Beyond Sorry

 Again this week I went to the Wednesday night movie were we watched the documentary of "Beyond Sorry." This movie took place an a extremely rural area in Australia. You could think of these people almost as like Native Americans here in the United States. One day a white man came to their villages and acted as though he was asking the adults about something. When in reality he was counting all the children. He later returned with other men and took all the children from these villages. Once taken these children were sent away and basically had their previous culture literally beaten out of them. Every single piece of their culture from the past they were forced to forget. Finally, decades later these children that were taken wanted to come back home. I want to say it was about 43 years later. Not all of the children did because it was their forgotten past and they had their own families now. However the ones that did had an emotional ride in front of them. When they returned they were not welcomed back with open arms. Their real blood mothers were told that all their children were dead, and in this particular culture mothers and families are forbidden to talk about deceased children. So the families were in shock and denial. However, they families would finally come along but it was not an easy process. This documentary features a group of children from this awful time period and situation. Mainly it focuses on this one woman Zita and her story. She wanted to actually come back and embrace her past family and culture. It really shows the struggles she went through in being accepted back in. In the end she was able to gain relationships back and even moved back into her original homeland with her husband, even though she already had a family of her own. During the discussion we talked about and compared how here in the United States we had the same events happen with the Native Americans. The Native Americans children were taken and had their culture beat out of them until they had completely forgotten. Over all this was a very interesting documentary. 

In the Wake of the Bounty

 Instead of the actual Blog Assignment I am writing about the film I watched last Wednesday called, "In the Wake of the Bounty." It was an interesting story and I had a hard time following at points but I will try to summarize the best I can. I may also butcher some spelling but I will try. Basically the "Bounty" is a ship that was sailing to Tahiti. The captain of the ship was very ruthless and not liked. Once the ship reached Tahiti they docked for a few days their with a local tribe. While there the crew fell in love with the girls on the island. So when they left the crew was extremely sad leaving the girls behind. However, shortly after leaving the angry sailors led by Fletcher Christian had a mutiny and rose up against the hated captain and overthrew him. The crew now running the ship returned to Tahiti where some stayed and some continued on with Christian until they reached an island south of Tahiti called Pictarn Island. They stayed on Pictarn Island from there on. This was the interesting part. The movie had actual documentary footage from 1933 on Pictarn Island. They even had descendants of the crew members from the Bounty in the footage. They describe the island as like an Utopia, where things were almost perfect. One day a steamer boat comes dropping more people off onto the island. Here on the island people shared everything from work, to chores, and food in order to survive. Kids only attended school for 2 hours before breakfast, and played the rest of the day. The society was a strong believer in being in good shape and healthy. Boats were a very important part of the culture. The society had goats and horses for various reasons. They also had marriage in their culture. The movie ends with a newborn baby becoming ill and slowly dying away. They need help from an outside ship and begin calling. Unfortunately, that ship never arrives. With the actual footage from the island this was an compelling movie to watch from its time. I also learned how these people were able to start their own society and were able to uphold it on their beliefs.

Copycat "The Goonies"

 When I was way younger my friends and I watched the movie, "The Goonies." After, we all fell in love with this movie. I cannot even try to tell you how many times we watched it. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, a quick over view is that these groups of friends and their families are about to get evicted from their houses for an expansion of a nearby country club because they do not have enough money to stay. The kids take matters into their own hands when they find a Spanish treasure map in the attic. They follow the map through these caves to a old hidden pirate ship of One-Eyed Willie. Of course along the way there is all kinds of events, including the whole time they are being chased by the Fratellis, which was a criminal family. Basically that's the movie, it may seem bad but still to this day I love it and it one of my favorites. Anyone who hasn't seen it needs to ASAP! Finally one day after the probably 50th time watching the movie my friends and I come to a conclusion that if we follow the creek behind all of our houses we too we find a hidden treasure. No we weren't in desperate need of money like the Goonies but we wanted to treasure hunt. Keep in mind we are very young and our imaginations are on high. So we embrace on this journey. We left early in the morning, and stayed out all day long until after night fall, when we were found by our frantic parents miles away. Needless to say we all got grounded for quite some time because we told no one of our plans, and never checked in. Hiking that creek for miles we never reached a treasure, but had a blast doing it and would do it again looking back. We got our inspiration from the movie because they made treasure hunting look like an awesome time with your friends. My friends and I definitely had the time of our lives, even though we paid for it later. If only back then we as kids had cell phones like we do now this all could of been avoided, we could of called and checked in.

Homecoming Tailgate and Game

http://www.whsv.com/home/headlines/JMU_Homecoming_Wraps_Up_105115169.html

 I found this article on the WHSV website for local Harrisonburg news. Basically the article is about increased security at JMU during tailgates and football games. However, as we all know they have really boosted policing in every aspect all thanks to the Spring Fest incident. In the article they have quotes from students talking about the beefed up policing and in result making for calmer crowds. I attended the game and I too could visually notice that there was more security located throughout the tailgates and stadium. Honestly, after last years events I can't say I blame the school for the increased security, but how long will it last? After all, this increased police staff at events is not free. These cops are not volunteering for these events. So what will grow in price for the community or students? Will tuition continue to go up or will taxes around the area? Either way someone will not be happy, but I do not see this increased staff lasting but for so long. Once they believe the point is made or the result that authorities and the university are looking for is reached I believe this extra help will back off. Right now law enforcement along with the university is just flexing their muscle showing they can control the situation. I believe it gets better every weekend and before long will be back to normal.

