Status Update

1. The truck stop as community and culture
Claim : That truckers are similar to cowboys with their freedom and to
travel wherever . As for the stop it is a like a comfort zone when they are long away
from home.
Style of argument : Toulmin Model

2. Goth Subcultures in Cyberspace.
Claim: Gothics uses the cyberspace world for a community as a means to communicate ,
and to spread invitations about their events to get more participation outside the Internet.
Style of argument: Classical Model

3. Transmissions from Camp Trans
Claim: That Trans-women has ever right to attend the MWMF as lesbian women.
Style of argument: Classical Model

4. House for the Homeless: A place to hang your hat
Claim : Homeless people were once people with a good life , until a bad situation occurred.
Despite that they have no home, or wealth , they have a dream or goal to succeed in
life like ever one else.
Style of argument : Rogerian Model

STATUS: I'm still researching on my topic trying to know
more about my subculture.I've already visited the filed site,
made notes about my observations, interviewed a couple of
people, and checked out some books for more research. I have
a found couple of things for my subculture like the norms
and beliefs and how the officers interact with each other.
I am just worried about my findings making five full pages
for peer review! What I'm really struggling with is figuring
exactly what I want to know about them and writing it. I guess
I'll just write about my observations for a rough draft and
figure out the rest from there. I'm plan on making another
visit to the site on Friday or next week.
Question: Are my ideas/observations are fully expressed and is clear in my paper?

Visinting Atlanta Detention Center

On Friday night at 9:21p.m. , I went downtown to visit the Atlanta Detention Center (located on Peachtree street) to met with my cousin who was going to give me a tour and tell me about the duties of Correction Officers . Once I arrived there I had to sign in , turn in any electronic devices (my cell phone) , and be searched by the officers at the front desk. Once the process was over the officers showed me to the back where my cousin office was. I happy to see
my cousin but had second thoughts about going on the tour. Before the tour started my cousin quickly informed me that he was not a police officer, but a correction officer. He told me people that easily make the mistake of confusing the two because the uniform is very similar. He also
said that police officers do not handle inmates only when they have to lock them up on the streets ad take them to detention centers where he and other officers handle them. My cousin
is Major Jackson , and by his rank being a major his duties mostly consist of being in charge of the 87 officers, staff, 100+inmates , and make sure that everything is ran properly. The first stop of the tour was the central control area . This area was very dark inside where all the surveillance cameras are monitored by officers , the control to open the doors , and the holding area for weapons. We went on to the next stop which was the roll call room where all officers must report to check in, and is brief over the assignments for the day by whom ever is in charge. As we walked towards the elevator my cousin pointed to an exit door . He explained that this is the stop where the police officers drop off all inmates to be checked in . I noticed that my cousin mood was very relaxed and calm as he was giving me the tour. I asked if he was ever scared about being around the inmates at night. He gave me a gentle smiled and said" Yes! every minute, hour, I'm very scared! I make it through the day by praying that GOD send me back safe to my family . Although they are inmates I showed them respect the same way I with my staff. I have to realize that I'm around them so I might as well." Second stop was the Intake center(2ND floor) , the first process that the inmates go through: Identification/screen- have put their information into the system, booking- where they can bail out. Sometimes if the crime is minor inmates can sign out on a signature bond, and the medical center- where they receive help if they are hurt for minor injuries. In addition , there is small station where they get strip search, and receive uniforms. There were quite a few inmates there, I will guess that there was 45 inmates waiting to be checked in . I was greeted by smiles from the staff , but strange stares at the inmates. By their facial expressions I could tell they were curious about why I was there and what was I writing down in my book , but no one questioned me. I noticed the different colored uniforms that some of them wearing and asked if there was any important of it . He told me that it does and as well as the painting of the walls represent something, and will change as I go to a different floor.
I learned that brown and green uniforms stands for people that had DUIs or did minor crimes. They stay over the weekend , if violated any rules they stay longer, also they sometimes help clean the center by mopping floors. The orange uniforms are for people that have been caught with drugs. Lastly the red uniforms stands for people that have committed the white collar crimes like murder etc.. I went to the different holding cells seeing people sleeping on the tiny bunk beds, even or the floors. I happened to step inside one empty holding cell and the smell knocked me back out. The room's odor was incredible strong and foul! My cousin explained to me that the odor is a mixture of other inmates scent , and the open commode which I soon
noticed by a corner. He told that this is what he has to go through everyday and that he is used to the odor. As he led me to the back of the intake center to the next stop , Jack had to quickly stop to help one of the other officers with a female inmate that refused to go in the female restroom and wanted to go into the men restroom instead. After a few yells from the officers instructing her to go the proper restroom, she soon decided to follow their instructions.
Afterwards Jack led me towads the back of the center into another room that was painted blue.
"This room is when for those that have finished the check in process and now is waiting to be move upstairs to their cells, sent to another jail , or make a phone call. Very few of them were waiting to be released. I glance around the room , again there were several stares , very few looked up front toward the officer that was in charge.

ACT V

1. What makes this a good field site? It gives an excellent
insight of how the prisoners feel about performing plays,
and how they use it as a tool to change themselves from
their criminal past.

