Monday,June 19. 2023

Today's schedule is ABCD

A Block Legal Studies - Why is Personal Injury/Tort Law important? Seinfeld mocked it. Letterman ranked it in his top ten list. And more than fifteen years later, its infamy continues. Everyone knows the McDonald’s coffee case. It has been routinely cited as an example of how citizens have taken advantage of America’s legal system, but is that a fair rendition of the facts? Take a look below to see what really happened to Stella Liebeck, the Albuquerque woman who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonald’s.

In the case of Liebeck v. McDonald’s Restaurants (1994), 79-year-old Stella Liebeck spilled McDonald’s coffee in her lap, which resulted in second- and third-degree burns on her thighs, buttocks, groin, and genitals. The burns were severe enough to require skin grafts. Liebeck attempted to have McDonald’s pay her $20,000 medical bills as indemnity for the incident. McDonald’s refused, and Liebeck sued. During the case’s discovery process, internal documents from McDonald’s revealed that the company had received hundreds of similar complaints from customers claiming that McDonald’s coffee caused severe burns. At trial, this led the jury to find that McDonald’s knew their product was dangerous and injuring their customers and that the company had done nothing to correct the problem. The jury decided on $200,000 in compensatory damages, but attributed 20 percent of the fault to Liebeck, reducing her compensation to $160,000. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which, at the time, represented two days’ of McDonald’s coffee sales revenue. The judge later reduced the punitive damages to $480,000. The case is often criticized for the very high amount of damages the jury awarded. Your textbook states: Many Canadians regard civil suits like Stella Liebeck’s as frivolous (silly or wasteful). What do you think?

In the time that's left over we will go to the Learning Commons to continue working on our civil litigation project. 

B Block Criminology - Today we'll finish the documentary 15 Minutes of Shame, which looks at public shaming in modern day culture. This original documentary film examines social behavior by embedding with individuals from across the U.S. who have been publicly shamed or cyber-harassed – while exploring the bullies, the bystanders, the media, psychologists, politicians and experts in between. Clearly Nancy Grace and her 5 year (still doing it today too) public shaming of Casey Anthony could be seen in a range from free speech/public knowledge to obsessive harassment along with everything in-between. So, we'll watch we'll watch "15 Minutes of Shame"

We need to think critically about how and why media are made; examining the impact that media have on us and on society; and reflecting on how we use digital and media tools. So what is true crime, in terms of media, why is it produced? What stories get told? From the News Literacy Project:

As high-profile court cases unfold, journalists monitor and sort through hours of proceedings in real time. News organizations work to spotlight and explain standout moments for their audiences, who may be aware of a trial but aren’t following it gavel-to-gavel. So, how do journalists decide what to cover? Understanding the criteria that standards-based news organizations use to determine what is “newsworthy” is a key news literacy concept. The poster [below that I've added] outlines the factors that determine newsworthiness, which impacts what issues and events get covered — and how prominently. These factors include how timely, important, interesting and unique a story is. What happens, for instance, when a story is timely without being particularly important, interesting or unique? Is it still newsworthy? Do some factors weigh more heavily than others, depending on the story?  

How do true crime stories get packaged and then what might coverage of true crime media tell us about North American society? What makes a true crime story newsworthy?

The Wrap - The Casey Anthony Trial: How Nancy Grace Launched a Media Frenzy

The Week - 5 lessons from the Casey Anthony murder trial

The New York Times - Watching a Trial on TV, Discussing It on Twitter

Tulane University - Casey Anthony and the Social Media Trial

Mashable - Untangling true crime: Inside the ethics of Hollywood's greatest guilty pleasure

The Globe and Mail - Our addiction to true crime has a human cost

The New Yorker - The Shaming Industrial Complex

University of Central Florida - Is Cancel Culture Effective?

The Conversation - The shame of public shaming

So, remember your question:

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? Use examples from the Casey Anthony trial to explain your ideas. 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? Is Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat) good or bad for criminal trials and the news/media coverage of them? Use examples from the Casey Anthony trial and from either Monica Lewinsky's story or those in the 15 Minutes of Shame video (Matt Colvin or Emmanuel Cafferty) to explain your ideas

You should consider the following when answering your question: 

1. Think about who reports information and how that information is used.
2. Think about your privacy and how you manage your on-line presence.
3. Think about how social media can be introduced as evidence at trials.
4. Think about how social media can be used for reporting during trials.
5. Do viewer/user comments about media coverage of a trial provide valuable feedback for discussion or not? Why?
6.  Is public shaming protected by the right to free speech or is this a case where our old norms and principles have simply been exposed as unfit for a new era?

C Block Human Geography - Please remember, your Agriculture work book is due. To help with q 24 on page 20...from the Vancouver Sun, check out This Surrey field produces millions of vegetables for B.C. But it could be paved over for warehouses 

We're off to the Learning Commons so you may work on your your term/semester long Urbanization SimCity Buildit project. Remember, for this project, I needed you to build a city and as you played, keep a track of what you did, why you did it and what the results were. You will need to make a presentation (either video, podcast, prezi, power point, webpage or a straight up written report) with photos and a written a narrative (minimum 500 words) describing your future city’s key features and design attributes. The purpose of the City Narrative is to give me a quick overview of the future city’s infrastructure and its public services. Think of the City Narrative as a marketing piece. What unique features does your city offer? Why would someone want to live in your city? Are there any special benefits to living in your city?

Use the planning questions above and these questions to help write a city description.

1. What basic information should people know about your city (such as the name, population, age, and location)?
2. What is important to know about your city’s physical components (landmarks, parks, and recreation areas) and infrastructure (transportation, energy, waste disposal, pollution control)?
3. What services (such as police, fire, medical, education) does your city offer?
4. What features make your city innovative and unique?
5. What did you learn about urban planning and city design (leadership, resource allocation, population satisfaction, trade, taxation and alternative sources of funding, city planning, services, and perception of politicians)?

