Assignment #7 Hate Crime Legislation

One of the topics of legislation in BC lately is hate crimes especially toward sexual orientation targeted attacks.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/hatecrimes/

http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100430/bc_kandola_hate_crime_100430/20100430?hub=BritishColumbia

Examine one recent case of hate crime in BC and post a link to the case (or newsreport) and explain who was involved the outcome and the impact on the community involved (not necessarily the gay community). How does this effect the amounts of hate crimes that may take place?

Do you think that the recent hate crime legislation is important for equality? How does it lead to decrease the impact of violence and oppression for minority groups.

Read each others blogs and comment.

Assignment 5. Children’s rights…

Answer the following in your Blog in a short paragraph.

Why is it important to fight for the rights of a child?

Identify one organization that supports the rights of children and is fighting to end the suffering endured by children in our world.

Describe the organization at it’s efforts. Provide a link for others to learn about this organization.

Comment on another blog and look up the organization they introduce. This blog will be due by the end of the weekend.

Assignment #3 Starting to Read blogs… Examining Perspectives and Contexts

After our guest speaker, Linda, describing her experiences, I felt it would a good time to start to look at Blogs on the issue to see how perspectives effect our blogs messages. Below are numerous links to blogs that profess different perspectives on the situation in Gaza.

I want you to look at two of the blogs and create a post based on comparision in a multitude of ways.

Compare between two blogs:

What is the background of the Author? What would be their interest in this issue? Do they have a clear understood side in the issue? What is it? How does that effect the way they look at the issue?

Compare two blogs with the above task and then comment on another student in our class’s blog and share some insight into why blogs can be both a positive and negative source of information.

Israeli Perspective on what’s happening in Gaza

http://www.heatherrobinson.net/blog/2009/01/09/an-israeli-perspective-on-what%E2%80%99s-happening-in-gaza-%E2%80%9Cwe-are-doing-everything-in-our-power-not-to-hit-civilians%E2%80%9D/

A Blog by an American Blog writer, journalist and Forum Moderator

http://snuffysmithsblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/israels-behavior-toward-gaza-as-seen-by.html

A Jewish perspective on the Gaza situation

http://healtheland.wordpress.com/2007/06/26/jewish-perspective-on-the-gaza-crisis/

A diary of a Palestinian mother

http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/

A Canadian perspective living in Gaza

http://ingaza.wordpress.com/

An American’s explanation of the inequalities

http://rosenblumtv.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/in-gaza/#comments

The Egyptian Revolution… Started by Facebook?

Amazing things happening in Egypt which could have profound impacts on the middle east and any country with civil unrest throughout the world. Huffington Post has a great article that follows step by step the the key events to the crisis and the resulting outcome of the peoples revolution:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/30/egypt-revolution-2011_n_816026.html?view=print

I guess there is no arguing now that facebook and social media has and is changing the world we live in.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/11/egypt-facebook-revolution-wael-ghonim_n_822078.html

I wonder how dictatorships and countries with civil unrest are going to deal with freedom of information within their country… Its going to be a sad day when youth are getting arrested for being an “admin” on a facebook group…

Interested to see what country is next….

Blog Assignment #2. Different People….Different Perspectives..

So as we start to look at how our perspective and context effects how we view the world, today’s blog assignment will have you taking on the role of four different people and explaining how they would view an issue.

Obviously, these will be your assumptions and may not be entirely accurate, but what I want to see is their view and some support to why you believe they would have this view….

Analyze this….

60 year old male’s African American’s view on discrimination

30 year old, white male European American’s view on discrimination

30 year old female’s African American’s view on discrimination

60 year old, white female European American’s view on discrimination

Explain each of their perspectives on discrimination and provide a reason why you believe they would feel this way. Make sure to make a comment on another person’s blog

BP’s Oil Spill in the Gulf. Impact on Environment and People

After watching the movie Flow – for the love of water and having discussions about the importance of water on our planet.

Immediately it is easy to identify the environmental impacts of the spill but the extent of the damage reaches far greater lengths, impacting human populations in a multitude of ways around the gulf and the shorelines of the surrounding areas and as the tide carries the oil spill, to far greater reaches.

I want you to use the BP oil spill as a case study to examine the importance of water as a source of income and industry for many people. Read news stories and information on the internet from major news sources in the US and around the world. Read local news stories around Louisiana as well.

Focus on the human impact on this disasterous spill. I look forward to reading your responses. Please comment on other postings about some of the information they found.

Hopefully it is going to start to get people to think more about the impact of pollution in our waters to the livelihood of our survival on this planet!

Brandi’s Story

This is a story of my friend. Learn from her story about your own health and make sure you enjoy your life and see the doctor as soon as you find something wrong… RIP Brandi

https://sites.google.com/site/brandimhollett/brandi-s-story

Assignment #8. Genocide in Darfur.

It is truely amazing to find out that Genocides are still ocrruing today.

YOur assignment is to reseach into local organization and find out how one can get involved in ending this horrific human creation.

Create a posting providing information about the organization and events that are happening. Explain to someone how they can get involved.

The situation in the Darfur region, needs to end

Assignment #6. Equality in Education

Ok Social Justice Class… you had to know this was coming.   After our debates and discussion about our school system and whether it offers equality to all groups, I thought a blog assignment would be an ideal way to get all of our feelings heard.I am very interested in seeing your views on this topic.

There are two files I want you to download and examine. These files compare all graduating students across the province in terms of male/female, first nations/aboriginal, french immersion, special needs etc…

To understand the statistics, examine the page with the tables and they are listed by Number of potential students graduating in that group, number who actually graduation, and percentage of graduating students in that group. The percentage of graduating students of that group is what I want you to focus on…

Link 1: Entire province statistics:

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/reports/pdfs/graduation/prov.pdf

Link 2: Langley Secondary School:

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/reports/pdfs/graduation/03535019.pdf

Do the statistics surprise you? Think about our discussion over the past week, does the statistics support one side? Does this change your mind?

Now for the assignment:

Do you think our education system offers equal opportunities and the potential for success for all groups?

Give an explanation of why there is such a difference between drop out rates of some groups (aboriginal) vs. others (french immersion) for example.

Conduct research on this topic. Find information and newspaper articles that discusses these topics. Support your side and provide references to the information your find and write about on your blog. Read and comment on another blog from our class.

Here is a start: Click here

Assignment #4. Poverty and our Political System

Use the following links to read up on these different aspects of Government Control (or lack there of)

Pure capitalism

http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~poyofo/OldChapters/Chapter4.pdf

Regulated Capitalism:

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/jjohnson3203-173158-chapter-15-regulated-capitalism-econ-education-ppt-powerpoint/

(slides 24-25)

http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/capitalism/characteristics-of-capitalist-economies.html

Socialism vs. Capitalism… whats the difference?

http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/topic_details.php?topicID=400

Here is your assignment…

Provide a Blog response to the question…

“How does our political system and ideology have an impact on the level of poverty in our country and throughout the world?

In other words…. explain how poverty is systemic.

Write 250 – 300 words on the topic. Post.