Within this post we’ll be exploring the world of white supremacy; what it is, the logic behind it, it’s major fallacies, and any evidence offered by the cause. As a clear disclaimer I certainly do not agree with or support any content on this website or any “logical” reasoning/evidence that supports the white supremacy opinion/lifestyle.

White supremacy takes many forms whether that is an organization like the Ku Klux Klan furthering the opinions of white supremacists or websites such as Stormfront.org that provides private forums, a radio show, and informational articles. Here we’ll be specifically discussing the website Stormfront.org that works to promote the ideals and opinions of white nationalists who also support islamophobia, holocaust denial, and general racial hate. The website was first started in 1996 by Don Black, a former Ku Klux Klan leader and white supremacist.

Within the website itself, the first thing I observed was that visually speaking, the website is actually quite ugly and old looking. Whoever is visiting this website is really not there to be impressed or drawn in to the cause. For most people, they’re either a white supremacist or they’re not. There’s a very, very small amount of people for which a gray area exists, so there’s really no need for this website to be visually appealing because it’s not a platform for recruiting new members or support. The website is fairly straightforward with clearly established tabs like FAQs, a donation tab, and an easy-to-find guide introducing the main ideas of white supremacy, the Pro-White Movement, and the Stormfront brand. Other than this, the website promotes its radio station (Stormfront Radio) which features talks with Don Black and “friends” every weekday 10-11am.

The next major observation I’d say any regular person visiting the site would notice is that there are a lot of mentions about “the truth”. A lot of the phrases reference “accepting an uncomfortable truth to bring about a better world”. That truth being that whites are supposedly the superior race and an all white world would be a better world. One of the main points brought up states that “we whites are the race that dare not speak its name. Instead we white are supposed to pretend that we do not exist as a people, but only as adherents of the abstract “color-blind” ideology of human equality.” Now to an extent, what they’re saying is not entirely false. After reading this, what immediately came to mind were the minority groups we have on campus. If someone were to start a white/caucasian culture club, there would most likely be a huge amount of backlash against the club but if someone were to start a black culture club, a latino culture club, a Caribbean culture club, etc, there might not be as much backlash. Again, I’d like to make it clear that I would not support the creation of a white culture club but in the interest of keeping an open mind, I thought this idea was quite interesting.

The last observations I made when researching more into the core of Stormfront were its purposes and ideology. The main purpose for Black when starting this website was to heighten awareness of perceived anti-white discrimination and government actions detrimental to white people. I think that a fallacy is clearly evident here because although there may have been legislation passed that was detrimental to white people, it is certainly not comparable to the plight of minority groups in America. Other named purposes for creating the website were to sustain a community that could defend the white race by inviting members who defined themselves in opposition to ethnic minorities. One of the more positive aspects I found within the purpose of creating the website section was that in any and all of the forums within it, racial slurs and violent threats are completely prohibited.

As for the general ideology it centers around the idea of racial purity. The ideology is mostly set in motion by the “struggle for unity, identifying culture, speech and free association.” The ideology is also presented on the foundation that America was built by White Europeans so to follow in the footsteps of the Founding Fathers is often used as an argument. With this idea, I think again it is quite obvious why this idea is illogical in that just because our leaders successfully fostered the birth of a country does not mean that we should continue to uphold everything that they were, believed in, or did while living. The last thing addressed within Stormfront’s ideology is islamophobia which has become increasingly popular with the organization’s members especially after the 9/11 attacks.

Clearly this organization/website promotes an idea that the majority of people would disagree with and for very logical reasons. To end on a positive note, the most viewed area of the website only has about 300,000 views and membership is only around 120,000. Now these may seem like big numbers, but when compared to the general population of America, the population of minority groups, and the amount of minority advocates, this group has very little power and influence if any.

 

 

Every year people are blinded by a new climate change policy being implemented. We constantly hear of new agreements, new emission goals for companies, new promises. And every year we hear of this and to the common person it seems as though we’re moving in the right direction; which isn’t completely fallacious. In the past decade many areas of the world have been moving towards a greener tomorrow but what many fail to see is that the poverty demographic is the demographic that is the most detrimentally affected by climate change. Along with this, people are failing to see that the large scale policy implemented by policies such as the Paris Agreement simply does not help the people living in these impoverished areas. One specific part of the Paris Agreement states that their biggest goals is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% (Paris Agreement). In rural areas, this policy is simply useless. A more localized policy such as increasing health care access for impoverished communities that are developing lung issues due to a worsening air quality would be much more effective. In order to reduce the detrimental effects of climate change specifically on those living in poverty localized solutions need to be created rather than large-scale policy.

