What If....the Lend-Lease Act: J. Pullins, U.S. History Edition

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Screen Shot 2012-06-04 at 12.26.20 PM
In 1941, the 77th United States Congress proposed an act entitled the Lend-Lease Act, which allowed the government to supply weapons and general support to the Allied nations of World War II. By the end of that year, America was attacked and the same members of Congress who proposed this bill swiftly declared war. With the current knowledge of World War II's influence in both American and global history, one must wonder what would happen if this act was never passed.


Click here for the final website.


REFLECTION:

  For this project, my point of divergence occurs in March of 1941, when the Lend-Lease Act is not signed into law. Subsequently, due to the U.S. Neutrality Acts signed years earlier, the United States sees no need to enter into WWII, which allows Germany to continue on its path of European domination, and Japan, Germany's ally, on its path of dominating the Asian contient and many of the Pacific Island territories. The rise of global power by Germany prompts it to become a major world power, which causes strife amongst the U.S. and Germany, and two nations often battle for the title of the singular global superpower. 

There are many things about this project that I enjoyed. Mostly, I enjoyed the very basis of it, which is the ability to change history. I am a firm believer in the butterfly effect, which is a theory that states that even the smallest decisions, such as what plant a butterfly may choose to land on, can cause the greatest long-term effects and effectively change the trajectory of history. With this knowledge, I knew I wanted to make a very small change, something that to many, may not seem too significant to do much of anything. However, I would show how after the course of many decades, that small change resulted in a massive shift of history. 

To reference Isaac Newton, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. While this is generally considered to be a law within the world of physics, this is something that can be applied to life as well. All of our lives are plagued with decisions, and the importance of the choices of those decisions are often not realized. I believe every person, no matter their social importance or relevance, has the ability to change the course of national and world history with one decision.

Today's Impact by Malik Tlili Q4 Bm

*What if the Wright brothers received a toy boat rather than a penaud helicopter as boys.*

  • My Point of Divergence (POD) comes from sources providing the initial interest of flight by the Wright brothers. The interest has came to the wright brothers when they were just boys. I did more research on this topic and found out it was due to a penaud toy that they received as children. I decided to change the penaud helicopter to a toy boat and analyze how this might effect the future. 
  • I envisioned the Wright brothers becoming more interested in floating devices that transport people across large bodies of water. From this interest the boys will discover the "Shoes that walk on water" theory by leonardo Da Vinci. They will make this theory into reality and the invention will be beneficial to modern day. 
  • I enjoyed creating primary sources. Throughout this whole year we have been collecting primary sources from the internet and it is interesting to create our own for once. This was a relief and enjoyable task for me to complete. 
  • The most interesting piece of evidence that i investigated must be leonardo's shoes that walk on water. I found this as a strikingly ridiculous idea but yet possible. I then decided to create a point of divergence involving the shoes rather than exterminating the invention of planes. 
  • Technology is a huge component of history. As technology progresses there are new ways to settle on land as well as protect our land. In this specific POD our 2 individuals have taken the concept of walking on water and used it to help guard the nation's borders. 
  • Our 2 individuals have taken the concept of walking on water and spread the invention all over the world. This means the invention by these 2 men have been manufactured and distributed in large numbers. This contribution leads to a systemic change that benifits our nations military. 
  • I believe one individual's decision can greatly effect history's landscape. As one person makes one decision, others then view the future in a parallel perspective. If this decision were to be slightly different. Every other perspective will change as well. For example the wright brothers were influenced by the penaud helicopter and Da Vinci's perspective of flying. If Leonardo Da Vinci did not have these ideas, the wright brothers will never come across the possibility of flight. 
  • This project can certainly be improved in the effect aspect. If i were to have more time i would create more primary courses that are more modern. For example the tragic events such as september 11th or pearl harbor will never have taken place. This will then change the way we view our nation's security. 
  • If i were to do this project all over i would jump straight to Da Vinci's view of flight and erase it from history. Even though my final product does not revolve around Da Vinci's view of flight, i believe it will still be further investigated by someone other than the Wright brothers.