The report and game play are based around the following key issues/outcomes from the course:

• Where Are Services Distributed? 

A service is any activity that fulfills a human want or need and returns money to those who provide it.  Services cluster in developed countries because more people who can buy services live there and within developed countries, larger cities offer a larger scale of services than do small towns because more customers live there. The service sector of the economy is subdivided into three types: consumer services (retail and wholesale services, leisure and hospitality services, health and social services, and education), business services (transportation and information services, professional services, and financial services), and public services (provide security and protection for citizens and businesses). 

• Where Are Consumer Services Distributed?

Generally speaking, we spend as little time and effort as possible obtaining consumer services and therefore go to the nearest place that fulfills our needs. We travel greater distances only if the price is much lower or if the item is unavailable locally. A central place is a market center for the exchange of goods and services by people attracted from the surrounding area. The central place is so called because it is centrally located to maximize accessibility. Businesses in central places compete against each other to serve as markets for goods and services for the surrounding region. The area surrounding a service from which customers are attracted is the market area or hinterland. The Range of a Service is the maximum distance people are willing to travel to use a service. People are willing to go only a short distance for everyday consumer services, such as groceries and pharmacies. But they will travel longer distances for other services such as a concert or professional ball game. As a rule, people tend to go to the nearest available service. Larger settlements provide consumer services that have larger thresholds, ranges, and market areas. The gravity model predicts that the optimal location of a service is directly related to the number of people in an area and inversely related to the distance people must travel to access it. The best location will be the one that minimizes the distances that all potential customers must travel to reach the service. To that end look at Central Place Theory, the Basic Central Place Model, market areas, market area analysis, range of service, threshold of service and the gravity model (of services). Look at the rank-size rule and the primate city rule (in terms of services). 

• Where Are Business Services Distributed?

Global cities are most closely integrated into the global economic system because they are at the center of the flow of information and capital. Business services (including financial institutions, headquarters of large corporations, and lawyers, accountants, and other professional services) concentrate in disproportionately large numbers in global cities. In the global economy, developing countries specialize in two distinctive types of business services: offshore financial services and back-office functions (also known as business-process outsourcing or BPO). Typical back-office functions include insurance claims processing, payroll management, transcription work, and other routine clerical activities. These businesses typically located in developing countries for a number of reasons, including the presence of supportive laws, weak regulations, and low-wage workers. The economic activities in a settlement can be divided into two types: basic and non-basic businesses. A settlement’s distinctive economic structure derives from its basic industries, which export primarily to consumers outside the settlement. Non-basic industries are enterprises whose customers live in the same community. In a postindustrial society, such as the United States or Canada, increasingly the basic economic activities are in business, consumer, or public services (while Vancouver’s basic sector in transshipment also has a cluster of business sectors that complement one another). Attracting talented individuals is important for a city because these individuals are responsible for promoting economic innovation. They are likely to start new businesses and infuse the local economy with fresh ideas.

• Why Do Services Cluster in Settlements?

We generally find that most services are clustered in settlements. Rural settlements are centers for agriculture and provide a small number of services; urban settlements are centers for consumer and business services. One-half of the people in the world currently live in a rural settlement, and the other half in an urban settlement. A clustered rural settlement is an agricultural-based community in which several families live near each other, with fields surrounding the collection of houses and farm buildings. A dispersed rural settlement is characterized by farmers living on individual farms isolated from neighbors rather than alongside other farmers in settlements. In developing countries, migration from the countryside is fueling half of the increase in population in urban settlements, even though job opportunities may be scarce. Like I mentioned above Services cluster in developed countries because more people who can buy services live there and within developed countries, larger cities offer a larger scale of services than do small towns because more customers live there. 

I'll post more tomorrow on:

• Why Do Services Cluster Downtown
• Where Are People Distributed Within Urban Areas?
• Why Are Urban Areas Expanding?
• Why Do Cities Face Challenges?

D Block Physical Geography - We are in the Learning Commons/Library for work on our Weather Forecast project. First, a reminder. Wednesday we have your final test in Physical Geography. You may use your: "Weather"; and "Climate Change and Resource Use" packages as help. 

You may film in the class all afternoon, as I will take my Human Geography class to the learning commons during their block. Remember, the chroma key green screen in the classroom is in the middle of the room, facing the smartboard (the whiteboard thingy I use every day). You can project your script on the smartboard and read it there, while your partner video records you, this way, you'll not need to memorize your script. Try to stand a few feet in front of the screen so that you can avoid shadows. I'll have the front lights on but the back lights off. There are also Softbox studio lights on either side of the green screen all so that your background pops. A good general
rule is to avoid any reflective materials in the shot. Jewelry and glasses can complicate this. If you know you need a green screen for a given shot, then you should keep tabs of what props are necessary and adjust as needed.

I will have a computer with the Windy webpage and you can adjust the filters to show what you'd like. Or you can put the windy image on the whiteboard if you've memorized your script (or have written it out on cue cards large enough to read). We can flip the image so that you can adjust your body accordingly. After you can snip or game DVR the windy moving image so that you have an active background image to use with the chroma key green screen video you record. Alternately you can have a static background and then all you need to do is have the image you want to be as your background. 

How to Easily Take Screenshots and Video Recordings of Your Desktop Using Snip

How to Record Your Screen on Windows 10 with Built-In Screen Recorder

There are lots of intuitive Chroma Key video editing apps for your phone or software for your computer for editing and rendering after. Also don't forget there's lots of royalty free weather forecast green screen Stock Footage Video...do some searching on-line. Above all get it done and have fun! like this... 

But seriously...