More random, violent crime ...

... more shootings ...

Shooter may have warned some students

The 12-year-old student who opened fire inside a crowded middle school gym with a shotgun may have warned some students not to go to school before the attack, police in New Mexico said. FULL STORY

More:

• 'Hero' teacher calls experience 'harrowing'
• Witness: I'm afraid to go back to school  
• Student shoots, wounds two classmates  

Notice that in this story, CNN is again talking about "heroes," in line with that narrative commonly used in the media to frame these kinds of stories.

Just like CNN did in its story yesterday of the movie theater shooting, which is again on the front page:

Suspect may have had another texting spat

Woman: He glared at me for texting

A few weeks before a texting dispute turned deadly at a Florida theater, the suspect had a run-in with another moviegoer, prosecutors say. FULL STORY

• Shooting suspect claims defense  
• 'Insanity?' 'Only a matter of time?'
• Victim a Navy vet | Suspect is ex-cop
• Heroes spring into action

Again, "heroes..."

In that article, CNN reports:

"Sadly, theater violence is nothing new. Less than two years ago, an Aurora, Colorado, cineplex was the scene of a shooting massacre that left 12 people dead."

So there you have evidence of the process of linkage, where CNN links this shooting to that shooting, even though the two are not linked.

Linkage!

Browsing the news this morning and this jumped out at me.

Girl taunted by neighbor dies at age 9

Kathleen Edward was thrust into the national spotlight over startling images posted online. » Succumbs to disease

• Teen dies after gym class
• Work bully victims struggle
• Principal hypnosis charge

See what the news media did here?

They took one story about a young girl who died after being taunted or bullied. Then they found another, unrelated story about a teen who died, a different bully victim, and something about a principal, AND THEY CONNECTED THEM ALL TOGETHER even though are in no way connected.

That is linkage and it is how we come to see problems in society as bigger than they really are.

Oh brother, NOT again. And NOT there.

• AP

  Shooting on Virginia Tech Campus Leaves 2 Dead, Suspect on Loose

  URGENT: Police at Virginia Tech investigate scene of shooting that left at least two people dead -- including a police officer -- as authorities search campus for what appears to be a lone gunman. | PHOTOS
• VIDEO: Student Reacts to Reports of Shooting | FLASHBACK: April 16, 2007 -- Gunman Kills 32, Self at Virginia Tech

2 dead at Virginia Tech | LIVE: WSLS 


http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/12/virginia-tech-shooting-dead-police-officer.html

Sexual harassment by little boys?

From Fox News:

Boy, 9, Suspended from School for Sexual Harassment After Calling Teacher 'Cute'

A 9-year-old boy North Carolina boy was suspended for calling a teacher “cute,” WSOCTV.com reports.

The boy’s mother, Chiquita Lockett, said the principal of Brookside Elementary in Gastonia called her after the incident to say the comment was a form of “sexual harassment.”

"It's not like he went up to the woman and tried to grab her or touch her in a sexual way," Lockett said. "So why would he be suspended for two days?”

A 9-year old boy tells this to his teacher. And that is sexual harassment.

According to the station, a district spokeswoman said she could not go into detail, but said the boy was suspended for "inappropriate behavior" after making "inappropriate statements."

The district's Code of Conduct doesn't list "inappropriate behavior," but says "disruption of school" is punishable by five days of out-of-school suspension.

The news of the North Carolina boy’s suspension comes as a Massachusetts elementary school is investigating a first-grader for sexual harassment after the boy struck another boy his age in the groin.

The mother of the accused 7-year-old tells the Boston Globe that her son was fending off another child, who had choked him in an altercation on the school bus on Nov. 22.

“I think my kid was right to fight back,’’ said the mother, Tasha Lynch, 30. “He wasn’t doing anything except protecting himself.’’

Lynch says her son has been afraid to return to Tynan Elementary School in South Boston since the fight, according to the paper.

Matthew Wilder, spokesman for the Boston public schools, declined to comment on the incident or why it has been classified as a possible case of sexual harassment. He said officials do not discuss confidential student information.

______________________________

As a parent of a boy, this concerns me greatly. Both of these stories do actually. I mean, at what age should I start teaching my son about sexual harassment? Before I do this I first I have to teach him about sex, don't I?