In 1970, a powerful cyclone claimed 300,000 lives in Bangladesh. In 1992, the Kyoto Protocol was released as policy to help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (Policy Responses to Climate Change). Quite obviously, this policy does not help/effect the people in Bangladesh who were now homeless as an indirect result of climate change. But, in 2007, localized solutions were created which included the implementation of low-cost shelters in to help dissolve the homelessness created by cyclones and the implementation of an improved forecasting system for powerful cyclones in the future (Bangalore). Without the localized solutions, yes the cyclone power might be reduced with a decrease in air temperature that would eventually come about from the Kyoto Protocol, but the reduction of the effect on the impoverished people living in Bangladesh would certainly not be possible because the protocol does not address their situation specifically because it’s working on the basis of mitigation strategy, not adaptation strategy.

Moving to Mumbai, the city has become extremely vulnerable to extreme flooding within the past decade (Mumbai Disaster Risk Management Master Plan). With the amount of impoverished areas in the city of Mumbai, recovering from flooding has become increasingly difficult because people living on the street have no protection from the water flow. In this case, a large scale policy created to combat the actually cause of flooding such as policy that works towards reducing the global air temperature, reducing ice melt, decreasing sea levels and precipitation, combatting flooding, would potentially be effective in the long-run. But what the area needs is localized policy such as the Mumbai Disaster Risk Management Master Plan (Mumbai Disaster Risk Management Master Plan). One of the biggest after-effects of major flooding is that communicable diseases are able to spread more easily with so many people, sewage, and objects entering the moving water. This is one of the effects that the disaster risk plan addresses and that which large-scale policy simply would not fix.

Looking at the 1999-2000 drought in Ethiopia, the poorest citizens lost 60-80 percent of their assets while the wealthiest citizens lost just 6 percent of theirs. In this situation, the localized solution was to create a safety net that now supports nearly 8 million people (Woodeneh). With the application of the safety net, people living in Ethiopia that are food insecure before natural disasters are put under protection so that when a drought or other potential natural disaster reaches the mainly impoverished rural areas, there is literally a safety net that prevents the complete loss of assets for these people. Considering the scale of the project which requires about $600 million, one might consider this similar to large scale policy, but compared to the amount of cost and human time/labor of a national or global policy, this is a localized solution.

Localized solutions go hand-in-hand with adaptation strategies. Above, solutions specific to areas have been addressed but what’s also helpful to most impoverished areas, focusing on rural areas specifically, is general adaptation techniques that are not typically found within large-scale policy such as the aforementioned Paris Agreement and Kyoto Protocol.

With adaptation techniques, the biggest goal is to reduce the vulnerability of an area to the effects of climate change. There are many, many adaptation strategies that have been adopted across the globe but when focusing on impoverished rural areas such as Ethiopia, there are some specific strategies that can be more helpful than the latter. The first strategy focuses on agricultural production. The main purposes of this approach are developing crops with more drought tolerance, designing rainwater storage plans, and promoting the growth of forests where possible so that wild, edible foods are more plentiful. (International Water Management Institute) Developing the drought resistant crops and creating rain management systems (building large basins) are typically the most important projects within adaptation approaches because these solutions are low-cost and can benefit rural areas greatly. Often adaptation plans like these will not be included in large-scale policy because it is so specific to certain areas which is why localized policy is the easier and more efficient route for impoverished areas.

Other second adaption approaches to consider were inspired by the farmers of Asia. In Bangladesh, farms were flooding from sea levels rising and in order to adapt to this, farmers created floating gardens made out of water hyacinth and bamboo. With their crops on top of these plants, no matter how high the sea level rises, the gardens will not flood. In addition to this, inhabitants of Bangladesh most frequently affected by the increased flooding have been looking into solutions involving floating schools, libraries, and large-scale farms (Dasgupta). The other approach being introduced by farmers is in India where an Ice Stupa was created. This Ice Stupa draws from glacial melt and distributes the water to farmers in the Himalayan Dessert (The Ice Stupa Project). Due to climate change, in recent years during the summer months, the glacial ice has been melting at a higher rate, so this excess water is being used to source water for the farms in April and May when the farmers have a shortage of water. Although the excess water from the glaciers helps the farmers during these months, it is not actually a good sign that the glaciers are producing that amount of glacial melt (The Ice Stupa Project).