Click Here for "Created Primary Sources". 


Rugeiatu Bah "What If" HistoryBMK


            Overall project was what if the Judge that was judging the case died and another judge took his place. In 2012, American citizen realize things were getting old and the segregation wasn't what the Amendments stated. It was time when it was difficult for me to get my thoughts on paper. I really liked the fact that I had to think hard to accomplish this project because when I think about things, I started to understand the point of it and why it’s important.


Some interesting facts I came across was when most African Americans students had to walk 7-10 miles just to get to school they are being forced to attend. Each individual changed history, even though there were some illegal things happening, some people were happy the way African American was being treated. Also it seem like most Whites was okay with the way things were "separated but equal".

 I was confused through out the entire process of putting it together and every time I asked someone they would tell me they are confused too. Show examples more of how things should look like and set up work time with you for help.

I would change the time, I wish I had more time, it not even that I didn't use my time wisely but some people just learn differently from others. This project was one of the project that I really needed help with because things just wasn't clicking correctly, but as days went by, I figure out ways and researched more about unclear things and got it done.


 Click here to view my project.

Matt Ferry - What if...

 Check out my website!

Point of divergence - What if the Wright Brothers were never inspired by Otto Lilienthal? I chose this as my point of divergence, as Lilienthal inspired the Wright Brothers to create their flyers with persistence, always building on what went wrong before.

The Wright Brothers not creating the airplane means that technology would not have advanced as it did, meaning planes that could carry heavy bombs would not have been created, meaning the Cold War would have never began from the dropping of the atomic bombs. This would have changed the flow of the United States political system, as Lee Harvey Oswald would have never have been a Marxist, meaning JFK would not have died for his opposing views. All of the Kennedys would have been elected till the 1988 election, when Bush Senior would win. The Gulf War would have still occurred, as would 9/11, as planes would have surely been developed by then. If the airplane were not to have been invented, there would have been politically peace during the era of the Cold War.

I enjoyed this project. Taking an event and manipulating it, altering history was awesome, and reminded me of the butterfly effect; showing that with one small change in history can completely rewrite the world. This was also the most challenging part for me, as it was difficult for me to find a specific event to focus on; I had a ton of ideas that I really wanted to work on, but I felt like this would have given a fairly interesting future. The Wright Brothers being so moved by Lilienthal's pioneering to create their own experiments I found was particularly interesting, as it shows just how much someone can inspire another.

This showed me that the actions of a single human being can directly curve history as we know it. By taking out something, you're taking out someone who could have contributed to something larger, inspired someone else, or helped others create a network that would later inspire. Individuals make changes and cause progression, as apparent by this project. These individuals can also cause systematic changes, causing new ideas to flourish that can lead a movement or a group. These systems influence individuals, such as Lee Harvey Oswald, who following the Marxist philosophy killed JFK, causing a changed caused by an individual, with change brought to that individual by a system.

Looking back on this project I really enjoyed it. Thought, if I were to have done it again, I would have chosen a different topic. I was particularly interested with two topics; How history would be different if the atomic bombs dropped on Japan failed. The other being what if the Cuban Missile Crisis was not stopped in time. I would certainly like to do one of these topics, and maybe even a way to combine both of them...
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Screen Shot 2012-06-01 at 11.27.06 AM

What if? Benchmark and Sources amillatt

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Screen Shot 2012-06-04 at 1.06.51 PM

The point of divergence  was when Ronald Reagan was nearly assassinated on March 30th, 1981. He was shot in the lung right outside of the Washington DC Hilton hotel by John Hinkley. I changed this event and made the shot fatal (in the original event was inches away from his heart) and Reagan dies after surgery. The future I imagined was a bright one, Reagan ruined America's economy because of his famous "Reaganimics" plan that only benefited cooperations( the rich). I believed that George H W Bush wouldn't have choose the same plan, but would have just raised taxes. In the future since George W Bush is never elected we don't go to war with Iraq, which only helped our economy. For 2012 the economy is stable and prosperous. The education system is incredible because America did have a surplus of money to give towards education.The only problem in America is the amount of homeless families that has continuously grew because funding for welfare is modicum and very selective. 