However you feel about these cases, notice how the media linked two unrelated stories together. That is linkage. It is the hook they use to get you to read on. Thank goodness they at least did not link it to the coaching scandals at Penn State and Syracuse! Or Herman Cain!

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/04/boy-suspended-from-school-for-sexual-harassment-after-calling-teacher-cute/?test=latestnews#ixzz1ffZ1iXth

Shoppers gone WILD

Twenty people, including children, were injured when a woman at a San Fernando Valley Walmart store used mace against other customers in what authorities referred to as a "competitive shopping" incident.

The Los Angeles Times reports that a scuffle broke out shortly before 10 p.m. Thursday night, just before shopping was to begin, among customers waiting to buy Xbox gaming consoles and Wii video games.

Just more proof that so many people have lost their way, right? So THIS is what Christmas is about? So THIS is what the day after Thanksgiving is about? So THIS is what people value, give thanks for, and teach their kids to value and give thanks for?

Competitive shopping for video games?

Guess so.

See? When told later of what happened, Nakeasha Contreras, who arrived at midnight, said she wouldn't have been bothered: "I don't care. I'm still getting my TV," she told the Times. "I've never seen Wal-Mart so crazy, but I guess it could have been worse."

Still getting her TV? Could have been worse? Wow!

And then there is this! Joseph Poulose was hit with the pepper spray near the DVD and video games display. He blamed Wamart for failing in crowd control: "There were way too many people in a building that size. Every aisle was full," he told the Times.

Wal Mart is to blame because there were TOO MANY PEOPLE IN A BUILDING THAT SIZE?

Wow. Just wow.


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57331160/black-friday-shoppers-pepper-sprayed-in-calif/

YAY! We're first in line to get our cheap plastic crap made in China!

Oh, and there is one more thing to this story, of course: LINKAGE.

Examples from CNN:

* Black Friday shopping was marked by violence in at least seven states, including California.

* In 2008, crowds of frantic Black Friday shoppers trampled a Walmart employee in New York as he and other workers tried to unlock the door at 5 a.m.

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-11-26/us/us_california-pepper-spray-suspect_1_pepper-spray-woman-surrenders-video-game?_s=PM:US

From Penn State to Syracuse to ...?

... what highway to you take to go from one sports program with an alleged sexual molester of children to another sports program with an alleged sexual molester of children?

No, it does not require a car, just turn on the TV and they'll take you to both schools, linking the cases even though they are in no way linked!

It's called "linkage," discussed in the book, and it is a technique the media use to discuss stories by connecting them to other stories even though they are not connected. Think school shooting. One happens. Connect it to Columbine, even though it is in no way connected. Then connect it to Virginia Tech, even though it is not connected.

In this case (an alleged sexual molestation case involving an assistant basketball coach at Syracuse), i is being connected to the Penn State case (which involved an assistant football coach). See the connection? So, clearly, we have a major problem/epidemic of assistant coaches who are perverts (allegedly of course).

Now the media will start looking to find it at all schools. Just watch.

It's already happening at Fox. Check it out:

• Syracuse Coach Put on Leave After Abuse Claims

  
  Syracuse places assistant basketball coach on leave after allegations he molested a ball boy for years
  • VIDEO: Syracuse University Coach Accused of Molesting Ball Boy
  • High School Football Coach Charged With Giving Players Access to Porn

See the last story? Now it is in high schools, too! So it must be everywhere!

Another Columbine?

Police in Tampa, FL say they thwarted another Columbine attack.

The story is all over the news, including overseas. Her is the story in the UK's The Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/17/tampa-police-thwart-teen-columbine

See the link to Columbine? He wanted to hav

It should be pointed out that the Cole more victims than Columbine.

That is it.

So there is no link.

Notice the lack of context. How often does this occur? What was his motivation? How safe are schools? What is actually most dangerous to kids?

This young man ahd "bomb making materials" at his house, whatever that means (heck, we all do).

It should be pointed out that the Columbine attackers also used bombs, but they all failed to detonate. What is to say this kid was not just as inept?

Yet, the media needs us to be afraid, even of things that are extremely rare, so that we do not focus on bigger issue that might call into question the status quo.