One more point of interest to keep in mind when addressing how to reduce the effects of climate change on the impoverished is the counterargument that insinuates implementing mitigation approaches within large-scale policy is more effective than adaptation strategies. This point of view actually expresses that mitigation is not possible without adaptation to an extent. With mitigation efforts, one of the main goals is to curb greenhouse gas emissions but in the recent years it’s become clear that the mitigation effort needs to be complemented with adaptation efforts. Another argument made by this side is that some things such as ocean acidification cannot be “adapted” to but rather need to be mitigated. This is true, but in order to fully reach mitigation, adaptation strategies need to be implemented in the short run (International Council for Science).

In conclusion, climate change affects everyone in adverse ways but the demographic that is affected most vigorously is the impoverished. In order to decrease the effects of climate change, impoverished areas need to be presented with localized solutions with adaptation techniques rather than large-scale policy that implements mitigation strategy. Although the long-term goal for climate change should be to completely mitigate the planet of the detrimental environmental changes, adaptation strategy is the most effective way to help reduce the effects of climate change specifically on people living in rural and impoverished areas at least in the short term.

Works Cited

“Artificial Glaciers of Ladakh.” Artificial Glaciers of Ladakh | The Ice Stupa Project, icestupa.org/.

Bangalore, Mook, et al. Worldbank.org, www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/Climate/Climate%20and%20Poverty%20Conference/D1S1_Hallegatte_CCandPov_9Fev_v6.pdf.

Dasgupta, Shreya. “’Adaptation Bangladesh: Sea Level Rise’ Film Shows How Farmers Are Fighting Climate Change.” Mongabay Environmental News, 23 Feb. 2018, news.mongabay.com/2018/02/adaptation-bangladesh-sea-level-rise-film-shows-how-farmers-are-fighting-climate-change/.

“International Water Management Institute.” International Water Management Institute (IWMI), www.iwmi.cgiar.org/#.

“Mitigation vs. Adaptation.” Road to Paris – International Council for Science, roadtoparis.info/top-list/mitigation-vs-adaptation/.

“Mumbai Disaster Risk Management Master Plan .” United Nations, United Nations, sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?page=view&type=99&nr=244&menu=1449.

“Paris Agreement.” Paris Agreement PDF, 2015, unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf.

“Policy Responses to Climate Change.” Policy Responses to Climate Change – World Nuclear Association, June 2017, www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and-the-environment/policy-responses-to-climate-change.aspx.

Woodeneh, Gelila, and Ekaterina Svirina. “World Bank to Help Ethiopia Build a National Safety Net System as a More Effective Response to Droughts.” World Bank, 14 Sept. 2017, www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2017/09/14/world-bank-to-help-ethiopia-build-a-national-safety-net-system-as-a-more-effective-response-to-droughts.

 

