Chernobyl

When this was first assigned, I had no clue what to write about. One day I was talking to my mother and she mentioned Chernobyl, and I remembered learning about it in one of my chemistry classes, when we went over nuclear power and atom bombs. 

Chernobyl power plant had an "accident", as they describe in the article, on April of 1986 in Ukraine, which was apart of the Soviet Union at the time.  This happened because the safety shutdown switches were designed wrong.  The accident that occurred, was a cloud of radioactive particles that was released into the atmosphere. About 36 people died in the plant, and over 200,000 people evacuated from the area surrounding the plant. As the days went on the radioactive cloud got bigger in the atmosphere and other countries could see it on their radar. This caused concern among the European countries because they didn't know how deadly or harmful the radiation was. It turns out that it was not harmful to any of the European countries, but it did destroy the land and the air that surrounded the plant in the Soviet Union. 

In this article they talk about how they studied people over time and treated them as those who have survived atomic bomb explosions. The article stated that about 134 people were diagnosed, who worked at the plant, with radiation sickness. The people who were in the towns that surrounded Chernobyl suffered minor radiation.

I picked this article because you can clearly see that the effects of radiation to the human body is, for lack of better words, extremely harmful. Which is why when there is a threat that a country has an atomic bomb or the "ingredients" to make one, it puts the whole world into a panic. This event actually reminds me of the movie, "The Hills have Eyes". It is about a town that suffered the after affects of an Atomic Bomb explosion, due to the testing of the US army. Anyone who was in the town that was exposed to the radiation, bred a population that had a lot of deformities and cannibalistic nature. Now that movie was to the extreme and meant to scare people, but a lot of deformities do come out of radiation, whether from an atomic bomb or a nuclear plant melt down. 

Gangs in Paradise

Jamaica is seen by most western cultures as a tropical paradise. In American commercials the island entrances tourists with exotic beaches, crystal blue waters and lush green mountains. It is seen as a place where couples go to fall in love and families go for a break from the rush of society. However, the real Jamaica has only recently and by very few media outlets been brought to light. It is a society completely broken down with little to no judicial system left, where violence and murder are commonplace and where the government has all but left its citizens to fend for themselves, like something out of an old western movie. Gangs rule the streets creating their own laws, leaving behind a death toll that increases each day of not only civilians, but police and other law enforcement agents who are shot down daily. In 2007, the murder rates in Jamaica were at an all time high with 1,500 homicides that year, 272 of which were police killings. The capital city of Kingston has been all but taken over by gangs, leaving behind a country where violence is part of most civilians’ everyday lives. The almost complete disintegration of the body politic is broadcast on the news in Jamaica daily, with reporters covering what seems to be a continuous stream of police killings, where the governments only response is to merely tell people to stay in their homes and encourage police travel in groups to avoid being targeted by gangs. Interestingly enough, through this apparent disintegration of the government and society in Jamaica, a media phenomenon has begun to occur; propaganda and billboards have begun to be posted all around the city slums, not of movie stars or celebrities, but of policemen who have started to fight back against the gangs without the support of their government. Through the use of the media and desperation of the people these men are seen as heroes, lone rangers, taking justice and revenge from gang violence into their own hands, saving their country, protecting the people and inspiring the trend of citizens picking up arms and fighting back against gangs individually without the help of their government to take back their lives and free them of fear. It seems in this situation the media has begun to help the people; it might lead to revolution or might not help in the long run at all, but the most amazing part to me is that all of this is occurring in a country right below ours, which by most American citizens is still seen through the rose-colored glasses given to us by our media as an untouched tropical paradise.

9-11 to the War in Iraq

It is interesting to consider the dynamics of the construction of the 9-11 narrative because it tends to separate rather easily into the categories of confusion and of clarity.  As the towers fell and the next few days passed, there was absolute fear and discord.  Yet as the weeks passed, the enemy came into focus and the goal became clear; get Bin Laden and dismantle Al Qaeda.  Yet this goal proved more complex than it initially seemed.

Soon confusion was upon us once again with the War in Iraq and its relation, or lack thereof, with the 9-11 attacks.  As information sporadically emanated from the government, the general situation became more and more convoluted, and resolution and sense became a complete impossibility.  Eventually, it was acknowledged that we could not look back with an accurate eye, so the focus was to be the future.  At this moment, the role of the media was reconstituted.  The media was not to make sense of the fray, it was to put an end to it and start life anew.  We had fallen from grace and needed a fresh start.

Hannibal

Hannibal Lecter was well known for being a cannibal and was highly feared at a time when people were just learning about cannibalism of past cultures. The media portrayed him as a highly intelligent psychopath who looked and acted like everyone else yet dissected and ate people. This instilled fear upon people because they didn’t know whether their neighbor was who he said he was or had a dark side to him. They had no idea why people would kill and eat someone else. The media helped spread the knowledge of cannibalism and the thought that it exists through the movies The Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal. The movie Hannibal Rising explains why Hannibal was a monster who ate and dissected people, he witnessed it as a small child when his family was brutally murdered and his sister eaten so his captors could stay alive. In light of research into why cultures used cannibalism the movies provide only a glimpse of a reason for it. There are other reasons but the media only portrayed the one of war, murder, and hardship that the boy endured. There was only one victim, a little boy who grew up to kill and eat people.