Tuesday, January 22. 2019

Today's schedule is CDAB

A & D Blocks Human Geography - Here are a few questions you may wish to prepare for when interacting with the judges about your GeoInquiry story:

• What is the “big story” or context behind your topic? 
• Why was this project important to research? 
• What did you learn about geography and how geographers think by doing this project? 
• How might you apply something you learned in another area? 
• What do you hope the outcome is of sharing your Geo-Inquiry Story? Why is that important to you? 
• What are you proud of that you accomplished during this project? 
• What do you wish you could have done differently? Why? 
• What is something you learned through this project? 

 Today we'll look at the Key Issue "Why Are Urban Areas Expanding"? We'll try to understand urban areas, census metropolitan areas, annexation, sub-urbanization, sprawl, smart growth and transportation into and out of city cores.



You have some questions to answer for me:

1. What is smart growth?
2. List four ways demand for congested roads is being reduced
3. List four ways in which public transportation is better than an automobile.

B Block Criminology - What are Crime Themes or Tropes? From TVTropes:

Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite." In other words, dull and uninteresting. Tropes transcend television. They reflect life. Since a lot of art, especially the popular arts, does its best to reflect life, tropes are likely to show up everywhere.

So this week I want you to consider being a critical viewer of crime media. I will show you three US crime serials in class: Lie to Me, Elementary, and the Mentalist (if there was time I'd also show you Person of Interest, White Collar and Castle too but we don't really have time). I want you to examine these shows through the tropes of: "Police are Useless"; "The Only One"; and "Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop". Again from TVTropes:

Unlike just one Dirty Cop, or a small group of them, Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop describes an entire precinct (or world!) where police are monolithically terrible. Maybe they're all corrupt. Maybe just a few are corrupt, but the rest are so incompetent that they completely ignore the swath of abuse, violence, and destruction the corrupt cops leave. Maybe they're all just completely insane. When this is more of an Implied Trope due to the fact that nobody bothers to involve the police in anything, you have Police Are Useless.

Whenever someone in film or on TV reports a murder, or a monster, or a stalker or whatever, the police come as close to ignoring them as procedure (and the local captain) will allow. And that's if the report is from a respected professional; if they're an Agent Mulder, or worse yet, a teenager, the cops might try to pin charges on them! In addition to police, this trope also covers the military, security guards, and other people whose job is to protect others. So...

There's a crisis, and our beloved protagonists are the only people who can handle the problem. Unfortunately, this is because all the other people who could take care of it are woefully incompetent. If the series is about a local police force, the FBI are ivory-tower glory hounds. If the series is about an FBI agent, the local police are all useless Corrupt Hick types. If the series is about the military, government higher-ups will only be interested in pleasing the voters. If the series is about the government or an anti-military type, then the military will be The Evil Army commanded by a General Ripper type who is just itching to Nuke 'em back to the stone age, never mind the asking questions part. If the series is about a rogue hero, all levels of government and law enforcement, plus the military, are either corrupt or clueless, with the possible exception of a Reasonable Authority Figure who will still be unable to help because of mountains of red tape. And everyone else will just think that it isn't for them to deal with (In those cases where the people who are supposed to be handling the situation are not also bad guys).The Useless or Incompetent cop/police will need outside help "the only one" who becomes "the great detective"
A staple of Mystery Fiction and Detective Fiction, the Great Detective relies on powers of deduction and educated thought to solve crimes. The Great Detective is usually an Amateur Sleuth or a Private Detective (because Police Are Useless). Some of these detectives will have an Arch-Enemy that will be their equal, but in a different light.

So think about messages about detective "experts" and what these shows say about the public's view of modern police forces.

Today we'll watch an episode of Lie to Me, called "Moral Waiver". Dr. Cal Lightman and Ria Torres investigate the case of a female soldier who claims to be the victim of sexual assault by her commanding officer. At the same time, Dr. Gillian Foster and Eli Loker work on the case of a college basketball player who is accused of accepting a bribe from his university. In both cases the Lightman group employees are experts who are hired by authority figures (the US Army or a University Ombudsman) to do the work that they themselves can't quite get done...see if you can notice any tropes/themes here.