Un Viaje Por Ecuador

SPANISH AP 2022

D.B 2022

Introduction

Ever wanted to take a trip to something more tropical? Ever even been out of the United States? If the answer to either of those was no, then you're missing out. Get your bags all nice and packed and book a flight to Ecuador, because you're about to learn about all the luxurious things a cultured nation looks like. Enjoy. 

SLIDESHOW

CONCLUSION

Ecuador's a very colorful country filled with beautiful people, delicious foods, enthralling culture, and captivating architecture. It was a joy to learn about the lifestyles that they live and what potential there is for a tourist that's curious about the country. I recommend getting out there and branching out your experience, regardless of your own origin. Thank you for reading. 

MR.PRESIDENT JOINS THE SUPREME COURT?

 MR.PRESIDENT JOINS THE SUPREME COURT?

POL3 AP3

D.B 2022

Introduction

Welcome to the supreme court, where we make decisions formulated by the people, for the people, and to the people. That's right, morally we've always made the right decisions and it's actually okay for us to decide what is and isn't constitutional. 

See, my introduction is very clever and witty because that's exactly opposite of my current feelings on how the supreme court justice runs. Welcome back to our grand finale for Politics, the judicial branch. Looking at what it means to part of this branch, where we see what the varying roles and significance to our history here in the United States are formulated by this branch, such as going down a timeline of supreme court decisions that were mainly unruly, to how certain figures of the judicial branch argued over what is and shouldn't be constitutional. We even touched on different type of philosophies that members of the judicial branch have and what exactly they mean. 

For this action project, we were tasked to present ourselves as a nominee to the supreme court and answer the questions proposed by the senate to determine the classic "yay" or "nay" thumbs-up-thumbs-down situation to pass us through into the supreme court. Below I've created an audio recording of me being questioned by also me (but with a horrible old man voice) formulated on pre-set questions we were tasked with answering. Enjoy. 

THE QUESTIONS AT STAKE

Below are the questions that'll follow through in the judgement day recording, with my response to each. I was given the luxury of opting out of one question of my choosing from these six for this action project, which I will have noted as being opted out of below, along with my "documented" answers for those unable to listen.

doc · The Justice Nominee

 

The U.S. Constitution designed a government of ‘separate institutions sharing power’ by dividing authority among three branches and even further with a federal system creating layers of government. What is your understanding of the role of the federal judiciary in relation to the elected branches and local governments? (Anna O. Law)

(OPTED OUT)



To what extent, if any, do you believe it’s advisable for a Supreme Court justice to be publicly active and accessible? What do you see as the appropriate public role for a justice of the Supreme Court? (John Culhane)

(ANSWERED): I believe that the supreme court, in terms of public activity and accessibility, should be up to a democratic popular vote made by the people, and discussed topics should be brought to the attention of the public to assess an opinion representative of the nation. To be fully confident in calling on something to become a stare decisis, it should be made in unison of the nation. Had this been a different time, I would feel different about voicing for the majority on a supreme court, but I believe we have raised our current generations to be who we need this world to be, and should not dither away from allowing them to be part of our voice. In the case of Dred Scott v Sandford, I would not have held this same philosophy when the nation was only barely split on the idea of slavery in the United States. We have amassed such a diverse population that the majority knows how to speak for the good of our nation, rather than before where we viewed men and women of color as inferior to our government branch.




How would you go about working with your more conservative colleagues? How do you see your role on a multi member court? (William Araiza)


(ANSWERED): They will be treated with the equal respect that I would give any of my fellow colleagues. There will be conflicting interests that need to be sorted and reasoned so I will take it upon myself to put it in my best interest to create compromise rather than conflict on the supreme court. My role on a multi member court will be a voice for the people, not an association to a specific party. For if I am to be the representative of the majority, then in due course if my actions I have taken are deemed “unconstitutional” it was under the influence of the people and not my own.




Is it possible that the trajectory of current events might require a rethinking of 1803’s Marbury v. Madison, the foundational case in which the Supreme Court gave itself the final say on the meaning of the Constitution? In other words, is the modern Supreme Court amassing too much power for itself? (Kimberly Wehle)

(ANSWERED): The process of being nominated into supreme court in its current state is in no place to have the amount of power it has. The supreme court has amassed too much power and has shown through their own actions, such as in advocating for overturning Roe V. Wade under the reasoning that it was deemed “unconstitutional” means that it is clear that the majority are not for the people, but for themselves.


A supreme court should not act on their own belief of what is and isn’t constitutional, all in the while ignoring the mass majority of the United States people with no real stressor on their actions being punished. It is in that fact, this state of feeling untouchable, that the supreme court feels unbound by checks and balances.


This ultimately calls for a rethinking of Marbury v. Madison, as in this day and age the constitution has been molded time and time again to suit the needs of those in power when in need of such power.


What area of law was your former boss, Justice Stephen Breyer, who you’ll be replacing, most wrong about, and why? (Daniel Epps)

(ANSWERED):
Justice Stephen Breyer actually shares a lot of the core values that I do as a justice nominee, which makes it incredibly difficult for me to find flaws in his philosophy as a Justice. His actions as a justice at its foundation was for the people, something I believe to be crucial to becoming a supreme court justice. He was an advocate for the voting rights act, voiced concern for the approach on the death penalty, and even in his role for creating the Boston federal courthouse in 1990 was influential to my philosophy of government. He stated on the site that this most beautiful site in Boston...does not belong to the lawyers, it does not belong to the federal government, it does not belong to the litigants. It belongs to the people."

He is what we should aspire to be as supreme court justices now.


How have your experiences with the criminal legal system shaped your views about the nation’s system of crime and punishment, and about the judicial role? (Tomiko Brown-Nagin)

(ANSWERED): I believe it not to be an amendment that stands as a stare decisis, but one that calls for revision. Slavery and involuntary servitude has always felt to be cruel and unusual punishment that is overlooked because it brings in profit. It is cruel to strip years of life from a person for minor criminal offenses, and made unusual when the mass majority are black and brown folk.


We only recently have seen changes in how we pursue minor criminal offenses, such as the increasing requirement to what amount of drugs calls for years of life, but even in these case scenarios, the prison and supreme court system feels inclined to hold its prisoners for years that current offenders do not need to serve. In the case of Terry v. United States, he was arrested for possession of 4 grams of cocaine, which has kept him in prison since 2008 to now. Even though in accordance to current changes in our law he no longer needs to serve the years that they’re holding him in for to this day, we still feel inclined to hold criminals responsible to the punishment that only was relevant to its time.

