Just as an aside, but relevant to the topic of online gaming/addiction, I found this brief review of a new film at http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6853&Itemid=1
that covers that very topic. Sounds like it probably has a very limited theatrical release, but anyone who had an interest in the topic might want to have a look.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Sunday, May 4, 2008
A note on grading
For those who have been wondering, no, I have not been keeping a running list of your posts on this blog. It's not because I'm lazy (though I am), but more so you could post a comment on any previous post and I wouldn't accidentally miss it. Again, for the purposes of grading, I will only be requiring you to post 10 comments. These do not have to have been full essays, but at least a substantive comment that added to the thread. A few sentences would be mostly sufficient.
I will be compiling the grades for the blogs on the day before finals (Monday, May 12). So you have until then to get all 10 of your posts done. As long as they're up before then, you'll get credit. Anything posted afterwards will be ignored, so don't wait too long. So look through the previous posts and make sure you've done all your commenting, and make sure your name is somewhere in the post. If it's not, send me an email with the comment in it so I know to give you credit. Use the email address on your syllabus, I'm not reposting it here. I get enough penis enlargement solicitation emails already, I don't need more spam.
I will be compiling the grades for the blogs on the day before finals (Monday, May 12). So you have until then to get all 10 of your posts done. As long as they're up before then, you'll get credit. Anything posted afterwards will be ignored, so don't wait too long. So look through the previous posts and make sure you've done all your commenting, and make sure your name is somewhere in the post. If it's not, send me an email with the comment in it so I know to give you credit. Use the email address on your syllabus, I'm not reposting it here. I get enough penis enlargement solicitation emails already, I don't need more spam.
Ending on an up note
A case where fetishism goes to far. Should there be a medical/legal intervention here, or is it more of a nuisance problem only?
From http://www.lep.co.uk/weirdnews/Kinky-boots-fetishist-stalks-workmen.4048377.jp
Kinky boots fetishist stalks workmen
A former shop assistant harassed random workmen for three years in Britain's most bizarre stalking case.
For Martin Turner had a fascination for workmen wearing big boots, a court was told.
This resulted in him picking tradesmens' numbers at random from Yellow Pages and bombarding them with texts and calls.
Turner would ring the workmen and plead with them to come round and stand on parts of his body with their boots.
The 39-year-old, of Lord Street, Blackpool, Lancashire, pleaded guilty to four offences of harassment.
His victims were plumber, John Elrick, roofer, Ray Morris, gardener, Keith Urwin, and property developer, Peter Leonard.
The offences took place between September 2005 and April this year.
Prosecutor, Martine Connah, said all the workmen received numerous texts and calls from Turner of an inappropriate nature.
The messages included Turner asking the men what kind of boots they had on and requesting they stand on his fingers, face and genitals with their boots.
All the workers asked Turner to stop making the calls, but he carried on.
When interviewed Turner told police that some men he called, not the complainants, did visit him for what he called "fun".
Michael Ball, defending, said his client, who had no previous convictions, now realised his behaviour had been wrong and there would be no repetition of it.
Mr Ball added: "He has something of a thing for men who work in the construction industry and it seems work boots feature large in this fantasy. I understand it has something to do with domination.
"For many years he kept these thoughts in his own head. He then started contacting people at random, taking their numbers out of yellow pages.
"Unless any of these workmen were very sensitive souls, I do not think they would have been caused extreme upset. I would think they would find the calls laughable."
Magistrates bailed Turner for reports.
From http://www.lep.co.uk/weirdnews/Kinky-boots-fetishist-stalks-workmen.4048377.jp
Kinky boots fetishist stalks workmen
A former shop assistant harassed random workmen for three years in Britain's most bizarre stalking case.
For Martin Turner had a fascination for workmen wearing big boots, a court was told.
This resulted in him picking tradesmens' numbers at random from Yellow Pages and bombarding them with texts and calls.
Turner would ring the workmen and plead with them to come round and stand on parts of his body with their boots.
The 39-year-old, of Lord Street, Blackpool, Lancashire, pleaded guilty to four offences of harassment.
His victims were plumber, John Elrick, roofer, Ray Morris, gardener, Keith Urwin, and property developer, Peter Leonard.
The offences took place between September 2005 and April this year.
Prosecutor, Martine Connah, said all the workmen received numerous texts and calls from Turner of an inappropriate nature.
The messages included Turner asking the men what kind of boots they had on and requesting they stand on his fingers, face and genitals with their boots.
