Genius in diguise

In Jim Holt’s, “Code-Breaker”, he talks of a man named Alan Turing and his many accomplishments. The first paragraph was definitely was an attention grabber, “Before getting into bed the night before, he had taken a few bites out of an apple that was, apparently, laced with cyanide” (Holt 337).

The purpose of this essay was to elaborate on how no matter how smart of creative you are; people will remember or recognize you as the person you are inside and what you believe. The intended audience was meant for slightly younger adults to show them it does not matter what you achieve; it is the person who you are that people will always remember you by. In addition, it shows how Turing had a big part during the war.

He took steps toward building a life-like computer, even making some of the relays himself. Unfortunately he was never credited for this particular achievement, “In addition to his studies with Church, he also had dealings with the formidable john von Neumann, who would later be credited with the innovations in computer architecture that Turing himself had pioneered” (Holt 341).

Alan had created the computer and helped crack the German codes during war, which only two people thought it could’ve been done. Because cracking the code was a major part of the war, that could have landed a target on Turning’s back. This could be a leading factor in his death.

Do you think that knowing he may have been a target, could have imposed on his daily life activites, feeling the need to commit suicide?

Who Is To Blame?

In Gary Kleck’s essay, “There Are No Lessons to Be Learned from Littleton”, Kleck has it all said out in the name. By the media covering the shooting in Littleton, school shootings have escaladed since the media exposure. He goes onto explain how unintentionally kids react after hearing about shootings in the media. He is putting a lot of blame on the media for encouraging violence.

The purpose of this essay is to make people aware that watching the media coverage on violence, doesn’t teach kids to not be violent rather increases the likeliness of school violence.

He believes if the medias main stories weren’t always to do with violence, the violence rate would decrease, “A tragedy that has already occurred obviously cannot be prevented by any actions taken now. Therefore, actions will prevent harm only to the extent that the events they can effectively head off are likely to be repeated in the future” (212). The media should put a little “warning” phrase before any exposure to violence, as the news broadcast is just not watched by adults, teens too.

Kleck does a great job of showing how the media coverage could lead kids to becoming violent, “Mississippi responded to the Pearl shootings by making murder on school property a capital offense, even though premeditated murder, regardless of location, was already a capital offense in Mississippi. The killers in this incident, moreover, were ineligible for the death penalty because of their ages, eleven and thirteen: minimum age for death penalty was left unchanged” (213). Where could an eleven year old and a thirteen year old get such ideas?

Also the media doesn’t help by saying the kids were not charged because they were not of age to be considered an adult, could give more reason for younger kids to be violent.

My question to you is what should the punishment be for a non-adult who killed someone?

Monkey See, Monkey Do

In, “Aggression: The Impact of Media Violence”, Sissela Bok addresses the ever rising issue of media violence and it is affect on crime rates across the globe. She also says that violent shows and violent crimes have a high correlation rate.

Bok is really trying to get the attention of the people who create such violent shows, as she believes they should have taken some blame as to why the violent crime rate has increased over the years. Sissela states that the amount of violent programming being aired correlates to the amount of violent crime amongst viewers; therefore why shouldn’t the makers of such violent programs be held responsible?

She even discusses the affect of viewing violent pornography among males. Referencing a report, which led to the conclusion that violent pornography affects “the attitudes of adolescents about rape and violence towards women” It also says, “when it comes to viewing violent pornography, levels of aggression toward women have been shown to go up among male subjects who view sexualized violence against women.” 

The purpose of this essay is to make people aware of how watching violent shows influences bad behaviour on them, “The rates of injury suffered by small children are skyrocketing, with the number of seriously injured children nearly quadrupling from 1986 to 1993; and a proportion of these injuries are inflicted by children upon one another”. Sissela states those who watch violent programming, are more likely to find aggressive or violent acts towards another permissible and an acceptable way of dealing with conflict. She finds that “media violence has been found to have stronger effects of this kind when carried out by heroic characters…when they are rewarded not punished for what they do.”

So I ask you this, why do you think the media is so focused on showing us violence in the news cast?