Esto es una grabación de la madre de Pablo o "El Bola Si, ella sería llamada la policía y denuncia maltratar de infantil de su esposo. 

           Yo soy Fidel Alejandro Castro, el presidente antiguo de Cuba. Yo era nació y crié próximo Birán en la provincia este Oriente de Cuba. Yo era crié en una familia rica y luego asistió a  El colegio de Belén. Después de mi graduación yo asistió la escuela de leyes a la Universidad de Havana y me interesé en sensibilidades política de nacionalismo de Cuba, anti-imperialismo, y socialismo. Me importa es justicia social, en 1947 yo intenté derrocar Rafael Trujillo. En mi Pías yo intenté derrocar un dictador General Fulgencio Batista por ataque con 150 partidarios. El ataque no trabajo y yo era condené y sentencié para quince años en cárcel. Ese incidente hizo me famosa en todo lugares de Cuba. Yo era liberé debajo trato de amnistía con Batista. Después de incidente yo trabajaba con Ernesto “Che” Guevara a derroca Batista, nosotros tenemos éxito y yo hacerme Comandante y Jefe de los militares y luego primer ministro.

            En la pintura yo mira un parte de un tren. Un parte es solo en un campo enfrente de árboles. Los colores de la pintura es mas brillantes y muy bonito. Un color que destaca mas es rojo el color de un parte de tren.  El tono de pintura es agridulce como el ron. El fondo es muy linda los colores de los árboles y el cielo es suave pero el parte de tren siéntense todo solamente.  Los colores de la pintura se vuelve más saturada de arriba abajo. La pintura tiene una dimensión debido a la amplia de la oscuridad a blandos. La pintura es simplista, que es porque la pintura es bonita.

            El rojo de el tren recuerda me cuando yo formé una relación con el Unión Soviética y Cuba adopté un economía comunismo. También la pintura recuerda me de la tierra de mi padre. Para mi un parte de el tren representa el partido comunismo, en el mundo de capitalismo y imperialismo, comunismo camina solo y no es  acepté. El mensaje de la pintura es en tú vida vas a tener ideas y un ponto de vista diferente que el mundo o el otro grupo y tú tendrás camina solo pero no abandonar tus ideas. A veces ser un individual o un líder significa ser solo.   La más importante es tú a mantenerse fiel a ti mismo. La pintura hace me sentir bien acerca de mis decisiones  in mí vida. Es como el espejo de mi vida y ideas políticas. Me hace reflexionar sobre mi vida. 

            Me gusta la pintura es muy bonita y tranquila. La técnica de el pintor  es muy bien y la pintura casi mira real. La pintura mira luminosa y monta fuerza con el tren.  Estoy de acuerdo con la mensaje de el pintor. Mirando a otros pinturas de Paul Sierra el es dotado y perspicaz. Yo respecta su obras. Sería mejor si cambié nada. 

 Es una pintura de mi favorita ahora.

Desireé Mack

Am Gov Benchmark

Legislative Branch 

Child labor law of Pennsylvania- Positive

The Child Labor Law (CLL) was put into place for the safety and health of minors by not allowing the minor to work in certain establishments and occupations, an under a certain age. CLL makes minors have work permits before starting work. Except farm or domestic work in a private home, the law covers any establishment other than the minor’s home.

Impact on My Life

            As a teenager for me it’s important to look my best, go out and have fun, and buy the things that are important to me for example Chris Brown’s F.A.M.E CD when it comes out, to do this I need extra money that my not be in my families budget so I have to get a job. I work for the Mural Arts Program of Philadelphia. This law protects me from my employer exploiting me as a worker. This allows me to be sure I am working in safe conditions and are not doing jobs that could put me in danger. Also it assures me a break during my workday and proper payment for my labor.

Affirmative Action Law- Positive 

            Affirmative action is when a business or governmental agency gives special rights of hiring or promoting to ethnic minorities to make up for past discrimination against that minority.

Impact on My Life

            Working in the art field as I do now it is hard to get a head with so many artist vying for the job so having Affirmative Action is an advantage. Instead of being maybe otherwise over looked for a new position I have an advantage at getting ahead. It makes me more excited to work hard at my job because I know my hard work will pay off and help me advance.