All the workers asked Turner to stop making the calls, but he carried on.
When interviewed Turner told police that some men he called, not the complainants, did visit him for what he called "fun".
Michael Ball, defending, said his client, who had no previous convictions, now realised his behaviour had been wrong and there would be no repetition of it.
Mr Ball added: "He has something of a thing for men who work in the construction industry and it seems work boots feature large in this fantasy. I understand it has something to do with domination.
"For many years he kept these thoughts in his own head. He then started contacting people at random, taking their numbers out of yellow pages.
"Unless any of these workmen were very sensitive souls, I do not think they would have been caused extreme upset. I would think they would find the calls laughable."
Magistrates bailed Turner for reports.
A more serious post
This has been big news since it broke, but is still relevant. Do you think that this is going to have a more wide-reaching social concern (like the Rodney King verdict) or will it be forgotten over time?
From http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/nyregion/26bell.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Judge Acquits Detectives in 50-Shot Killing of Bell
By MICHAEL WILSON
Published: April 26, 2008
A Queens judge on Friday acquitted three detectives charged in the shooting of Sean Bell, who died on his wedding day in a hail of 50 police bullets. He said that prosecutors had failed to prove their case and that wounded friends of the slain man had given testimony that he did not believe.
The top-to-bottom acquittals of Detectives Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper were delivered by Justice Arthur J. Cooperman in an essay form bearing little resemblance to a standard jury verdict, and were met momentarily with silence in court as spectators looked at one another to be sure they had grasped what he was saying.
The detectives, all but obscured behind a human wall of courthouse officers, finally seemed to exhale deeply, even crumple, with relief. Detective Oliver — who reloaded his gun to fire a total of 31 shots and helped catapult the shooting from tragic mistake to a symbol, for many, of police abuse of force and poor training — closed his eyes and cried.
Except for a few scuffles outside the Queens Criminal Court building and shouted displays of disbelief and outrage, the day passed peacefully amid calls for calm delivered by the mayor, the police commissioner and other officials. Still, the Rev. Al Sharpton, a spokesman for the Bell family, called for street protests and said people should get themselves arrested, “whether it is on Wall Street, the judge’s house or at 1 Police Plaza.”
Legal hurdles remain for the officers: federal authorities said they would now investigate the case, and the Police Department is mulling internal charges. A $50 million lawsuit against the city, filed last year by Mr. Bell’s fiancée, who had two children with him, and the two men wounded in the shooting, may now begin moving forward.
The shooting of Mr. Bell, 23, outside a nightclub in Jamaica, Queens, early on Nov. 25, 2006, the morning of the day he was to be married, was the city’s latest crucible for distilling questions about police treatment of people of color and the use of excessive force on unarmed black men. The shooting lasted seconds, but offered a glimpse of what it is to live in a neighborhood where black men and women are stopped and frisked at a higher rate than elsewhere in the city.
But the case never became the racially charged lightning rod of its predecessors, like the case of Amadou Diallo, killed in 1999 in a hail of 41 shots. This was due in part to the race of the officers — two of the three on trial were black — and to the response of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who reached out to the victim’s family in a stark contrast to the response of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani after Mr. Diallo was killed.
Further, trial testimony showed that Mr. Bell may have played some role, however unwitting, in the shooting, as he was drunk by legal standards when he pressed down on the accelerator of his fiancée’s Nissan Altima and struck Detective Isnora in the leg in an attempt to flee.
Justice Cooperman, who heard the case without a jury in State Supreme Court in Queens, listed his reasons for throwing out much of the testimony from Mr. Bell’s group, including the number of times that witnesses were caught changing their story on the stand and the witnesses who had interests in the outcome because of the lawsuit against the city. Those issues, criminal backgrounds and the demeanor of the mostly young men on the witness stand “had the effect of eviscerating the credibility of those prosecution witnesses,” he said.
As for the detectives, the judge made it clear that he believed their versions of events over those of the young men involved, including Detective Isnora’s statement that he had overheard Mr. Bell’s friend Joseph Guzman twice say that he was going to get a gun.
“The court has found that the incident lasted just seconds,” Justice Cooperman said. “The officers responded to perceived criminal conduct; the unfortunate consequences of their conduct were tragic.”
But rather than call the shooting justified, the judge said that the prosecution failed to prove it was unjustified, as was its burden. Indeed, his ruling was far from approving of the detectives’ conduct during the undercover vice operation that night. “Questions of carelessness and incompetence must be left to other forums,” he said. He never mentioned the high number of shots fired, or the fact that Detective Oliver had fired 31 of them.
