Tuesday, March 12. 2019

Today's schedule is CDAB

C Block Criminology - Okay, so we know where violence comes from. We know what homicide is, the divisions of murder and why people do it. We understand what sexual assault is, the typology of assault and the motives for doing it. Today we'll look at abuse and domestic assault (tomorrow hate crimes and terrorism).

Ending Violence
Ending Violence BC Getting Help
Domestic Violence It's Never OK
Domestic Violence and Abuse

Now, legally speaking, parents have rights to use corrective measures in order to discipline children. This issue was raised in the Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law v. Canada (Attorney General) 2004 case. In its decision, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld Section 43 of the Criminal Code which "provides that a parent, teacher, or person acting in the place of a parent is justified in using force to correct a child’s behaviour that is under his or her care provided that the force used is reasonable in all of the circumstances". So what is "force"? The force must be used for educative or corrective purposes (not as a form of punishment) relating to restraining, controlling, or expressing disapproval of the actual behaviour of a child capable of benefiting from that correction; the force cannot result in harm or the prospect of harm.

My question is "Should parents have the full authority to discipline their children as they see fit or should parents never be allowed to use physical force on their children"?

D Block Law - Today we'll watch a CBC Fifth Estate documentary on Karla Homolka and her plea bargain that includes real interviews with her. Her husband, Paul Bernardo was sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the murder of Tammy Homolka (Karla's sister) and the kidnappings /murders of Kristin French and Leslie Mahaffey ( Bernardo was classified as a ‘dangerous offender,’ meaning it is unlikely he will ever be set free). In exchange for pleading guilty to manslaughter and testifying against Bernardo, Karla Homolka accepted a ten-year plea bargain for her roles that was later upgraded to a twelve-year plea bargain – a far lighter sentence than many Canadians believed, and still believe, she deserved.

Homolka was released on July 4, 2005, and originally opted to live under the name Karla Teale (Bernardo and Homolka had originally planned to change their surname to Teale, in honor of fictional killer Martin Thiel). For more news on Karla Homolka (now called Leanne Bordelais) check out the article at the Globe and Mail here...or The Toronto Star here
.

I look forward to a conversation about plea bargains afterwords

A Block Physical Geography - I'll show you some footage of the Kilauea eruption (both pahoehoe and aa flows) and the Soufriere Hills volcanic eruption on Montserrat. we'll watch Mega Disasters: American Volcano which this is a sweet "what if" disaster video and it explains the dangers of the slumbering giant...Mount Rainier. This helps with your project...which is due tomorrow.


B Block Human Geography - Today we'll look at the key question, "Why Is Access to Folk and Popular Culture Unequal?" We will really focus on the diffusion of popular culture and look at the mass media of television. The world’s most popular and important electronic media format is television (TV). While the Internet has grown in popularity and importance in recent years, TV remains the foremost electronic media format. Television is a mirror of our world, offering an often-distorted vision of national identity, as well as shaping our perceptions of various groups of people.

In March 2011, then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the argument that U.S. television was giving people around the world a distorted view of Americans. "I remember having an Afghan general tell me that the only thing he thought about Americans is that all the men wrestled and the women walked around in bikinis because the only TV he ever saw was Baywatch and World Wide Wrestling," (a side note, at its peak, Baywatch was broadcast in 142 countries and around the world more than 1 billion people have watched the show).

So you'll have some questions about television to work on today (tomorrow it's the Internet and Social Media) including "Why do developing nations view television as a new source of cultural imperialism?"

How to stop foreign TV eroding local culture
What is reality TV's influence on culture? 
How have 24-hour sports stations changed society?

We'll also examine the Internet and Social Media's influence on popular culture.


The Internet has made pop culture transmission a two-way street. The power to influence popular culture no longer lies with the relative few with control over traditional forms of mass media; it is now available to the great mass of people with access to the Internet. As a result, the cross-fertilization of pop culture from around the world has become a commonplace occurrence.

Valerie Berset-Price wrote a lovely piece called From Pop Culture to Global Culture: How Millennials and Technology Are Influencing Our World. In it she states

For Millennials (although you are iGen in the context of this quote that would be you - my inset), two things are happening simultaneously: culture is impacting technology, and technology is impacting culture. On one hand, culture serves as a standard of judgment. It places an importance on what is acceptably good, valuable, and ethical. It conditions how and what we communicate, and it is the lens by which we perceive the world and, in some ways, the way the world perceives us. On the other hand, technology has served as a force for sweeping cultural change, joining the ranks of war, colonization, religious influence and military expansion as cultural modifiers. The expansion of the internet has allowed global communication and information to permeate everything from apartment walls to international borders...Such global exposure has provided the basis for peaceful international homogenization as well as deep conflicts of perspective, and technological advances have increased the speed and frequency of both.

In addition to individuals contributing to culture, Multinational, nongovernmental corporations can now drive global culture. This is neither entirely good nor entirely bad. On one hand, foreign cultural institutions can adopt successful American business models, and corporations are largely willing to do whatever makes them the most money in a particular market. However, cultural imperialism has potential negative effects as well. From a spread of Western ideals of beauty to the possible decline of local cultures around the world, cultural imperialism can have a quick and devastating effect. (from Understanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication).

Today you'll need to answer:

1. Why do developing nations view television as a new source of cultural imperialism?
2. Social media (Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) is changing the way that popular and folk cultures are diffused. Give and support an argument for how the Internet might aid the preservation, or even expansion, of some folk cultural elements.
3. Why do many governments consider it important to limit the freedom to use social media?
4. A recent study of University of Maryland students found that not using any electronics for 24 hours produced anxiety, craving, and other symptoms akin to withdrawal from alcohol or drugs (FOMO). How do you think you would react to a 24-hour ban on all electronics?