Sean Morris

The Biological Factors of Crime

While we typically use the terms “bad to the bone” or “bad blood” as a figure of speech for someone we don’t like, it turns out that the terms might be more literal than what one might assume.  Recently the new science in the world has allowed for studies to be done into the biological factors of a criminal's body to determine what factors can cause someone to become a criminal.

Some of the research that has been found into this subject involves chromosomes. Essentially what chromosomes are threadlike strands of DNA in the cell that carries the genes in a linear order. Alternations in the chromosomes are part of what can lead to disorders in the body like down syndrome. In regards to how this relates to criminal behavior is that having an an abnormal number of chromosomes can be causation for a dictator. With some diseases that are further added in their toxicity based upon environmental situation some people can become a powder keg of crime waiting to go off. Alternatively it becomes up to the legal defense team to prove that their is a direct correlation between the disease and the actual crime, otherwise it's just spectral

Another biological factor that becomes a component into crime is addiction. Addiction is basically and typically when someone takes a certain kind of drug that activates the reward centers of the mind so much so that people have an insatiable desire to recreate and keep that “reward” going. Within the biological underpinnings of this condition is a trait that causes addiction to happen  more due to inheritance from a family member, most likely a parent. However the law will still arrest and prosecute individuals but without seeking any medical assistance for them.

In conclusion the law and neuroscience are still a road from which much distance must be traveled on. While we need to prosecute people who break the law to ensure a more productive society, we must also know when the prisoner of the system may be just as much a prisoner of his body.

​For my Capstone I worked on the preproduction process to be able to make a high quality short film. This project took many different forms as I edited and reworked it. From creating a TV pilot episode to trying to film this film, I decided instead to focus my capstone on the pre production aspects on making this film, in which the ultimate result would be that I am ready to start filming. Which I have thus far succeeded in! In fact I have already filmed some scenes, which will be reshot later, but certainly demonstrate some examples of how page changes to screen.

The bulk of this project and my work lies on the script that it all comes from, which was a more difficult process than I originally gave it credit for. Creating a storyline, characters and especially dialogue that you feel like most audience members would be able to listen and respond well too- are all very difficult things to do I found. Especially when the content of your script deals with a supernatural element as well.

I was able to learn a lot into the making of films and media creations, and how encompassing and difficult it must be when you're actually in the industry. From script writing to getting props and more it was an incredibly involved process. I have been able to get my movie at a good place and I hope you will all enjoy it when it comes out next year!!!

Link to Google Folder with my work: Sean’s Capstone

Link to Citations (also in folder): Citations

The passage below is my own addition to improve The Road before McCarthy rejected it. His loss.

Creative piece:

The man and the boy walked amongst the dead forest with nothing but the gray sky lighting their way. Suddenly they saw a stranger in the middle of the path. He wore a dark dusty suit and a goatee around his face and hobbled on a farmer’s pitchfork. The eyes wanted to escape his skull and in certain light had a maroon color. His skin pale and burnt and like craquelure.

Hello friends.

Who are you? The man responded pointing his gun at him. What's your name?

What isn’t my name? The stranger responded, I have so many. You and your boy seem tired, would you like some bread and food? I have some in my home close by.

He could see the stranger’s long nails. No thanks.

You sure you don’t to even see where I am, kill me and take my food for yourself?

The man was taken aback. Why do you even suggest that?

Because you don’t seem like the man who’d do it, too good, yet anyway. His teeth looked like fangs when they smiled.

C'mon let's go. The man said to the boy as he took him away, keeping the gun on the stranger until he disappeared from sight.

The man and boy got lost in the forest for awhile and needed to retrace their steps. When they returned to the place they met the stranger he was nowhere to be seen, not even a trail of where he would have gone.

