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Interviewing Edward Smith at my local polling station in West Philadelphia. Ward: 60 Division: 6

For my Rethinking History Project, I decided to do Drug Criminilization and the War on Drugs. The War on Drugs is represented to be something effective that will stop drugs from being sold, used, or transported and keep the children/youth and streets safe. It is also represented as something that really works and takes all of the criminals off the streets. In all actuality, the War on Drugs has more of a negative impact than a positive one. The viewer of this documentary style video should see that the War on Drugs may have some positives, but it is not always good and the gray area behind it is not always put to light. People should not completely side with the War on Drugs being bad, because it does have its positives to it. Enjoy and take in some knowledge that you might not have known if you hadn't watched this video!

This was my favorite work of mine so far this quarter. It still isn't amazing, but I really liked seeing something that only I could see. Everyone can look at a beaker, but because of the lighting everyone sees it differently. I really liked using the charcoal, however I tried to color in the lighting with a white crayon, it just made the charcoal all waxy and then I couldn't change it. Unlike my last project I think I did a really good of drawing what I saw. Also, Emma helped me get my head on about how I should do this.

Reflection:

My decision for choosing this bil is before the project I was becoming interested in learning more about The Patriot Act. I had learned about it back in 9th grade for a brief time and we talked about how it became a law. I picked to make a video because  Some of the challenges I had faced was trying to make a interesting video and not packing it full of words and paragraphs. I also had difficulties making the background music for the video in garage band. I would make it better, honestly I think I could have done better. I had all the information but put it poorly in the presentation. The creation process of this law was  fast and not well thought out to me after researching it. The was not harder than the story of the bill on school house rock. It was easy in my opinion.

For my Benchmark Joesph Parisi and I made a newspaper that includes a wide array of opinions on Fidel Castro and Cuba.

All pictures of newspaper at http://castrovstheworld.blogspot.com/

Joe will upload rest of pictures

Looking at the list of different things/people that I could do this project on, I chose to do my project on Ronald Reagan. I chose Reagan because he is well known for his actions during his presidency years. Even though he's a hero or role model, I wanted to prove that he's not a perfect person. He also had problems just any other human being. In this presentation the audience will discover some of the problems Reagan had. 

My topic for the rethinking history project was George Washington.   George Washington is very well known for being the first president of the United States, however there are things that I will be explaining that people don’t know much about.  His story has pros and cons as he contains a less obvious side about him.   

 

Thomas Edison is a strange creature when it comes to his portrayal in fiction and nonfiction, while most classic nonfiction praises him as a genius inventor, fiction seems to portray him as almost anything but. In this project, we take a look at Edison's strange portrayal in fiction, and how it compares to his historical rival, Nikoli Tesla. Due to the nature of the presentation, most of the information in the slideshow is in presenter notes, which I have transcribed here below my introduction.

Slide 1:
None

Slide 2:
You know Thomas Edison, inventor of the lightbulb, the creator of the motion film camera, godfather of funk, however, do you know Thomas Edison the cultist? The ghost? The violent thief? The ever feuding scientist?

Thomas Edison is oft portrayed as a hard working inventor, who overcame a lot in order to become the most important inventor of the 20th century. You can decide if he was hard working, or had to overcome anything on your own. But I'm not here to discuss what he was, I'm here to tell you what he looks like, do most of you agree that Thomas Edison is usually seen as a good guy who's inventions did a lot? Well, fiction would disagree, before I get into these examples however, here are some facts,

Slide 3:
Thomas Edison did not invent the lightbulb, he invented a filament to make the lightbulb last longer.

Thomas Edison was for most a businessman, most of his inventions were small patents that made big changes to already existing inventions.

Thomas Edison once hired Tesla to work at his lab, and tricked him out of $20,000, Tesla continued to feud with him until his death.

He shocked animals to death in order to scare people from using alternating current, against his direct current.

Thomas Edison did talk about inventing a machine to talk to the dead.

Slide 4:
Edison, in movies, comics, and other fiction, is very much not the prominent young inventor he is in non-fictional biographies. Like I said earlier, Edison is portrayed as the opposite, he is portrayed a s weirdo, a psychopath, and a number of things, here are a few examples.

Slide 5:
In the manga, that's japanese comic for some of you, The Lives of Eccentrics by Hirohiko Araki, Thomas Edison is portrayed as an inventor for sure, however his methods are viewed as impractical, and he is violent towards lab assistants, and in general cruel. This is dramatized in a fictional scene where Edison attacks Tesla for building an alternating current generator instead of a direct current generator, and another where he kills an animal with electric current to show that alternating current is dangerous. Here's what's important, the viewpoint is skewed, the manga focuses on Tesla, as many choose to do, and therefore must show Edison as a negative force, however, the manga gets most of its facts straight, and was fairly well researched.

Slide 6:
In other comics, Edison is not only shown for his scientific prowess, but also with a talent, and even an obsession for the occult. For example, in Matt Fraction’s Five Fists of Science, Thomas Edison is shown to be deeply into the occult, summoning demons and such through human sacrifice, and owning an extensive collection of mythical animals, such as the yeti we see so prominently featured on this slide.