2. What observations does the author makes about the
subculture to help us understand? The author observes the
different types of prisoners , for example the skinheads .
He also noticed and described the way prisoners have to
live in a cell that might be shared with another person that
does not have much space. In addition, there is a daily routine
of strip searches to make sure that are no weapons.

3. What are the norms and values of the subculture? The norm/value
is that IT IS A MUST to defend themselves, their gangs that
they might be apart of while in prison, and drug business.
If not they will have a hard time in prison until it is time for
them to be released.

4. What interview techniques does the author use to
work to help us understand this subculture? I liked how
the author interviewed the prisoners individually to
give me a sense of who they are as a person and actor.
It help when he asked questions about what were
their thoughts and feelings about the crimes they
committed, how has acting help them developed into
a new being, and how they use their past actions into
the play to come to life. Although they are behind bars ,
I could feel that the prisoners did have remorse ,and
wish that they could change the past.

Subculture: Police Officers

TOPIC: Police officers

INTERESTING SOURCES:

Voyeurism: I see you!

My word is voyeurism, and here are some really interesting facts I found about it on the library site.First, I first looked up the term voyeurism on the Oxford dictionary to find out what it means. Voyeurism-"1924 J. S. VAN TESLAAR tr. Stekel's Disorders of Instincts & Emotions II. 341 Voyeurism, erotic gratification experienced at looking at another's sexual organs; morbid desire to peep into secrets. "In Greek it means scopophilia. In addition, I found the following piece of information to be very interesting since I see a lot of actors and actresses in nude acts on television. The dictionary also states that, "1969 Daily Tel. 25 Apr. 19/5 there is a feeling that more and more actresses are being asked to take their clothes off at auditions. As a form of voyeurism. "(Wow!) Next, I checked out the date chart to find the time in which this word was first discovered. The data chart showed it started being used around 1924-1985. I decided to find a book that contains voyeurism. I found an electronic book that is titled, "Video Voyeurism Prevention Act of 2003", presented by representatives Ovley, Gonzalez, Goode, and Baird. The purpose of this act is to prevent individuals from taping others privacy with out their consent, or them knowing. The article goes into explaining why camera phones, video cameras, combined with the Internet has provided a great threat to adults, teenagers, and even children . That there have been numerous reports of violating privacy across the country!The punishment for this spiteful crime , " punishable by a fine of not more than One hundred thousand dollars or imprisonment for up to one year , or both."(Video Voyeruism Prevention p.1 ) In my opinion, this punishment does not seem to fit the crime. I think that a person’s privacy is worth much more than 100,000 dollars or even a year in jail. Moreover, the humiliation and the pain that a person might go through once he or she finds out that they have been taped and put on the Internet for the world to see! I also found a TV show that contains voyeurism in the media section, Alfred Hitchcock show. I'm already aquainted with Alfred Hitchcock shows because I’m always watching it on the Chiller channel. I found two other interesting novels: Privacy lost : How technology is endangering your privacy by David H. Holtzman, and Dirty Windows by Merry Alpern that contain voyeurism.

Who am I?

While doing this assignment was a good and bad thing for me. The good outcome of this assignment was that I finally found my source! (*smiles* ) On the other hand , the bad thing is that I had a hard time finding out exact information about the author that wrote the article. (frowns). So I found my source on this website , its perfect and everything. Of course, the next step for me would be look around on the website and try finding a biography of the author , and other achievements of the person just because of the simple fact that she posted on the website . Well this website was a disadvantage because I found nothing about the author , just other information that I thought was irrelevant to me , not useful. So I decided to go on a deeper mission to find out about this anonymous person . I went to Yahoo , and Google because these search engines were always helpful with past researches and that I am very familiar with them. I found myself with another disadvantage these search engines were not useful with providing information that I was looking for. So as time went by , I was getting frustrated by the minute. At first, I wanted to give up and forget about the newfound source , the author , and even this blog assignment! But I changed my mind and decided to stay with it. I went back to the website where I had found the source in the beginning because I thought maybe I missed something. Well I did miss something on the website, no I did not find out exactly about the author , but the website itself had sort of provided clues about what type of person the author could be. I even took a further step in emailing one of the other authors on the website to find out if she knew anything about the unknown author. In the end I gave up researching about the author ,and started researching about the website. I just clicked around and read about the mission of what the website was trying to achieve and other interesting facts. I guess my advantages were that I found my source , and information that I could use as ethos to put in my paper. So now I am very happy….

Black Noise by Tricia Rose

"Black Noise : Rap music and Black culture in a contemporary America",is a very interesting novel to read. I’m not saying this just because it’s a part of the assignment, but it is a remarkable novel. From what I read in the first few chapters of the book and the overview, it goes on to further explain and explore the positive and negative roles that rap music plays in America . In the first chapter the author examines how this popular music brings focus on important issues like racism and economic injustice, and contrasts it with the controversial statements of violence that is often found. Besides these issues the author also traces hip hop history to discuss what really makes rap so contentious and focus on where female rappers really do stand in the hip-hop community. Tricia Rose is a great candidate for writing this book because of her credibility. From her biography she is a professor of African Studies at Brown University , and specializes in culture, politics, and gender issues. From her research and studies of the aspects of the music, in addition to writing numerous documents about this culture, she provides the audience with reliance in the author due to her knowledge of what she is debating about throughout her book. This gives a great affect on the readers.