Lobbying Blog Post #3 Sick Leave Bill

The legislature I chose is not against the sick leave bill either is is mostly indifferent. he feels as though people who have a medical emergency or have been working for a company a long time should be consider to be payed on the days they have to take of to be sick, he feels it would not manke any sense for people to stay in the workplace if they are sick because then they will just make other people sick and then you would have many different people in the workplace calling out and then no one will be working. Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy, this bill has been a bill that has been argued over and over again for many and many hours, 18-17 to be exact is what it keeps coming down to. He has promised to sign the bill. 

Malloy was born and raised in Stamford Connecticut and was not considered to be a very bright boy in his earlier years until he was diagnosed with dyslexia. he then learned the he was not stupid but would just have to learn differently then his classmates.  He went to college in Boston and earned a degree in law and he would later go to New york and become district attorney (1980-1984).  The people who are going to be effected by this outcome of the sick leave bill will ultimately be the people who work and come to work even when they are sick, there are many people working on this veto to get it all signed and everyone on the same page. 

When I first took on this issue to lobby I thought I could not inform people about it or make a difference but I think if you let people know how they can possibly be working without pay then I think people will pay more attention to the cause and make more of a big deal about the problem.


paid-sick-leave-congress
paid-sick-leave-congress

​Marriage Application Flow Chart: Amaris & John

Click here for the link to view our chart.

MarriageAppliction


Reflection


For our task we had to do the process of marriage in Philadelphia. In our flow chart we went through each step on how to get married in Philadelphia. The first few steps were simple, but then it has its ups and downs and being to get complex. We started with out simple steps from first finding your true love to and if you wanted to get married, then through out the chart we have you read through various things and we add little notes that you have to do. For example in the chart there's a part where you have to stop and read for a note and it says "Note #1: You need to pay $80.00 for the marriage license" and then we also added a different note below it it saying "Note #2: You can't pay by credit cards or check. If someone was to get married or wanted to they could use this process to get married in Philadelphia.

If you look at out flow chart above you can see that its not very hard to follow. We worded the different points simple so that anyone could be able to follow it. The paper work process wasn't that hard to deal with. It was only one sheet and all you had to do was  fill out the information on who we were. It was very straightforward asking for where we lived, when were we born, what were our parents names, and additional information. Since it was only one sheet it didn't take long to get finished.

If there was one thing that I could change our project it would be the formatting on how we laid our chart out. I feel as though if someone is using it and they get distracted they will lose their spot. If this was done differently we could maybe have the chart going up and down in a curve. I feel as though if its like that then you would actually know how the chart flows and not just see lines pointing in different directions to follow a process. I don't think that our system for the marriage process is complicated at all. Its very easy and straight forward to go along with. If you're reading our flow chat make sure to take your time and go through every step, you could find yourself getting lost and confused if you don't read carefully. Overall I feel as though our flow chart is very easy to follow and a good process to follow if you and your partner want to get married. This project was really cool to do and I would do it again if we had a choice to, I will use this in the future hopefully. I thought this project was very helpful to newly weds.




Lobbying Post #3 - Curfews/Flashmobs

The past two years, Philadelphia has been trying to get a curfew law in place for minors. There have been several attempts, but none seemed to work. Within the past month, the City Council has come up with a new curfew law.  Because of the recent flashmobs that have been taking place throughout the city, placing this law has been a necessity to the city. There has been a curfew set in Philadelphia since 1955, but no ones seemed to follow it and officials never seemed to enforce it. Mayor Nutter wanted to place a law, and no one seemed to disagree with him. However, the issue was brought up that if children were out late because of after school activities, or other important reasons, this may becomes a problem if they are hassled for being out. Some city council members even stated that this may even increase the amount of police harassment towards minors. 

Most of the residents in the city agree with the law because of what they're seeing and hearing in the media. When watching the news, you hear about the flashmobs that have taken place and the violence happening throughout the city. People believe that if the kids are off the streets, less and less of these things would be happening. This is Mayor Nutter's approach to the situation. 