1. One Alert Too Many: Addressing Sexual Assault Through Prevention, Protection, and Prosecution

During my deliberation, we explored 3 different approaches with the goal of addressing sexual assault and looking at preventative measures. The 1st approach we explored was prevention through things such as avoiding risk and empowering the individual. T he only issues we found here were that the approaches might limit the freedom of the individual or it may lead to victim blaming if the victim employs the tactics, and they do not work. The second approach we explored was protection if an attack is pending or actually happening. This involved discussing bystander action, better police training, and self-protection things such as a nail-polish that can detect date-rape drugs. Lastly, we explored the prosecution aspect of sexual assault such as shortening court proceedings. A common theme that came up during our deliberation was that there’s a lot of gray area when exploring sexual assault. A big thing that came up was personal preference whether that applied to setting an intention for yourself before going out, or even what age to start the discussion about sex and sexual assault. A lot of conflict arose when discussing when it would be appropriate to start discussing sexual assault. One person suggested in elementary school even because kids at this age might not even understand that they’re being violated. A few people definitely disagreed with this just because there’s another issue of who has the discussion with them, and what you can exactly explain to them without crossing the line. I think the most successful approach would be a combination of prevention and protection. We talked a lot about the people that you’re with when you go out which I think is a big part of solving the problem. If you’re out with people you know it’s a lot easier for them to tell if you’re comfortable with the situation you’re in. I think this would probably fall into the prevention category but it really could be your friends protecting you from a risky situation. I also think that educating children younger would be a great idea, especially young men. Yes, there are women that sexually assault men, but the highest number of sexual assaults committed are by men. If young people are educated earlier about the kind of effect sexual assault has on a victim’s life, that idea will stick with them for longer and may make them actually take a step back if they create a situation that would involve an assault. The prosecution approach is great but it only happens after a sexual assault occurs. So yes, it’s part of solving the problem sexual assault creates, but only after the fact which is why I think prevention methods would be a lot more effective. Overall, I think our deliberation did not really stray from the likes of a normal deliberation. At points when people were comparing statistics the discussion did remind me of a debate a little bit, but no one got very argumentative. Everyone shared their opinion without openly trying to take down another person’s argument which I think made the discussion feel a lot more like an open-forum. As said by a participant in the deliberation, just having an open discussion like we did should become part of the solution when actually looking at accomplishing preventing sexual assault.

2) Plastic State University: Reducing Single-Use Waste

The second deliberation I attended on my own was a discussion regarding reducing the use of plastic products that people only use once. What I noticed about this talk that was very different from the one that my group hosted was that the discussion was held in a public place so it was slightly less organized than the one that we held in the classroom. Being in a public place, it can get kind of difficult to hear people and actually find space for participants, but once the talk started, I don’t really think it was a problem. Another strength of the group was that they had a lot of people that had a personal stake in the discussion come and actually talk which was nice because people like this typically know a little bit more about the issue at hand and might be able to offer straightforward information if the deliberation comes to a stand still. Also as an added bonus, the mayor of state college came which was a great addition. So although the location of the deliberation wasn’t ideal, the actual discussion that we had definitely made up any little hiccups.  The first approach we looked at (I think) was the idea of reducing things like to-go containers or introducing the idea of green to-go containers like the ones we have in our dining halls on campus. I say “I think” because some of the approaches came across a little bit confusing and unfocused but I’m pretty sure that was the point they were trying to get across. During this approach they also discussed the possibility of a small tax on order put in to-go containers which I think could be beneficial in reducing their use and increasing the use of green to-go containers. Approach 2 involved discussing positive incentives to get rid of single-use items such as discounts for using reusable cups. This was a bit similar to the negative incentive idea but I still think it would be very effective. The 3rd approach introduced was just general education of the public about being environmentally conscious. This included ideas such as websites, advertising on CATA buses, and sustainability updates in emails/news sections. Approach 3 is probably where most of the “arguing” came in because people disagreed about how/f we should even bother attempting to educate the public. This was because people might not even wan to be educated, or they might be educated and not care because sometimes things like recycling are difficult and inconvenient. Overall, the group fostered the discussion pretty well and I think it was a good sign that they only had to participate here and there because other people had so much to say on the topic. I originally went to this discussion because I thought I was a pretty environmentally-conscious person but honestly, I think I was in a bit over my head attending the deliberation. It definitely made me realize that there were a lot of other things I could be doing to be more sustainable and that things I was doing may not have been the best way to recycle which is why I did not participate as much as I should have at the deliberation.

 

 

 

In a controversial Pepsi commercial released a few years ago, a sort of march is shown forming while Kendall Jenner is getting ready for what most likely is a modeling shoot. The commercial shows a very diverse group of people that are all joining the march and Jenner is seen being beckoned and finally takes off her wig and joins them, grabbing a Pepsi. She walks with the group of people and finally walks up to the officers that are blocking the marches and hands the Pepsi to one of them. This became a very controversial commercial, and one for which Jenner eventually apologized for, because no one could really figure out the point of the commercial. Many thought that Pepsi was trying to imply that by drinking Pepsi together, major conflicts that cause marches and protests could be solved, which when you think about it, isn’t logical. Although the full commercial was taken down for TV immediately, it can still be found on youtube accompanied by a very interesting comments section.