"D.C 4 SUPREME COURT" D.C, 2022, DIGITAL.

CITATIONS

"Gregg v. Georgia." Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/1975/74-6257. Accessed 3 Jun. 2022.

Greenhouse, Linda. "Stephen Breyer Was the Right Justice for the Wrong Age" https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/26/opinion/breyer-supreme-court-retirement.html

"Dred Scott v. Sandford." Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/1850-1900/60us393. Accessed 3 Jun. 2022.

"Roe v. Wade." Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18. Accessed 3 Jun. 2022.

Jack, Jennifer. "10 Things You Didn't Know About Stephen Breyer"  https://www.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2007/10/01/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-stephen-breyer

"Marbury v. Madison." Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/1789-1850/5us137. Accessed 3 Jun. 2022.

 THE END OF THE BEGINNING AND THE RETURN OF A PREVIOUS BEGINNING TURNED INTO THE BEGINNING OF AN END?

D.B URB-AP3 2022

INTRODUCTION

There's a strange motivation that always sparks that I utilize often when festering up projects like this. I create a lot of things from a place lacking of joy, just criticism and irritation. This is one of those projects. This motivation does not spark from the project itself, but rather the location I've invested myself into for this finale. 

In our class and now final unit "Urban Planning", we looked at what it meant to design cities with the best interest in not only the space, but also its community. This meant looking at how urban planners go about creating spaces that capture the feelings of welcoming, relaxation, community-focused centers of attention that the population can fall back to and feel at peace in. Having watched videos on the critique of underutilized dead spaces in cities, automobile-focused and mainly anti-pedestrian street designs, and even how certain buildings spoke to a space, there was a lot of valid criticism placed on how a city should feel. 

Videos, of course, aren't enough to rely on. We ended up talking to Daniel from Kimley-Horn, an airport urban planner, Peter Exley, a co-founder of the firm "Architecture is Fun", and lastly a revisit from our friends from Whitney. 

Below you'll find the action project's primary goal and how I approached it, enjoy.

PERFECTING PULASKI

Wrapping up for my finale, I decided to revisit my high school roots. We were tasked with finding a block to redesign, and I settled on my freshman year high school: Curie Metro High School and its antagonizing 4 lane / 4 way intersection right by it. 

The goal here is to improve this design to suit its purpose to the community more neatly. Having numerous previous friends from Curie I'm still in contact with made connecting with this community fairly easy.

My now-graduated friend told me that she "always hated" how that everything always felt really crowded when leaving the building, especially around the bus stop across since it seemed very closed in and tightly packed with other students waiting around. 

So there's already an issue that's addressed to focus on, along with my ungodly amount of complaints about the space. 

Let's take a look at the space we'll be working with now.

4

Courtesy of Google Earth, we've got our area and perimeter pre-established in the screenshot of this oddly-shaped place. 

As you can see, I've chosen to redesign the 4-way intersection and the school itself.

Below is my own personal 2D redesign of the chosen layout, you'll notice some key changes:

- There's a "dead space" parking lot with an abandoned restaurant right next to the bus stop that the students pass through frequently when school is dismissed. I want to recreate this place to be a sanctuary space for people to enjoy while they wait for their bus instead of crowding around the curb. 

- The four lane streets have been shrunken down into a two lane as they're going passed the school, as it doesn't make any sense to have cars driving fast by while students are frequently walking through. According to (if I recall correctly) Peter Exley in our FE with him, the design of those small and cramped streets around schools are intentionally designed. A driver's more inclined to drive fast in bigger lanes than one that's already crowded. 

- The design changes for Curie itself are minimal in the 2D render, but ultimately I would like to create a building that feels good to walk up to, that makes you want to admit you're part of the school. One of the noticeable differences is the high focus on how I would redesign their green space, which I've always have been mildly annoyed at due to its lack of welcoming. The current state of the green space is the pinnacle of using nature to cover up the ugliness of a prison-block styled building in the most watered down approach possible. I want it to feel good to walk through, to see from out the building, to sit around for a little while and create hangout plans with friends.

- Sidewalks are going to be doubled in size and have trees and flowerbeds running through the middle section to make the sidewalks look lively. This is how I plan to utilize the open space provided by converting the block street into two lanes.

- Lastly, on the smallest of notes, I'm adding a stop light by the four-way intersection barely visible top north on the Google Earth image. This area sucks to walk through as a pedestrian because cars do not ever stop. This is also a four lane so they drive fast. What's worse is the tightly compacted sidewalks that feel often like they want to boot you into the street.

Ultimately I'm attempting to provide a slow-paced space that wants to greet you in the morning and keep you a little longer in the afternoon as you're walking out of school. I want to create a center of pride that stands giant amongst high schools, something that would speak to the numbers that the school hosts, while also speaking for the people that those numbers represent. Every time I walked out of that building, scattered around were students lounging around where they could outside the building while they waited to be picked up. There was the awkwardly placed benches that hadn't been in the best of shape, the uncomfortable stone bollards by the exit next to the parking lot, or simply standing around the plain green spaces. It's a clear call for a space that provides welcome to students for the mornings and afternoon, and an even better motivator to keep them going to the school. 

With that in mind, I began working on a 3D model in Minecraft, a video game I am more than comfortable with constructing my imagination in, to perfect my vision. 

Below you'll find a video I've taken of my rebuilding of the Pulaski intersection and Curie High School. I'll be making notes on my design choices below the video. 

The black spaces that are crossed off in the video are already established business buildings that I know couldn't be really bargained with tampering, and there's places that I personally find add to the charm. Me and my friend used to buy pan dulce (sweet bread) and paletas (Mexican-styled ice cream) on Fridays to close out for the week, but the walk there was near that forsaken crosswalk that I'd have to play leapfrog to get across. 

