Friday, May 24. 2019

Happy Friday family. Today's schedule is ABCD

A Block Physical Geography - Today we'll go to the library to play the Stop Disasters game. The scenario I would like you to work on is the Caribbean Island Hurricane simulation (medium difficulty). There is a population of 234 people in your coastal town who rely on fishing and tourism for a living. You will need to develop some housing/accommodation for 400 people in the town.You will also need to build a hospital, two schools, and anchor all the boats in the port. You have a budget of $40,000 to work with and don't forget to develop some defenses to protect people, buildings, and livelihoods. When you click on an object square you will likely get three choices: info, develop, & defenses. Read through your options and try to uncover all 15 key facts (which will give you extra points). Play the game twice and fill in the data (on the Week 14/15 work package) about things you learned and what your scores were. Have fun playing and learn something.

B Block Human Geography - Today we will be going to the Library/Learning Commons for another day to work on your Inquiry Project. Today is another check in day. I'll need you to show me the research you've conducted connected to the question that you've narrowed your topic into. I will need you to develop a plan (road map) for your inquiry. What do you need to do? How do you plan to go about doing it? When do you plan on getting it done.  Don't forget this is an active research project and I expect you'll need to go out into the community to interview people so who do you need to talk to and when will you talk with them? So yeah...it's the day where you really need to engage in research because there's only 25 classes remaining in the semester.

C Block Criminology - Yesterday we looked at Social Structure Theories and tried to see if the explanation of crime by the Crips fit within any of those theories (social disorganization, strain, and or cultural deviance). Remember the narrator in the documentary indicated that the Crips came out of an area that had poor schools, housing and an unemployment rate three times the national rate. Also Raymond 'Dhanifu' Cook said that they were "like bandits coming from the poor sections (of LA) to the more affluent sections (of LA) to requisition their material to bring it back to the neighbourhood" and 'Crippin' meant "are you ready to rob, plunder, pillage"? This kind of fits within the Social Structure theories. There are three major arguments among Social Process Theories that focus on how people learn to commit crime (Social Learning), how society fails to control deviancy and criminality (Social Control), and the impact of criminal labels on individuals subsequent behavior (Social Reaction). Today we'll review the National Geographic "Inside the Bloods and Crips" show...

Next, speaking of anomie and strain, we'll look at the "Bling Ring". From Nancy Jo Sales article The Suspects Wore Louboutins

The most audacious burglary gang in recent Hollywood history–accused of stealing more than $3 million in clothing and jewelry from Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and other stars–appears to be a bunch of club-hopping Valley kids, motivated by vanity and celebrity-worship

and from the article  "Before You See the Bling Ring, Watch the Crazy Reality Show That Helped Inspire It" by Lindsey Weber  and Kyle Buchanan

Pretty Wild, which aired in 2010 (and was produced, oddly enough, by Chelsea Handler), was intended to follow 19-year-old Alexis Neiers as she lived a glamorous party-girl life on the fringe of the Hollywood club circuit. But then real life intervened: In the very first episode, Neiers is arrested for crimes connected to the Bling Ring, the gang of larcenous teens who stole from celebrities like Paris Hilton and Orlando Bloom...Suddenly, the manufactured reality of these Kardashian-emulating lifestyle shows begins to rub up against the very definite reality of a teenager's descent into criminality

and James Franco wrote on Vice

These kids were raised in a culture in which attention equals power, regardless of the value of that attention and the actions that captured it. We have long showered the likes of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan with such power. The Bling Ringers are only flowing in line with what they’ve been taught, or learned through osmosis depending on your point of view. It’s not what magazines and websites say about the celebrities that the Bling Ringers listen to; it’s the fact that they’re saying stuff about them at all.

Of course Dateline had an episode titled "Secrets of the Bling Ring"

The on line reaction was less than favourable

ABC got in on the act and did a bit on "Inside Hollywood's Bling Ring"

And of course TMZ and E! News were all over the story

By the way...2013 saw the release of Sofia Coppola's movie version of this story called "The Bling Ring"

Then in 2014 Vice profiled Alexis Neiers about he "struggles with addiction, her criminal involvement in the real-life Bling Ring (the inspiration for Sophia Coppola's 2013 film of the same name), and her former Playboy Bunny mother, as well as her new role as a sober mother, attempting to help her ex-boyfriend find a way out of his own crippling heroin and crack addiction".

So, we'll watch the Law & Order Los Angeles episode "Hollywood". This episode combined three separate pop culture story stories/themes.

1. First is the Bling Ring, the crew of Southern California teenyboppers who burgled celebrity homes by tracking their marks’ whereabouts via the Internet. The band of seven, which included E! reality star Alexis Neiers, burglarized the homes of Lindsay Lohan, Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green, Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr, Rachel Bilson, Audrina Patridge and Paris Hilton, who was reportedly robbed a total of five times by the group.
2. Second is the Brody Jenner type reality TV star, an L.A. rich kid who dated his way into pseudo-stardom.
3. Third, there is a version of the Lindsay-Dina Lohan mommy-daughter psychodrama, complete with lots of heavy talk about living through/off your children. 

When we're done we'll talk about celebrity, fame, and how they fit into the social order and structure theories we looked at this week

D Block Law - Next Tuesday, we begin Family Law, however today we are back in the Learning

Commons for another work day on our civil law litigator project. Remember, for Monday I would like a rough draft of your first case done. I will bring in some previous student work for you to take a look at then. Starting next week, M-W-F in the learning commons and T-R in class. You have 25 classes remaining in the semester which makes 12-13 classes left in the learning commons.