Because the law is passed and currently passed, the city can only currently just wait and see what happens. If the people in Philadelphia do not see a change even with this law in place, they can go to the city council or write the mayor himself about the law and see what else can be done. This law is in place for 4 years, and is to be slightly lessened during the summertime. 

Social Security/Disability Flow Chart

SocialSecurityDisabilityLonerdary
SocialSecurityDisabilityLonerdary
   
To view our flowchart, click HERE son!


The task that Dylan and I selected was social security/disabilty benefits and how to apply/qualify. It was very interesting doing this and learning more about how you really apply and qualify for social security/disability benefits. I learned many new things that I didn't really know before and truly how you can be considered disabled. As for the first step of finding out the research and such, it was relatively easy since we only had a few things to look up and we were very efficient with our time so we could complete the project to perfection. It was very easy to get used to using the LucidChart app given to us and it just took a matter of learning the whole process, summarizing it, and putting it into a format of steps that is easy to comprehend and straightforward. 

     As for the paperwork, it was pretty simple and easy since the whole process was all online and the steps for the online process was straightforward. I believe there is a paperwork version of the online process, but you have to visit a social security office to obtain it I believe. The thing with the online version is it can tell when you are putting in accurate information and if you put something that is inaccurate it will tell you.

     As for the beuricratic process, I would not change anything about the beuricratic process flowcharted because it was very on point. Maybe change up the design or even go more in depth, but other than that, the flowchart was on tact. I believe that the systems have become so complicated because some people try to cheat the system. For example in our topic specific, many people could try to say they are disabled when they are not and get money that they really should not have. The system is put together in a way that is fair and very specific so no problems come up at hand. It was an insightful project. Cool.












Their eyes were watching god - Creative project

For this project, I chose to portray two of Janie’s husbands through the Marxist lens. In the picture you see a pair of glasses looking through at two settings in the book combined into one. These settings are the big white house on the hill in Eatonville and the fields where Janie works with Jodie when she is married to him. This picture is meant to show how much better off Janie was with Jodie then she was with Tea Cake. The House on the hill seems much more powerful and better off then the fields where Janie does physical labor. The whole thing is solidified by the dollar sign on the lens that looks at the house, and the cent sign on the lens that looks at the field. These symbols are the most clear in pointing out which of the husbands is better for Janie.

On the bottom of the picture there are two quotes to describe each situation. The first, on the side of the big house says “ You ought to know you can’t take no ‘oman like dat from no man lak him. A man dat ups and buys two hundred acres uh land at one whack and pays cash for it”. This quote is taken for one of the townsfolk in the newly bought Eatonville. Jodie has just bought two hundred acres of land without a second thought. He is clearly a rich and powerful man, and Janie should hang on to his acquired wealth for as long as possible.

The Other quote on Tea Cake’s side of the picture reads “Sometimes Janie would think back to the times in the big white house and store and laugh to herself. What if Eatonville could see her now in her denim jeans and heavy shoes?” Janie thinks to herself about her past as a powerful and influential woman. I wonder if she feels regret, because as it stands now with her new husband, she will be working in the fields for quite some time.

Certification to be a Teacher

Screen Shot 2011-12-09 at 11.34.36 AMMe and Alaya White decided that we would do the Bureaucratic tasks of finding out how to get your certification to become a teacher in the state of Pennsylvania. The process was fairly easy it was easy to find information it was a bunch of information on the internet to find pdf's and other paperwork that you need to fill out to become a teacher and to find where there was a high demand for teachers. While dealing with the paperwork side of things it was straight forward there were two specific paperwork packets that we had to fill out that were important to that process, the first packets name is (General Application for Pennsylvania Certificate) and the other is (College/University verification Form PDE 338C. 

Another thing we noticed as oppose to other people's topic is that this process is a fairly more easy to get a teacher certification in Pennsylvania, one question that I asked myself is why are some processes more complicated to complete then others and the answer that I came up with is because there are many ways that you can get around the systems today this is why people in charge and the head of companies make so many steps and processes that they make you go through so that they can make sure that your information is legit and you are who you say you are so that things can go smoothly and correctly.

