Friday, April 12. 2019

Today's schedule is ABCD

A Block Physical Geography - If the weather holds, I'd like for us to take the class to walk down to the Tsolum River to look at fluvial processes and riparian environments. This field exploration connects to the topics we looked at this week (floodplains and stream profiles along with fluvial transport and stream dynamics). I hope that you have some sturdy shoes with you while we trek through the wet for our exploration of the river.


B Block Human Geography - Today we'll look the the key question "Why Do People Preserve Local Languages?" This is the basis of your next project in Human Geography (for which we'll be in the library Monday - Wednesday next week). We'll look at multilingual states and linguistic diversity in Switzerland, Belgium, Nigeria and here in Canada. We'll try to examine of Celtic languages like Welsh, Irish, Breton, Scottish, and Cornish are being preserved along with Aboriginal languages (in Both Australia and Canada) and Maori (in New Zealand). Finally we'll look at English as a lingua franca and examine pidgin, Fringlish, Spanglish and Denglish.








C Block Criminology - Today, we'll finish the History Channel DVD "Scammed" From tvdb

There are essentially five cons that are the basis for every swindle since the dawn of man; today's Nigerian email scam is nothing more than a derivation of a Spanish conquistador's bait-and-switch con that started more than 600 years ago. In Scammed, Paul Wilson, dubbed the "World's Greatest Con Man," and his team take a detailed look inside the complicated schemes and micro-cons that have plagued unsuspecting people for hundreds, even thousands of years, showing how many of these scams not only survived but evolved to be brutally effective with the help of modern technology. In each episode, Paul plays out long cons on designated marks so that he can help expose the cons, hustles and schemes that have victimized so many people, while teaching others how to avoid them. Though the tricks may be the same, the stakes are higher; nowadays more than money is on the line. Social security numbers, bank account information, and loads of private information are there for the taking... but only if you let a con man in.

You'll have four questions to answer for me:

1. What’s the psychology behind the con and what can we learn from it? 
2. How does a con man identify a mark? 
3. What are the four phases of a con game? 
4. What is the one fact that instantly makes you harder to con?

D Block Law - We'll watch a Law and Order episode from season 20 called Shotgun. A small businessman in Spanish Harlem becomes a hero after shooting three armed robbers. However, the investigation later discovers that there are holes in his story and that it may not have been a case of self-defense. After we will begin our look at criminal law defenses focusing on alibi (disputing the Actus Reus) and automatism (disputing the Mens Rea) and I'll give you a handout that has some really good notes to help you with defenses. We'll review the Kenneth Parks homicidal somnambulism case (sleepwalking murder R. v. Parks, 1992).

In the 2013 movie "Side Effects" Emily Taylor, despite being reunited with her husband from prison, becomes severely depressed with emotional episodes and suicide attempts. Her psychiatrist, Jonathan Banks, after conferring with her previous doctor, eventually prescribes an experimental new medication called Ablixa. The plot thickens when the side effects of the drug lead to Emily killing her husband in a "sleepwalking" state.
 
After we look at automatism as a defense, we'll also look at the "excusable conduct" defenses of self-defence, necessity, duress, ignorance of the law, entrapment, legal duty and provocation.