things that make me smile

these songs/videos are my some of my favorites :)

My Chemical Romance- Helena

Orgy- Blue Monday

Beyonce- Diva

Marcy Playground- Sex and Candy

The Verve- Bittersweet Symphony

Audioslave- Like a Stone

Modest Mouse- Float On

Carrie Underwood- Just a dream

billy "the man" curtis + Slipknot = i hate masks.

So! That video we watched in class was pretty friggin suh-weet. I'll stop talking like a UVA frat boy now. The only thing that sort of 'got my gears turning', so to speak, is that the film only focused on extreme acts which resulted in violence, injury to persons involved or death to persons involved. Not to say that the documentary was not informative, which it was, but there is also a lesser threat to those that follow something in the media to an almost cult effect, and take personal investment in the object of their desire. For instance, when Eminem came out so many girls wanted to be the woman he was beating and abusing in his lyrics and men wanted to look like him and abuse drugs and become violent and disrespectful toward women in their lives. A similar thing happened with Marilyn Manson. Bands such as Insane Clown Posse and Slipknot have a large following of people, almsot to a cult effect, and they live by the lyrics that they hear, which are interesting at best. There was a murder where the killers blamed lyrics from the Slipknot song "Disasterpiece" for their crime. Maybe these sorts of things were a little post-documentary, but these are the things that still worry me. How many young fans attempted or succeeded suicide after Kurt Cobain took his life? Music has a large influence on how the youth of today identify themselves. Not only what the artists say in their lyrics is being copied, but also the actions of the artists themselves. Film is still extremely influential, how many people have ended up in the hospital after copying a Jack-Ass stunt? It worries me that it seems no one is acknowledging the almost choke hold that media has on the extremely impressionable youth. I believe in a thing called the copy-cat effect, but does the copy-cat effect believe in me?



Slipknot. p.s. i don't do masks.



yeah, i'm a groupie...

After this blog I will never publicly admit to this again, so those of you that read this are getting some rarely shared information about me. My favorite band is Shinedown, the lead singer is named Brent Smith. I love Brent Smith. No, I seriously honestly love him. Brent Smith has a double nasal piercing in his left nostril. I recently got my nose pierced twice in my left nostril. Yeah, I put holes in my body to match the lead singer of my favorite band. I don't know or care to know if other people have copied it, I'm just happy that I did. Every time I look in the mirror I smile because I love how hard core it looks and it makes me think of Brent. People compliment me on them all the time and it just makes me smile because not only is it unique and really bad ass looking, I know the real reason behind them.


Shinedown- Simple Man video



Shinedown- The Crow and the Butterfly video

Brent Smith :)

All my Shinedown babies!!!

i don't see the point to homecoming

I didn't even know it was homecoming weekend... yeah, I fail on my school spirit. BUT I did know this weekend my baby Ben Roethlisberger did a good job and led my baby Steelers to victory :) And Hines Ward did a great job in that touchdown pass. Oh I'm so proud! But I digress, I haven't paid attention to homecoming since 10th grade of high school. I did notice how many people, other than myself, were putting up tweets and facebook statuses about their respective homecoming activities, both high school and collegiate. YAY homecoming. I my mind, homecoming and other traditions have been turned into media fuel.

Free Blog

So I interned in a PD Forensic Dept this summer and some of the things I learned were: how to make "good" coffee, smile at the detectives, hide when the police chief shows up, finger print cards multiply when no one is looking, and the most important thing was DNA reports aren't instantaneous. All these crime shows have the DNA evidence from whatever source coming back the day after they collected evidence. That doesn't happen in real life. It takes months, 3 months atleast. Quit lying to America, it's not a good look for you.

Media and CJ Policy

article link

pictures link

tyler clementi

     The criminal case I found to investigate is about a suicide of a Rutgers student following his roommates secretly broadcasting a sexual encounter he had privately in his room. The student who took his life was Tyler Clementi. Clementi was 18, and killed himself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. His roommates, Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei are facing charges of invasion of privacy and possibly more. Ravi is alleged to have tweeted and broadcast Clementi's sexual encounters through remote access to his web cam from Wei's computer. Clementi updated his Facebook before he took his life saying that he was going to jump off the bridge and that he was sorry. This article not only focuses on the issues surrounding the suicide but also issues of nonacceptance of the LGBT community from the student body at Rutgers. It was addressed not only by the media but also by the president of the school that the campus at Rutgers may be less than open if not intolerant of the LGBT community.

Dharun Ravi Twitter Page 1

Dharun Ravi Twitter Page 2

     This story definitely has appeal to the media not only because of the involvement of the still (disappointingly) sensationalized LGBT community, but also because the victim was an attractive young man and it is an example of college bullying. Any time something tragic happens on a college campus the media is immediately interested and looking for more information based on the recent history the country has had with college campus tragedy.

     This story could very easily influence criminal justice policy and is already written in a way to rally awareness about intolerance toward LGBT community. It will not be hard to throw the story in a way that if the campus had more information and organizations educating and promoting awareness and acceptance of the LGBT community and influence policy change. It is already being considered that if the campus had been more reactive to the actions taken by Ravi and Wei against Clementi, that Clementi's life could have been saved.

Tyler Clementi's final FB post

media comparison

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I found a story about a suicide bomb attack on CNN, but did not find it on FoxNews or MSNBC. The story is from Friday Sept. 24th. One part focuses on the bombing of a civilian bus and the other focuses on the failed bombing of an Army base. I think FoxNews and MSNBC didn't cover it because it was a small bombing and from other research I did more bombings adn violence happened on saturday and sunday of that same weekend so maybe they got the info about friday late but decided to let it go because of the bigger stories. I also trust CNN more than FoxNews and MSNBC and CNN tends to try to tell as many news stories as they can, big or small. Another thought is that no American lives were lost, so maybe FowNews and MSNBC didn't think it was important since no American's died. We do need to know about this story because the Taliban is so crazy now to just attack their own people instead of focusing attacks on their intended target.