I enjoyed learning about the Reagan policies because I didn't realize his presidency was so pivotal in American history. He changed a lot about the economy and foreign relationships. I thought the most challenging part was deciding how to present the project because their was just so many ways to do it. I also thought just thinking about a different future was difficult. I thought that researching how each individual event and person affected another event that would ultimately change the future was extremely interesting. 

I felt that any change will effect the future , even if it is just a small impact or huge. For example if  the systematic change was that "Reaganomics" never happened, our economy would not end up in debt. I felt the same way about individual change because as I showed in my benchmark with the absents of Reagan our future was completely different. Well one decision can change everything, for example Bush made the decision to fight a war, which hurt our economy. If Bush would have made a different decision than perhaps Americas finanical situation would be completely different.

I thought that if i had a timeline in my project that would help with describing the future. I tried to include some of the history in my magazine like I would specify which president helped that event happen. The timeline would have just added that extra bit of understanding. If i had to do my project over again I would have done way more research and started it earlier, not to say I didn't spend hours just reading about the history, but I also feel like I missed some important events. If I would have started just a week earlier then I would have had more time to do research and create the best project. 

Time Magazine benchmark.

Source 1 and 2 click here

Source 3 click here.

Allison Patterson - What if history Benchmark; What if Abe Lincoln passed away when he was nine?

My project was suppose to be a chapter from an alternative history textbook for young children.  My point of divergence is that Abe Lincoln passed away when his mother fell ill from milk poisoning. Lincoln could have easily fell ill as well and thus passed away with his mother. As a result of Lincoln dying the nation would have accepted the ideas of Stephan Douglas. Douglas believed that each state should be able to choose if they want slavery or not. Without Lincoln to debate this idea with Douglas the nation would have accepted this idea. In 2012, the nation be free for the most with only Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana still permitting slaves. However, the nation will be very strict about the conditions the slaves may be kept in. I enjoyed this project because I was able to see how Lincoln's one action, holding the Lincoln-Douglas debates, changed the world. Stephan Douglas made a good argument for why America should follow him but, Lincoln made a better argument back. If you removed Lincoln, Douglas' argument would have stood. I wish this project would have been longer. I felt rushed to make my product and my product suffered.  I felt like we focused a lot on the yellow paper and planning and not actually working. I also think that if we are working on planning we need to plan how we want to present it.

Corruption & Censorship Blog #3

This whole project has been both interesting to do and fun to learn things that I didn’t really know before. I made this video to bring awareness to people who don’t know about this topic or who don’t care about it. Here is the petition that I would like everyone to sign if they are against corruption and unjust censorship in the world. Here's my survey results if you haven't seen it yet and my bibliography.

 

After getting enough signatures I want to go and send it to someone like the mayor or even the state representative to show them that some people do care about what happens. So thanks for tuning in to my blog posts and hopefully a change can happen sooner or later. Until then try to make a change of your own and figure out ways to be heard and seen.

What If? History Benchmark: Changing Free Press

In 1733, German-American printer named John Peter Zenger accepted an offer from James Alexander to publish his editorials criticizing New York's governor at the time. Alexander founded the New York Weekly Journal and published the first issue in November of 1733. The Governor being criticized went by the name William Cosby. Cosby attempted to have the publication shut down several times with the court's help, but eventually put out a 50 pound reward to the person that could identify the authors of the editorials and order Zenger's papers to be burned publicly. With the help of his attorney general Cosby issued a warrant for Zenger's arrest. Zenger spent 8 months in jail. Cosby attempted to select jurors himself, but that was dismissed and twelve townspeople were picked. 


The trial began in August of 1735 on the terms that the paper was producing "seditious libel". It was true that Andrew Hamilton, of Philadelphia, Zenger's lawyer had no law to support his idea that the truth could be defensive for a libel charge. The trial could be said to have been the most famous 'jury nullification' in history, which means a jury has the power to serve  verdict of 'not guilty' because the disagree with the current law rather than actually believe the person is not guilty. Needless to say, the jury did not make a judgement on the existing law or the facts, but what they thought of the law itself. This is thought to be the building blocks for Free Press in the Bill of Rights.