When I decided to do a controversial commercial, I figured that the comments may turn very nasty especially against each other, but in many cases, the comments remained pretty rational. For example, one person commented that they didn’t understand what was so bad about the advertisement which is kind of a reasonable question in this circumstance. I think that the person probably knew that the commercial wasn’t Pepsi’s best, but it’s definitely difficult to identify all of the things at play in the commercial that make it so controversial. People responded to this comment with “if someone tried to do this in America, they’d probably get shot.” Which is yes, far-fetched, but not completely out of the question considering all of the police brutality issues that had recently been on the rise. So as you can see, people are raising important questions and responses, but the comments do not reach a very radical point at least in the first section. Looking at this comments thread from Gastil’s point of view, I think that it could be considered deliberation to an extent. The only issue is that when people see something controversial, an opinion is usually formed quickly and people don’t like to listen to opposing viewpoints especially when it’s controversial, but this comments thread is still a pretty good example.

Staying on this same comment that someone posted asking what was so bad about the commercial,  once people started responding, the person didn’t comment back which people will usually do if they disagree. Also, the person posted the question to a public forum, showing they were open to hearing other opinions and considerations which is one of the criteria of deliberation: being open to other thoughts.

One of the biggest aspects of the commercial that people pointed out was that Kendall took off her wig and handed it to an African-American person. In the thread someone comments that as an African-American, they saw no harm done and pointed out that a lot of people working as a hairstylist in the entertainment industry are black. This fosters understanding in the discussion especially because it’s coming from a black person. While there were a lot of black people that were upset by this commercial, posting this comment showed a different perspective from the same side leading others to a better understanding that handing her wig to that person maybe shouldn’t be considered controversial.

As I said before, not many of the comments became too radical. Sure there was name-calling but nothing became too out of hand. Many of the comments were people just explaining their opinion in a very rational and logical way. Because there was limited shaming/verbal abuse/illogical name-calling this shows some degree of respect for others when commenting which is another key factor in organizing deliberation.

 

For my first idea, I wanted to explore the very broad topic of climate change which would fit into the environment category. I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer but I never knew what kind of law I wanted to pursue until around my senior year of high school. I took an AP Environmental class and I loved it and thought that environmental law would be great for me but I’ve changed my mind since then. Although this is not the type of law I’d want to practice in the future, I do have a very big interest in large-scale environmental problems like climate change and I’d love to explore other things such as the huge overfishing problem, the effects of poverty with climate change, and renewable energy sources. Within these subtopics, I’d love to get a little more specific in my posts, exploring overfishing specifically on the northern east coast of the US, looking into the effects that poverty in India has on their climate (especially in their cities), and specifically tidal power when it comes to alternative energy sources. Within climate change, I don’t have that strong of an opinion other than I agree that it’s certainly happening. I think this is a great position for me to be in because there are a lot of people mad at the world about climate change which would significantly bias any posts they wrote but this is not the case for me fortunately. Overall, there’s a whole lot going on with the environment and especially with climate change which would give me a lot of content to talk about in my posts.

For my alternative idea, I was thinking about doing a blog based on what’s happening with affirmative action under the race category. Last semester I did my English final project on affirmative action and I really enjoyed researching each “scandal” going on at different schools across the country. Similar to the environment, I don’t have a particularly strong opinion when it comes to affirmative action. I think that diversity is great, especially in learning environments, but sometimes forcing diversity has its consequences. One interesting point I came across when researching this topic was the consequences of affirmative action where kids who were admitted based on affirmative action policies were actually failing out of their colleges because they had not been admitted based on their academic merits but rather solely on their race so they were ill-prepared when it came to handling heavy course-work. I’m not sure how true this information is but I’d love to explore this more because if this isn’t actually the case, affirmative action could potentially be doing a lot more good than bad. I’d also like to explore more cases of affirmative action issues at specific schools that were not necessarily on the news. University of Texas and Harvard receive lots of attention when it comes to this topic but lots of smaller, lesser-known schools also have issues with these policies. Within this topic I wouldn’t be attempting to prove whether affirmative action is good or bad but rather I’d simply be exploring the facts and opinions surrounding specific school and student cases.

