Safe on Halloween?

We all see it on the news. We see the "Tips for Being Safe on Halloween," where it talks about where to walk, who to be with, what candy not to take. But in the past few years, Halloween apparently seems to have gotten safer every year and I found a statistic saying the most dangerous part of Halloween these days are cars. Sure there are a lot of pranks every year and kids will be kids, but as for deaths and dangerous pranks go, police have cracked down. Cars seemed to be the main concern and there have been more deaths and injuries by cars on Halloween compared to deaths by pranks, poisonous candy, and Halloween murders (Deaths by cars is 4 times higher on Halloween than any other day statistically.)

The media has done a good job of putting these facts and tips out there, but do you think the media has a big effect on how to keep kids safe, or is it mostly police and parenting that is keeping kids safe?

http://www.examiner.com/northside-family-parenting-in-atlanta/halloween-safety-cars-not-candy-is-the-biggest-danger-for-kids-1

Halloween Crime

In the spirit of the holiday, I decided to do my blog post on crimes during Halloween. I found an article about how a lot of crimes, mostly robberies, consist of men wearing Halloween masks to conceal their identity. The crimes listed in the article go from robberies to murders. Law-enforcement officials say they see an uptick in crimes committed by people wearing Halloween masks about this time every year. Once the costumes hit the stores in late September and early October, criminals jump on their sales and use them to strike fear in department stores.


The punishment for crimes while wearing masks is greater than ones where masks are not used. If the crime is a second-degree felony, it can be upgraded to a first degree felony if the criminal is wearing a mask. You could also be charged with a crime under a little-known Florida law that prohibits anyone older than 16 from wearing masks or hoods in public places or meetings, except during Halloween and masquerades. Are there any ways to prevent these crimes from happening or for stores and people to prepare themselves that has not already been done? (such as "safety tips" for going out on Halloween)


http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-halloween-mask-crimes-20101027,0,6831891.story

Copycat Killer Film

I found this film fairly interesting in the sense that as a society, many people look up to celebrities. They want to be able to do what they do, whether they be sports stars or movie stars. We want to copy what they do, and it shows that it is no different in movies, even if the act is killing another person. Actors and actresses make it seem "cool" to rob a bank or murder someone because they can easily get away with it. Those ordinary citizens copying these individuals do not look at the consequences because they usually don't show them in the movie, and if they do, the criminal avoids them, usually with ease. There have been a lot of cases, and I am not going to lie, I find some crimes like bank robbery very unique and love watching movies about them. Killing someone based on what they see in a movie is just disturbing. I did a post a few weeks ago where a boy killed his younger brother because he idolized the Showtime serial killer "Dexter." Even at a young age he was idolizing a killer and took matters into his own hands to be like him. I am a big fan of film, so watching movies and television shows is one of my favorite things to do, but watching them and acting like them are completely different ideas and should be avoided. Try to be like someone that really does exist, not a character in a movie.

Copycat

I don't know how many of you guys are Washington Capitals fans, but I have been for the past few years before they even got good, so I don't like to consider myself a bandwagon fan. I think it just lucked out that they started winning games when Ovechkin came along. Anyways, I'm from Northern Virginia and we get radio stations in the Washington D.C. area and one in particular was DC 101 with Elliot in the Morning. I listened to him every morning on my way to high school and even my freshman year at community college. When the Caps were on the verge of making the playoffs, the show would have people wait outside and come in to get mohawks as they were airing the show to imitate one of the players, Mike Green.

So as I was listening, I decided to become a true follower of the team and decided to join the "Rock the Hawk" cause my senior year of high school and I have been doing the same thing every year since. Unfortunately, now we watch the games while we are drinking and whoever is cutting my hair always screws it up. The good thing is that more people started to follow this trend recently and you don't feel like the idiot with the mohawk walking around campus.

