly is ethnically correct and what is rather not and may harm someone else's feelings.

Monday: Dog Mauling

Overall, we learned of the case of Diane Whiple and how she was brutally mauled to death by two Presa Canario dog breeds. These dogs were the ones of the owners, Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel. It was the mainly an unpredictable cause and effect for the dogs to escalate to such violence that would result in the sudden death of an innocent individual. We learned of what exactly is dealt with in  a situation like this one.
Basically, both of the suspects were charged for involuntary manslaughter of Diane Whiple and that regardless that the attack was unprovoked, the owners were fully aware of the nature the dogs can possess due to their kind of breed which is known for once being a breed for war. In class we also discussed specifically what could factor in the suspects being not guilty. Specifically that Marjorie tried her best strength to stop the ravenous and hostile dogs from assaulting Diane, yet failed to.

"Dog Mauling" Verdict, and the Ethical and Moral Implications That Accompany Them.

In the end of the "Dog Mauling" documentary the couple who owned the dogs, received their verdict. Marjorie Knoller was tried for manslaughter, and on a more severe note second degree murder; while her husband Robert Noel was tried for just manslaughter. They, Marjorie and Robert, were found guilty for all they were charged with. This case was special in the way that the public and the geographic location of the incident had a profound affect on how fair the trial was. The incident had taken place in San Francisco, and the victim was an innocent lesbian. The public was outraged at how unaffected and selfish the defendants were before and during the trial. Robert and Marjorie had "attacked" the victim; saying that if she had only gone closed the door, or had not worn perfume on that fateful day that she may still be alive today. Marjorie had even gone so far as to make a statement that made it seem as if she were a victim, and that she would never be the same again. She never mentioned anything about her remorse for Diane's untimely death, or even try to comfort Sharon (Diane's partner). San Francisco is one of the world's most accepting cities, especially when it comes to homosexuality. The general populace was overwhelmed with feelings of anguish, disgust, and anger which would make it almost impossible to have an impartial jury, which would lead to an unfair trial. This would be unethical because the American justice system prides itself in having the most unbiased and fair trials that are possible. The trial was moved to LA in the hopes that selecting unbiased jury members would be easier, but by that time it was already too late; almost everyone in California had heard of the case, and no one was on the defendant's side. The "Dog Mauling" case wasn't the most just case we have studied, but can every aspect of a trial ever be truly fair?

Racism Still Exist in 21st Century

    I thought it's outrageous that athletes wouldn't come out if they're gay because their careers would be ruined. It's just incredible that in 21st century there are still people in professional world, more importantly celebrities that are racist and are proud of it. I believe gay, straight, white, black, Mexican, Persian, German, American, and... are all people, all equal. Everyone in this particular country that we have freedom in have the same rights, opportunities, and freedom.
    In our big group we finished the "Dog Mauling" case and figured out that the couple were found guilty. I personally think that people should not get a dog that in bigger that them,  nevertheless two dangerously violent and huge dogs. There should be laws and records of the dog's training and vaccines in the first place, yet at the end of the day dogs are animals and at some point they will just act upon their natural habitat.