Up across from the school redesign, you have where I've established my sanctuary space for pedestrians, which shares a similar structure to something like a fancy outdoor porch. There's desks and seats with a complex design I'm not exactly sure would be too practical but I think it's fun. There's a work table/bench duo where a tree is grown in the center that has space for flowers (I didn't put any since Minecraft doesn't have the flora that I would like to be in place). There's room for bushes and flowers in the corner of the sanctuary space that I added to stray away from the heavy amount of brown variants for the color palette of the sanctuary. Around this space is floor lighting similarly styled to that of certain parts of Downtown's Millennium Park. I like these kind of lights because of the fact that it doesn't take away from the visual beauty of the sanctuary itself. Lastly, I decided to integrate a bus stop resting bench into the sanctuary space itself, instead of separating it from the bus stop. I originally found that had I not done this, a poorly manufactured bus stop would take away from the sanctuary's energy and welcoming. 

On another small note, I made sure to add space to the actual road for the bus to fit into its stop, before transferring back into the two lane. It's a small detail but still one nonetheless. 

Down the same sidewalk on the sanctuary side, we have my approach to greenery and my vision for what a bigger sidewalk would look like, which was inspired by a video created by Jeff Speck, a city planner, on how to make a city more "walkable." People enjoy nature, and there's a lot you can do with sidewalks alone that I found particularly interesting. Given not to the degree that Jeff Speck was able to advocate for, but still in some ways, a homage to it. 

The reason as to why I didn't complete the design for every sidewalk neighboring the black spaces and only near the sanctuary is I didn't feel compelled to. I wanted to clarify in my notes here that these serve as "reference points" that would be applied to the other sidewalks all the same, so you can get an idea of what the rest of the block would look like rather than me going through a repetitive cycle of reconstructing the same idea all over. 

Finally though, we have the Metro Curie High School building. This was incredibly time-consuming, as I wanted to create something that would carry the pride and beauty that a school deserves. Like before, I only completed half of the building redesign in hopes that it would give you an idea of what the rest of the building would look like. 

As we're approaching the school, you'll see a big ol' "C" in the school's sport team colors. The goal here is that school pride, so I figured nothing screams it like Curie Condor's sport team colors in the very front of the building. The building design didn't have any specific reference in mind, and naturally began to carry university-like features as I continued to construct it from scratch. I changed the fencing around the green space they have (which was originally a small black iron gate) into stone to give it the feeling of a protected garden walkway, with arched entrances into the green space that has a traditional pathing to keep a comforting feeling of welcome as you're greeted by the flora and shade of the protective trees. 

Around the outside of the stone walls are what was supposed to be painted stripes of the school's sport team colors circling around the entire way, with red at the entrances, blue at the end points, and white in the in-between, stylized to be the order of which the colors of Curie are arranged. 

Inside the garden walls, we have the large trees mentioned before serving as the support for seating and tables with a view of the inside of the school, serving as a nice view point for both outside and inside. The lamps scattered around aren't too distracting, or at least that was what my intention was for them. 

Lastly the actual building design itself captures color that holds a modern framed look, straying away from the blandness of the original brown blocks it was. What I felt like the previous building model design lacked was any sort of depth, everything felt flat. I made sure to create curvature wherever I could see it reasonably fitting to explore this untapped depth that allows it to advocate for itself rather than fall to a green space making it worth looking at. 

IT SURE DOES COVER SDG-11

On the nose here, but this reconstruction of this block had to have some connection to SDG-11, which is a sustainable development goal focused on making "cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable." Although I believe you could pick out exactly how I've done this by a read through of my design process, I'm going to outline them here. 

Another of my friends at Curie actually had gotten hit by a truck during his time at the school by the crosswalk that connects from the school to the bus stop, with multiple other cases of car crashes happening a little too frequently for my comfort there. So the redesign of making a 4-lane into a 2-lane was intentionally targeted towards the fact that drivers feel too care-free around a school hosting over 2,000 students. This was my target concern in regards to safety. As for sustainable, creating sidewalks with enough space to pick up a bike and get through with no problem would advocate for students attempting to get to school to be encouraged (but not forced) to put biking up for consideration as a mode of transport to the school, along with the complimentary greenery designed to create refreshing atmosphere, I say I've established these goals quite nicely. 

Conclusion

I'm really concerned regarding how forcefully intense GCE's core classes are designed. Every year it's the same time of stressor of 5PM deadline for all work at the end of a semester with a rubric that calls for creativity that the time frame does not offer. This project calls for an initiative that doesn't deserve the pressure of the final week. Primarily collecting a relevant quote from a resident of the area to me comes off as the rubric wanting students to get out there and immerse themselves in the block they've chosen. Unless the block you've chosen is right next to your house, it's difficult to even imagine myself having the time to go afterschool all the way out to such a place and have questions composed for residents of the area at the same time when I've got two other action projects calling for the same kind of attention, all in a shorter period of time. 

Overall, no thanks. This is one of my final action projects I'm producing for GCE and I'm glad that it's this way. 

Thank you for reading. 

CITATIONS

4 Ways to Make a City More Walkable

https://www.vox.com/2016/8/4/12342806/barcelona-superblocks 

https://earth.google.com/web/ 

 "Polking at The Issue"

POL AP2

DB 2022

INTRODUCTION

Are you familiar with what the snowball effect is? In the case that you're not, let me quickly educate you on the term. A snowball effect is a metaphorical process of a situation that starts rather small at first, but as you continue to let that snowball roll down that hill, it simply won't stop growing and growing into a greater danger. That's what the Mexican-American war is in a way to the USA, and here I am to explain to you exactly why this is the case.

In our class Policy, we've been going down the three branches of government and dissecting their processes to what feels often like it was down to the molecular level. For this unit, we're learning about the executive branch and its innerworkings, viewing previous presidents and the executive orders they had, along with their effects and intentions. Addressing our deep dive into this subject, our assigned action project is simply the equivalent of a regular AP history essay in the old fashion you're most likely thinking of.

In this essay, I've chosen the Mexican-American war due to it being a rather overlooked conflict of US history. Below you'll find an evaluation of the war and war policy, with an answered question of whether or not the Mexican-American war and its policies were just. Enjoy.

THE PROLOGUE OF A WAR

In November 5, 1844, James K. Polk had won the election for presidency as a "dark horse" (the underdog essentially) candidate for the Democrat party, and only by a small percentage as well in terms of votes against his rival Whig party candidate Henry Clay.

President Polk was incredibly invested in the idea of expansion in the United States, starting early on in his presidency with successfully negotiating a treaty to claim the territory of Oregon from the British, with the festering of a conflict not being too far ahead with Mexico.