My point of divergence is that the jury does rule a guilty verdict and the existing British law is not challenged. 


I liked being able to pick something I was interested in. I had the freedom to choose  a topic that conceded my because I am a journalist. The whole project was interesting in that way, but the jury nullification is what I find interesting. As well as the fact that Zenger was just the publisher when we never wrote a single word. He did not set out to be a champion of free speech, but simply a printer doing his thing. 


The individuals in this situation seem to make the impact but it is really the individuals joining together as the jury and as the public in a print protest of the power they disagreed with. Free Press is a systemic change. If this was the only thing to be changed, I believe someone or some people would have eventually made free press happen but countless other things would have been affected in the mean time. 


The resonating changed I thought about was elections. If press were not able to use their privilege of reporting facts, even when unpleasant the results of many elections could have changed. 


If this project could have been improved it would have been to find more sources. It was very difficult to locate primary sources from the 1730's. Honestly, if I had more evidence I could have used more. 


If I could do it over, I would have done even more. I like the idea of the magazine, but there isn't much content. Because I am a journalist I didn't like feeling as if the project was only half done with a single photo, article and cartoon. ​

"What If" Benchmark

Video diary by a girl in 2012.



My point of divergence in the US is that Rachel Carson, the biologist whose book, Silent Spring helped push forward the environmental protection effort, and combated the use of a dangerous pesticide DDT, instead never switched her major. From my research, I found that that Carson had originally planned to have an English, but later on switched to biology. Without Carson being the voice against the environmental impact of DDT, I envisioned the future to have all of the results of the use of DDT- but ten-fold. There were 3 major things that I decided would come about from the excessive use of DDT: 1. Malaria would be eradicated. When looking for DDT sources I came across several sources that ask the same question that I pose. Apparently, those sources spoke of a Malaria free world if the pesticide had continued to be in use. I saw a graph that showed a very sharp decline of deaths of malaria, but then an even sharper increase after the brief decline. I concluded that Malaria is directly affected, so Malaria would have to be gone in the world DDT is still used. My second major thing: the prices of fish are sky rocketed. My third major impact is also within my second. The fact that fish prices are so ridiculously high is because their aquatic habits are contaminated with runoff containing DDT. That is explained when the character I portray say that she can't even swim in the ocean. The result from the contaminated water is that the majority of the fish have died off, making them endangered. Yet they are still for sale (greediness of humans anyone?). 

Those were important details in my portrait of the future. I can say that I wish I had made my video journals look more...personal. I wanted them to look plain and seem almost impromptu, because I was supposed to be a random spewing of thoughts. Hence the reason why I didn't add things like transitions and stuff. I wish I could have given my character a more personality of my own- I hope remnants of myself didn't shine through too much. So I think if I were to do it again, I would make a person dramatically different from myself.

Aside from that, from this project I've realized the immense impact that little events have on our world. It makes me think of all of the world's great and evil leaders- how much things would be different if these people took different roads in life. I'm aware that we would would live in an entirely different world. I also realize that our world is the way it is because of the same people stayed tenacious and never let go of the vision that they had in mind. Mind you, that can be good or bad. Though regardless, it teaches the ever-repetitive lesson, "never give up", which mostly lives up to the praise that it receives.                                               

What if? History Benchmark


IMG_1994
I fully enjoyed working on this 4th quarter "What If?" benchmark. I have always been interested in immigration, and so I chose to focus on immigration. My Point of Divergence was Manifest Destiny. I changed historical events that had occurred in the year 1845; the Annexation of Texas. I killed the 11th president of the United States: James K. Polk. I did this by making James Brown Clay, son of Henry Clay assassin, causing events like the Annexation of Texas, the Mexican American War, and the Mexican cession to occur. I envisioned the result of this change would decrease the importance of immigration today. Mexicans would not be entering the U.S.A., suffering from poverty and corruption. Their lands would have been filled with abounding goods and no troublesome would exist today.
What I enjoyed about this project was that we had the chance to select a historical event as we wished, rather than being given what to do. Each individual was able to produce a product of their creativity. Oddly enough, I did not find this project to be challenging. I thought that I would have difficulties in comprehending the historical concept of it, but all went well. If I didn't understand something fully, I would simply watch a documentary or search it thoroughly and then add he information onto my final product. The most interesting event that I investigated was the Mexican American War. When I watched the documentary "Mexican American War" on the History channel what caught my attention was this quote:"If he bullied Mexico enough, Mexico would give up their lands." It's crazy to me to see how America supported Polk's decisions of war.

