Mazer Response

I found this article very different from any other one we read in class. One reason is because it had to do with religion which we usually never read about in any classes. I liked how the body builders did certain tasks to prove their Christian faith. Instead of just being a Christian they actually went out of their way to prove how strong their faith actually was. The audience that attends these shows has to also be very religious because of what goes on during the shows, which i thought was a good idea on the performers part. For the finale the audience has to show their faith as well, along with the performers. I found that a little much for people, because if a Christian is just enjoying the show he shouldn't have to prove his faith again, because if he didn't really care he wouldn't be in the audience to begin with.

A Plague of Tic

I enjoyed this article because the author was trying to make his condition into a somewhat "funny" manner. I felt bad for him because back then they didn't diagnose OCD like they do today. If he was in today's times he would have gotten help. His family seemed to all have some sort of problem, like his mother and father. I believe that the abuse and physical punish he went though because of this was not fair at all. People should have realized their was something wrong. I feel like him turning to cigarettes as a stimulus was surprising. Just from how he explained his life i didn't see him to become a smoker, but it's good that it ended up helping his condition.

fifth blog dawg

1.) The specific question I intend to answer for my final research paper is, Cops should be able to decide how and when lethal force is necessary. Also that lethal force is a good thing and should not be made into a bad figure like it can be portrayed to be.

2.) I truly believe that police have every right to defend themselves and other innocent people by use of lethal force.*Thesis*

3.) People portray cops that use lethal force in a negative manner, because they believe it could have been worked out in another way when most times its not that easy. Cops only use lethal force when they feel they must use it, not because they want to by any means. Most of the time cops would never even think about using lethal force but when it comes down to a life or death situation cops have no other choice but to use it. Cops try as hard as they can to use non-lethal force before, like teasers or mace for example, but sometimes they have to use more than that when the situation gets out of hand. Also cops are trained to shoot low unless the person has a gun or other type of weapon and is using it in a threatening manner. Also in a high speed chase cops don't want to injure any citizens and want to stop the running criminal as fast as they can, so they will use spike strips which may cause the car to flip and injure the driver.


4.) I still need to find out more about this topic til I feel i have enough information to convince everyone i need to. I still find out how often lethal force occurs on the job. i also want to find out what goes though an officers head before during and after the usage of lethal force. Another thing I would like to find out would be how many cops were found guilty for usage of lethal force when they shouldn't have used it.

5.) Cops abuse their power when using lethal force. 
They should just use non-lethal force and saves lives without people dying.
Cops are crooked and just do it because they can.
The police are trigger happy when it comes to situations of lethal force.

6.) 

"Is a Police Officer's Use of Force to End a High-Speed Pursuit Reasonable?." Supreme Court Debates 10.4 (2007): 2-3. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.

Jacobs, David, and Robert M. O'Brien. "The Determinants of Deadly Force: A Structural Analysis of Police Violence." American Journal of Sociology 103.4 (1998): 837. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.

Waegel, William B. "The Use of Lethal Force by Police: The Effect of Statutory Change." Crime & Delinquency 30.1 (1984): 121. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.

Klinger, David A., and Rod K. Brunson. "Police officers' perceptual distortions during lethal force situations: Informing the reasonableness standard." Criminology & Public Policy 8.1 (2009): 117-140. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.

"haha", he said "Haha" Response

In this article the author was attacking something he really really seemed to despise, and what he despised was laugh tracks. laugh tracks are the fake laughter added on to shows to make people laugh along with them. throughout the entire article he bashes the use of laugh tracks in many shows and says how they should not be in shows at all. The author also says that in the future there will not be any laugh tracks anymore and people will read his article and not know what he is talking about unless they watch a show from the 70's. He believes that the laugh track is dumbing people down into laughter when something actually isn't funny at all. The author also goes on to say that the laugh track (not being the entire reason) is making us as U.S. people laugh for no reason, making it a part of our society. He says how he lived in Germany and nobody over there laughed for no reason at all unless it was actually funny to them, and over here we laugh as a filler. The way he explains his point made me also think that he is completely right. Those laugh tracks do piss me off sometimes because somethings not funny, yet it makes people laugh at them. Also I notice now how some of the laughter we add in conversations is pointless and unneeded.

Topic Introduction

The topic I am writing about is about the use of lethal force for police officers. I chose to write about this topic because I have always been interested in an officers choice to use lethal force, and what happens when he does. There is also many articles and laws about this so i believe i wont have much trouble finding information and articles to read and write about. I know some information already regarding this topic, which is another reason I am writing about it because I feel like I have a head start for this paper which we have to write. I still have some questions about this paper which I hope to answer before I start to write it. One of my questions is how do I start my research, although I do know where to find my information. I know I am looking for articles and journals but I want to know how to start  to look and what kinds of information would be the most suitable for my paper. Also i would like to peoples opinions on lethal force. Some people feel cops should shot back sooner than they actually do. Then others feel like cops shouldn't shoot at the person til they are shot at themselves. I would like to know how people feel about the two.

Annotated Practice

David Thacher "The Distribution of Police Protection." Journal of Quantitative Criminology 10940 (2010). Print.


The author of this article focuses mainly on the positioning of police. This article talks about where police are distributed and how that effects crimes. Also in the article it talks about police protection when dealing with race and class. It tells how there are less police protecting a rougher neighborhood then there are protecting a richer one. The author also tells how police inequality has grown since the 1970's, because of the lack of distribution of police in poorer neighborhoods. He also tells how crime rate has fallen every little because of the lack of police, but the violent crime has increased.