Similar statements came from the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, whose office prosecuted the case. He said the trial “revealed significant deficiencies in, among other things, supervision, tactical planning, communications and management accountability — insufficiencies that need to be addressed.”
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who called the incident “inexplicable” and “excessive” in the days following the shooting, expressed sorrow for Mr. Bell’s family.
“There are no winners in a trial like this,” he said. “An innocent man lost his life, a bride lost her groom, two daughters lost their father, and a mother and a father lost their son. No verdict could ever end the grief that those who knew and loved Sean Bell suffer.”
The verdict came 17 months to the day after five officers pointed their pistols at the car Mr. Bell was driving and opened fire. The shooting followed a confrontation between Mr. Bell and a stranger outside the Club Kalua, where Mr. Bell had attended his bachelor party. During the confrontation, Detective Isnora said, he heard the threat about getting the gun.
In the events that followed, Mr. Bell’s car struck the detective’s leg and, twice, a police van. Detective Isnora said he saw Mr. Guzman reach for his waistband, shouted “Gun” and fired. The three detectives who were brought to trial fired 46 of the 50 rounds, killing Mr. Bell and wounding Mr. Guzman and Trent Benefield, another friend of Mr. Bell’s.
The detectives each spoke briefly at a press conference at the Detectives Endowment Association on Friday afternoon, variously thanking God, their families, lawyers and Justice Cooperman. “This is the start of my life back,” said Detective Cooper, who seemed to be fighting back tears.
The United States Department of Justice issued a statement announcing its own investigation. “The Civil Rights Division and the United States attorney’s office have been monitoring the state’s prosecution of this case and, following the review of all the evidence, will take appropriate action if the evidence indicates a prosecutable violation of federal criminal civil rights statutes,” the statement said.
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said an internal departmental investigation into the shooting, which could lead to a departmental trial and possible disciplinary actions up to termination, would be put on hold at the request of the federal authorities. This allows the Police Department, for the moment, to avoid the complex issue of meting out punishment to its own officers.
Mr. Guzman and Mr. Benefield left the courthouse without comment. Mr. Benefield — singled out by name in the verdict as giving testimony that contradicted the evidence — turned and shouted something back toward the officers guarding the building.
(Coincidentally, the judge paused in the reading of his verdict only once, to demand that a crying child be removed from the courtroom. It is unlikely that he had any idea that the child was Trent Benefield III.)
Mr. Bell’s parents, William and Valerie Bell, were sitting where they had been sitting, side by side, throughout the seven-week trial. Mrs. Bell had been looking toward the floor and blinking furiously during the verdict, and finally began to cry, covering her face while her husband stared straight ahead, looking at no one and shaking his head.
A woman sitting behind them broke the silence when she asked, “Did he just say ‘not guilty’?”
Court officers hurried the three detectives out a back door.
As news of the acquittals rippled through clots of supporters of the Bell family, Mr. and Mrs. Bell led a column of friends and relatives, including Mr. Bell’s fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, out of the courthouse. No one, including Mr. Sharpton, spoke, and the spectators on Queens Boulevard fell into a column and followed behind.
Mr. Brown, the district attorney, said he accepted the verdict, calling Justice Cooperman “one of this county’s most respected and learned jurists.”
“I accept his verdict and I urge all fair-minded individuals in this city to do the same,” he said.
He was asked if, in hindsight, he had any misgivings about the reading of the grand jury testimony of the three detectives from 2007 into the record during the trial. The readings were widely seen as something of a coup for the defense, with the detectives’ accounts of the panic and uncertainty surrounding the shooting coming across without the detectives having to undergo cross-examination.
“That was a trial decision that was made, I think appropriately made,” Mr. Brown said.
The lead prosecutor, Charles A. Testagrossa, an assistant district attorney, recalled criticism of the prosecution strategy of calling almost all the available witnesses, whether they were helpful or harmful to the prosecution.
“It’s very easy for people who are observing the trial to say, ‘Gee, you called this witness, and not this witness,’ ” he said. “If you think that criticism could have made us work any harder, be more committed to obtaining a conviction in this case, then you had a right to criticize us. But the fact of the matter is, knowing how hard all of the members of this team worked,” the criticism meant nothing.