Switching perspectives for a moment, we take a quick look at Mexico. Mexico had been awfully generous during the time, concerning themselves with Americans migrating into Texas (which was Mexican territory at the time), allowing a good handful of them to create lives for themselves in the state. This was an error on the part of Mexico, as the increasing interest in Texas from Americans began to spark conversation . During John Tyler's presidency, (which ended in 1845), he had begun proposing the idea of a treaty of annexation for Texas, speaking with US inhabitants in Mexico about signing and supporting the annexation. This was done in secrecy, as both the Texas citizens and other members in the discussion of the annexation were confident that if Mexico were to hear of the secret negotiations, they would reign hell on citizens and declare war.

Inevitably, Mexico ended up finding out about President Tyler's talk of annexation of Texas, which they then warned USA that any further discussion of the treaty would result in Mexico declaring war. This was the momentary end to any revisiting of the annexation, up until Polk came into office.

Mexico had been tense with its relations to America for a good few years before this event had occurred, as in 1842, the accidental capture of Monterrey from Mexico by the US happened. After receiving false news on an apparent war that had broken out between the USA and Mexico, a commander in the US army sent troops on ships over to Monterey to capture it from Mexico. Successfully having captured Monterey under the impression it was in war time, they only learned the next day that there was in fact, no conflict between America and Mexico and decided to give Monterey back, leaving back to America with their ships. This was also done during John Tyler's presidency, perhaps even in some way instigated by John considering his interest in Mexican territory during his run.

Revisiting Polk, he had absolutely no interest in easing these tensions. Strangely it seemed Polk, if anything, was a fan of John Tyler's work. The territory claim on Oregon had been in note of John Tyler's fear that the British were going to attempt making Oregon a slave-free state, which he believed would cause irreparable damage to the United States (which it definitely would've, but for the better), and the revisit to the annexation of Texas was seen by Polk (now known as the "Texas-Tyler" treaty) as the opportunity that he wanted to take, dismissing the warning.

The annexation of Texas ended up going through the Texan Congress and accepted the US Congress's proposal to join the United States, this was because it literally was just American immigrants in Mexico deciding whether or not they want it to be part of the USA, so inevitably it was going to pass as it was rigged in the favor of the United States. Shortly after this move, Polk attempted to bargain for the purchase of California (after signing the annexation of Texas) with Mexico, who refused and ignored Polk in negotiating any sort of purchase of California.

This all led up to the great cause of conflict: Deciding where exactly were the border of the Rio Grande.

WAR ENSUES!

Polk intentionally sent US troops to overstep the border between Mexico and US, after agitating Mexico with where the border line really is, provoking a patrolling squad on Mexico’s territory to open fire on US soldiers. This led to the death of sixteen troops on what was (at the time) Mexican soil. Polk decided to utilize the deaths of these US soldiers to falsely claim that these soldiers had their blood spilled on “American soil.” This was used to justify a declaration of war against Mexico, with the support and favor of democrats looking to commercialize and bank on the opportunity for more land. The vote to declare war was met with conflict from Congress, sparked into debate by Illinois Representative Abraham Lincoln and others in Congress with something called “The Spot Resolutions", which was essentially a push for the exact location of where the corpses of the sixteen soldiers were found.

It was hard for Congress not to declare war when the House had an overwhelming vote to declare war, passing at a vote of 174 - 14.

This was overlooked and the declaration of war was passed in 1846 with overwhelming support from the states and its citizens, with the exception of New England who was anti-slavery and feared the expansion of land in America would "encourage the expansion of slavery" (which it did).

Safe to say, Americans were blood-thirsty for a war against an opponent they had full confidence they could beat. New land meant new opportunities, which was made even more promising when the land was in the hands of what Americans thought was a weak country. Why would Americans think such a thing about Mexico? Well it wasn't without reason, as Mexico’s political and economic system at the time struggled greatly due to constant coups, revolutions, and civil wars. The clear lack of stability in their systems and crippling debt surrounded by the negative take on their Roman Catholic monarchy created obvious opportunities for the United States, which was going through an economic flourish, to expand.

The war itself was quick, as territory after territory was captured by US forces. This war wasn't without losses, as 15,000 US soldiers had died in the war, with an undocumented amount of losses for Mexican soldiers that was guaranteed to be more than double the casualties that of the USA's.

Strangely enough, in terms of war policies issued, there was none that came up in my research. The only thing notable was the negotiations to actually end the war. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was proposed by Nicolas Trist, the chief clerk of the State department, who wrote to his wife in a letter regarding the proposed treaty, stated: “Knowing it to be the very last chance and impressed with the dreadful consequences to our country which cannot fail to attend the loss of that chance, I decided today at noon to attempt to make a treaty; the decision is altogether my own.”

There had been two previous attempts at negotiating a deal with Mexico, but skepticism of Polk’s associates and him, was refused and ignored. Trist and General Winfield Scott determined the only way for negotiation to be possible with Mexico was through winning the war.

Trist himself, in regards to proposing the treaty, was in favor of Mexico as he believed Washington lacked any sort of sympathetic understanding of the state that Mexico was in. The treaty that was proposed and accepted was made in defiance against President Polk, serving to aid Mexico with recovery efforts made by Nicolas Trist.

The US government was hesitant to accept the negotiation terms of the treaty in regards to paying Mexico 15 million USD, which was noted to be in “consideration of the extension acquired by the boundaries of the United States.” The US also agreed to paying off any debts owed by American citizens to the Mexican government, which mainly was tied with American Texas immigrants.

The Mexican-American war officially came to an end on February 2nd, 1848.

JUDGMENT OF CONFLICT.

Do I believe the war on Mexico was just? Considering that the cause of conflict was due to an ancient conquistador mindset on behalf of President Polk, I’m inclined to side myself on the belief that this war was incredibly unjust. As explained earlier, this war was caused and initiated the moment 16 American soldiers were ordered to overstep the borders of Mexico to build a fort on the banks of Rio Grande. It was such a forced conflict that there were many, but clearly not enough, voices in the government branches outraged by the recklessness of Polk’s actions that there were people unable to even believe that what Polk was saying was true (The Spot Resolutions). Americans began to tire of the war the longer it went on, because bloodlust can only last for so long until you get sick.