 

To most people, this image would represent a woman breastfeeding. Although you are not able to see and confirm 100% that this woman is breastfeeding, a reasonable person would probably suggest that that is what is happening here. In reality, this image is one of a strong female, feeding her baby in public

despite strong opposition to public breastfeeding. To be clear about any bias I may have, I think that women should be able to breastfeed in public to whatever extent they find most comfortable. If it’s easier for a woman to nearly completely expose herself in order to efficiently feed her baby, well, okay then. Who am I to stop someone from efficiently feeding their baby. With my opinion in mind, the rest of this post may be a bit biased because to be quite honest I don’t really mind when, where, or how people decide to breastfeed which is the complete opposite opinion of some others. Getting back to the image itself, it’s a simple picture that shows the recent controversy of again, women breastfeeding in public, specifically without a nursing cover, scarf, wrap, etc. First off, this picture is attempting to show people the less “radical” side of public breastfeeding and also attempts to show people that public nursing should not be something women should be criticized about. With that goal, I think this picture is absolutely successful. When introducing people to a new idea that they don’t like, it’s typically more efficient to show them the mild side of that change or idea. In the photo, the woman is clearly breastfeeding, as you can see a bit of her stomach, but her actual breast is completely covered and she has multiple layers of clothes on. This eases people into the idea of accepting public breastfeeding more effectively than it would showing them a picture of someone nearly topless in public, breastfeeding. The picture also specifically portrays that the

woman is outside sitting down somewhere, leading the audience to the conjecture that she might be in a public park which contributes to backing up the argument of breastfeeding in public. Lastly, the photo shows what appears to be a relatively new baby. By showing a new baby, this appeals to both men and women parents because it forces them to think about when their children were that young and the special connection they made with that baby when it was born. This softens any disdain viewers may have about public nursing and can even open the mind to thinking about this new idea. Compared to other photos of public breastfeeding on the internet, this image is surely mild-mannered but still gets the point across. To learn more about the legal side of this controversy, click here.

The main idea of the ted talk that I chose was that you really can come from rock bottom and become something amazing. The speaker started her life living in a refugee camp and is now on the cover of British Vogue. Important aspects of the talk included a lot of inspiring success stories about how Halima Aden started feeling more comfortable in her hijab and once she gained self-confidence, that really turned her life around and got her involved with modeling. I definitely didn’t have a great understanding about minorities in modeling other than there still aren’t a lot of them, but this talk definitely increased my knowledge that the fashion industry is expanding to include minorities and in the speaker’s case, she was welcomed with open arms. I already had an understanding of the refugee situation in the Middle East, but hearing a story from someone who is actually there experiencing it first-hand always gives an understanding more depth which it definitely did in this case.

One huge strong point in this talk was the amount of credibility the speaker brought in about her career as a model and the hardship she went through to get to that place. I definitely think as a woman who doesn’t “cover up” or dress purposefully modest, it would be difficult for me to walk in a fashion show in a “Burkini”without my hair or my usual clothes, so I could completely understand how the reader struggled through that transition. One thing that I did find problematic was that the speaker didn’t go into a whole lot of detail about the barriers minorities face going into the modeling world because there definitely are a lot of barriers to break down. The speaker also does move a bit too much and maybe over does it with the hand gestures, but overall I thought it was a pretty good presentation.

I think it’s safe to say that we’ve all heard of the OJ Simpson case. OJ, “The Juice” Simpson, famed football star who won the Heisman Trophy, allegedly killed his ex-wife and her friend at her home. Well, despite the tempting discussion of the controversy over this case, this week we’ll actually be looking at OJ Simpson’s defense lawyer, Johnny Cochran’s closing statement within the trial. Not only is the closing statement full of real-time proof that the prosecution’s claims are false, but it’s also chock full with persuasive appeals. In utilizing hand gestures, a steady voice and pace, and eye contact, Johnny Cochran makes an extremely compelling and memorable statement, one of the lines becoming one of the most commonly known phrases in America, “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit”. A quick clarification about this statement before we move on, Cochran was referring to a glove found at the crime scene that the prosecutions says OJ wore during the murders, but during the trial, Simpson tries on the exact glove and it is clear it simply does not fit his hand. Therefore, Cochran expresses that the prosecution should acquit Simpson (drop the criminal charges).