My rationale:

That rationale for this project is partially aimed to demonstrate its references the bible. In the Bible there is a passage of when the Devil tempts Jesus in the forest, and this passage is meant to reflect that. “The stranger” is meant to be the Devil and included various elements to what most people think of him as (goatee, pitchfork, suit, burns(to represent hellfire) and reddish eyes) and the boy and man simultaneously represent Jesus (in reference to how later the old man will wonder if the boy is god). Craquelure is a French word used to describe the crack on an oil painting as it ridges with age. Even if people don’t know the immediate definition (like other words Mccarthy uses, fitting into his narrative) it still creates a potential image in the reader's head that will stick with them. Since they have just come from the basement they are still a little shell-shocked from the events that transpired, so are acting out-of-character a bit by not exploring this potential route, especially as the stranger seemed particularly unsettling to them.

This is similar to much of Hal’s life in which he had to marry and live with a woman for most of his life, while  secretly being a gay man. This was due to the societal conventions of the times he lived in in which being gay was thought to be a mental illness, with his therapist, and to a certain degree his wife when she first proposed, telling him that as much. Hiding his true feelings and sexuality for fear of losing “everything” restricted  life, and even his happiness for what he would sexuality, emotionally or otherwise.                                                                                                                                                          

KATHARINA

...

“And place your hands below your husband's foot: In token of which duty, if he please, My hand is ready; may it do him ease.

PETRUCHIO

Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.

In this scene it truly shows how far Katherine has “fallen” from her former self. After a barrage of physiological attacks from Petruchio her fire has almost died down leaving her an obedient shell of her former self. She obviously isn’t happy with her new surroundings; who would like to be starved and sleep deprived? But in order to receive these basic human needs she needed to change- again quite dramatically- for the sake of the relationship, and even her own well being for the better part.

However in contrast, when we see Hal refer back and started living his life as an out gay man, he is tremendously happier. With a loving relationship a plethora of new friends and hosting parties as demonstrated in an early montage in the movie he clearly is a happy, and presumably happier man. Because he changed himself for his relationship with Hal’s mother he wasn’t able to live the majority of his life as he wanted to. At one point he goes to a gay bar for the first time and tells his son it was more for young men, than him at 78. He states  “I don't want to just be theoretically gay. I want to do something about it.” showing that he’s lived his life so repressed from his true personality and that, now that his wife has passed away, he can live his life as he;s always wanted.

KATHERINE

No shame but mine. I must, forsooth, be forced, To give my hand, opposed against my heart,, Unto a mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen, Who wooed in haste and means to wed at leisure. I told you, I, he was a frantic fool, Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behavior, And, to be noted for a merry man, He’ll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage, Make friends, invite, and proclaim the banns, Yet never means to wed where he hath wooed. Now must the world point at poor Katherine And say, “Lo, there is mad Petruchio’s wife, If it would please him come and marry her!”

(act 3. sc2)

In this it shows Katherine's frustration in approaching an unhappy marriage with Petruchio in which she’ll be reduced to being “Petruchio's crazy wife”. Surely the fact that she is tough to marry doesn’t escape her but it hardly seems to bother her; especially as Petruchio remains her best option at this point. Up until this point her identity has been mostly about her, while not all positive- being the titular “shrew” and having a reputation in the plays story, however now with Petruchio in the picture, her identity will always be second to him, and her relationship to him.

In this revealing scene, Hal reveals to Oliver that Oliver’s mother knew that Hal was gay but that she claimed that she “could fix that”. This relates to Taming of the Shrew as they both show examples of people unhappy with change, and their true personalities being reverted to their relationship to someone they truly do not love. In Hall's case it shows, that while he enjoyed his life as a whole, he clearly wished he could have lived as he wanted to- being out as a gay man.

Analytical Essay:

No one ever stays the same. With people, it is common find that they are different depending on their years; someone aged 12 will be different than 22 or very different than 42 and even more different at 82. Aside from genetics, much of this comes through circumstance and change resulting around them. Some of this results in more worldly circumstances, like a leader in rights movement, others is more personal, like becoming  mature after becoming a parent. In the book “The Yellow Birds” by Kevin Powers it’s main character, Private Bartle, specifically dramatic changes as the result of his circumstances. Thoughtout the book, the author demonstrates that one’s self will either adjust to the changing world; or it will not, the former of which will be easier than the later.  

