Author Archives: laura.szymanski

Posts: 5 (archived below)
Comments: 5

About laura.szymanski

Hello everyone! I am a senior here at Baruch. This fall will be my last semester. My major is Accounting. I am currently studying for the GMAT which will allow me to enroll into a masters program to further my studies in accounting. I'm also starting the job search process for full time employment. Some things I enjoy doing on my spare time is jogging, yoga and reading.

Graffiti: A democratic art form

Posted on August 19, 2011 by laura.szymanski

I found the discussion in class yesterday about graffiti and its relation to the “Broken Windows Theory” interesting, so I decided to do some research on the topic. I found an extremely interesting article from The New York Times called “A Sociologist’s Look at Graffiti” by Sewell Chan.

George Snyder, a Baruch Sociologist basically acts as a cultural anthropologist and does some ethnography on graffiti writers, hanging out with them, getting to know them and understand them. Snyder believes “graffiti writers are a subculture that use their own experiences to build legitimate careers and are not practitioners of vandalism and social disorder”.

However, Rudolph Giuliani and police commissioner, Raymond Kelly would disagree with Snyder. Giuliani had embraced the idea of the “Broken Windows Theory” and created the “Quality of Life” campaign in order to try and gain urban stability in the 1990’s. The “Quality of Life” was designed to threaten and bully people with massive police force. Giuliani and Kelly sought to fight petty crimes and issue things like “C summonses” which we have seen still occurs today from “The NYPD Tapes”. Graffiti was a sign of disorder to Giuliani and the police force that must be dealt with and controlled.

However, Snyder points out that “unlike other “Quality of Life” crimes, graffiti does not tend to be focused in poor neighborhoods with high rates of violent crime”. He explains that graffiti writers want to write in places that will be seen like in the Lower East Side and SoHo. He says that these are the places that have the most graffiti and they are not poor areas with a lot of crime.

Snyder met with graffiti writer, Espo in 1996 who created a billboard in Williamsburg, Brooklyn aimed at Giuliani which reads, “Greetings from EspoLand, Where the Quality of Life is Offensive”.

Espo whose real name is Stephen Powers, became well known and store owners would ask him to paint their store fronts. He also worked with The New York Times and eventually was arrested by the Giuliani administration for previous illegal writings.  I also found a short documentary of Espo and other writers, and Espo states that he painted commercial gates and he considered it to be “an active public service”. I found that interesting because he did honestly make the gates look better and store owners did eventually recognize that.

Synder says, “In its purest form graffiti is a democratic art form that revels in the American Dream”. I agree with this statement because graffiti is truly freedom of one’s expression and is not regulated by the government or corporate. I believe this is why Giuliani and many others despise graffiti because it scares them and they don’t want radical ideas floating around into the masses head or they simply just cant recognize and enjoy the natural beauty of an urban art. I believe graffiti artists are extremely talented, genuine and sincere and I believe most of these drawings and paintings scream the truth about politics and freedom in America.

If interested in graffiti and art in general, I recommend watching these two documentaries: “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child” and “Exit Through the Gift Shop”.

Posted in Assignment 5 | Tagged , , | 17 Comments

From Unhappiness to Depression

Posted on August 14, 2011 by laura.szymanski

In this talk of the nation on NPR, there is a discussion between Gary Greenberg, author of “Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease” and Peter Kramer, MD, author of “Against Depression” about the increase in diagnosis of depression. Mr. Greenberg believes the disease is overdiagnosed. He says the move from unhappiness to depression was a long and gradual process. He said it all started in the 1960’s when Merck created an antidepressant drug called elavil and needed to sell it. Merck’s marketing campaign said in order to sell the drug you must associate it with a disease. At this time, Frank Ayd wrote a book for doctors called, “Recognizing the depressed patient” to provide doctors with a script to look for patients who fit into that diagnosis of depression.

Mr. Greenberg also states that Merck was not only advertising the drug but they were also advertising the idea of depression, they were advertising the “disease”. He also points out that doctors still don’t know much about the biochemistry of depression but that one wouldn’t know that when they go to see their doctor. In the discussion they also mention the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) which is a questionnaire that rates the severity of symptoms observed in depression such as low mood, insomnia, agitation, anxiety and weight loss and the fact that this scale is the most commonly used for rating depression and it doesn’t always give a depressed person the correct diagnosis and/or treatment.

Peter Kramer states that “it is hard to measure depression with the Hamilton scale and it cannot assign the right medication”. Both Kramer and Greenberg agree that those depressed don’t always get the correct treatment. Mr. Greenberg says, antidepressants don’t do much better than a placebo if one isn’t majorly depressed. He also believes that there are social issues of depression like one losing their job, working too much and not having enough time for family, etc. but says that the country doesn’t care much about that, they would rather treat it with medication.

I thought this discussion was very interesting because it shows what Conrad and Schneider wrote about in the article “From Badness to Sickness” about the power of the medical profession and how drug companies with a profit motive can create diseases such as depression to make money and get away with it. In the article by Conrad and Schneider, they state, “The medical profession dominates the organization of health and has a virtual monopoly over anything that is defined as an illness a “medical” treatment. All the medical profession has to do is make a claim and turn something like unhappiness into depression, so that they can medically treat it with a pill.

Posted in Assignment 4 | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments

“Alone Together”-Shifting Stigma

Posted on August 7, 2011 by laura.szymanski

Everyone knows about the social stigma that crying in public is shameful and embarrassing. From early childhood, we are taught when and where it is appropriate to cry. Boys have this stigma tied more closely to them than girls because it’s taught that boys should never cry. Boys are taught from society and family members, especially from their fathers that if you cry “you’re a sissy.” However, overall crying is viewed by society as a weakness and something that should be done behind closed doors.