Then he quoted one of his own witnesses, a stripper who appeared early in the trial: " 'It is what it is.' "
From http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/nyregion/26bell.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Judge Acquits Detectives in 50-Shot Killing of Bell
By MICHAEL WILSON
Published: April 26, 2008
A Queens judge on Friday acquitted three detectives charged in the shooting of Sean Bell, who died on his wedding day in a hail of 50 police bullets. He said that prosecutors had failed to prove their case and that wounded friends of the slain man had given testimony that he did not believe.
The top-to-bottom acquittals of Detectives Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper were delivered by Justice Arthur J. Cooperman in an essay form bearing little resemblance to a standard jury verdict, and were met momentarily with silence in court as spectators looked at one another to be sure they had grasped what he was saying.
The detectives, all but obscured behind a human wall of courthouse officers, finally seemed to exhale deeply, even crumple, with relief. Detective Oliver — who reloaded his gun to fire a total of 31 shots and helped catapult the shooting from tragic mistake to a symbol, for many, of police abuse of force and poor training — closed his eyes and cried.
Except for a few scuffles outside the Queens Criminal Court building and shouted displays of disbelief and outrage, the day passed peacefully amid calls for calm delivered by the mayor, the police commissioner and other officials. Still, the Rev. Al Sharpton, a spokesman for the Bell family, called for street protests and said people should get themselves arrested, “whether it is on Wall Street, the judge’s house or at 1 Police Plaza.”
Legal hurdles remain for the officers: federal authorities said they would now investigate the case, and the Police Department is mulling internal charges. A $50 million lawsuit against the city, filed last year by Mr. Bell’s fiancée, who had two children with him, and the two men wounded in the shooting, may now begin moving forward.
The shooting of Mr. Bell, 23, outside a nightclub in Jamaica, Queens, early on Nov. 25, 2006, the morning of the day he was to be married, was the city’s latest crucible for distilling questions about police treatment of people of color and the use of excessive force on unarmed black men. The shooting lasted seconds, but offered a glimpse of what it is to live in a neighborhood where black men and women are stopped and frisked at a higher rate than elsewhere in the city.
But the case never became the racially charged lightning rod of its predecessors, like the case of Amadou Diallo, killed in 1999 in a hail of 41 shots. This was due in part to the race of the officers — two of the three on trial were black — and to the response of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who reached out to the victim’s family in a stark contrast to the response of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani after Mr. Diallo was killed.
Further, trial testimony showed that Mr. Bell may have played some role, however unwitting, in the shooting, as he was drunk by legal standards when he pressed down on the accelerator of his fiancée’s Nissan Altima and struck Detective Isnora in the leg in an attempt to flee.
Justice Cooperman, who heard the case without a jury in State Supreme Court in Queens, listed his reasons for throwing out much of the testimony from Mr. Bell’s group, including the number of times that witnesses were caught changing their story on the stand and the witnesses who had interests in the outcome because of the lawsuit against the city. Those issues, criminal backgrounds and the demeanor of the mostly young men on the witness stand “had the effect of eviscerating the credibility of those prosecution witnesses,” he said.
As for the detectives, the judge made it clear that he believed their versions of events over those of the young men involved, including Detective Isnora’s statement that he had overheard Mr. Bell’s friend Joseph Guzman twice say that he was going to get a gun.
“The court has found that the incident lasted just seconds,” Justice Cooperman said. “The officers responded to perceived criminal conduct; the unfortunate consequences of their conduct were tragic.”
But rather than call the shooting justified, the judge said that the prosecution failed to prove it was unjustified, as was its burden. Indeed, his ruling was far from approving of the detectives’ conduct during the undercover vice operation that night. “Questions of carelessness and incompetence must be left to other forums,” he said. He never mentioned the high number of shots fired, or the fact that Detective Oliver had fired 31 of them.
Similar statements came from the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, whose office prosecuted the case. He said the trial “revealed significant deficiencies in, among other things, supervision, tactical planning, communications and management accountability — insufficiencies that need to be addressed.”
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who called the incident “inexplicable” and “excessive” in the days following the shooting, expressed sorrow for Mr. Bell’s family.
“There are no winners in a trial like this,” he said. “An innocent man lost his life, a bride lost her groom, two daughters lost their father, and a mother and a father lost their son. No verdict could ever end the grief that those who knew and loved Sean Bell suffer.”
The verdict came 17 months to the day after five officers pointed their pistols at the car Mr. Bell was driving and opened fire. The shooting followed a confrontation between Mr. Bell and a stranger outside the Club Kalua, where Mr. Bell had attended his bachelor party. During the confrontation, Detective Isnora said, he heard the threat about getting the gun.