Slide 7:
For a lighter example, we look at Brian Clevinger’s all ages comic Atomic Robo, which features a similarly occult based Edison character. In this comic however, his focuses are still science based, and he tries to combine the occult with the scientific, using the odic force in an attempt to create immortality.  In this, it not only makes Edison a thief, who steals both technology and mystical items for his purposes, but also as someone obsessed with his idea of something. It also makes sense of his plea for direct current, saying the reason he was so strongly for it, was because it could easily conduct odic force. Atomic Robo’s Edison is similar to Five Fist of Science’s, though there are differences simply because of target audience.

Slide 8:
Here's another example, which is from a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, in the story, Edison is a genius, inventing a device to measure the intelligence of a person or animal, this leads to him finding out that his dog was much smarter than even Edison himself, and in order to keep it a secret, the dog gave him the secret to the filament in his light bulb. This is a different fictional side, because while it does show Edison, it does not show him as a villain or as opposed to Tesla or any force of good, in fact, he’s still a genius. The difference is that like most of Vonnegut’s work, this is a comedy.

Slide 9:
So, Edison is portrayed as bad, Tesla is portrayed as good. Why is this?

The main reason is because Edison lived a life of happiness, while Tesla slowly became more miserable, if you look at that, it's easy to understand exactly why Edison is portrayed as bad, his effect on Tesla's life was negative, and since they were known to feud it slowly becomes more obvious that Edison is not a good person, or at least, it becomes a more prominent viewpoint. And since Tesla was an eccentric as opposed to the fairly straight-laced Edison, he becomes a more interesting person to write about to a fiction author, not to mention that Edison's work was practical, while Tesla's involved "death rays" and "automatons capable of destroying cities" and "earthquake machines".

I think, that another part is about the attraction of Tesla, while Edison was a methodical worker, Tesla was creative and ingenious in his methods, something writers often find interesting, or find themselves connecting to, while no fiction writer can compare to the dreary Edison, working bit by bit in a completely organized pace, obviously the somewhat crazed Tesla is more fun to write about, and Edison is easily put into an antagonistic role.

Slide 10:
Not to say Edison is bad in all fiction, but he is almost always a villain of some kind, however, in non-fiction, it's interesting that not only do they portray him in a positive light, they completely eliminate the negative things Edison did, like electrocuting animals, or messing with Tesla about the money.

Slide 11:
To finish, I'd like to examine, perhaps one of the most critical points of Edison's life, his death. When he died, newspapers were filled with friends and companions' words of praise, all but one quote talked about his genius, and that was Nikola Tesla's himself.

Slide 12:
None.

A bill to extend the existence of the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group

All yes or not voting no one denied this bill.

Introduced: Feb, 15, 2005

Reported to the committee: Feb 15, 2005

Passed by Senate: Feb 16, 2005

Passed by House: March 14, 2005

Signed by Pres: March 25, 2005

Has not been amended since introduction.

For my project I did the truths of Pocahontas. I did research regarding the real story of her. I took the information I learned and I compared it to the information given in the movie of Pocahontas. I used the information and created a truth or false, a,b, or c game. 



http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18699737/Pocahontas%20Truth%20or%20Flase.key

By: Amaris Romero

Reflection:

Originally I had chosen to do a different law but I had changed it because I wasn't as interested in it as I thought. I decided to do the "Indian Civil Rights Act" because I wanted to know more about them. I always had an interest in Native Americans. Every year I write about or talk about something that involves Native Americans and I wanted to know, I felt as though I didn't know enough. I chose the Prezi format because I felt it was one of many simple ways to create a story format. I came across many challenges while doing research, one of them being not being able to find the right answers for the questions that was being asked. I had another problem where I didn't know how to format the work in a presentation. I didn't know how to work Prezi I had never used it before. I got a hang of it after I had a brief tutorial of it. In the end I decided to do it like a story book with a table of contents, chapters, index, and glossary. The way a book would be setup. If i were to do this project again I would make my prezi a little less wordy because I wrote a bit to much information and not everyone wants to read a presentation when it resembles a book. Thats BORING, so next time I will make sure it is less wordy. I noticed that the project and the entire process doesn't just take 1 week or 2 weeks it takes time. Especially when it has to go through stages in which people have to agree with it. The entire research process was simple to me because I knew about it all and I knew how it would all turn out to be or so I thought. After my researching of the law I realized I didn't know to much about it all I knew that I would have to dig a bit for certain things such as those who were involved in the process. I found this BM very useful to me because of my interest in Native Americans.