Decisions lead to more decisions, as do problems. A decision within a decision-decision inception! A historical event leads to more historical events. A decision in history is done accordingly to the finalized first decision. For Instance, in James K. Polk's presidential campaign, he makes promises and ends up keeping his promises like his promise to annex Texas, but that results in the Mexican American War. Yes, decisions in history are very influential indeed. Systemic decisions impact historical records by giving a result accordingly to the decisions that are made. I believe this project could be improved if the project was assigned earlier in the quarter. This project is very time consuming and with Summer kicking in, it's difficult to put on my thinking cap- at least for me it is. If I had the power to do this project over again, I would have worked on the project day by day, rather than all at once. I crammed in doing my research, when there was no reason for it if I worked on it week by week. I just felt that I wouldn't comprehend that a part of me said that I had to research everything thoroughly and not miss anything; it made me research many things all at once.


What If History Benchmark!

In my project, my point of divergence  is that Germany did not have to pay for all of them war crimes after World War I. The article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles had never been written and an alternative article: article 239 had been passed in its place.  After my DOV, Hitler never took over Germany because Germany didn't go into the Economic turmoil they went through. The Communist Nation of Germany had taken over, and Joseph Stalin from Russia had become that ruthless dictator of Europe. World War II had never began and the Cold War was amplified. Since World War II never happened and Germany didn't split, a lot of Germany's scientists didn't come to the US. This lead to the USSR winning the Cold War and the United States handling the Cuban Missile Crisis wrong; which ultimately lead the nuclear destruction! Ultimately, I enjoyed this project because of the broad topics we could pick from. The one thing I especially enjoyed about the project is the freedom of what I wanted to happen after my DOV. I really enjoyed researching about Joseph Stalin and how ruthless, and an overal bad leader he was. I feel like Hitler extremely impacted the future and how it changed. I could improve this project by making the transitions a lot more fluent and crisp, maybe with a little bit more time I could of done that.

English Journal 46

What did it feel like to be stuck in the corner, simulating what the Jews in night felt?

 

It felt extremely crowded. Not only this, but we would also have to sleep in conditions like that. It would be inhumane, and we would have spent the entire day like that.

 

In the book, they spent days there. In the 30 seconds that we did it, everyone was already uncomfortable. Not only this, but we felt violated. It’s inhuman to do that to someone.

 

History Journal 11

“If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circumstances.” ~Theodore Dreiser, 1941

 

“Religion is the sign of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soul-less conditions. It is the opium of the people.” ~Karl Marx, 1884

 

1.     The first quote is very interesting, it talks about the fact that religion forgives and it lets you do so much more than what is necessary.

2.     The quote by Karl Marx used the word Opium, which was also mentioned in Animal Farm, by George Orwell. 

What If? US History Benchmark

Newspaper on Legalization
Newspaper on Legalization
My project is about the decriminlization of cannabis. My point of divergence occurs when Jimmy Carter decides to make an appeal to Congress to decriminalize cannabia. This occurred near the end of his presidential term. Due to this, the Drug Enforcement Agency refocused to attack the drug cartels shipping other narcotics. This not only led to the taking down of several cartels, but also to a reduced incarceration rate from his term onward. His bold move and promise made on the campaign trail was followed through and states have now began to tax marijuana. This has led to much more beneficial development in urban areas as well as reduced budget deficits.

History Journal 42


Is colonization good?