In the events that followed, Mr. Bell’s car struck the detective’s leg and, twice, a police van. Detective Isnora said he saw Mr. Guzman reach for his waistband, shouted “Gun” and fired. The three detectives who were brought to trial fired 46 of the 50 rounds, killing Mr. Bell and wounding Mr. Guzman and Trent Benefield, another friend of Mr. Bell’s.
The detectives each spoke briefly at a press conference at the Detectives Endowment Association on Friday afternoon, variously thanking God, their families, lawyers and Justice Cooperman. “This is the start of my life back,” said Detective Cooper, who seemed to be fighting back tears.
The United States Department of Justice issued a statement announcing its own investigation. “The Civil Rights Division and the United States attorney’s office have been monitoring the state’s prosecution of this case and, following the review of all the evidence, will take appropriate action if the evidence indicates a prosecutable violation of federal criminal civil rights statutes,” the statement said.
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said an internal departmental investigation into the shooting, which could lead to a departmental trial and possible disciplinary actions up to termination, would be put on hold at the request of the federal authorities. This allows the Police Department, for the moment, to avoid the complex issue of meting out punishment to its own officers.
Mr. Guzman and Mr. Benefield left the courthouse without comment. Mr. Benefield — singled out by name in the verdict as giving testimony that contradicted the evidence — turned and shouted something back toward the officers guarding the building.
(Coincidentally, the judge paused in the reading of his verdict only once, to demand that a crying child be removed from the courtroom. It is unlikely that he had any idea that the child was Trent Benefield III.)
Mr. Bell’s parents, William and Valerie Bell, were sitting where they had been sitting, side by side, throughout the seven-week trial. Mrs. Bell had been looking toward the floor and blinking furiously during the verdict, and finally began to cry, covering her face while her husband stared straight ahead, looking at no one and shaking his head.
A woman sitting behind them broke the silence when she asked, “Did he just say ‘not guilty’?”
Court officers hurried the three detectives out a back door.
As news of the acquittals rippled through clots of supporters of the Bell family, Mr. and Mrs. Bell led a column of friends and relatives, including Mr. Bell’s fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, out of the courthouse. No one, including Mr. Sharpton, spoke, and the spectators on Queens Boulevard fell into a column and followed behind.
Mr. Brown, the district attorney, said he accepted the verdict, calling Justice Cooperman “one of this county’s most respected and learned jurists.”
“I accept his verdict and I urge all fair-minded individuals in this city to do the same,” he said.
He was asked if, in hindsight, he had any misgivings about the reading of the grand jury testimony of the three detectives from 2007 into the record during the trial. The readings were widely seen as something of a coup for the defense, with the detectives’ accounts of the panic and uncertainty surrounding the shooting coming across without the detectives having to undergo cross-examination.
“That was a trial decision that was made, I think appropriately made,” Mr. Brown said.
The lead prosecutor, Charles A. Testagrossa, an assistant district attorney, recalled criticism of the prosecution strategy of calling almost all the available witnesses, whether they were helpful or harmful to the prosecution.
“It’s very easy for people who are observing the trial to say, ‘Gee, you called this witness, and not this witness,’ ” he said. “If you think that criticism could have made us work any harder, be more committed to obtaining a conviction in this case, then you had a right to criticize us. But the fact of the matter is, knowing how hard all of the members of this team worked,” the criticism meant nothing.
Then he quoted one of his own witnesses, a stripper who appeared early in the trial: " 'It is what it is.' "
Another
This is a story you might have somewhere else, but I still think it's pretty relevant to this course. Do you think this is a new trend in our society, or just part of the ever-shifting perspective of what's attractive and what's not?
From http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucas/20080503/cm_ucas/thugculturecelebratestheworstpossibleexamples
THUG CULTURE CELEBRATES THE WORST POSSIBLE EXAMPLES
Sat May 3, 7:57 PM ET
You've heard of resume inflation? You've heard of people who lie about having Ph.D.s or Ivy League pedigrees in order to get ahead?
The world of thug culture has its own perverse equivalent, in which middle-class men with minor legal transgressions exaggerate their bad behavior, claiming to be hard-core degenerates in order to impress youngsters looking for outlaw role models. In this destructive environment, the more violent and predatory you are, the more heroic you seem.
