Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Songs of My Life.

"All I Do is Win" by DJ Khaled. This song reminds me of some of my favorites memories during high school on my lacrosse team. I loved playing the sport for 5 years and the girls on the team became like my family. We would always play this song before all of our games to pump up and on the bus home as well. I miss my team like crazy and this song reminds me of them.

"Young, Wild & Free" by Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa. This song reminds me that I am still young and should have fun and experience things while I can.

"Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle. My dad has always been one of the most important people in my life and this song reminds me of him. He always used to put me to bed at night when I was little and play this song while I fell asleep. He would give me "butterfly" kisses and tuck me in.

"One Day" by Matisyahu. I used this song for a project in high school and I fell in love with it. It makes me sad but it makes me realize how lucky I am. I have had so many opportunities in my life and I need to take advantage of them and never take my life for granted.

"Waka Waka" by Shakira. I love this song because it reminds me of all of my amazing friends and how much fun we has last summer. This song has a very fun melody and beat, we would always listen to it whenever we were together. We had a blast laughing and trying to dance like how she does in the music video and trying to learn the words that were in a different language.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Research Practice

"While it is true that the United States is not The Netherlands, the example of the Dutch system provides at least an indication that marijuana legalization would not be the disaster that opponents say it would be" (Inciardi, 1991).


Inciardi, J. (1991). The drug legalization debate. Sage Publications. 


This source contains a lot of information about they effects that legalizing marijuana would have on our country. I like how the source addresses many different issues such a crime, tax revenue, and the impact on our society. It also provides information about what the opposing view may think and why it is wrong. I believe that I could use this part of the source to show the the effects of legalizing marijuana would not be as dramatic as everyone thinks. The source talks about how the Netherlands is much more accepting of cannabis use, and how their user rates are actually much lower than the United States. The author believes that legalizing marijuana would have positive effects, and that if we don't we will be stuck at a dead end with this issue. 







"Second, marijuana use has great costs and consequences to all of us in society -- not just to users. Young marijuana users are more likely than nonusers to use other illicit drugs, to have automobile crashes, and to be arrested" (Shalala, 1995).


Shalala, D. (1995, August 18). Say 'no' to legalization of marijuana. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from    
     http://www.michelepolak.com/200fall11/Weekly_Schedule_files/Shalala,_1.pdf
 

This article was on pro quest and was published in the wall street journal, so that leads me to believe that it is fairly credible. I believe that this source could be used a a counter argument against the previous source that I found. It talks about the negative effects the marijuana has on young users. They said that if marijuana was legalized, more young people would use it, and it would have very negative effects on their lives. The article also talks about how we would loose money in the long run if it was legalized because there would be more hospital visits, crashes, and arrests. I think there is also a lot of information in this source that I could easily refute because it has been shown that marijuana is not actually much of a "gate-way" drug, which has been a very common myth.


Wednesday, November 16, 2011

End of the Book!!!!

Chapter 10 explains how sometimes using the DSM can be dangerous because it is often overused and people can be misdiagnosed. Psychologists would get together and just yell out new disorders and they would get written down in the book. He talks about a case where some psychologists faked hearing a voice in their head that said the words "empty" hollow" and "thud." They otherwise acted completely but most were not let out for several weeks. This shows the implications of labeling someone as mentally ill. When the DSM-III was released more copies were sold to the general public than to professionals. This lead to many people self diagnosing themselves, which benefited the drug companies. He also talks about the over diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children. The medicine that is given to children to treat this disorder can have a large affect on their life and personality, as is the case with Matt and Rebecca.

I enjoyed reading this book because it was really interesting and it really made you think deeply about our society and the world that we live in. I really do think that most of psychiatry and psychology is guesswork. We try so hard to understand the human mind and how it works but truly we will never be able to know what anyone else's "beetle" looks like. I also realized how strong the implications of putting a label on someone can be. The psychologists that pretended to hear voices but then acted normal were not let out for several weeks. Putting a label on someone can greatly affect theirs lives and is something that they may not be able to get ride of. Having the DSM available could be dangerous because people could over diagnose themselves or others. I liked how the end of the story tied up the loose ends about Tony, but I am honestly still confused about who is actually a psychopath or not in the story. I guess that is the point, that we will never truly know.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

"Aiming A Bit High"

In the beginning of this chapter, Ronson once again meets up with Bob Hare. Right away Bob accuses the concierge of being a psychopath after he "manhandles" and yells at Ronson for trying to use the telephone. The sit down and drink at the hotel bar and Bob tells Ronson about how there are certain experts, psychologists, and profilers traveling the world with little more than a Certificate of Attendance who might have a lot more influence on things like parole hearings and serial-killer incident rooms than they should. After that conversation Ronson seeks out Paul Britton. Britton was a criminal profiler who became famous after he correctly profiled the murderer of a young women. Britton did help to solve many cases but he wasn't always right. The times when he was wrong were just brushed under the rug and ignored. His career fell apart when it came to the murder of Rachel Nickell. He strongly believed that the murderer was a man named Colin Stagg, who turned out to be falsely accused. The police tried to force a confession out of him by using a woman named Lizzie. While the police were preoccupied with Stagg, the real murderer, Robert Napper, killed a woman and her daughter.

I actually enjoyed reading these two chapters a lot. The stories in both were very interesting and they captured my attention. I found these chapters to be different than most of the others so far in the book because they didn't necessarily have to do with the story of a particular psychopath. I thought that the story of Rachel North was extremely sad. This woman had to go through such a traumatic experience, and then had to deal with being accused of being fake and of being part of a conspiracy theory. I was a bit confused whether Ronson was trying to say that Shayler was a psychopath or not. Chapter 9 was also a bit depressing because this poor man was falsely accused of murder. I thought it was really wrong how the police tried to force a confession out of him by using that women. That doesn't seem right to me.