Thursday, December 19. 2013

It's the penultimate day before the Christmas/Winter holiday break...sigh please try to focus. The schedule for the day is D-AG-C-B-A

D Block Law 12 - Today we a\re back in the library for the last class before the Christmas Break to work on our major civil law project. I just wanted to let you know how pleased I am with your progress. I was mentioning to the library staff how impressed I am with the level of discourse you are engaged in. You all are engaged with the material and are trying to use legal terminology in order to explain your reasoning. I am also pleaseed that many of you have shown me your work in progress and asked for advice on how to approach your clients. Keep up the great work!

C Block Crime, Media and Society 12 - Yesterday we got caught up in a really good discussion about Schadenfreude. Because we had such a good discussion we just got a chance to go through the Nancy Grace/HLN coverage of the Casey Anthony trial along with the HBO Newsroom footage I wanted to show you, so today you will need to answer the following:

1. Who would you want deciding your guilt or innocence? A jury of your peers or CNN and Nancy Grace? Regardless of your opinion of Casey Anthony is it possible for her to escape the negative label of "Tot Mom" and will she ever be able to avoid the horrible mother image presented by CNN and Nancy Grace?
2. How does the concept of Schadenfreude apply to the Casey Anthony trial? How would low self-esteem make someone more likely to seek out schadenfreude-filled crime media?

Does the trial have a longer lasting impact on the USA or was it just 15 minutes of fame and a distraction from mundane daily life? Because of her actions, Nancy Grace has been spoofed on SNL and MadTV to name just two





To her credit Nancy Grace was a criminal prosecutor in Georgia. Here is a CNN bio on her..



B Block Social Studies 10 - While looking at the Northwest "Rebellion" of 1885 we'll examine the skirmishes noth of Saskatoon (Duck Lake, Fish Creek and Batoche). For the rest of the class we'll look at the trial of Louis Riel and I'll have you work on questions 2, 4, and 5 on page 189 as well as the Apply It question 1 from the "Developing Historical Perspective" skill builder on pages 192-3 of the Horizons text.
For more on the Northwest Rebellion and Louis Riel look at:
About the Northwest Rebellion of 1885
The Metis in Alberta NW Rebellion 1885
Royal Canadian Regiment NW Rebellion 1885
Mount Allison University Louis Riel & Northwest Rebellion
HistoriCa! minute on Louis Riel
The Heritage Centre: Louis Riel

A Block Criminology 12 - Since we didn't get to it yesterday...

I'd like to share the CBC DocZone Documentary "Sext Up Kids" with you. The documentary exposes how growing up in a hyper-sexualized culture hurts our kids and sends the wrong messages that could potentially lead to sexual assaults. From the CBC site:

From tiny tots strutting bikini-clad bodies in beauty pageants to companies marketing itty-bitty thongs and padded bras to 9-year olds, images of ever-younger sexualized girls have become commonplace. Add to that: ever-younger boys with 24-7 access to hard-core internet porn. It saturates their lives - from skate parks to the school bus – by the time they’re eighteen, 80 percent of boys are watching porn online.

So we'll watch the documentary and use information from it to help with our blog entry from this past Monday.