The war was built on conflict fueled by men who were told "no" too many times when they wanted to get candy last minute in the check-out aisle. It wasn't needed and shouldn't have happened, but the idea of this conflict not happening at all creates interesting conflicts in how the rest of history would've gone.

For example, would America be established as a world power as soon as it did in WW1? How would politics be affected with the state of Texas under Mexican control? Then there's the California Gold Rush, which would've been interesting to see it never happen for the American people. There's a lot of things that fascinated me about this war that make me question if it was wrong in all the right ways.

Let me quickly put something into perspective. The Mexican-American war, as mentioned earlier, ended on February 2nd, 1848, and the Civil War began in 1861. 13 years after the great expansion of territory in the United States, the Mexican-American War has been hypothesized to have indirectly caused the Civil War, due to brewing conflict over the dispute of slavery as slave states increased during a period of time where, not so long before, John Tyler had thought the belief that the British had secret plans to push for Oregon to be a free state would be catastrophic for the United States.

Oregon.

Oregon is not exactly a big state to begin with, so of course an expansion as massive as the capture of Texas and the purchase of California was going to cause conflicts on a heavily-debated topic in a politically-heated country.

Even Mexico began to polish up their political system after getting that loss handed to them so easily due to disorganization and incredible debt, with the people unified under the willpower to no longer be viewed as weak by any other countries again.

So there were pros and cons to what the war inevitably concluded to, but I'm still settled on the idea that this war was unjustified as it was just seemingly cruel for the United States to do.

Genuinely the only positive thing that came out of the war in accordance WITH the war was how the "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo" was handled by Nicolas Trist. He seemingly was the only one that had any sense of empathy with Mexico during the war, not that I don't appreciate the "Spot Resolutions", but Nicolas actually made a difference in the war and wasn't dismissed with his negotiations in favor of Mexico.

And that's the snowball effect.

CONCLUSION

I don't think there's ever gonna be a case where I pass up the opportunity to research about Mexico when it comes to an action project. It's become my pride and joy to dump hours into looking into. In this scenario though, I was obligated to learn more about the USA than Mexico, but still nonetheless I managed to squeeze out a piece of history important to Mexico's political system history (which I never had any information on before). There is something I hate about this type of AP essay format, which I've addressed at the very beginning of my introduction. That's right, the snowball effect. There was a CVS-pharmacy receipt worth of information I needed to learn about to explain something that we called the "underlying" causes to a war. Something that wasn't the direct cause of conflict, but the stressor for a war. As you may have read, there were a lot of stressors for this war.

Point is, it was a lot. I don't really enjoy going down rabbit holes for an action project due to deadlines never feeling like they can honor my obsessiveness with going into detail about everything until it feels complete. Even as I was copying and pasting this text from a doc I had this information all written out on, I ended up adding two or three more underlying causes.

This also feels like my most lengthiest of my work yet, which you can thank the lack of any word count on the rubric addressing. 

CITATIONS

Treaty of Guadalupe - archives.gov

Annexation of Texas - Yale

Texas Enters the Union - history.com

Mexican-American foreign policy - rampfesthudson

Mexican-American War - openstax.org

"The Work of the 29th Congress" - history.house.gov

(BOOK) Guardino, Peter. The Dead March - A History of The Mexican-American War, 2017. 

 RENEWING THE ROOKERY 

URBAN PLANNING U2

D.BALDREE

INTRODUCTION

The Rookery's an old and impressive piece of Chicago history that has withstood the test of time with its incredibly refreshing design of utilizing sunlight to the degree that it does. Designed by Daniel Burnham and John Root in 1888, this building is located in the heart of Chicago at 209 S Lasalle. 

But that doesn't mean it can't be improved. In our class Urban Planning, we learned about how energy functions through big scales like a power grid, and smaller ones where we saw how electricity flows through a circuit. Having met with multiple FE guests in one go, I believe an impressive number of 9 this unit (all in one FE by the way), from the organizations Whitney, DIRTT, Corporate Concepts and Clune. It's a lot to summarize, but they're all involved in things like design process, renewable tactics, and constructing. 

With this knowledge, we took one final walk around Chicago for this unit. We visited multiple historical buildings after having a list composed for us. I decided to go with the Rookery, as it was mentioned in my reading of "Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson. The challenge for this project was to think of alternative energy sources to implement into these spaces and find a reasonably possible design to implement into this building. Without further ado, enjoy.

HISTORY OF THE ROOKERY

Before we really get into it, I want to provide a little bit more background on the history of the Rookery and why it's compelled me to pursue it over the other options.

The Rookery was made during a period of time where Chicago’s population was rapidly growing, with a population increase two times of what it was at the beginning of 1880 by the end of 1889. Large factories were being built and pulling numbers in from all over the states into Chicago. Burnham himself wanted to take on the challenge of building something taller than what originally was “allowed” to be built. The challenge came from the horrible and uncertain foundation that caused taller buildings to sink into the ground. 

I’ve known about this building for a while now. Having read the book “Devil in the White City”, the process of the building is significant to our architectural understanding of the buildings we have in place today here in Chicago. The name itself is captivating enough that it deterred me away from other buildings available for this action project. The Rookery. It’s fun to say, fun to think about, and in no way feels as if it fits its name. It sounds like a building meant to be by a harbor, but instead it’s centered in Downtown with an incredibly formal feeling to it. After doing additional research on the design process behind the building, the design of the building begins to make some more sense as to why it's structured the way it is.

The Rookery has unclear origins as to where its name comes from, but the one that makes most visual sense to me is that it originated from the crows that once lived inside the walls, “paralleled by the politicians who roosted there”, poking fun at their corrupted wickedness, which politicians weren’t keen on keeping if that’s what it meant. This was during the time where the Rookery served once as the city hall thanks to the Chicago Fire.

THE LAYOUT

The Rookery utilizes spiraling staircases in a magical and compelling way, complemented by the engravings that highlight the fantasy-like energy of building, with a masterfully crafted glass ceiling meant to . The lighting seems to be intentionally subtle, as if only intended to be just enough to allow the golden engravings of the place to shine through to captivate visitors.

The Rookery by James Caulfield, date unknown.

The Rookery by James Caulfield, date unknown.

