Saturday, April 27, 2013

Silence Will Fall

Yays!! Everyone crack open something alcoholic in order to celebrate. As of an hour ago I have successfully completed my third year of university. I'm so relieved to be done, it is not even funny. These past few weeks---well this past month really---have turned me into a huge stress ball. But it is done now! So after this weekend break, I will be looking for a job. I've decided that I'm staying here for the summer, so I'll need to find a new job.

Now, that we have all that boring information out of the way, (just in case you guys care what is going on in my life) I can rant about what I really came to discuss. Impossible Astronaut Day.

If you know what I'm talking about, or at least know what the Impossible Astronaut is, you have just gained like a billion notches on my respect pole. But that is besides the point, Impossible Astronaut Day was Tuesday and I celebrated like the nerd girl that I am. It was really simple, actually, just drawing tally marks on your arms, and if you were really hardcore on your face. It was a simple shout out to all the other Whovians out there.

Now, I shall explain in proper English instead of nerd-speak. This was a day celebrating being a fan of an awesome British T.V. show called Doctor Who. Needless to say this show is freaking amazing, and is easily my favourite show of all time, although Sherlock does come in a close second. What can I say, I love me some BBC. But back to Impossible Astronaut Day. This was a day where all the Doctor Who nerds and fans could show their fandom together, which makes me giddy inside just thinking about. It was all over twitter, and I suppose facebook, although I was the only person who participated in my friend group, which was fairly disappointing because some of my friends are huge Doctor Who fans, I guess not as big as me though!

In case you are a Doctor Who fan (not Dr. Who---there is a special place in hell for people who write it that way) I won't give away the importance of the particular series of episodes that deal with these markings, which can be found that the end of Season 6 of the reboot. (the classic Doctor Who was entertaining, but none of the Doctors got my blood boiling, but David Tennant sure did, and I'll admit that Matt Smith is growing on me).

ANYWAYS, the episodes deal with a particular alien called The Silence. These aliens have a defense mechanism where the minute you stop looking at one of them, you forget they exist. In the show they are the bad guys (I won't get into why I hate them), and are trying to harm the Doctor and his companions. SO, in the genius that is the Doctor, they devise a method where every time you see the Silence you draw one tally mark on your arm. It becomes really creepy as the characters suddenly look at their arms and there are a bunch of tally marks on them, telling them that the Silence is all around them. *Shivers* it also doesn't help that the Silence are creepy looking bastards (picture below).

Anyways, I just had to talk about how cool it was that there was an organized Doctor Who day, and that I actually knew about it (i usually miss out on cool things like that because I live under a rock).  I hope I haven't really freaked out anyone with my nerdiness, but if I have I'm not sorry, as that is what you can expect when it comes to reading anything that I write about.

Doctor Who I love you. Especially the 10th Doctor.

SILENCE WILL FALL!!!

xoxox,
Becca

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Mr. Pound...

Hello world!

I am still riding the high that I got from seeing my favourite band Billy Talent in concert last night. It was the fourth time I've seen them live, and I was still blown away and amazed. I don't think I will love anything as much as I love that band....perhaps my own children someday, but who knows. Despite the craptastic weather (seriously Spring, wtf?) I made it there with only a few blips in the trip. It was my first time actually busing out to the Scotiabank Place, and it was terrible, as the one bus that took us directly there broke down, and a friend and I had to ask directions and take other buses and walk forever in order to get there though. Thank goodness I decided to leave early.  The concert was well worth the trouble, and even the crazy mosh-pit pushing fest was tolerable. I cried...yep. I cried at a punk rock concert. They played my favourite song "Surrender" and I lost it. I just couldn't help myself. I earned many weird looks from the other concert goers.

That was just a side note, to tell you what has gotten me jazzed. I really needed that concert as a reward after finishing all my essays for the term and as a little break before I get into exams. .

Now, for the real meat and potatoes of this post. In my Reading Poetry course in University, we studied a well known poet named Ezra Pound. I was familiar with a few of his works, mainly his poem "In a Station of the Metro":

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

I had studied this poem in my grade 12 course on literature. ( I ended up taking three English courses in grade 12, yes I am one of those kids). However, for this Poetry class, we looked at Pound's The Pisan Cantos--which he wrote while imprisoned in a war camp during WW2 (not a concentration camp, but a camp where American or allied soldiers that tried to desert went, to be "refitted" to go back into the trenches). He was an old man at the time, and was put under horrible conditions.
Ohh, I suppose it is worth mentioning that he was put in that prison because he put anti-american propaganda out on a radio station, and he was a huge supporter of Mussolini.
Anywho, in these Pisan Cantos, Pound comes off as crazy and is very difficult to understand. My professor even told us that when Pound set out the work he told critics and people that he didn't expect them to understand him for more than three-five lines of text at a time.  (these Cantos take up an full book). So, in this class we had to write an essay, comparing things and juxtaposing things in Pound's work and we had to determine why he wrote things as he did. It was so tempting to just write "He was crazy" and hand the assignment in, but alas I could not. I'm no where near that brave. So i ended up creating some b.s. about Pound painting himself as an Epic Hero. The ability to bullshit and pull points and arguments out of your ass is a necessary skill for anyone in English, even if just doing a English minor, like I am.