That helps to explain why a metro Atlanta hip-hop star known as Akon wove a tall tale of malevolence and criminal activity, claiming to have spent three years in prison for running a "notorious car theft operation," a story he's been telling for years. In fact, he has apparently never served hard prison time. A Web site called The Smoking Gun recently exposed Akon as a thug wannabe, a "James Frey with ... an American Music Award."
American popular culture has always had a tendency to romanticize hoodlums, whether Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde or Tony Soprano. But the hip-hop world's celebration of savage violence, educational failure and misogyny by gangsta rap has been one of the worst influences on American youth, especially black youth, in decades. If you want to ruin a nation, a society or an ethnic group, persuade its members that the highest form of achievement lies in criminality.
Even before the 1980s, when gangsta rap oozed out of downtrodden black neighborhoods, too many black men were marginalized -- unlettered, unemployed, imprisoned. They were already the victims of a fratricidal cycle of violence, predator and prey. They were already disproportionately fathers in absentia, completely divorced from the lives of their children, providing neither material support nor moral guidance.
Indeed, the baggy britches that are now de rigueur in hip-hop circles grew out of jail rituals. When men are arrested, their belts are confiscated, so their trousers tend to droop. It's from that unfortunate facet of ghetto life that the ubiquitous sagging pants were launched.
Proponents of hard-core hip-hop claim that it is an artistic genre that merely reflects those unfortunate realities of underclass black life; they tout it as a pure form of folk art (in its original meaning, arising from the folk, or common people). Countless books and dissertations have disseminated that view.
But folk art has never been so popular -- or lucrative. The worst of gangsta rap has not merely reflected behavior but has also inspired it, much of it lawless and destructive. Its lyrics are paeans to murder and mayhem. It celebrates an outlaw culture that disrespects women, mocks middle-class values and preaches against any cooperation with police in catching criminals.
That's why Akon, whose real name is Aliaune Thiam, made up a criminal history, claiming that he was a carjacker who owned chop shops but was finally brought down because he was ratted out by jealous underlings. You gain respect in thug culture -- and millions of dollars in record and ring-tone sales -- only if you're a bona fide thug.
In fact, Akon's longest stint behind bars seems to have been five months in the DeKalb County jail on a stolen car charge that was later dropped, according to The Smoking Gun. The son of Senegalese jazz percussionist Mor Thiam, he grew up in a middle-class home, spending time in Senegal and New Jersey before moving to an Atlanta suburb.
If black men like Thiam enthusiastically abandon a passable reputation for the notoriety of a prison record, then black America is in serious trouble. If it is better to be an outlaw than to be a teacher or a chemist or accountant, then young black men will continue to go to prison in record numbers. If it is more acceptable to be violent and reckless than to be a responsible father and husband, then marriage will continue to decline in black communities.
While racism remains a potent force in American life, it doesn't hold the malignant power of gangsta culture. The upside-down value system represented by Akon's fabrications is helping to destroy a generation.
From http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucas/20080503/cm_ucas/thugculturecelebratestheworstpossibleexamples
THUG CULTURE CELEBRATES THE WORST POSSIBLE EXAMPLES
Sat May 3, 7:57 PM ET
You've heard of resume inflation? You've heard of people who lie about having Ph.D.s or Ivy League pedigrees in order to get ahead?
The world of thug culture has its own perverse equivalent, in which middle-class men with minor legal transgressions exaggerate their bad behavior, claiming to be hard-core degenerates in order to impress youngsters looking for outlaw role models. In this destructive environment, the more violent and predatory you are, the more heroic you seem.
That helps to explain why a metro Atlanta hip-hop star known as Akon wove a tall tale of malevolence and criminal activity, claiming to have spent three years in prison for running a "notorious car theft operation," a story he's been telling for years. In fact, he has apparently never served hard prison time. A Web site called The Smoking Gun recently exposed Akon as a thug wannabe, a "James Frey with ... an American Music Award."
American popular culture has always had a tendency to romanticize hoodlums, whether Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde or Tony Soprano. But the hip-hop world's celebration of savage violence, educational failure and misogyny by gangsta rap has been one of the worst influences on American youth, especially black youth, in decades. If you want to ruin a nation, a society or an ethnic group, persuade its members that the highest form of achievement lies in criminality.
Even before the 1980s, when gangsta rap oozed out of downtrodden black neighborhoods, too many black men were marginalized -- unlettered, unemployed, imprisoned. They were already the victims of a fratricidal cycle of violence, predator and prey. They were already disproportionately fathers in absentia, completely divorced from the lives of their children, providing neither material support nor moral guidance.