H. R. 3962 Health Care Reform- Positive

To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes. 

 Impact on My Life

            The health care bill has a big impact on my life. I have rheumatoid arthritis, which is an auto-immune disease. It causes your immune system to attack your joins and break down the bone and cartledge of the joint along with other side effects. I have to go to my doctor and a specialist frequently. Between the doctors appointments and the medication I take it cost lot of money. Without health insurance I would be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. With out health insurance I would have to live in pain and watch my body breakdown.  

Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act- Positive  

Promoting health and reducing childhood obesity, helping schools improve the nutritional quality of school meals.

Impact on My Life

            I normally take my lunch on the days that I forget or cannot bring it, I buy lunch from school. With this new law I can be sure the food being served is healthy and of good quality. This bill makes it so more local food is being used which is better for students because local farmers don’t use the same strong pesticides as the big companies. The bill also gives schools more money to get better cooking materials and appliances for better production.

Judicial Branch   

New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985)- Negative
Students have a reduced expectation of privacy in school.

A teacher accused T.L.O. of smoking in the bathroom. When she denied the allegation, the principal searched her purse and found cigarettes and marijuana paraphernalia. A family court declared T.L.O. a delinquent. The Supreme Court ruled that her rights were not violated since students have reduced expectations of privacy in school. 

Impact on my life

            As proud citizen of the united states I have the right to privacy, the reason police need a search warrant to dig through my privacy. Why when I enter a building I lose my rights as a human being. That makes no sense to me.

Tinker v. Des Moines (1969)- Positive
Students do not leave their rights at the schoolhouse door.
            To protest the Vietnam War, Mary Beth Tinker and her brother wore black armbands to school. Fearing a disruption, the administration prohibited wearing such armbands. The Tinkers were removed from school when they failed to comply, but the Supreme Court ruled that their actions were protected by the First Amendment. 

Impact on my life

            Every person has a right to their own opinion and to express that opinion. It is not okay to tell some one because they are in school that they lose their First Amendment right. If a person is not blatanly forcing their views on others than they should be able to express it freely. As a person who likes to express her opinion this court decision makes it so no one can take that right from me.

Goss v. Lopez (1975)- Positive
Students are entitled to certain due process rights.
             Nine students at an Ohio public school received 10-day suspensions for disruptive behavior without due process protections. The Supreme Court ruled for the students, saying that once the state provides an education for all of its citizens, it cannot deprive them of it without ensuring due process protections.

Impact on my life

            As student it protects me from my school make quick rash decisions that affect me in a negative way. Not following due process is like arresting someone with out reading them their rights.

Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1983)- Negative
Administrators may edit the content of school newspapers.
            The principal of Hazelwood East High School edited two articles in the school paper The Spectrum that he deemed inappropriate. The student authors argued that this violated their First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The Supreme Court disagreed, stating that administrators can edit materials that reflect school values.

Impact on my life

            Every person has a right to their own opinion and to express that opinion. It is not okay to tell some one because they are in school that they lose their First Amendment right. If a person is not blatanly forcing their views on others than they should be able to express it freely. As a person who likes to express her opinion this court decision makes it so no one can take that right from me.

Executive Branch

Unemployment

Pennsylvania unemployment benefits provide temporary compensation to those workers meeting the eligibility requirements of Pennsylvania law. The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry and each other state's unemployment office administers its own unemployment insurance program within Federal guidelines.

Impact on my life

This has had an impact on me and the people I know. Last year my Aunt Theresa lost her job as research scientist with Temple University. She lost her job because the money from grants they had ran out. It impacts me because my aunt is a contributer in my household she and my mother split the bills. With unemployment benefits she is able to have money and still help pay bills.

Philadelphia Police Department DIRECTIVE 7 (12-09-05)- Positive

The purpose of this Directive is to establish effective guidelines, consistent with Title VI of the Civil rights Act of 1964 and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, and the Mayor’s Executive Order of September 29, 2001, for departmental personnel to follow when providing services to, or interacting with, individuals who have limited English proficiency (LEP).The purpose of this Directive is to establish effective guidelines, consistent with Title VI of the Civil rights Act of 1964 and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, and the Mayor’s Executive Order of September 29, 2001, for departmental personnel to follow when providing services to, or interacting with, individuals who have limited English proficiency (LEP).

