Tuesday, April 21. 2015

Today's schedule is C-AG-D-A-B

C Block Geography 12 - Today we're back in the library for our last class day to work on our Mass Wasting pamphlet...you can find the assignment on yesterday's blog entry, in your week 8 package or in the K: Drive on the computers at school. This assignment is due this Friday (April24th) and I'd like you to submit it digitally to me. Please save your document as a publisher file (.pub), a word file (.docx), or an adobe file (.pdf) and e-mail it to my school mail address...Thanks. Here are some websites to help...

Forest Service National Avalanche Center
United States Geological Survey Landslides Hazard
Federal Emergency Management Association Landslide & Debris Flow
National Park Service Mass Wasting
Geological Survey of Canada Living With Slopes
Parks Canada Mountain Guide
University of Kentucky Earth Science Department Mass Wasting animation
Avalanche Canada
National Atlas of the United States Landslides
OUC Foundations of Physical Geography Mass Wasting

D Block Criminology 12 -  Today we'll watch the first eight sections of the movie "The Corporation" and you will need to work on the following questions:

1. Should corporate executives be found guilty of murder if they fail to take reasonable measures to protect their staff and an employee subsequently dies?
2. Is it fair to blame a single executive for the activities of a company that has thousands of employees?
3. Can Corporations Commit Murder? If a corporation is considered as a person in law (as it is in the US) who can be held liable (responsible) if a corporation kills people?  
4. Recall 10 or more brands, their logos, their jingles, slogans, and any memory of the product (think Nike = swoosh = "just do it"). Do you know who owns the brand? What is your perception of this "brand"?
5. According to individuals interviewed in The Corporation, the problem is with the corporations themselves, not necessarily with the people who run them. What evidence does the film use to make this point? Do you agree or disagree? Explain using examples from the film.
6. The documentary raises important questions about ethics and personal responsibility. One of the fundamental messages in the film is that corporations are irresponsible because in an attempt to satisfy corporate goals, everyone else is put at risk. To what extent is a person responsible for what they do even when within a company? Is a person morally culpable for their actions when satisfying the goal of profit within a corporation? Why or why not?

For more on the movie go to the official site here

B Block Social Studies 11 - Today we are off to the library to begin our research on the "Dictatorship for Dummies" project. It will be your job to create a "Dictatorship for Dummies" or "Complete Idiot's Guide to Dictatorship" book. These guides will need to use the experiences of Joseph Stalin in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Adolph Hitler in Nazi Germany, and Benito Mussolini in Fascist Italy in order to describe the following:

• What is a dictatorship?
• What social and economic conditions allowed the development of dictatorships?
• How did the dictators come to power? (did they create or join a political party? How did they get elected or did they? What factors allowed them to assume control of their country?)
• How did the dictators hold on to power? What did they do once they got power to consolidate their control?
• What did they do to convince the people of their country to abandon their rights?
• How can the reader of the book become a dictator? (a step-by-step guide)

Use the photocopied information about Germany, Italy, and the U.S.S.R. that I gave you yesterday in class, use the Internet, and your textbook in order to get the information you need to create your Idiot's Guide or Dummies book. You are, in essence, showing how to become a fascist dictator (getting and then holding on to power).

Five great print resources in the library are the Longman 20th Century History Series written by Josh Brooman: Italy and Mussolini 1900-45 (945.091 BRO); Weimar Germany 1918-33 (943.086 BRO); Hitler's Germany 1933-45 (943.086 BRO); Stalin and the Soviet Union 1924-53 (947 BRO) and Roads to War the Origins of the Second World War 1929-41 (940.53 BRO). In the class I have copies of the Time-Life Series The Third Reich: The New Order; The Twisted Dream; and Storming to Power. I also have a copy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A history of Nazi Germany by William L. Shirer and two books on Fascism - one by Stanley Payne and the other by Alan Cassels. Your textbook is a good resource (see pages 92-96) and you could also look at the following on line resources:
Remember.org Nazi Fascism and the modern Totalitarian State
Totalitarianism in Europe
Death of the Father: An anthropology of the ends of political authority
Italy's Fascist Dictator by Jim Osborn
Depression, European Dictators and the New Deal (check out the chapter summary on the pdf)
Britannica The rise of Dictators
Age of Totalitarianism