Indeed, the baggy britches that are now de rigueur in hip-hop circles grew out of jail rituals. When men are arrested, their belts are confiscated, so their trousers tend to droop. It's from that unfortunate facet of ghetto life that the ubiquitous sagging pants were launched.
Proponents of hard-core hip-hop claim that it is an artistic genre that merely reflects those unfortunate realities of underclass black life; they tout it as a pure form of folk art (in its original meaning, arising from the folk, or common people). Countless books and dissertations have disseminated that view.
But folk art has never been so popular -- or lucrative. The worst of gangsta rap has not merely reflected behavior but has also inspired it, much of it lawless and destructive. Its lyrics are paeans to murder and mayhem. It celebrates an outlaw culture that disrespects women, mocks middle-class values and preaches against any cooperation with police in catching criminals.
That's why Akon, whose real name is Aliaune Thiam, made up a criminal history, claiming that he was a carjacker who owned chop shops but was finally brought down because he was ratted out by jealous underlings. You gain respect in thug culture -- and millions of dollars in record and ring-tone sales -- only if you're a bona fide thug.
In fact, Akon's longest stint behind bars seems to have been five months in the DeKalb County jail on a stolen car charge that was later dropped, according to The Smoking Gun. The son of Senegalese jazz percussionist Mor Thiam, he grew up in a middle-class home, spending time in Senegal and New Jersey before moving to an Atlanta suburb.
If black men like Thiam enthusiastically abandon a passable reputation for the notoriety of a prison record, then black America is in serious trouble. If it is better to be an outlaw than to be a teacher or a chemist or accountant, then young black men will continue to go to prison in record numbers. If it is more acceptable to be violent and reckless than to be a responsible father and husband, then marriage will continue to decline in black communities.
While racism remains a potent force in American life, it doesn't hold the malignant power of gangsta culture. The upside-down value system represented by Akon's fabrications is helping to destroy a generation.
Finishing up...
Ok, this one isn't a very "serious" story, but it does show, perhaps metaphorically, how the abrupt banning/prohibition of behaviors may manifest itself. What do you think may have been the underlying cause of this act? From http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2008/may/01/unsatisfying-sex-life-leads-to-womans-meltdown/
Unsatisfying Sex Life Leads to Silverdale Woman's Meltdown
Kitsap Sun staff
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Highly intoxicated and dissatisfied with her sex life, a 28-year-old woman was arrested Tuesday for stealing her husband's wallet and later assaulting the deputy who booked her into jail.
The meltdown, which deputies witnessed along with the couple's 3- and 4-year-old children, started when the husband, 24, had told his wife they had three hours to quit smoking, drinking, swearing and engaging in some sex acts because "they were going to be good Christians now," the woman said.
The man said she had woken him up to have relations, but then became disappointed and angry.
Kitsap County deputies were called to the apartment on the 11800 block of Majestic Lane NW at 2:38 a.m. after a neighbor overheard yelling, crying and slamming doors, the report said.
When deputies arrived, the woman denied any assault had taken place, and repeatedly, without sparing a vulgar euphemism, told the deputies about how unsatisfied she was with her sex life — some of the time carrying around a half-gallon of whiskey while doing so.
During an argument with one of the deputies, the woman picked up the family's 20-pound dog and threw it at the deputy, who caught it, the report said.
The deputies convinced the couple to separate for the night, and the man said he was taking their children to a hotel. But the 28-year-old returned to the apartment and took her husband's wallet, military identification card and keys.
The woman resisted being arrested for theft — her screams were described as "blood-curdling" by one of the deputies. The deputy who drove the woman to jail reported she questioned his manhood, asked God to forgive him because "he knows not what he does," and "donkey-kicked" him in the shin while he attempted to walk her from his patrol car to the jail, reports said.
She was booked for second-degree theft and third-degree assault.
Unsatisfying Sex Life Leads to Silverdale Woman's Meltdown
Kitsap Sun staff
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Highly intoxicated and dissatisfied with her sex life, a 28-year-old woman was arrested Tuesday for stealing her husband's wallet and later assaulting the deputy who booked her into jail.
The meltdown, which deputies witnessed along with the couple's 3- and 4-year-old children, started when the husband, 24, had told his wife they had three hours to quit smoking, drinking, swearing and engaging in some sex acts because "they were going to be good Christians now," the woman said.
The man said she had woken him up to have relations, but then became disappointed and angry.