(Mis)Information

First off, I really like this article we had to run for the blog. I would like to see the "Department of Information" put into place, whether it works or not I do believe something should be done. Our country needs something of the sorts, and I think the author is on to a great start with his ideas. Even if it needs some work, just tweek it here and there, I really liked it. I also thought there was a lot of truth and compelling arguments to the piece. As far as all these concepts go such as the Bandwagon effect, confirmation bias, base rate fallacy, and cognitive dissonance, I believe that in most scenarios there are more than one of these concepts influencing someone at a time. For an example of this in my life the one main instance I can think of was when I was a sophomore in high school. In class one day over the intercom someone said, "code blue, code blue." That was it, nothing more. My teacher went and cut off the lights, locked the door, and demanded all of us to get on the floor under our desks. Everyone one was pretty uneasy because the whole school did this and was completely dark. All you could see through the windows of the room leading to the hallways were cops walking around with flash lights, guns drawn, and the k9 dogs. Right away rumors started. The one I held on to was that there was a shoot out across the street and the gun man ran into our school. I believed this one so strongly because I heard it so many times, hence the Bandwagon effect. However, then I started only listening or looking for information that said what I believed to be correct, which you could say was confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance. Come to find out some one had used the pay phone in our school and called the police saying they were gonna blow up the school, shoot and kill as many as possible. So my belief which I would have fought for, in the end, was completely wrong. Overall, I think that when people start to believe a certain piece of information that it may begin because of one of these concepts, but in the end it involves several of the concepts.

Crazy Marijuana Story

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/08/colorado.dad.pot.arrest/index.html

 This story first caught my attention because the title reads, "Father arrested for allegedly smoking marijuana with young daughters." Right away I started reading and chose this article for my blog. Basically in Colorado Jack Duke, a 27 year old father, was arrested for smoking marijuana with his 6 and 7 year old daughters. If that is not odd enough for 6 and 7 year olds to be smoking marijuana, one of the daughters also informed police that her father smokes marijuana in front of her and blows smoke into her face when she doesn't feel well. Both of these two young girls continue to go on and describe in such detail to authorities about smoking marijuana that the authorities then stated they know more about the topic than most adults. Even better, one daughter drew pictures of smoking with her father and commented saying she did not like smoking the seeds. When searching the residence police found a pipe, several bongs, a digital scale, and a small amount of the substance. The father faces charges of marijuana possession, distributing marijuana to a minor, and child abuse. The chilldren have been removed to the custody of the grandparents for now. Of course these kids could be making this all up, because as we all know there has been many cases where children with their creative minds and imaginary thoughts have come up with bizzar stories. None the less I personally thought this was a crazy story to find and share with everyone.

Shenandoah Hate Crime Trial

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/04/pennsylvania.immigrant.beating.death/index.html?iref=allsearch

This crime is about two young men who beat an illegal Mexican immigrant to death while yelling racial slurs over a year ago. It was said that Brandon Piekarsky(age 18) and Derrick Donchak(age 20) starting figthing with Luis Ramirez(age 25) after having some drinks in the small, rural mining town of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. The two men were convicted of misdemeanor simple assault, but acquitted of felony counts including aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation and hindering apprehension. Jurors found Piekarsky not guilty of third-degree murder. Prosecutors alleged he delivered a fatal kick to Ramirez's head after Ramirez was knocked to the ground in the alcohol-fueled brawl on a residential Shenandoah street. After last year's trial, the two were sentenced to up to 23 months in the county jail. Now if convicted on the federal hate crime charges, Donchak and Piekarsky face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Donchak also faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted of obstruction, and an additional five years for conspiring to obstruct justice.

This is where I believe the media takes over with the way they show the story. Clearly two men beat another man to death, so everyone knows there should be a pretty harsh punishment somewhere down the line. However, the two men have only so far been charged with 23 months in county jail. The writer of the story states that this is a rural town and the jury was made of all "whites," hinting that this was a slanted jury. The author mentions many times throughout the piece that this is a rural area, which I believe is getting their point across. The article also states this is not the first time Piekarsky and Donchak to have physically confronted Ramirez, again hinting that this happened before yet they got off pretty easy in their first trial. Finally, ending the article the writers states, "A medical examiner ruled Ramirez died from blunt-force trauma to the head, according to the indictment." I believe this is the best part of the whole story because here the author is calling out the slanted jury basically saying how can you say not guilt from the charge mentioned earlier when you have this evidence right infront of you? I definitely do not think this is for entertainment, do to the verdict of the first trial this case in now getting national attention. Hopefully justice will be served in the new trial thats about to begin.