In the Book “The Yellow Birds,” Bartle begins to recant his decision to join the army, remembering when he was bullied; “Pushed you around in the cafeteria,... because you liked reading books and poems… they’d call you fag.”(Pg. 145) This circumstance in Bartle's life, caused a big shift in his identity to show his manliness, and begins to set in motion the entire book. So his identity would forever be altered by this change in his world.

Kevin Powers later shows the change war has on people with the, self explanatory saying from Private Murph, with the thoughts from Private Bartle, “Holy shit, that bitch got murdered.” Murph said. There was no grief, or anguish, or pity in that statement.” (Pg.22) In sections that showed who Private Murph, demonstrated he was more on the sensitive side, who even kept a token of his old girlfriend with him, so to him to such a relaxed attitude to death, especially one so sudden is a bit of a culture shock for the readers. The author has shown this, in order to demonstrate how one needs to adjust to how their world has changed. Bartle and Murph would never have been able to survive as long as they did, or at all had they not trained themselves to see death on such a large and grand scale. And while it would have been hard to adjust to such a grim reality, not doing so would almost certainly have resulted in their death or at least a much more traumatic experience for the soldiers by the fact of having to adjust to such a dark reality in the moments that they lived in them. In this case “Bliss through Ignorance” is a common phrase that fits this situation.

The author also touched on this in an interview about the book, in which he stated “I was interested in trying to describe this state between apprehension and comprehension. That is one of the primary characteristics of the experience of being at war: it's so intense and you don't have time to process.” What the author is saying here is that trying to process it, like previously mentioned, is almost impossible to do, due to the traumatising atmosphere that war breeds and creates. Trying to process what happened in such a chaotic and volatile situation isn’t good for the human mind to take, so the book truly follows in the thesis and “adjusts) to the changing world”, in this case the changing world is the war that they are in and are forced to adjust to this extreme circumstance.

The changing world thesis can be attributed to the the basic theory of evolution- and how those that are able to adapt are also the ones the survive. In the book “The Yellow Birds”  Kevin Powers has shown how changing world and circumstance has affected his characters and the reasoning behind it. Within an individual's lifetime the world will likely change and sift many times, either in political, social or some other kind of feeling many times, as shown in “The Yellow Birds” and demonstrates how important for an individual's lifespan to evolve with the times.

Works Cited for Analytical Essay:

• Powers, Kevin. "August 2005 Richmond, Virginia." The Yellow Birds. 1st ed. New York: Back Bay / Little, Brown, 2012. 145-146. Print.

• Lewis, Tim. "Kevin Powers: 'I've Always Had a Certain Level of Comfort with the Dark Part of the Human Experience'" The Guardian.com. The Guardian, 23 June 2013. Web. 6 Jan. 2015. <http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/23/kevin-powers-interview-yellow-birds>.

Narrative Essay:

Evolution's a funny thing isn't it? How nature becomes the ultimate judgement on what stays and what leaves. Try try as we might, eventually nature, both outside and; in this case specifically to ourselves chooses what stays and what leaves. Within the past few years I have; evolved so much so that I consider myself almost, if not completely different from the boy I was, even five years ago. Most, if not all of it included changes to my own world, big and small, that would have lasting effects in me.

For a long time I was bullied, because I was perceived as being gay, even though I wasn’t comfortable even thinking about the possibility myself. I had this terrible notion, from what I gathered from being around those classmates, that being gay meant I couldn't be the best of myself, that I couldn’t be the “ultimate me” in a sense. However on one of our last class trips as part of our 8th grade perks, I began to feel sad I would have to say goodbye to a particular classmate. I didn’t know him particularly well, nor did I consider myself to be good friends with him, but I felt a twinge of sadness at the prospect of saying goodbye, more so than many other classmates.