Even though we really enjoyed the project if there was one thing I could change it would be to know how to work the program lucid chart better, this was the first time that I had ever worked with it so I feel like if I would have worked with it before it would have been better for me to really get into it and make it even more advanced and even better then it is. 

In conclusion, I enjoyed the process of really figuring out what a teacher has to go through in order to become a teacher, I would not mind being assigned more projects in the future where we have to use lucid charts to give information and describe processes in the upcoming projects.

Go to Lucidchart!
 

How to get a business license in Philadelphia

Screen Shot 2011-12-08 at 10.20.17 AM
Screen Shot 2011-12-08 at 10.20.17 AM
Flowchart researched and created by William Marsh and Ali Ahmed




For this project, we researched the process of applying for and getting a business license in Philadelphia. We were surprised to find how simple the process is, as illustrated through our flowchart. The process was rather short, and quite simple for this project. We found a helpful web page created by the city of Philadelphia detailing the steps for getting a permit. Once we had done this, we looked at the form(s) that were necessary to fill out for the business license. I say forms because there are technically two forms for acquiring a business permit, only one needs to be filled out. The forms are a lifetime, or an annual permit, which are effectively the same form, with different fees. We filled out these forms and found them to be very straight forward. There were two parts of the form that confused us that had to do with exceptions regarding whether or not the form was actually necessary, but all in all, it was very straight forward. In agreement with that statement, I can't really think of anything to change with this process. I feel like this bureaucratic process does not reflect the vast majority of processes. Based on my classmates experiences and the general feeling towards bureaucratic processes, I imagine ours was an outlier. In general, bureaucratic processes are quite complex and really do need flow charts to explain them, but that is not the case for ours.

Personal Income Taxes - Biello/Clarke

Lucid Chart HERE  -- PIC BELOW -- 

FilingPersonalIncomeTaxes

Kern and I decided to file our personal income taxes as our bureaucratic 'task'. Doing your taxes is a pretty involved process; that's why most people usually have accountants do it or use online software to speed up the process at home. But, there are multiple steps to doing your taxes and many forms to fill out. In fact, the instruction manual on how to fill out 1 of the forms is over 160 pages long. First, you must gather all of your personal files and tax records; such as income sheets and other pieces. Then you use your W-2 and 1099 to fill out the 1040. The paperwork(1040) that we had to fill out was slightly straightforward and easy at parts, but definitely had parts that were pretty difficult to decipher. 
When doing taxes, you must be very careful to not make any mistakes; because these mistakes could have severe consequences - such as being audited by the IRS. Overall, the paperwork was pretty easy to fill out using the give W-2; it's basically just simple math. If I could change one thing I would probably change the payment you have to make to file them. I believe the systems have become so complicated to ensure that there is no mistake and that 100% of all the information is accounted for. The government wants to know how much money is around and how much each person makes, so multi-step, complicated forms like the 1040 must be completed to show all information. Overall, doing your taxes is definitely easy if you file them using an online service, like TurboTax; but if that ever becomes unavailable, it's good to know that I know how to file my own taxes. 
FilingPersonalIncomeTaxes
FilingPersonalIncomeTaxes

Getting a Green Card - Visualized



GreenCardApplicationProcess

​For this project, my partner and I selected to explain the Green Card application process. This in-depth process involves filling out numerous forms with personal information regarding one's ability to get a green card. This has the primary routes of through a family member, a business or employment opportunity, a refugee scenario, or a variety of other reasons (as specific as being an American Indian born in Canada). Perhaps one of the most difficult tasks in applying for a green card is determining the easiest route to citizenship depending on the specific eligibility requirements. The paperwork for this application was not very long, but would certainly be complex to someone of foreign nationality. If I could change this process, I would make the application much simpler and provide a method for persons to submit supplemental documentation to help humanize the process and remind the government employees that their decisions are regarding humans, not checkboxes on a paper. Most likely, this system began with such an easy process, but as numerous paths to citizenship have been released, the complication of eligibility requirements has quickly multiplied. Lastly, with regard to filling out the Green Card forms for the purpose of the project, I would use fake information to ensure that the information could be distributed and made available for the public without any privacy concerns.
GreenCardApplicationProcess
GreenCardApplicationProcess