Censorship
by Kait Wheeler on December 27th, 2008
filed under Rants
As I panned through Reuters this morning I couldn’t help but notice this article. Long have I disagreed with the idea of media censorship, even in regards to content made available to children. We have things like parental controls which can limit the amount of time children are allowed to watch TV or play video games, and parents can even block certain channels and websites from their kid’s computer profiles. They can also buy CDs that have all the appropriate gasps and pauses in music where the curse words would be. In my opinion that gives parents just the right amount of control over their child’s accessibility.
This however raises the question: “What exactly is appropriate for my child to watch?” Sure, Nickelodeon and Disney are great channels to let your kids watch. But…what about the news? Should you really be letting your child watch all the violence and sex scandals on the news? The only difference is that the news is projecting said violence in a factual manor while websites, music and video games are all viewed as entertainment (which they are). Even so, you have to remember that a child is going to take in this information regardless of how it is projected. They are still going to see a family of three murdered by their father because he was drunk, a woman arrested for drug use or for being a prostitute. Of course, this decision is completely left to the parent of the child. How will my child be exposed to all of this?
Should they be exposed at all? This question in particular has always bothered me. When I was growing up I wasn’t allowed to watch MTV or listen to any modern music. It was all educational tapes that sang about how to get dressed in the morning and how to cross the street and all that. I was allowed to watch Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network (sometimes) and Nick at Nite. At that time we didn’t even have Disney because you had to pay for it way back when, but I digress. My parents never exposed me to crime and ‘the evils of the world’ as they put it. When I then entered school and all the kids were talking about all this stuff I was shocked. How could people do things like this? It was so disgusting! I was completely ignorant of what modern music sounded like because I was too busy learning how to tie my shoes and dancing around to the old Jackson 5 and all the other Motown hits. When I figured out that there was all of this out in the world you couldn’t have stopped me with a shotgun from getting my hands on it. My personality changed drastically. I started cursing and wearing makeup and back-talking my parents. Just because it was new and ‘all the other kids were doing it’. This trend didn’t carry on for long, but it was one that most certainly could have been avoided had my parents exposed me to more than just kiddy-bopper bullshit. But in the grand scheme of things, that isn’t even my point for writing about this. The real question is why the government wants to censor the internet specifically.
Now, we all know that just about anyone can find just about anything on the internet. Doing the right amoung of digging you can find anything you want no matter what your limits are. There are millions of billions of websites out there and it’s almost impossible to see all of them. On that same note, it’s also very hard to stumble across something if you’re not looking for it. Even pornography. Bullshit you say?
I consider myself an internet junkie in every sense of the word. I’m constantly on Google and the Wikepedia trying to find new and interesting fucked up things. But the amount of pornography that I just happen to ‘stumble’ on when I’m looking up World War II? ZERO. How about TubGirl or Salsa Snack? Again. ZERO. Even the websites that require your e-mail to let you continue on; zero pornography links. I never understood what these kids were looking up to find so much titty and bush action that it crashed their hard drives (believe me I wish I did). Maybe it’s just because I’m on a Mac. Maybe that’s the answer for all the kids, but it’s statements like this that just drive me insane.
“This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest lies and being clear about it.”
I only have one thing to say about that. Who is forcing them to click on those websites? What vile, sick, twisted maniac is forcing themselves into your home and making you or your child enter these sites that the government wants to block? Sure it may not be the United States government and it may only be the United Kingdom that is thinking about doing this at the moment, but why does the UK have to have SO much control over it’s people? Don’t they already only have like 5 TV stations and 5 radio stations? Their lives are even MORE controlled than ours. And now they want to extend that control to the nation of the world wide web?
I doubt the internet will stand for it, and I can certainly guarantee that some rebellious organization will spawn up from the bowels of 4chan if such a motion is ever put into place.
The internet will never be something that any government can control, because it has no distinctive country. Of course, the United Nations could always get together and discuss it; but we all know how often the UN agrees with each other about anything.
They Burn Like Fireflies
by Kait Wheeler on December 15th, 2008
filed under Rants
In 2005 I was studying English literature in college, and my professor exposed us to this documentary called ‘Paradise Lost’. It documented the trial of three teenage boys in West Memphis, Arkansas that had been charged with the brutal and sadistic murder of three eight year old boys. It interested me at the time. All three of the teens seemed to be as guilty as possible according to the prosecution, judge, and the jury that sentenced them to life in prison (and one of them to death row). Yet so may people thought they were innocent.