Eventually on the trip I had considered the idea that I might be attracted to him but kept going back and forth on it. Eventually when we got to the restaurant, a Chinese one at that, a received a fortune cookie. And would you have it I received the most, situation appropriate fortune. “In order to get the Rainbow, you have to get through the rain.” And when I saw it I felt as though the fates were whispering, or more accurately screaming at me and through it I felt a wide cocktail of feelings that pointed towards that I might be a little, if not completely gay. To delay the inevitable is to prolong needless suffering, I’ve often found. In this case it was very soon, that I started to accept who I was and it made life easier for myself a lot more than if I had continued to neglect that part of my life.

After coming out i was able to be more open with myself and to others, I felt more risk taking and felt I could connect to people since connecting to myself. I often think of it as if my ribs were broken open and my soul flew free. Allowing myself to be stuck inside of what I had as a pre-notion of my life wouldn’t have been at beneficially to me, instead it ultimately would have been harmful for my mental well being. Adapting to my changing world was unquestionably for the better and am glad I did so.

Issues that affect society’s current status quo have long been represented in popular culture and has been addressed in numerous TV shows, one of which is the Award-winning BBC series “In the Flesh”. In the show, it presents a modern day world in which, in the aftermath of a zombie uprising, the government has found medication to replace the dead brain cells in zombies, with living functional ones, basically restoring who they were before, however their skin pigment and eyes are still in an undead state, but otherwise they are essentially fully functional members of society. They require daily medication to keep them from turning into a rabid state, in which they crave human flesh. These zombies, or suffers of Partially Deceased Syndrome (PDS) as they call them in the show, have found themselves at the subject of discrimination that can easily reflect current social issues. Through this plot device, “In the Flesh” shows parallels to social issues that people struggle with today such as homophobia, beauty standards and racism.

One example of a modern day issue that “In the Flesh” parallels is homophobia. The main character who this can compare this to is Rick Macey. In the show Rick is a soldier who died in 2009 during the war in Afghanistan, resurrected as a zombie the following year after his death (like everyone else in the show who died in 2009), later received medication for his rabid state and returned home to a father who is outspoken in his hatred of PDS suffers or “rotters” as he calls them. Rick and his father are both in complete denial about who he is and where even willing to coldly kill a rabid PDS suffer. However once Rick comes to terms with his identity his father cold- heartedly kills him. This can relate to any coming out story in which the response is negative, like 19-year old Daniel Pierce in Georgia who in August 2014, came out and received a  “...wound came from his stepmother, who punched him in the mouth during the altercation that can be overheard in the video.” The TV series is able to show that even someone’s family can attack and hate them for who they are, which is a difficult situation that many like Rick Macey and Daniel Pierce find themselves in. When someone can see how horrible a situation is from the outside there can greater action taken against it, like on the support Daniel Pierce has received since the video went out from his friend allowing him to stay in his house to the multiple videos of support and outcry made in response to the original video. Like the Daniel Pierce video, the scene that Rick is found dead by his own father’s hands is suppose to be gut wrenching to the audience and both create a genuine pity for these people/ characters, giving a name, face and tragedy to their suffering.

Another example comes from PDS users wearing makeup and how it reflects standards of beauty, especially in women. In the show it is considered the norm for PDS suffers to wear cover-up moose and contacts to hide their visible undead features, however certain PDS inflicted members consciously choose not to wear makeup and take pride in their natural self. One character who does this is Amy Dyer, who contracted such hatred from a bigoted man that he forcibly applied makeup on her. This is a reflection on beauty standards in today's, particularly in women and the pressure to wear makeup to ‘keep up appearances’. To combat this stigma celebrities like Beyonce and Gwyneth Paltrow, like Amy Dyer, have proudly gone on display and have chosen not to wear makeup to try to change the standard of beauty. With this example it is easy to see not only a reflection onto a modern day issue in the show but that there are people; good, kind,and great people who actively fight against it however they can.