Impact on my life

This impacts my life a lot because these are the officers that enforce the law were I live and are their to protect me and my family. There is a lot of crime and violence in the area so we need our officers. Seeing the blue uniform I feel safe. They are putting them selves in danger to protect others. I believe the police officers of Philadelphia are extraordinary people. I aspire to be one of these extraordinary people when I graduate from college.

FAFSA- Positive

Impact on my life

My family can not afford to send me to college with out help from the government. FASFA is huge asset to my future because it provides me funds for education. Without FASA I wouldn’t be able to go to college and without a college degree I can not be an FBI agent that aspire to be after I serve my time as a police officer.

Law & Policy: Funding Schools Fairly

State Law

Pennsylvania has three main sources of law on school funding. The Pennsylvania Constitution requires “a thorough and efficient system of public education.” Other Pennsylvania laws lay out, in general ways, how state money can be spent. The annual state budget contains most of the details on funding for public education.State policy

There are three main policy issues affecting education funding in Pennsylvania:

•                Adequacy. Most public schools do not spend enough money per student to give all children an adequate education and a fair chance for success. Pennsylvania has never conducted an official “adequacy study” to determine the actual amount per child needed to provide a quality education.

•                Equity. There is little equity between the spending levels in different school districts. Some districts spend more than twice the amount per student as other districts.

•                State Share. Pennsylvania provides only 36 percent of the total cost of public education, one of the lowest state shares in the country. Local school districts provide most of the funding for public education through property taxes. This means that wealthy districts have more money to spend on education than poorer districts.

Impact on my life

This impacts my life because my school gets funding based on how well we do. I think that makes the schools who don’t do well do even worst because they are not given the money for better books and other material that would help them progress. I think the schools should get an equal amount of money because no school should be left out and made to fail because of budgeting. This affects all student because in we are not getting the money we deserve.  

Websites I used:

http://www.votespa.com/portal/server.pt/community/child_labor_law/7508

http://definitions.uslegal.com/a/affirmative-action/

http://www.caricom.org/jsp/secretariat/legal_instruments/model_legislation_sexual_harassment.jsp

http://www.uscourts.gov/EducationalResources/ConstitutionResources/LegalLandmarks/LandmarkSupremeCourtCasesAboutStudents.aspx

Reflection

Finding laws and court cases that applied to me was a little challenging. I tried to look for things that were relevant to my life and the people around me. Being a young person not many things affect me but as I get older I will feel the affects of the government lot more. Form this I know more of my rights as a student and the differences between the branches.

     The easiest task in the Bureacratic system is obtaining a marriage license. My partner and I found that the hardest part of this process would be to come up with the eighty dollar fee (minors pay 100 dollars). To research the process of getting a marriage license to create a flow chart, first my partner and I searched the city of Philadelphia's official website. We hit the jackpot with that website it had all the information we needed for every possible situation couples trying to wed could be in.

       To get a marriage license in Philadelphia, you need the eighty dollar fee, your social security card or document containing your social security number. If a person was married before they need proof of dissolution of marriage or the death certificate of your former mate along with the previously stated items. If you are minor you need parental consent and an extra ten dollars per person. Lastly if you've had your name changed you need the court order. After you bring all the required materials all there is left to for the couple to do is sign their signature.   

      They only thing I would change about this process is lower the fee for the license. Philadelphia has the highest fee in the state.

Over The Next few weeks I will be composing a letter addressing Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown concerning the issue of gaining more funding for recreation centers in Philadelphia. From the letter I hope to set up a meeting to collaborate in writing a bill to propose to Mayor Michael Nutter. The next step would be to go out to all the recreation centers in Philadelphia and ask for their support and with that ask them to participate in a short movie showing the importance of the recenter in the community.