You'll find no such answer in this story or any others on this "event."

Newsweek takes the extraordinary, makes it ordinary

After the alleged RAPE by an enormously wealthy, powerful man -- Dominique Strauss-Kahn -- Newsweek decided to conduct a poll and run an article about it.

It's called "Hotel Confidential" and in it, Newsweek claims: "It's the dirty secret about business travel. Many married men expect sex along with their room service, according to a NEWSWEEK poll."

Among the findings of their poll are these:

"... of 400 married men ... 21 percent admit to wanting to cheat on their spouse while traveling on business—and 8 percent have actually done so (the majority of them repeatedly)."

"Six percent of the respondents admitted to having paid for sex while traveling on business. Still others acknowledged that they’ve hit on the help: 3 percent of the men in NEWSWEEK’s poll said they’d made a pass at a hotel worker (more than half were rebuffed), and 2 percent had sex with them."

This hardly sounds like an epidemic. Further, it hardly justifies a full story in print and online about the dangers posed to hotel maids across the country!

After all, their own poll shows that 97% of men do NOT hit on hotel staff. And of the 3% who do, what percentage of them rape someone?

Yet, Newsweek writes: "Bo Dietl, TV personality and security consultant for the rich and famous, says he’s now advising clients to avoid any situation while traveling that might seem sexually inappropriate. 'In this day and age, you gotta just watch everybody,' he says."

Watch everybody? Nope, sorry, when I go to hotels I feel perfectly safe, as I am sure the maids do, too. The findings of Newsweek's poll convince me of that.

Finally, Newsweek links one story to many that are unrelated: "Certainly, powerful men behaving badly at hotels is hardly a novelty. NBA superstar Kobe Bryant was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 19-year-old hotel employee in Eagle, Colo., in 2003 (the case was settled out of court). In 2006 former vice president Al Gore was accused of groping and kissing a massage therapist at a hotel in Portland, Ore. And it was at a Ritz-Carlton that sports announcer Marv Albert attacked his mistress and forced her to have oral sex after she refused to have a three-way (he pleaded guilty)."

So the problem is actually what powerful men do, no? On that, Newsweek is silent.



http://www.newsweek.com/2011/06/05/hotel-confidential.html

News media linking isolated incidents, as usual

This morning while enjoying my coffee on a slow-starting day, I was watching CNN Headline News and one of the lead stories was this one about "another financial figure accused of sexual assault."

According to the article: "The alleged incident took place on May 29 -- two weeks and a day after Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, was accused of sexually assaulting and attempting to rape a housekeeping employee at another swank New York hotel. Strauss-Kahn's attorneys deny the allegations, and he has since stepped down from the IMF to focus on his defense."

So, it happened two weeks and a day after another similar assault. Does this mean the two are somehow connected? Of course not.

Yet, the news media connects them anyway. It's called linkage, and it is a tool used to create a hook to grab viewer attention, and it tends to unnecessarily promote fear in viewers. So how many of us are now afraid of wealthy men in their 70s who are staying in expensive hotels?

Frankly, we should be, for these are the most dangerous people in the world (these are the ones who commit the corporate crimes that kill and injure more people every year than all street crimes combined). But that story is not being told in the media.

Instead, we get two unrelated stories linked together with questions like this one: "Is there some reason why we have two stories, two weeks apart, of older men allegedly committing sexual assaults against hotel maids? Is this an epidemic?"

Sigh.

By the way, the next story on the same network was this one about the more than 800 people stung by jellyfish in Florida.

"Sort of like those old men at expensive hotels with their tentacles all over innocent women just trying to make a living as maids."

Did you hear about the guy on the plane ...?

... who tried to open an emergency door?

And what about the other guy who also tried to open a door recently on a different plane?

Or the guy who tried to enter the cockpit of a plane recently?

None of these events are connected. It is not a broad plot to bring down airliners again. It is just a random cluster of events that happened to occur near the same time, even though on different airlines and in different cities. Most of these people were probably either deranged or just confused (maybe they thought they could get some fresh air?). Heck, the guy who tried to enter the cockpit may have just wanted to complain to the pilots about the lack of legroom!