 

Short term- extremely bad, can wipe out entire populations (Native Americans) but at the same time, can be good by bringing new technology. This could be bad through, because the populous could not know how to handle the new technology.

 

Long term- can be good or bad.

 

The nations that arise from Colonization, such as America, can be extremely influential and become a great nation.

            It’s important that the country that starts the colonization encourage a new country, and that it lets it be independent if it wants to. 

What If? US History Q4 - Tenzin Ngawang

My point of divergence was governor Alfred E. Smith from New York winning the 1928 presidential election instead of Pres. Herbert Hoover. President Franklin D. Roosevelt blamed Pres. Herbert Hoover for starting the great depression and therefore, I chose this as my point of divergence. I liked this project because you could actually choose any topic you want and you get to change something small that twisted everything. I chose this topic because I wanted to know more about the Great Depression because I don't recall myself learning about that time period in any of my classes. I just heard it was a really mournful time period in US History. I researched and learned that Herbert Hoover was the protagonist, he was the president during great depression and he was blamed for it. So I asked the question, what if the presidential candidate who was running against him during the previous election, would America had to suffer the great depression time period. The other candidate was either Alfred Smith or Calvin Coolidge and I realized that Calvin Coolidge withdrew himself from running as a president after his son's death. I debated whether to chose Calvin Coolidge rather than Alfred E Smith multiple times as my point of Divergence because Calvin Coolidge was an interesting character. Therefore, if I were to do this project again, I'd choose Calvin Coolidge as the president during the great depression era. The most challenging part of the project was the final product, I didn't know what to put and how 2012 would look like because of my point of divergence. The most interesting that I came across through my research was the great depression occurred a decade after the roaring 1920s. Roaring twenties was a time period when America was on the top of the world, America was known as the richest country in the world. However, a decade after, Americans were loosing job, they couldn't afford anything. The unemployment rates increased up to 25 percent, which is a lot, millions of citizens were losing their job. 

​Primary Sources:


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PosterAlSmith_BM4
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Screen Shot 2012-06-05 at 8.10.46 PM

What If? Benchmark

My awesome website that I created with yola!


I really enjoyed this project. The topic of my project revolved around the Space Race; previous history states that USA had captured German rocket personnel, giving them the advantage to win the Space Race (Landing on the Moon first) against Russia. My point of divergence for this project was "What if USA captured decoy German rocket personnel." 


Through my point of divergence you will see complete chaos and total change for what the USA and Russia has become for 2012. I briefly explained and tied in primary sources, both prior and post, to my point of divergence. The future that I envisioned of my POD was for the Russians to land on the moon first. Nevertheless, the USSR to remain together and would become the most wealthiest economy in the world due to their findings on the moon. Also, the USSR would gain partnerships of other countries (China and Japan) to support them in creating advanced technologies for the market.


I liked everything about this project, specifically the creativity and openness we were given to choose what we wanted to do and how we could create the final product. The most difficult aspect of this projects was successfully tying everything together in an appealing matter. Also, creating primary source documents were difficult because of the detail required to connect with my POD.



What if? US History Benchmark

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Screen Shot 2012-06-04 at 12.59.48 PM
This is a picture of one of the primary sources I made for our "What If?" project. The "What If?" project is mostly a creativity project where we can create an alternate future that occurred due to one specific change in American history. We then would need to create three primary sources to validate a future where this event had happened. Finally we then tie all three sources together along with three other real sources prior to the point of divergence into one final product. For my final product I made a website for a museum that featured American History for the alternate future. One can access this website by clicking here

For my project the main idea was, what if Napoleon Bonaparte never sold the Louisiana Purchase exclusively to the United States? My point of divergence was when Napoleon was considering to sell the Louisiana Purchase he asked his council for advice. In real history the council disagreed with him and he sold the territory in spite of them. However in this alternate future his council agreeded with him and so he considered the full possibilities of selling it to the other neighbor of New France, Spain. He ended up selling it to both to get more money, in this way it created much tension between the US and Spain, which turned into a war for many years after.

