This thesis project is going to be on Philadelphia politics, that much is for sure.
I am too interested in this city’s government, local politics and all the excitement that comes with it all.
Image courtesy of the Pride of Philadelphia.
An honors thesis focus: the Philadelphia Republican Party
I had listed a handful of proposals for my honors thesis a few weeks ago. After meeting with Dr. Robin Kolodny, a professor of political science at Temple and a mentor of mine, I have decided to focus on the nearly nonexistent Republican Party in Philadelphia, a good fit considering my interest in this city’s political climate. As suggested by Kolodny, I have signed Joe Mclaughlin, an associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts, on to be my adviser. He is remarkably knowledgeable and well-connected in both city and state politics. Check out the initial proposal I wrote out earlier this month.
Philadelphia, one of the largest and most historic cities in the United States, hasn’t had a Republican mayor in 55 years. Arlen Spector gave James Tate a race in 1967, former-Mayor Frank Rizzo ran in the 1991 Republican primary, and Sam Katz led two particularly spirited campaigns in 1999 and 2003, but, otherwise, most elections since Bernard Samuel last nabbed the city’s chief executive office for the GOP in 1948 haven’t even been close. Is Philadelphia’s Republican Party inept, or would nearly four out of five Philadelphians register Democrat regardless of opposition? Interestingly, Samuel was the final chapter in what was an almost entirely uninterrupted succession of Republican mayors for nearly a century, when the city became coterminous with Philadelphia County in 1854. Is Philadelphia simply prone to party loyalty or is there something deeper? What happened during Bernard Samuel’s term, which was the longest continual span in city history?
I have to now expound a bit on that proposal, while I immediately begin trying to develop a comparative understanding of other urban Republican Parties.
This site is under construction
Contain your excitement. This blog and Web site will chronicle the honors thesis I am currently writing. I am backdating the work I have done so the entire year can be accurately depicted. That’s a lot of work. Give me a minute, alright? I’ll get this thing a cooking real soon.
Image courtesy of Image Engineering.
Honors thesis: a proposal or several
It is my hope that I begin research for this honors thesis over the coming semester, so that I might be able to accomplish as much as I can efficiently next year, sure to be a hectic one, considering its my last at Temple University. So, I’ve formulated a handful of short proposals of what I might want to research. I want to develop a focus before the end of May.
I also have to choose an academic adviser for the project, though that largely depends on what I choose to research. Still, I have been blessed with a handful of bright, challenging and caring academic mentors, like Political Science Professor Dr. Robin Kolodny, Associate Dean of College Liberal Arts Dr. Joseph Mclaughlin, Filmmaker and Broadcasting and Telecommunications Professor Eugene Martin, and Honors Director Dr. Ruth Ost.
First, I have to choose an academic pursuit, though. Here they are, as follows:
An honors thesis proposal
Here begins a year-long investment in an undergraduate thesis. The details are a bit hairy, but let’s see if I can’t flush this out.
I came to Temple University in August 2004 as a political science major after an average high school academic career. I wasn’t honors department material. In the past that meant that I was unable to graduate with honors.
Things have changed.
Final JYA Episode
The final overall JYA episode, which serves as a review of all the cast trips:
Hurricane Katrina volunteering in New Orleans
I went to New Orleans with Common Ground to offer some post-Hurricane Katrina support. Mostly, I stayed with a hundred other volunteers on cots in a high school gymnasium and worked in small teams to salvage homes in the Ninth Ward.
I was driven to provide some service, having worked in a shelter in Philadelphia of victims.
Continue reading Hurricane Katrina volunteering in New OrleansTokyo Never Happened: Episode Nine
Things are easier on this side. I realized that when I woke up and, in my persistently active manner, decided I had to go the bank and settle some business. I spent at least a full minute worrying about how I would say what I needed to say in Japanese. Once I realized that wasn’t much necessary, it occurred to me that I have begun a nice grace period where everything I do is going to be awfully simple in comparison to my maneuvering and studying and eating and buying and banking in Tokyo.
The question I am almost always asked is if it is “strange” to be back in the United States. Of course, mostly it isn’t. I am a man of limited means so, while I most certainly have done a lot for what I have been offered, I have spent a great deal of my life wherever my family considered home. It is not strange to return to what I have known for two decades. I may have to readjust and rediscover, but strange is unknown and different. To be sure, in a grand sense, there is nothing different about the America I have found.
Japanese Names
I have an embarrassing admission. It took far too long for several sources to explain to me what is up with Japanese names. Names are one of a handful of cultural issues I readily acknowledged as being different than my Western tradition before I began preparing for my trip here, but, it took me some time asking questions here in Japan before I developed an understanding, so I thought it might be worthwhile to try explain what I’ve learned, if only to hasten my comprehension.
Alright, well, we all have this vague understanding that given names come after family names in Japan, making our contemporary American conception of “first” name fairly meaningless and confusing. Moreover, the family name taking its place in the front of a person’s name is a firmly Asian tradition, from China to Indonesia to most Middle Eastern countries of which I can speak.
Lasting Memories
Before I could even begin to compress and react to returning to the United States of America, please indulge me. May I mention what already appear to be my lasting memories of Japan and its baby, Tokyo?
Japanese kids love their school uniforms, and you see packs of them walking through the streets. This, I suppose, is a fine image for a people that still reject individualism in preference of obedience and communal living. There are more pet grooming shops and pachinko parlors than Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in Tokyo. In the United States, I expect to get beeped at if I cross a red light into traffic on my bicycle. In Tokyo, they will simply drive at me. I felt four earthquakes, lived through one typhoon season, and had one tsunami warning on my four months on that weather-pestered island.