I will post the video on all major video streaming websites and on the SLA blogs. After the video I will draft up some flyers to promote the cause, recruit my friends to pass them out, and try to get signatures to petition for more money recreation centers. Within the next few months I would like to submit an article to the Philadelphia Inquirer talking about the progress my team  has made and what we would like to accomplish in the future.   

      Last year in the summer of 2009 Mayor Micheal Nutter of Philadelphia held a news conference where he stated he would have to close the city library system, recreation centers and the entire park system. In the summer that just there was fear of a plan to close all public pools at recreation centers in Philadelphia. With help from outside donations the pools were able to stay open. Mayor Nutter is the main opponents of providing adequate amounts of money our recreation centers. Unfortunately Mayor Nutter has a large amount of power and influence on this issue, There was a bill in 2007 that tried to work towards the budget increase for parks and recreation centers but nothing recent.

      In my search to find city officials to support my cause I found that I may have an ally in Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown. She devotes her work and legislative efforts toward improving the life of children in Philadelphia and the potential of girls in leadership roles.  In 2007 Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown created a resolution to create a task force for Parks and Recreation facilities.  Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown makes a point to try improve the lives of the youths of Philadelphia, and with out recreation centers for children to find a safe haven that can't happen. Three other allies would be Majority Whip Darrell Clarke, Michael  DiBerardinis, and Recreation Director Sue Slawson.

      Philadelphia Parks Alliance could be an asset to me their work for the preservation of parks and recreation centers in Philadelphia. The groups main focus is parks but parks and recreation centers have to share funding so the higher the budget increase I fight for the recreation centers the more money parks get so, it is a win-win for both of us.

       My best chance would be to get the people of the community on my side because it will be easy to convince them that it will be beneficial to have the budget increase.

       I would take the next year to make a change in the budget for 2012. The budget for 2011 has already been made. In that year I will make connections with Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, Majority Whip Darrell Clarke, Michael  DiBerardinis, and Recreation Director Sue Slawson to try to put an effective plan together.

Desireé Mack

Science and Society

                                     Why Only Five Tastes?

 I have all way wondered why Humans have the ability to taste so many things, to what limit can we taste things, and how many taste buds we have. I knew it had to do with making sure our food is not poison but I want to know more. Humans have taste buds to make a choice on what to ingest so we need our taste buds to sample the food to decide what to put in our mouths and what to ingest. When you look at your tongue you see lots of little pink bumps, and in those little pink bumps you have your taste buds. All taste buds are on the outer edges of your tongue. All taste buds can taste multiple flavors because inside them you have multiple cells to pick up the flavor. 

There are five main tastes, one for sweet, sour, savory, bitter, and salty. Animals have evolved to taste sugar to find carbohydrates for energy and a safe source for calories. Animals have evolved to taste savory things to be able to pick up the taste of protein. There are over 25 different types of bitter taste buds to pick out the things that might be toxic to eat and allows us to have enough sensitivity to taste something beneficial in the long run.  We have evolved to taste sour to protect us from eating things to sour that would throw our bodies out of whack and helps us figure out the ripeness of our food for nutritional value. Salt is very important to our biological task our bodies don’t store salt so it is very important that we find foods with salt.

Desireé Mack

Senior Art

            This first quarter my senior art class we talked about recycling objects to make artwork. Looking at discarded things and seeing the beauty in them. I am inspired by nature and the changes that it goes through so I decided to create a piece with that in mind. Walking through the streets of Philadelphia trudging through the leaves I got my idea. The leaves sprout and are beautiful and through the year so many changes happen to them and then they fall from trees and die.  At this point in my life I am going through so many changes, not all of them bring me happiness. With this piece of work I wanted to show that there is beauty in change even though you may not see it at first.

            For this piece I gathered leaves from outside and sewed them together and with a needle and thread. At first I was going to create a blanket, then a bag but the leaves started to form a shape of their own so listened to what they wanted to be shaped into and made it so.  The most important part of creating this piece was remembering to be delicate with the materials because they could crumble at any moment, just like the decisions we make in life.

             A lot of artists say the best work is of a tortured artist. To me that means when you go through things in life that are not exactly the highlight of your life use it as inspiration to create something beautiful that allows you to release some of the stress and emotion you are feeling. That is what my work will start  show in the future.