Sources:

http://www.enotes.com/major-acts-congress/indian-civil-rights-act

https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=L11_1104_US4_Susan_BA/en/US&utm_source=B11_1104_US4_Susan&utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=C11_1104_US4&language=en&uselang=en&country=US&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FCivil_Rights_Act_of_1968

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/516.html

http://facstaff.uww.edu/guliga/uwec/american_indian_history_timeline.htm

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/civilrightstimeline1.html

http://www.tribal-institute.org/lists/icra1968.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968

http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/projects/2001/04/brokentrust/history/history10.shml

http://www.answers.com/topic/indian-civil-rights-act

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_civil_rights

http://www.nativevillage.org/Messages%20from%20the%20People/Indian%20Civil%20Rights%20Act%20of%201968.htm

http://blog.michaelsinanian.com/tag/indian-civil-rights-act-of-1968/

http://caicw.org/Indiancivilrightsact.html

http://www.citizensalliance.org/Major%20Issues/General%20Legal%20Issues/indian_civil_rights.htm

http://www.citizensalliance.org/links/pages/articles%20and%20CERA%20news/Wall%20Street%20Jounal%20Reply.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_self-determination

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civil-rights/

http://thorpe.ou.edu/guide/robertson.html

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h2876.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968

This is how I believed I could portray my information the best about my law.

• Explain your decision making for choosing the bill.
  -I chose this bill because I have always been very interested in the adoption of children. I also am very interested in children with special needs. When I came across this law I knew this was the right law for me.
• Why did you choose the particular presentation format?
  -I chose this format because I believed that it could stand on its own and that it was more of an attention grabber.
• What challenges did you overcome in completing the project?
  -I overcame the temptation to just not work.
• How would you do the project differently if you had to do it over again?
  -I would make more of an presentation.
• What did the research and investigation tell you about the creation process... from idea to bill to law?
  -It told how hard it actually is to create a law. The bill has to go through many people before being considered a law.
• Was the process easier or harder than you imagined based on your particular bill/law research?
  - It was actually harder than I thought it would be. I thought that the president had the whole say but it turns out that many people have a say in this process.

This is my 1st quarter benchmark. i did mine on Hua Mulan known just as Mulan when made famous in the disney channel movie Mulan.

<a target="_blank" href="http://www.savevid.com/?url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AARl1cMxS9w">Download Mulan's Decision video on savevid.com. Download videos in flv, mp4, avi formats easily on S 1 on Savevid.com</a>

By Natalie Sanchez

​Link to Website.

Everyone has seen a Disney movie at least once in their lives. The movies "Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty", and "Bambi" opened a portal to a magical world far beyond the reality in which we lived. Princess dresses and tiaras were out of stock in children department stores and girls everywhere would dream of living in a castle one day. This was the footprint that Walter Disney left on my generation's childhood memories- these were the dreams that stemmed from Disney productions. For my first quarter English benchmark, I have chosen to create a website about Walter Disney, the master behind the magic.

The Projecthttps://historysweethomephiladelphiabm.wikispaces.com/BM+Work

Our Vietnam War Prezi Presentation:

This is a presentation about how Gandhi is misrepresented to be a perfect saint. In reality he is simply a human being who has the same vices that all of us have. The viewer should, after seeing this presentation, understand that no human being was, is, or will be perfect and should focus on individuals as a whole rather than what they are known for. However, people should not look at Gandhi as a complete failure, but should understand that they most likely would have done the same if they were in Gandhi's situation.

The Knights Templar have been depicted through popular culture as a secret society which practiced paganistic and satanic rituals, though they were supported by the Vatican and the Pope himself. In other modern portrayals, especially due to the popularity of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, the Templars are depicted as a group which sought the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, and other legendary relics. Some believe that the Templars still exist, protecting and hiding these secrets from those who would seek to defile them.

But what no one portrays is the events that actually occurred. The events in which the Templars played important roles and for which their are numerous accounts.

That is what this video aims to do: portray the Templars as they were, not as they are theorized to be.

For this photo I first created a shaded background so that the clear object would stand out. Next I drew exactly what I saw. once I created something for the object to sit on I then drew the object and I used the eraser to create the clear part of it. It was hard to get the roundness of the object exact. Overall I did pretty good.

I have a personal connection to the roots of Quakerism because my family "converted" when I was in 1st grade because I was attending a Quaker school and would ask my parents, of my own volition, if we could go to meeting for worship. What shocked me when I went to public school in 5th grade was how surprised people were when I told them I was Quaker. Then we would open our text books and read about George Fox and William Penn and the Native Americans and the idea of Quakerism would fade into colonial America. Well, I clearly used electricity, much to many people's shock, and I did not use the words "thee" or "thou" so I began to realize that there was some sort of miscommunication going on with these kids that they could assume something was dead and also a certain way because a text book only mentioned it once. My goal was to shed new light on aspects of Quakerism that are often overlooked as well as making it clear that Quakerism as still as much of a religion as any other that was present during Colonial America. 

I used the form of a podcast because I know that I learned best when I am spoken to and also am best at relaying information verbally. With those qualifications understood I created a skeleton of a script and then spoke as though I were presenting to a class. I find this to be the most helpful way to hear new information because inflection and interest does not sound dialouged but engaged and loose.



http://soundcloud.com/emmahohen/quakers-1644/s-nOrdu