South Park on Al Qaeda and Snooki

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5897260/snooki_loves_the_south_park_snooki.html?cat=9
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2010/10/drivers_says_south_parks_poor.html

For this weeks free blog entry, I'd like to discuss the Comedy Central show South Park. Now South Park has always been known to rip on celebrities for the causes they join or for just how they are. In the recent episode, South Park does a spin off of Jersey Shore where they depict Snooki as a monster, where she drunkenly sexually accosts the boys of South Park. In the end, the town tries to get help from Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda to stop "New Jersey" so the Middle East group ends up suicide bombing them in planes similar to commercial airline planes rather than fighter jets (resembling the attacks on 9/11). So what I am trying to get at is the justice behind portraying people in TV shows however you want. Should South Park or any show for that matter be allowed to offend a person or a group of people to an extent where even watchers are offended? I was offended when the planes started crashing and even my South Park watching friends texted me stuff like, "so wrong." The public loves hearing about how celebrities mess up or head to jail and may even exaggerate stories, but is it just when media such as South Park gives them a certain "image?"

On the other hand, Snooki did say she "loved" the portrayal of herself in the show and in the previous NASCAR episode, drivers displayed in the show ended up saying, "any sort of publicity is good publicity."

The (Mis) Information Age

This article talks about how Americans once trusted the news in previous generations and now there is no longer any sources Americans can trust for a number of reasons. Why we believe this information starts with cognitive basis, where we believe what everyone else believes. Another reason is that we believe pretty much only what we want to believe due to our ideologies, which is called cognitive dissonance. The last explained is base rate fallacy, where we tend to believe things based on what we experience rather than the information given to us. I think most of the time, the public follows cognitive bias, also called the bandwagon effect. People follow others, and I feel like this happens a lot in sports. As for me, I stay true to my team no matter what. One event that occurred recently was the Tiger Woods scandal. I fell into cognitive dissonance when this came on the news. I refused to believe that the most beloved figure in sports and upstanding man could do such a thing, even if the evidence was solid.

As for the Department of Information, I believe it would be a great idea. But as we all know, money is a huge factor and I don't think it is a top priority at the time. The fact that we could get solid information would be very helpful and I fully support it.

Bank Robbery Free Blog Post

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20101009/NEWS01/10090331/Man-71-uses-fake-bomb-in-bank-robbery

I found a story about a bank robbery by a man at the age of 71. He walked up to the teller, placed an object down next to her, gave her a note saying that the said object was a bomb, then requested money. He walked out of the bank with cash (the amount was not said in the article) and fled on foot where he almost got away with it. A description about the subject went out and the 71 year old African American robber was not hard to find.

As for the so-called "bomb," it was investigated by the bomb squad. One of the members of the squad dressed in fully protective gear was sent in with a $150,000 bomb diffusing android and it discovered it was not a bomb, but an aerosol can wrapped in butchers paper. The article raises the question in the end how "robots are replacing humans" along with how if it were a bomb, then a human would have been lost instead of a robot. This article got me thinking how if it is a good thing or a bad thing that robots are taking over jobs a human could do. Is it a waste of money or is it worth $150,000 to discover an aerosol can that could have been a bomb?

Hate Crime in PA

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gtcSK8qaGGVDikaEFhYD_pgjOLrwD9IMFH9G0?docId=D9IMFH9G0

This case follows two men in Pennsylvania, Brandon Piekarsky (18) and Derrick Donchak (20), who murdered a 25 year old Mexican illegal immigrant in July of 2008. They are now charged with a federal hate crime for this attack, where the immigrant, Luis Ramirez, was brawling with a group of white high school athletes until he was finally beaten and kicked to death. The prosecutor is basing the case around racism, saying the defendants stated as they were beating Ramirez, ""Tell your f------ Mexican friends to get the f--- out of Shenandoah!" The defense attorney is trying to steer away from the racial aspect saying the criminals did this because they were young, drunk, and full of testosterone. The defense is trying to plead their case the best they can, but the lopsided 4 on 1 fight with kicks to the head is leading toward a more serious charge than their "simple assault" they originally received.


I believe the media is trying to make this story a little more entertaining. The only reason I think this is because it is the murder of one man by a couple kids and the media is trying to portray it as whether it is a hate crime or not. The media does like to focus on teen murder, but I think if this were not a debate on whether or not it were a hate crime, then it wouldn't even make the news.