Nevertheless, each time a new event occurs, the mainstream press connects it to all the others, fully reporting yet again on each and every event as if they are part of some pattern.

This is linkage, discussed in the book.

Airline travel is incredibly safe. Security is still terrible, no doubt (people have recently smuggled in bombs in their underwear!).

Luckily for us, these "terrorists" are mostly incompetent and we passengers are vigilant enough to be ready to intervene when needed.

The media, meanwhile, just continue to promote fear even when not warranted, because it sells.

Does this man look like a terrorist?

That is what he is being called in the news media.

From the article:

"A suburban Rochester, New York, man described as potentially "the next Oklahoma City bomber" has been arrested and charged with planning to kill former President George W. Bush, according to federal authorities.

"The suspect, 23-year-old Ian Rotunno of Greece, New York, repeatedly told Secret Service agents he was intent on killing the former president, and had planned to go to Washington or Texas to carry out that mission. However, Rotunno, after loading his truck with assorted weapons, turned himself in to Owego, New York, police on October 7.

...

"At one point Rotunno told agents he was simply going to fire his shotgun into the reflecting pool on the Washington mall to gain the attention of authorities, expecting he would then be arrested or killed by law enforcement officials. But he added he would kill the former president with his bare hands if he could.

"I know where to find President Bush at his ranch in Texas, and I'm not going to stop," Rotunno told Secret Service agents, according to the affidavit."

Sounds like a deranged potential murderer to me, not a terrorist.

But it's easier to LINK him to terrorism, so that is what is being done.

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-10-26/justice/new.york.bush.plot_1_federal-custody-secret-service-agents-federal-court?_s=PM:CRIME

Watch out for that snow. It's a killer!

From CNN.COM:

Lost snowboarder calls cops

Snow brings down store's roof

I guess we could call this linkage. Two stories about snow, unrelated, connected anyway and placed together on line.

Two crimes not connected, but still connected

 

 Two rapes reported last week; prosecution declined in both

Two women reported being raped in separate instances last week in Boone, but both declined prosecution when officers responded.

A woman reported that she was raped by her boyfriend at her home on Edgewood Drive just after midnight Feb. 8.

Sgt. Matt Stevens of the Boone Police Department said that the woman did not want officers to start an investigation, collect evidence or take her to the hospital.

"Even initially, she said, 'Never mind, I don't want to talk with you,'" Stevens said.

The Watauga Democrat does not name victims or alleged victims of sexual assault.

Stevens said that the two have filed charges against each other in the past, and the alleged perpetrator had sought warrants Feb. 7 against the woman for making threatening phone calls.

"Coincidentally or not, she was calling to report this incident mere hours after those charges were taken on her," he said.

A second, unrelated rape was reported about 12 hours later on Feb. 8 at Scottish Inns on Blowing Rock Road, and the woman also declined prosecution in that instance. The alleged victim and perpetrator also knew each other in the second case.

So what have we learned from these two, unrelated rapes? That women do not proesctue rape? Even when they report it?

How often? Why?

Such context is not provided in the news. Instead, the local paper links two unrelated crimes, even while acknowledging that they are unrelated.

http://www2.wataugademocrat.com/story/Two_rapes_reported_last_week%3B_prosecution_declined_in_both_id_004784

Jon Stewart takes on the local news

You remember the story of the homeless man with the golden voice discovered on the street who was given a job and house? Well, why not go on a hunt in your area by the local news to discover other homeless people with talents? Maybe we can get them jobs, too?

Amazing!

Click on the link below. After the commercial, jump to the 1 minute, ten second mark and watch Jon Stewart address how the local news LINK a previous story to their own area to try to make more news relevant to their own viewers.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-25-2011/indianapolis-homeless-talent-show

Connect the dots, LA LA LA!

Connect the dots, LA LA LA!

It's a song I sing with my kids.

Seriously.

It's also what the media do whenever a crime happens that can be connected to previous crimes.

It's called linkage (search this blog for other examples).

In this article from Newsweek magazine, the author calls the Arizona shooter "a crazed loner, but he’s one in a long line."