Kitsap County deputies were called to the apartment on the 11800 block of Majestic Lane NW at 2:38 a.m. after a neighbor overheard yelling, crying and slamming doors, the report said.
When deputies arrived, the woman denied any assault had taken place, and repeatedly, without sparing a vulgar euphemism, told the deputies about how unsatisfied she was with her sex life — some of the time carrying around a half-gallon of whiskey while doing so.
During an argument with one of the deputies, the woman picked up the family's 20-pound dog and threw it at the deputy, who caught it, the report said.
The deputies convinced the couple to separate for the night, and the man said he was taking their children to a hotel. But the 28-year-old returned to the apartment and took her husband's wallet, military identification card and keys.
The woman resisted being arrested for theft — her screams were described as "blood-curdling" by one of the deputies. The deputy who drove the woman to jail reported she questioned his manhood, asked God to forgive him because "he knows not what he does," and "donkey-kicked" him in the shin while he attempted to walk her from his patrol car to the jail, reports said.
She was booked for second-degree theft and third-degree assault.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Related to today's presentation
So do we think the objectification thing will go further than this?
(from http://www.fox19.com/Global/story.asp?S=8083860&nav=menu63_2)
Ohio man facing charges for having sex with a picnic table
(BELLEVUE, OH) -- Police say a man in Bellevue, Ohio was caught on tape having sex with a picnic table.
Bellevue Police Captain Matt Johnson says Art Price, Jr., 40, was seen on four occasions between the hours of 10:30 a.m. and noon having sex with his picnic table. What makes this a felony, Johnson says, is that it took place in close proximity to a school, which made it likely that children could have seen Price.
The neighbor -- who wishes to remain anonymous -- saw Price walk out onto his deck, stand a round metal table on its side and use the hole in the umbrella to have sex.
The most recent instance took place March 14, we're told. A neighbor videotaped Price.
"The first video we had, he was completely nude. He would use the hole from the umbrella and have sex with the table," Johnson says.
Police say Price admitted to the crimes -- four charges of public indecency. Usually these sorts of things are misdemeanors, but in this case, they are felonies.
"What boosts it up to a felony is that the statute says if it's likely to be viewed by a minor," Johnson explains.
The Price family did not want to talk with us, but neighbors did. Some are not happy Price was released on his own recognizance.
"He shouldn't be allowed just for the fact that he could do that again -- and nude that close to a school. That should be zero tolerance," says Brice Jacobs, a neighbor.
Price is married with three school-aged children. Neighbors tell us they're now worried about the kids.
"Hopefully it stays between the adults and the kids don't get a lot of the information so they aren't so cruel to the little kids," says Emily Grote, a neighbor.
This case has police in this small town shaking their heads. "Once you think you've seen it all, something else comes around," Johnson says.
Report: WTOL, Toledo
(from http://www.fox19.com/Global/story.asp?S=8083860&nav=menu63_2)
Ohio man facing charges for having sex with a picnic table
(BELLEVUE, OH) -- Police say a man in Bellevue, Ohio was caught on tape having sex with a picnic table.
Bellevue Police Captain Matt Johnson says Art Price, Jr., 40, was seen on four occasions between the hours of 10:30 a.m. and noon having sex with his picnic table. What makes this a felony, Johnson says, is that it took place in close proximity to a school, which made it likely that children could have seen Price.
The neighbor -- who wishes to remain anonymous -- saw Price walk out onto his deck, stand a round metal table on its side and use the hole in the umbrella to have sex.
The most recent instance took place March 14, we're told. A neighbor videotaped Price.
"The first video we had, he was completely nude. He would use the hole from the umbrella and have sex with the table," Johnson says.
Police say Price admitted to the crimes -- four charges of public indecency. Usually these sorts of things are misdemeanors, but in this case, they are felonies.
"What boosts it up to a felony is that the statute says if it's likely to be viewed by a minor," Johnson explains.
The Price family did not want to talk with us, but neighbors did. Some are not happy Price was released on his own recognizance.
"He shouldn't be allowed just for the fact that he could do that again -- and nude that close to a school. That should be zero tolerance," says Brice Jacobs, a neighbor.
Price is married with three school-aged children. Neighbors tell us they're now worried about the kids.
"Hopefully it stays between the adults and the kids don't get a lot of the information so they aren't so cruel to the little kids," says Emily Grote, a neighbor.
This case has police in this small town shaking their heads. "Once you think you've seen it all, something else comes around," Johnson says.
Report: WTOL, Toledo
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)