A third example comes from a remark that was said in regards to a man who shot and killed several PDS suffers, but received a reduced prison sentence because technically he was “only taking half a life.” This can be connected racism and how crimes against minorities are not always met with the appropriate justice. Take for example, the Ferguson Shooting case in which officer Darren Wilson shot and killed an unarmed young black man and has not been arrested as of 3 months since the incident. The episodes were broadcast before this incident occurred which demonstrates that the show can be relatable to subjects and current events that hadn’t even occurred when they were first made. The Ferguson shooting is just one of many very similar incidents that the show parallels in which minorities have been killed and whose killers haven’t received justice, showing it’s clear relevance in today’s society.

Although the television series "In the Flesh" may only seem important to It's fans, it should in fact concern anyone who cares about social injustice in the world today. In the show suffers of Partially Deceased Syndrome (PDS for short), face discrimination that is akin to real life examples of bigotry such as racism, homophobia or standards of beauty. Representations of issues that plague society on a television series can sometimes shed light to a broader audience and call attention to a lesser known stigma. An example is the popular series “Orange is the New Black” and how that lead to more knowledge on the Transgender issue so much that it’s Trans cast member was on the cover of Time magazine. Now, the series “In the Flesh” can shine further light on issues like homophobia, beauty standards and racism.

Works Cited:

• Brydum, Sunnivie. "WATCH: 'Christian' Family's Terrifying Response to Son Coming Out." Advocate.com. The Advocate, 28 Aug. 1014. Web. 03 Oct. 2014. <http://www.advocate.com/youth/2014/08/28/watch-christian-familys-terrifying-response-son-coming-out >.

• Delmore, Erin. "Michael Brown Family Calls for Officer Darren Wilson's Arrest." Msnbc.com. NBC News Digital, 05 Oct. 2014. Web. 07 Oct. 2014. <http://www.msnbc.com/all/michael-brown-family-calls-officer-darren-wilsons-arrest>.

• "In the Flesh." (a Titles & Air Dates Guide). N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2014. <http://epguides.com/IntheFlesh/>.

• Levenson, Eric. "Laverne Cox Is the First Transgender Person on the Cover of Time." The Wire. The Wire, 29 May 2014. Web. 10 Nov. 2014. <http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014/05/laverne-cox-is-the-first-transgender-person-on-the-cover-of-time/371798/>.

• Shapiro, Bee. "Beauty Unmasked for All to See." The New York Times. The New York Times, 7 May 2014. Web. 10 Nov. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/fashion/no-makeup-look-as-a-new-beauty-standard.html>.

Los clases son historia, español, bioquímica, geometría, inglés, almuerzo, teatro, técnicas de estudio y arte. Mi clases favorito es inglés, y teatro. Mi gusta inglés porque es muy divertida los materiales él lápiz, la una computadora y los libros.  En la clase de inglés escribimos y leemos. Para tener éxito en esta clase participar. Mi gusta teatro porque es súper magnífica es materiales no necesario, en su mayoría. En la clase de teatro actuamos y participamos.Para tener éxito en esta clase prestar atención.

La Srta. Dunda  enseña bioquímica. Ella posee un perro. La clase es súper interesante. Ella es una muy buena profesores. Él Sr. Kay enseña inglés. Es muy emocionado cuando enseñanza en las clases. Su clase es súper divertida . Es un fantastico profesor. La Srta. Manuel enseña español. Tiene una hermana. Su clase es súper interesante. Ella es bastante chévere. La Srta. Jonas enseña historia. Tiene el pelo negro.  La clase es súper fascinante. Una profesora interesante.

Mi increíblemente gusta SLA. Los que me gusta de SLA es clases y personas porque es divertida. Lo que más me gusta de SLA es inglés y personas. Lo que no me gusta es benchmarks porque es muy difícil. SLA es muy único, súper divertida, bastante bien. Está bien ubicado.