To start off the closing statement, Cochran starts off slow and then within the same sentence increases his voice pacing in order to pull the jury in. He starts off slow to emphasize that he’s going to explain something extremely integral to the case, and then speeds up, but not to a pace that’s hard to understand, in order to grip the jury’s attention. This pace stays thoroughly steady for the rest of the (2 minute) statement because as he’s placing a cap found at the crime scene on his head in order to show the jury how it could not possibly disguise someone, he needs to explain the significance of his actions. The hand gestures are mostly utilized to move a piece of evidence on and off of

Cochran’s head, but when he’s not holding the cap, he only uses these gestures to guide the jury’s gaze back and forth between the cap and and OJ Simpson through pointing. He does this in order to solidify the connection between the cap not disgusting someone, and that someone being OJ. Lastly, his eye contact stays locked on the jury. He looks down at the cap in his hands, almost as if to emphasize how deeply he feels that it could not possibly disguise someone, but other than that, even when he’s pointing to Simpson, his eyes are locked on the jury which compiles them to keep their full attention on the closing statement. Lastly, Cochran is able to deliver an extremely memorable last line which makes his argument that much more effective. Listen to this specific part of the trial here.

I honestly agree with the writer to a certain extent. I’m currently taking a criminology class on wrongful convictions and what happens in a lot of cases is experts are called to the stand as witnesses and basically will present what’s called “junk science” that looks and sounds scientific but is not actually rooted in real science methodology. Now, often times this junk science is not referring to behavioral science, but in some cases, it is, and that’s where a lot of wrongful convictions will really be solidified because the jury is prone to believe what an “expert” is telling them. I think that the statement that the majority of behavioral science is just “the study of college kids in psych labs” is going a bit too far because there are scientists where this is their life’s work (Philip Zimbardo for example), and they do make serious contributions to the behavioral science field. I could definitely see where the writer is coming from though, because when I read the statement “college kids in psych labs” it reminded me of the Stanford Prison Experiment which was exactly that, college kids in the (basement of) a psych lab and their behavior was observed and then conclusions drawn. And the reason I bring this specific experiment up is because although the study’s basis had a good scientific foundation, I think the conclusion that the majority of people, if put in a position of power over prisoners, would mercilessly beat them and do all of the other awful things some of those college kids in the study did is simply not backed by enough evidence. This is my reasoning simply because there are prison guards who have that much power who chose, everyday, to treat inmates as people.

Overall, the writer does bring up a good point that you should always stay skeptical and I think that this does relate to my topic because the studies done on mental illness are very much behaviorally based. While I do love to cite scientific research when arguing a point, I definitely think this article will be in the back of my head from now on and hopefully stop me from putting any “junk science” in my writing.

For my paradigm shift topic, I will be focusing on the shift in the prevalence of mental health issues, while also focusing on how the increased terror attacks within the US have contributed to this. My timeline starts in the 1920s with a TNT bombing and then follows an 20 year increment structure throughout the essay, up until present day. The main idea of my topic is that the terror attacks didn’t increase per say, but they became less and less personally driven which directly causes anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues to exponentially increase throughout the years. In the early 1900s, most of the terror attacks in the US were carried out via personal vendettas. Something made someone mad, they took it personally, and then caused whoever made them mad direct harm. But, as we move through the years, the terror attacks become less personal and this gradual shift is seen with the bombing of the Statue of Liberty by Croatian separatists. The shift does a complete 180 when we get to the attacks of 9/11, and then continuously grows into more and more acts of mindless killings with school shooters.

I chose to explore this specific shift because I think this is a good start for me to become involved with the March For Our Lives movement. I did choose to participate in the silent walkout last year in high school, but I think that one of the best things that can be done in a situation like this where legislation is really not budging, is in the mean time, look at all of the factors contributing to the issue (mass school shootings) and find out how to intervene. My timeline ultimately ends at present day where we are in the age of school shootings and have the highest (recorded) amounts of people being diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and I think these issues affect everyone on a day-to-day basis whether they’re seeing terrorism on the news or actually struggling with mental health issues which is why their attention would absolutely be warranted. Lastly, the 3 sub-categories as an added 3rd layer will focus on technology, cultural movements, and laws (airport security) and how these categories have contributed to the rise in reported mental health issues and how they actually change our perception of terrorism to increase the mental illness percentages.