NOW WE'RE REDESIGNING THE ROOKERY

Considering it isn’t mentioned anywhere on the official website or a good ol’ google search, it’s safe to assume that they’re on the Chicago power grid. Now, the Chicago power grid uses 7% natural gas energy, 30% coal-fired energy, 54% nuclear energy, and last but surprisingly not least 10% renewable energies. 

Making an assumption based on what I’ve seen in the building during my visit, it’s fairly minimalistic when it comes to what it needs to power. The strategic design of utilizing sunlight for the atmosphere as often as possible allows it to be less focused on powering lights in the building. The office spaces in the building are occupied by what I vaguely remember as law firms, maybe some kind of small jewelry store, and a Potbelly’s. The building itself is small in comparison to other giants in the city, making it require significantly less power than something like the Willis tower.

So now how do we go about improving upon a design that seems to utilize a fairly eco-friendly structure? Firstly, we can look at a list of what exactly takes up the most energy in most households. According to an article on visualcapitalist.com on what exactly consumes the most energy in a household, we get a rough idea of where the majority of this energy is being distributed. At a whopping 47%, cooling and heating takes up the majority of the electricity used in the building. So now the goal seems to be that we’ve got to figure out how to maximize the cooling and heating efficiency in the building to minimize the energy cost of it. 

A good while ago, I was introduced to the idea of “mud cement.” The execution of mud cement has proven to be in many ways more eco-friendly than regular cement, providing better insulation and cooling for buildings than regular concrete cement can hold up to. Ideally, it would make more sense to replace the insulation in the walls of the building that are easily “accessible.” There are of course disadvantages to having mud cement acting as a substitute for concrete cement. Mud cement is still, well, mud. Mud stays strengthened when it stays dry, making it a necessity that it stays as insulation within a wall, rather than exposed to sources of water that could deteriorate the material. Chicago’s got a handful of rainy days around the start of fall and throughout the spring, so making sure the exterior protecting the mud insulation is fortified would make this an optimal design. 

Another disadvantage of having mud as insulation would be the pricing of replacing the insulation for the building. Of course, this is only a slight disadvantage that I believe would pay itself over time considering that it’s saving money on the most expensive user of energy in the building.

As for the energy itself, the last thing I would want to do is taint the design of the Rookery, as I do have some sense of respect for Burnham and Root, so we’ll be staying away from obnoxiously large and obnoxious alternative energy sources. 

First up on the list would be solar panels as an alternative energy source. I chose this thanks to the flat surfaced roof that didn’t get much attention due to it being away from pedestrian eyes. Everybody’s fairly familiar with solar panels and their eco-friendly nature of attracting power from the great old sun. Given this isn’t designed to be a replacement for the energy system as a whole. If you look at the image, there’s already a problem indicated on the idea of placing solar panels: this building is being towered over by skyscrapers from every direction. 

"Roofing For The Iconic Rookery Building" by the Knickbocker Roofing and Paving Co., date unknown.

Next up would be biomass energy as an alternative. There’s a good amount of open space in the building itself that can allow for a biomass generator. Now biomass is an alternative energy source that creates power by burning natural resources, like plants or wood. Like every alternative energy source, there’s advantages and disadvantages. In this scenario, biofuel is surprisingly eco-friendly despite the fact that the idea of burning something to produce energy sounds quite unhealthy for the environment. Luckily, the idea of “burning” biofuel doesn’t always mean setting biomass on fire to produce energy, there are chemical processes that allow for less blazing approaches. Here is a list of alternative ways of “burning” biomass energy, along with another research article talking about the more specific advantages/disadvantages of biomass energy. A short summary in regards to the disadvantages to taking up biomass energy would be related primarily to the cost, as it can quickly add up in terms of purchasing from a supplier. I believe this is more related to integrating it as a sole power source, which is not my intention as I don’t believe it would make sense to do so. The goal is cost-efficiency and renewable. 

On the other hand, the advantages of using a biomass energy source would be that it’s fairly easy to be your own provider. As mentioned before, there was a good amount of open space available to be molded into something else entirely. Investing in an aquarium/interior garden within these spaces provides the vegetation and plant life to provide a good source of energy fuel. If the art of condensing these materials into solid biofuel is learned to some efficient degree, then you’re saving money on energy and purchasing fuel from sellers. You’ve now also got an amazing addition to a spectacular building that’ll pull in tourists, considering that the Rookery is pretty dead center in Downtown. Businesses buying out the space in the building pull in more customers, meaning that the building itself has a more reliable income from these rented spaces, which may mean more higher paying businesses will invest to get in on the foot traffic with their own rented spaces. It’s all hypothetical, but it does sound like it would essentially pay off whatever costs it would accumulate.

We’ve gone over two different types of alternative energy sources that could be plausibly applied to the building. Choosing one shouldn’t be too difficult as the commercial value of biomass energy sounds a lot more intriguing than solar panels that most likely wouldn’t pay back their costs due to the fact that they’re in an awkward spot. Aquariums and gardens are also pretty and could compliment the building itself if the right interior designer was assigned the job. 

CONCLUSION AFTER A LONG JOURNEY

Congratulations, you did it. You've read through 1650 words today, or maybe not. I won't be mad if you skimmed through it unless you're the teacher, who I've kind of sentenced to this fate of making sure that my grammar is on point and correct. This project was only worth 50 points by the way, and I managed to write another chapter's worth of information on something I could've done in 600. Anyways, the action project and unit was pretty fun. Electricity is a nice thing to understand because you're not left in this state of absolute mystery onto what's going on when you get your finger shocked by touching a door handle, or a power outage. Fun little things like that are always a good topic to bring up with friends that aren't in the know about it. That's all for this action project and conclusion, thank you for reading.

CRITICALLY PROBLEM SOLVING CPS

DB 2022 POL1

INTRODUCTION

    What if you had the power of an ever-expanding web of connections in the palm of your hand? At the click of a button that once pressed, continues to stretch further and further? You could send any message you wanted, that you needed. You could raise awareness about any subject you felt mattered to you, and all it takes is one little click. What could this power be? Who has it? You're probably imagining some big corporate job, HR level of control and power over a facility, some kind of CEO. Maybe you've figured it out by the title or it might've slipped past you, but this type of power is often overlooked until you really think about it. It's a principal. 