See what the author did? He acknowledged the assassin was acting alone, but then connected him to previous assassins anyway, as if there is some assassin club that all these guys belong to (well, they are all guys, so maybe it is the Y chromosome that is to blame).

Quick, how many people have assassins killed in all of American history?

It's actually less than will die today from smoking tobacco. But you don't see that in the news!

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/16/american-assassins.html

How to get a victim more attention? Link her to 9/11

Yes, she is linked to 9/11, because she was born on 9/11.

And literally every day of her life on this planet has been lived since 9/11.

And 9/11 was an unimaginable tragedy.

And she died in an unimaginable tragedy.

So you clearly see the link?

It's called linkage, and it's what the media do.

So how come every murder victim does not get this much attention?

(This hits home personally with me because my daughter is also nine years old and incredibly talented. Yet, I still wonder why this victim gets so much more attention ... just because she was born on September 11th as opposed to some other day?)

http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/short-full-life-christina-taylor-green

More media linkage in recent assassination attempt

In a story about the recent shooting of a member of Congress, we learn that "a federal public defender known for handling high-profile cases, Judy Clarke, has been appointed to represent him."


Clarke previously defended the "Unabomber," Ted Kaczynski, and assisted in the case of confessed al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui.

So this story is already being linked to other past notorious violent acts.

It is also being linked to other killings of federal judges, since a judge was killed in this shooting:

"Roll is the fourth federal judge killed since 1979, when District Judge John Wood was slain in a contract killing outside his Texas home. In 1988, District Judge Richard Daronco of New York was killed by the father of a plaintiff whose case the judge had dismissed; and in 1989, Circuit Judge Robert Vance was killed by a mail bomb sent to his Alabama home by a man prosecutors said had a grudge against the appellate court on which Vance sat.

"In addition, the husband and mother of District Judge Joan Lefkow were killed in their Chicago home in 2005. A man who committed suicide two weeks later in Wisconsin left a note confessing to the killings, blaming a judgment against him in a malpractice case for the loss of his house, job and family, police said."

Linkage is identified in the book as common in the media, useful to the media to help sell stories even when things that do not need to be discussed are discussed.

Finally, the issue of mental illness comes up again: "There's reason to believe this individual may have a mental issue," Dupnik told reporters Saturday night.

Amazingly, Pima Community College warned Loughner in a follow-up letter that to return to campus, he had to present a doctor's note stating that his presence would not be "a danger to himself or others."

Online, he railed against government "mind control" and illiteracy in YouTube and MySpace postings. He tried to enlist in the Army in 2008, but was rejected for reasons the service said it could not disclose.

Nice of us to make sure this guy got help.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/09/arizona.shooting.investigation/

Just a reminder that you should still be afraid

In the book, I discuss how the news media like to connect one event to others (called "linkage").

Here is an astounding example of it from a recent article in the news.

Two packages ignited in Maryland.

Why? Who knows at this point.

But this offers the press an opportunity to review every such incident in the past, even though none of them are at all related.

So they report:

"Two parcel bombs exploded last month inside the Swiss and Chilean embassies in Rome, wounding two men. An anarchist organization claimed responsibility for at least one of the blasts, according to news reports.

AND

"... in October, authorities in Britain and the United Arab Emirates intercepted packages sent from Yemen containing powerful bombs. American officials have said the bombs appeared to have been designed to blow up airliners on their way to the United States, adding that they bore the hallmarks of a fugitive Saudi bomb-maker who has targeted the United States.


AND

"Between 2005 and 2009, he said, inspectors investigated 13 confirmed mail bomb incidents nationwide. None of those caused any injuries because they didn't explode as intended.

AND


"For over 250 years, it's safe to say, we've been investigating things like this," said Inspector Michael Romano of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

AND finally,

 "Perhaps the most notorious mail bomber was Theodore Kaczynski, the "Unabomber." He killed three and injured 29 in a series of 16 mail bombings across the country between 1978 and 1995.

So the most famous bomber only killed three people over a period of two decades?

Clearly there are much greater threats to us than mail bombers. Yet, many of those threats are ignored. So we remain afraid of the things least likely to hurt us.


http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-01-06/news/bs-md-mailrooms-closed-20110106_1_mail-bomb-bomb-incidents-walter-leroy-moody