Damien Echols was the alleged ‘ring-leader’. He was the eldest (19 at the time of the murders in 1993). He practiced the Wiccan religion, listened to Metallica, and wore black t-shirts. It was then that I started to look into the personality of the ‘locals’.
West Memphis, Arkansas is about as Southern Baptist as you can get. Everyone quotes the bible all the time and they throw their hands up in praise to Jesus as if they were some homeless beggar thanking God for a bucket of chicken. So, naturally it’s the weird ones that they’re going to blame for something like this.
I remember watching this documentary and thinking “Oh my god…I can’t believe these kids are being forced to go through this.” I couldn’t begin to piece together how gut wrenching it must have been for their families to see their children going through all of this.
Of course I sympathized with the parents of the victimized children (one of whom had this manhood removed). But still I felt even more sympathy for the victims of the judicial system and the prejudice that followed.
There wasn’t a single piece of hard evidence that linked the ‘West Memphis Three’ with the murders of the Steve Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers. They forced one of them into a false confession by stressing him out and making suggestions to him. Of course, they had ‘no idea’ that Jesse Misskelley Jr. only had an IQ of 72.
Shortly after the HBO documentary ‘Paradise Lost’ was made, a sequel was published called ‘Paradise Lost: Revelations’. This centered around a support group for the WM3. It also centered around the step-father of one of the victims. John Mark Byers.
I can hardly put into words the nature of this man. Even while I was watching the first documentary for the first time it seemed to me that he was either guilty, or desperate for media attention. He wanted his fifteen minutes of fame and he wanted it badly. So badly in fact that he was willing to stand at the scene of the crime and dig false graves for Damien, Jason, and Jesse (the three ‘murderers’). Never mind that this was where his step-son supposedly died. Never mind the fact that one would think that he would make a memorial to his son there. Nope. He made false graves to the West Memphis Three.
And then he burned them.
His voice wailed on and on for what must have been quite a long time. Thankfully the editors of the documentary spared us the annoyance of the southern man’s desperate prayers to exact justice on ‘the murdering bastards that took away his baby and his wife’ who supposedly ‘died from a broken heart’.
By now I’m sure if you’re still reading this you’re wondering: What’s with all the quotes? Isn’t there any kind of hard fact about this entire case? Not a single one?
Your answer: No.
Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jesse Misskelley Jr. have been in prison for almost fifteen years for a crime that no one can prove they committed. To date there have been at least five appeals to the courts, two documentaries, a book, and a statement made by John Mark Byers himself claiming that he no longer believes that these boys are the guilty ones.
My reaction to THAT bit of fact?
WHAT THE FUCK.
…
But not all is lost.
Put your self in their shoes. How would you feel? Alone? Desperate? Defeated? All of the above?
That would certainly be my attitude. Fifteen years of appeals and repeat convictions. Fifteen years of the same four walls and the same prison mates. Fifteen years of wondering what your son looks like. Who he’s hanging out with. What his favourite band is. Nothing but worry and curiosity. That’s what life for me would be like in prison.
I’m not a particularly religious person, but it is all too clear to me that some deity or other is up there and is looking out for these men. All three of them have funds set up for college. Funds set up for their court hearings, and letters sent to them every single day. Damien (believe it or not) has an art gallery for all of his paintings and his poems.
If you were to read some of the things on their website you almost wouldn’t believe that their prisoners. They have been dealt one of the worst hands possible for their lives on this earth, and yet they still manage to shine as bright as fireflies for all the right reasons.
In the first documentary Damien said that he always knew he’d be known; he just never knew for what reason. He felt like he was now going to be known as the ‘West Memphis Boogey Man’. Children would tell his story and think: “I better check under the bed…Damien might get me!”
Honestly? He’s more of a role model now than I could give credit for. He (like the other two) show persistence, hope, and faith in whatever they believe in to get them through this. They haven’t let this hinder their lives. It is all too deserving of the word ‘mind-blowing’ and I cannot WAIT until these boys are free.
Next week please join us when Leonardo DiCaprio reads ‘War of the Worlds’…and other bedtime stories.