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.

Suspected U.S. Missile Attack

 I found this one article on all of the three websites CNN, FOX, and MSNBC. This article is about suspected U.S. drone missile attacks that killed seven people in northwest region of Pakistan. The story was basically breaking down the missile attacks saying that three missiles were fired from a drone at a house in Lwara Mandi village in Datta Khel, killing three suspected militants. Then minutes later, a drone fired two missiles at a vehicle in the same area, killing four suspected militants. The identities of the seven people killed were not known. However, the article states most of this month's strikes have targeted forces led by Jalaluddin Haqqani. Also written is that the U.S. wanted the Pakistani military to invade the village but they would not pursue. This month has had the most missile strikes since the strikes began in 2004.

 This article seems to just be trying to get the information out to the public. It really is just filling people in on what has been happening. The most interesting point I saw was that FOX and MSNBC both used the same exact article written by the Associated Press. They were identical, word for word. The CNN article says that only three people were killed. With that being said though they seemed to only account for three missiles being fired where the other article states that five were fired. So CNN didn't cover the story in as much detail as FOX and MSNBC. I do think that this is a story that should be reported to the public in the U.S. because I believe citizens should know and be up to date with what is happening in the war over seas. Overall, I still found it most interesting that FOX and MSNBC both use the same article, I guess due to the fact that I have never seem this, it baffles me the most.



http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/09/26/suspected-missile-attacks-kill-people-nw-pakistan-say-intelligence-officials/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39367595
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/09/26/pakistan.suspected.drone/index.html?iref=allsearch

11 Year Old Murderer?

I found this case on the CNN.com website. This article caught my attention immediately when I read, "11 year old baby sitter charged in death of 2 year old." The 11 year old's name was not given, but the 2 year old in which she is charged with the death of is Zyda White. The baby sitter was watching after Zyda Saturday night while Zyda's mother, Ashlea Collier, went out for a bit. The baby sitter is the daughter of one of Ashlea's co-workers. When Ashlea returned to pick up her daughter late Saurday night Zyda's eyes were reportedly wide open. Right away the baby sitter's mother started CPR. The 11 year old baby sitter then told the mothers that Zyda had fallen out of bed, and that she put her back in bed and gave her some apple juice. Zyda was rushed to Scottish Rite Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. An autopsy indicated she suffered blunt-force trauma to her head, torso, and buttocks. The 11 year old baby sitter was then taken into custody and charged as of right now with felony murder and cruelty to children. The Sandy Springs Police are conducting interviews and examining the evidence from the autopsy. It is still unclear whether the case will be handled by juvenile authorities. This case is an interesting one. While yes, the injuries Zyda suffered are not likely to have happened from just falling out of a bed, but at the same time it's not impossible. However, even with that being said, the article did not give any background on the 11 year old, so without that information you can not say whether this child is capable of such acts of cruelty to Zyda. In my opinion, due to how quickly the Sandy Springs Police have taken the 11 year old baby sitter in they must know and have some information that is not provided in this article, so I would say the child is guilty. Finally, all the questions come in about can a 11 year old really be charge with such crimes? Does a child know what their actions cause in these situations? Or should an 11 year old even be baby sitting a 2 year old? There are tons of questions to answer with this crime. Very interesting case.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/09/21/georgia.baby.sitter/index.html