This is the subject of my action project here today as my class on policy explores legislation. We took time to explore what a bill is, the roles and functions that legislation has and lastly reviewing current bills attempting to go and turn into law. We got the luxury of meeting two great FE guests, Andy Davis and Troy LaRaviere (who is hands down my favorite FE guest I've met so far). Andy Davis is a citizen who's taken part in the legislation process and LaRaviere is the head of CPS principals. 

THE VOICEMAIL 

For this action project (as mentioned before), we had to look at current bills looking to become law. For me though, I didn't plan to look any further than the bill introduced to me by Troy LaRaviere. I've become so familiar with it I remember the number that accompanies it of the top of my head. That name and number would be HB5107, which is a bill that has thankfully passed house and is currently under review by the senate. This bill is designed to remove the restriction placed on CPS principals forming a union in Illinois, which would be big. 

So now my job is to find an important figure in my state that's representative of me and has an impact on HB5107.

After looking up my address on a website designed to find your appointed representative, in my case my senator representative, I found that Senator Villanueva was a perfect candidate for my voicemail. She supports HB5107 and can be found with her name supporting the bill, which obviously tilted the favor of persuasion into my hand. Senator Villanueva is a wonderful person, of Hispanic origin, and an active supporter of immigrant rights. Being Hispanic myself, I felt it was appropriate to utilize our shared background and interests in my voicemail to persuade and fortify her belief in HB5107. Below you'll see the work of the appeal to logic, emotion, and credibility in this voicemail. 

In the case that you're having difficulty understanding me, I've left the script below the voicemail for you to read through. Enjoy.

doc · Voicemail to Senator Villanueva.

Hola Senadora Villanueva,


I’m a resident around West Lawn and I’ve been particularly fascinated by a bill you’re pretty familiar with and, luckily, a part of. Recently got the luxury of meeting Mr. LaRaviere, who dropped by my school to give us a rundown of HB5107 along with his take on CPS and Chicago’s questionable political approaches. I’m pretty caught up with what’s going on for education, especially CPS, as not only am I a student who has experienced the pros and cons of public schooling in Chicago, but also the son of a teacher who’s had her fair share of protests against CPS and Lightfoot.


I still remember how horrible the food was at Curie. The only edible food was the pizza, everything else was either dry to the equivalent of sand in terms of texture or was stale enough it could break glass if you tried to. Safe to say I’ve never been a fan of how CPS has been run, especially not after doing a little bit of my own research after learning a handful from Mr. LaRaviere.


Mr. LaRaviere was pretty confused and infuriated by the decision made by CPS to pour more of the budget into Pre-K, as according to the official CPS website, the decision was made on the statistic that kids who participated in Pre-K did academically better than kids who didn’t, so obviously the best choice here is to dump money into something we already know works. On paper, it sounds amazing and a smart decision to fund Pre-K to give kids a better shot at academics.


Luckily for me, Mr. LaRaviere is really good at snapping people out of that fantasy world that CPS enjoys painting so much for the public and bringing it back to reality, specifically his reality. We shouldn’t be dumping more money into something we already know works well, nor on something that’s got a price not every family can afford to pay. On top of that horrible decision, you’ve got the quality of middle and high schools in its current state and an incoming 40% of CPS schools seeing a budget cut. Why are we funding Pre-K just to send kids into a horrible learning environment after experiencing a short-lived luxury? It’s a glimpse into heaven before a long fall through hell.


I think the worst part of it all is seeing the passionate teachers that work at public schools being severely limited in their true potential to create a learning environment. They print worksheets, read from textbooks to a class, and quite literally the only thing making it enjoyable is their character outside of the lesson. They show up every day with the energy to make the dullest of assignments genuinely bearable. When they’ve got that much spirit going for them, I begin to wonder what they would do if they could look at their classes in the same way an artist looks at an empty canvas.


Which is where this barricade begins to fester, formed by CPS and Lightfoot who actively have chosen time and time again to ignore teacher protests and demands for as long as inhumanely possible.


So I understand why you’re supporting this bill, I understand why it had to be pushed towards the hands of Springfield to make Chicago better. CPS needs a union with the kind of political power to actually matter at their table, to push for improvement. Principals are knee deep in the situations that district management (who I only imagine are sitting comfortably in their chairs away from the student body) are making decisions for. CPS also continues to try and argue that the position of a principal isn’t one that should be classified as “non-managerial employees in state law.” So far they haven’t even had a stated reason on why that’s the case or then they just feel like it doesn’t make sense. So then the counterargument here really is to look at cities like New York or San Diego, who realized the importance of principal unions and permitted it. If others can imagine it and ALLOW it, why can’t CPS? It just sounds like fear of change, meaningful change.


Point of this voicemail (as I’m wrapping up here) is just to let you know that some 18 year old high schooler in West Lawn loves what you’re supporting and wants you to keep supporting it.


Hasta luego Senadora Villanueva. And of course, good luck!

Untitled by Max Herman, 2017

CONCLUSION

It felt good to do this. It's easier to do something like this when you're writing to and about people you support and easily admire their efforts to improve the city that you grew up in. I'm talking to somebody I could see randomly showing up to my cousin's quinceanera, somebody I could recognize as family if need be. In that, I'm able to be comfortable in my own skin. You can tell if you read through the script as I'm talking, I don't always stick with the script. I'm able to improvise myself into my writing to make it be me. Me, in the sense that I'm able to place myself truthfully and honestly in the place I'm talking and reading from. This was a great action project that I feel I've gotten lucky with. It's not every day I'm able to look at a politician and see a cause that's respectable. Thank you for reading.

Gauntlet Of Firms

 THE GAUNTLET OF FIRMS

DB 2022 URBAN PLANNING

INTRODUCTION

What's two more pounds? Three? Four? Pressure on pressure, we watch eagerly as our opponent's bridge begins to crack. Thousands and thousands of people's lives on the line of this design, yet the bridge has folded into the shape of a U. Crack. The last line of defense has admitted its defeat as causalities begin to scale tenfold. 

Welcome to Urban Planning, where we're learning about the wonders of engineering. In this case, we've been studying Newton's laws, vectors, and forces. There's a lot that goes into designing the perfect bridge that will hold strong under uncountable circumstances. Luckily for us, we only had to account for if our bridge could hold 10 pounds or more. For this action project, we were tasked with creating a bridge with only 50 popsicle sticks utilizing inspiration from real-life bridge models. This bridge not only had to be practical in its function with a requirement of holding 10 pounds at minimum, needed to specifically be the I-90 highway bridge in Chicago, but also needed to connect to an SDG. Below you'll find the creative process me and my partner underwent to conduct what I like to call the most "honorable" bridge. Enjoy.