This article talks about being “alone together” in NYC. Being “alone together” suggests social isolation in public. There are all these people around us in public but yet we all seem to create our own wall with ipods, cellphones, etc which connects us to a world outside of where we are, creating the illusion of privacy. Therefore, when we see someone crying in public we don’t reach out or say anything, we don’t break through their wall of privacy.

This article ties in with the topic of anonymity versus privacy which we spoke about in the first week of class, however, the author of this article poses the question, “Is public expression of emotions like crying shifting as a stigma and becoming more acceptable due to all of the devices we carry and essentially being “alone together?” It is more likely that we will receive news of a family members death or a break up phone call or text (not cool) and cause us to express our emotions in public. Now if we all understand this then is it more acceptable to express these emotions in public?

Since we are “alone together” and have our own private wall set up then we must feel okay about crying in our own spaces. I don’t know about you but even if I had my ipod on I would still feel weird and embarrassed crying on the subway. I guess I have internalized the stigma that comes along with crying in public. I believe that just because we are “alone together” in NYC doesn’t mean that people still aren’t watching, passing judgment and essentially stigmatizing. What do you think?

Posted in Assignment 3, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 124 Comments

Criminal or Victim?

Posted on July 31, 2011 by laura.szymanski

http://www.dvmen.org/dv-136.htm

This article by Glenn Sacks points out how common infanticide is and that it is usually the mother who murders the infant. It also says that about two-thirds of the women who have been convicted for the murder of their newborn don’t do any jail time at all. Sacks also gives an interesting statistic which is that “A man convicted of murder is 20 times more likely to receive the death penalty than a woman.” Sacks poses the question “why do women get away with murder?”

Well according to crime journalist Patricia Pearson, society tends to view and treat violent women as a child, insane or victim who is worthy of sympathy. This comment reminded me of Lombroso who says that women are a lot like children. He said that women are jealous, have low moral sense and feel they must take revenge. Pearson believes the leniency towards women in the court system is due to “male judges and law enforcement personnel and men in the media who don’t take women’s capacity for violence seriously and tend to make excuses for, and cover up for, violent women.” I believe men in general are more lenient and sympathetic to women because they do not understand them so they tend to sympathize with women. Just like a father is more sympathetic to his daughter and harder on his son.

Pearson also says something very interesting which is that women are clever and successful at flipping the script, turning themselves from a criminal into a victim. They blame things like PMS, postpartum depression and battered wife syndrome. This also reminded me of Lombroso who said that women denied committing crimes because that would mean the female recognizes herself and identifies herself as a monster. Lombroso says it is ontologically impossible for a woman to assume this type of identity. Maybe Lombroso was right here.

The recent Casey Anthony case is a good example of this victimizing of the female criminal. Whether true of not, Casey Anthony and her defense team claimed that both her father and brother sexually abused her. This played with people’s minds, the jurors in particular and it turned from Casey being the murderer of her daughter to the poor victim who has been sexually abused and needs some sympathy. People couldn’t understand her narcissistic and odd behavior so it was very convincing to many that she was an abused victim. Its clear by the not guilty verdict that the trick of turning the tables and making oneself the victim worked for Casey Anthony.

The Casey Anthony case drew a lot of attention from around the world. The media was all over the case 24/7. I mean people were truly obsessed with this case. People just cannot wrap their minds around the idea that a young beautiful “normal” girl like Casey Anthony could have murdered her 3 year old daughter.

Female murderers always draw a lot of of attention to the media. I think its easiest for society to believe that the female murderer is a victim and suffers from some type of hysteria because it is otherwise intrinsically unnatural and frightening. It is just inconceivable to the human mind that the most loving and nurturing, the woman, the mother who bears life can also take it away.

Posted in Assignment 2 | Tagged , , | 14 Comments

Bertillon and Lombroso still at work today

Posted on July 24, 2011 by laura.szymanski

Hello all! I stumbled upon this interesting article while searching for something to post.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/murder-solved-after-cops-find-crime-scene-tattooed-on-gang-members-chest/

Anthony Garcia committed the murder of John Juarez in 2008 and tattooed the murder scene on his chest. This story amazes me because if it wasn’t for the tattoo on Mr. Garcia’s chest he probably would have never been caught. The case had been closed for four years until Mr. Garcia was arrested for driving without a license. Linking all the way back to Lombroso, the police took photos of Mr. Garcia’s tattoos as part of procedure and entered it into their database. Also, linking back to Bonneville the police are keeping photo’s of tattoos to find the recidivist or the habitual offender. A police officer was viewing the photos one day and noticed the similarities of the tattoo on his chest and the murder scene of John Juarez. In the 21st century it’s stunning that a murder case was cracked from 19th century ideologies and procedures. Anthony Garcia would have been a justification to Lombroso’s ideology that whomever has a tattoo is a criminal. However, we know in today’s society that tattoos are a popular trend among young individuals, sports players, business people and so on. I wonder what Lombroso would have to say about tattoos in the 21st century. In a world of about 7 billion people, many get tattoos to set themselves apart, express themselves or to tell ones own life story. Anthony Garcia told his story on his chest and it got him convicted. The mugshot created by Bertillon is still an essential part in the police force and it was the only thing that cracked this murder case. I’m sure there is so much more to say about this. I would love to hear others thoughts on this. Feel free to comment.

 

Posted in Assignment 1 | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Bertillon and Lombroso still at work today