Back, Baby! (Governments)

The bellwork today asked students to tell us which government would be the scariest government to live under, and then explain why.

We are guessing that they'll all give one of the unlimited governments.  At least, I can't imagine anyone would find a constitutional monarchy scarier than an absolute monarchy.

And I know that Taylor (from Stars Hollow... from The Gilmore Girls) can be pretty abrasive, at times... but I would hardly count him (or the direct democracy of Star's Hollow) as scarier than, say... Islam Karimov...

For the record, I know that Taylor Doose has an elected position in Stars Hollow, but the position - at least as it's portrayed on the show - has no real power.  He's just in the front at the meetings, and the people of the town get to vote.

(...Not that I watched tons of The Gilmore Girls or anything...  Sheesh...)

Mr. Helmuth is slowly moving from governments into ancient civilizations.  And what better way to do that then with Hammurabi?  You know, I was a little bit nervous when Mr. Helmuth said that the following video was pretty graphic, and that if students couldn't hack it, they should go to the hall.  But I shouldn't have doubted him.  It's not THAT graphic.


High production quality.  Some of my students were confused... "Is that the real Hammurabi?" they asked.

We looked at some of the laws the ancient Mesopotamian government created.  It was a good day.

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