THE STRUGGLE OF DESIGN

It was incredibly challenging to think of a design that incorporated something both innovative and effective with a small “budget” (in this case, the capped limit of 50 popsicle sticks). With said budget, it feels like it was a battle over deciding whether or not to lose points for focusing more on practicality or innovative style. It left no space for opportunities to be played with, and every decision felt final. The design was also incredibly hard to make significant, as it’s simply just the crumbling I-90 highway, with no other purpose than to create passage for vehicles.

Me and my partner took two different approaches to our bridge design sketches. She was more optimistic and playful with her design, vouching for a spiraling bridge that goes downward, which sadly couldn’t be met with our current resources at hand. I stressed over practicality and originality. The questions that I kept torturing myself with was how would we design a bridge that was significant to Chicago, significant to an SDG and significant to its respective engineering field?

In doing so, our teacher had strangely (and most likely unintentionally) recreated literally the same scenario from a book called Devil in The White City, where the main character, a Chicago architect named Burnham with his crew of renowned architects from around the United States, were challenged with designing the Chicago World Fair, except me and my partner were put in a drastically smaller time frame and obviously less dramatic consequence if we didn’t hold up to everything expected of us.

Both our group and theirs struggled with the environment we were assigned to work on, seeing more challenges than opportunities. A terrible government that held the creative process hostage (in this case our teacher with our limited budget of only 50 sticks designed for the age range of 3+, and also assigning us the I-90 bridge as mentioned before) and in their case significant delays on communication from the government on approval of their processes, an unstable foundation, and an even worse city to work with.

Our design ended up becoming more optimistic in its flexibility granted by our teacher, allowing for my not-too-sensible idea of making a “stacked” bridge, with an underpass for cars, while the top of the bridge served as a bike path with a hard focus on the scenery holding flora for the cyclists to admire and enjoy for a moment before continuing on their way. This was to encourage biking over automobiles, as cars weren’t permitted on the top of the bridge, therefore not allowed to enjoy the scenery, simply just a glimpse of it.

This of course, wasn’t exactly sensible in the aspect that it’s a highway with no bike path or a reason to include a bike path.

Sketches by D.B / K.H 2022

But we committed to it with a vague idea of what we wanted to design it around, we began looking through Chicago bridges that could support and evolve our design, which we were pleasantly surprised to find that there was a design that sang to our WIP sketch so well. This would be the N. Wells St. Bridge, which supported not only vehicles going underneath, but a train line that ran through the top as well. We didn’t exactly need all the support required to hold the mass of a running train, just enough for occasional bikers.

N. Wells St. Bridge from Chicagoloopbridges.com

  

Which is where we messed up in terms of our final design; ultimately it didn’t really matter too much because then we got bragging rights for our totally intentional design that was just so incredibly honorable. We designed our bridge to provide the support that we should have intended to place where the underpass for the cars were, but accidentally put it where the bikes were. That was a change and error that isn’t too much of a regret in all honesty, as it ended up showing the true pros and cons of our design with no crutches to hold more weight than it was supposed to.

 As for the STG criteria, "Sustainable development goal 11", which is sustainable cities and communities that aims to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.” This goal addresses the current issues with communities regarding their infrastructure deterioration, affordability, and access to basic needs. The design of the bridge we created focused on resilience and safety with the structure attached to the bottom chord meant to mimic the N. Wells St. Bridge, which has held up for some time. 

My last critique of our design was our need to invest more support in the ends of the bridge, as I feel that stressed our bridge’s stability the most. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have done it any differently since it accomplished its required weight and even a little more.

THAT'S A LOT OF MATH SECTION

Now time for the mathematics. We're going to be looking at calculations we've made for the bridge using measurements made on the popsicle sticks, which are going to be used to find the angle of the triangles formed by the ends of the bottom chords. Below you'll first find the dissected anatomy of our bridge, labeling all the specifics of our bridge's structure. The first picture is simply just using the terms that engineers use to describe parts of the bridge, past that it doesn't really hold any mathematical value. 

Bridge by DB

Bridge by D.B 

This one on the other hand is compression and tension. To quote my notes on an explanation of the difference between compression and tension: "Tension refers to forces that attempt to elongate a body, whereas compression refers to forces that attempt to shorten the body." 

Below this is our run-of-the-mill SOHCAHTOA. We're dealing with angles, Pythagorean theorem and laws of sin, cos, and tan. For our measurements, we used inches. A singular popsicle stick is 4.5 inches, the entire length of the bottom chord of the bridge is 18 inches, width of the bridge was 4.5 as well and the height of the bridge is 4.5 (excluding the sticks that are poking out, as they don't really serve much of a purpose.) Below you'll find the rundown of our process step by step.

Pythagorean Theorem by K.H 2022

Law of Sin by K.H 2022

Law of Cos by K.H 2022

Next up, we had to calculate three more things: velocity, kinetic and potential energy. The law of conservation of energy tells us that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it merely changes form. Let's see that law applied with our bridge. 

Potential - 

mass x gravity x height

5.8kg x 9.8m/s/s x 0.889m = 503.7 J

Velocity -

9.8m/s/s downward

Kinetic - 

½ (mass)(velocity)^2

½ (5.8kg)(9.8m/s)^2

(2.9)(96.04) = J

We can see that it takes more energy for the bridge to stay in place than to be actively falling. Interesting. 

Conclusion

This project was honestly stressful and painful for the first day and a half, as me and my partner struggled to actually work as partners for the design period. It made work hard to do when we were hesitant on committing to anything, along with our stubborn nature creating pointless competition between the two of us. It was a headache. Eventually we finally linked and settled on a plan. I wish we had more sticks to work with, but I understand they weren't exactly provided by the school. I believe next time, even by bumping up the sticks to 75 each, would allow for a lot more creative expression for students. Sure it's a challenge to see if students can apply the lessons learned to create something practical, but I'm confident that with 75 it allows for both practicality and flexible room for innovation. Those are my final thoughts on it, and I hope you enjoyed this action project.