The alternative future would then be very different. The main difference is because of the increased contact with Spanish culture a much larger percent of American society speaks Spanish. In addition the united states is in a constant state of alarm in preparations of any kind of violence from Spanish troops. The two countries in the current day are at a cease fire much like North and South Korea. IN addition to this there is also a heavy Native American influence on American culture. Because Native Americans were never moved out west they were forced to interact with colonists and the mix of culture was more evident in society.

I had mixed opinions about this project. I like the creativity aspect and the ability to explore a change in history. It shows that the smallest of moments can change the future greatly, and it really helped with noticing how important small changes have been. The process for this project was simple I stayed on top of my work and did everything in a timely manor. It was challenging to make primary sources look old.

4th Quarter Project: The war between two neighborhoods


https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/file/d/0BziwRn91x0y9SmloOEVDakF3ajQ/edit?pli=1

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/PHI-17-Year-Old-Killed-in-Northern-Liberties.html

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Mom-Son-Shot-in-Northern-Libs-Cops--150367245.html

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=8657500


Reflection:


The most challenging thing I found about this project is trying to tie it in with Globalization. I chose to write my journal story about something I knew about first hand and has actually been around too see and hear on my own. I also had a hard time with trying to make the paper sound more of a blog/journal thing instead of sounding like a thesis paper.

I always knew about this story because I am from one neighborhood and has friends in the other neighborhood. I have seen these things first hand, the 17 year old boy that died was friend of mines I knew since kindergarten and the mother and son caught in the cross fire was my friend mother and brother. These things have a great effect on me, I didn't physically get shot but these things messes up people minds mentally.

I think this story doesn't receive enough attention because its always something about African Americans doing something violent in the news. Everyday you'll see inner city violence on the news so this would be just another story. But the shootings doesn't always happen in the same place in my story there's a shooting almost everyday if not everyday. The violence is senseless and  is getting out of hand. I feel like the city of Philadelphia should put more police patrol out on the streets of Philadelphia. I don't think this story will get more attention over the next few months unless another innocent person is shot dead. I learned that inner city violence is somewhat of a disease it spreads through out the youth.

Dominican Republic Election: Jareese, Sade Zillah

The country we were assigned was the Dominican Republic and the election was held on May 20th 2012. First, we got help from Uyen Nguyen who suggested that we get in contact with a man she met named David in the DR. 
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Screen shot 2012-06-01 at 8.51.10 AM
And from there, I went onto Facebook and contacted David.
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Screen shot 2012-04-11 at 10.27.46 PM
However, I did not receive a response from David which led us to find a new ways to get information that we needed. One of the group members, Zillah, suggested that we talk to one of the underclassmen, Franklin Mercado, because he's from the DR and has family who lives there and could help.  One Thursday afternoon, we all got together with Franklin and he phoned his cousin on Google Talk. His cousin, Carlos Mariano Mendez who is apart of the Military answered the following questions for us.

How old do you have to be to vote in the DR?

What is the voting process like in the DR?

Are you familiar with the voting process in the US?

What are some political parties in the DR?

Bahama's Election Country

​For this project our group, Tyrone, Qyidir, and De'Lesha, were told to look at a country and research how their election process went. This project was harder than expected because it was a challenge to get in contact with the people from the different countries. It may seem as though it might be easy because of the technology that we have but it wasn't for that. 
After talking with our teacher we started to get moving along with the process because she gave us some ways to contact different people in the Bahamas. After sending out emails and days of waiting a response we finally got one from a teacher. She then forwarded this email to someone in the class who was willing to talk to us about the election process. We exchanged emails but we didn't really get information we were suppose to skype and interview him but things got hectic with other work. So this project wasn't really successful although we did get in contact with him we didn't really get the information. 
This was a fun project but because it wasn't stressed as much as the others it wasn't really focused on. So if we could have redid this project we would've taken more time out to really get in contact with and get the information from him. 
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Screen Shot 2012-06-01 at 8.44.16 AM
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Screen Shot 2012-06-01 at 8.44.23 AM
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Screen Shot 2012-06-01 at 8.41.03 AM
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Screen Shot 2012-06-01 at 8.41.11 AM