So, in summary: I still love Billy Talent. I hate Ezra Pound and I don't regard him as one of the most amazing poets ever....he is one of my least favourite. He is batshit crazy, and makes things difficult for us poor students expected to understand and analyze his work.

Exam time is on, so my posts might be sparse. I've already wrote one, which I think went really well.

Keep it Classy!!

xoxoxo
Becca

Friday, April 5, 2013

Legal Musings (post 1).

So, long time no see! It's been about a year since I last posted here. I guess I just ran out of things to say. Life gets busy and I feel like I should have better things to do with my time than write on the internet....but sadly my test of my life failed miserably as I realized that I really don't have anything better to do. This is not a promise to write more, but perhaps an explanation.

Now, to the real reason I'm writing this post. As some of you may know, I'm studying Law. This means I look at cases, and through scholarly articles until my eyes bleed. However, today I was informed of a case that made my skin crawl and had me questioning a basis of both the Canadian legal system as well as that of the United States. I live in Canada, for reference.

This particular case was brought to my attention through information about a plea for mercy from a convicted killer in the U.S.A. This man, Steven Smith, raped his girlfriend's 6 month old baby to death, and is pleading for mercy from the death penalty.

While I am not normally a proponent for the Death Penalty, and am glad that Canada abolished it, I feel no remorse for the state wanting to murder this man, as he confessed and the evidence is indisputable.

However, while this is horrible, it is not the part that most piqued my interest. The defense for this monster argued that because Smith was drunk he could not therefore, form the necessary intent to be sentenced to death (as Ohio law requires intent to be a necessity when dealing with the death penalty).  This is the part that interested me. I started thinking about whether in certain cases involving heinous crimes, whether intent should really be relied heavily upon.

Even in Canada's legal system, in order to get a full blown Murder 1 conviction, you have to prove the Mens Rea (the guilty mind) and the Actus Reus (the guilty act). The mens rea of a crime deals with intent, willfulness, planning, etc. While the actus reus is just the act of the crime itself, in this example it would be the rape, and therefore murder of the 6 month old girl, Autumn. Smith and his legal team are arguing that because of his intoxication, Smith could not form the mens rea requirement, yet the jury persecuted him to the extent of the law, as they should.  While I realize that in certain cases where death was accidental the intent of the offender is important, but what can really be accidental in raping a 6 month old. I believe in the legal system there is sometimes too much insistence on the intent of the offender. In Smith's case, whether he intended to kill the child or not should be irrelevant. He was still planning on committing a terrible act to a child, which should have been a foreseeable way to cause death.
I think it is worth mentioning here that this raping, was full blown rape. Penetration included. First of all, what the fuck would posses you to stick your penis inside a 6 month old baby, but that is besides the point.
The test in the legal system is an objective one, and that of a "reasonable person". This test entails the courts looking at what a "reasonable person" aka an everyday ordinary person, what they would do in this situation, or how they would react to a certain situation.
I believe a reasonable person would firstly, not drink until baby rape seems like a good idea, and secondly know that putting your weight on top of a 6 month old for any period of time, (even without the rape part) is a terrible idea. While Smith didn't "intend" to kill this baby, he did intend to rape her and push her face into a pillow to keep her quiet. This is brutal and violent even without the intent of murder. Intent in this case should not be emphasized as a super important part of deciding the severity of the murder charge.In heinous cases such as this I think Intent should take a back seat.   I am pleased that the courts have upheld the case so far, and hope that they continue to look at intent as a perhaps less important factor in this case.

I hope the courts continue to do so, and ignore his last plea for his life. I hope that this intent argument does not fly, as it could set a dangerous precedent. Smith is set for execution on May 1st 2013.

Please keep in mind that this is just my understanding of the case, and the events surrounding it after reading the case itself, and looking at a few news sources.

I can't for the life of me decide if I want Smith to die by the state, or if I want him to instead have to suffer life in prison, as child molesters and child killers generally do not do well in prison. If not for the dangerous precedent for the value of intent that could be set for this case, I would advocate for the later option. So I'll just have to keep watching the case, and swallow my revulsion for this man a little, and attempt to view it with an objective eye...but I already know I won't be able to do that.

Ohh, in case you were wondering, the incident of rape happened in around 1998, and Smith is only coming up for execution now.

Sorry for the morbid topic, but after this was brought to my attention i could not hold in my urge to blog about it. I haven't been this mad since reading about the Stubenville rape case, and more specifically, the media portrayal of that case...but that is a post for another time.

Comment what you think about either the case, or my take on Intent. I realize that I am terribly biased.


Becca
XOXOXO



Case:
State v. Smith, 97 Ohio St.3d 367, 2002-Ohio-6659
News Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/02/steven-smith-death-sentence_n_2996518.html