Erick Sermon feat. Marvin Gaye, this song is smooth ass classic hip-hop funk – something to do a lil’ two step to. If you don’t know who either of these two guys are, leave this site now and go to wikipedia/youtube, lames.
Erick Sermon is still doing production work I believe, and the great late Marvin Gaye’s works live on in sampling.
Image by snoppy
Changing the variables to produce a better result for the Black Family
As a society; parents, children, brothers & sisters, the best we can do is increase the probability of success. There is not an absolute definitive formula that if practiced, will guarantee that a child will grow up ‘successfully’; there is a combination of social and economic factors that can lead the best of children to a life of violence and/or drugs. Thus, we can only try to increase the probabilities of a positive result by trying to control the variables. Especially in the Black community, it is very important that we try to control these variables as too many of our youth slip through the cracks.
Spending time with your kids and doing family activities
Sounds pretty basic, and it is – just doing communal activities such as watching TV together, grocery shopping, cooking, walking, can yield positive effects on youth. In today’s climate, we are all busy – some working multiple jobs to get by, but even just making a phone call to see what is going on with your kids can foster a relationship of warmth and dialogue; and the more dialogue that you have with your children, the better chances are that they will come to you for guidance when something is troubling them in their lives. As the parent, you must be an authoritative figure, but you must not always exercise your title with an iron fist – yelling/screaming will not develop a relationship of open dialogue; as the child will most likely not be willing to discuss their problems with you. Parents must be open to dialogue and discourse or face a child that is unwilling to share and open up.
Positive reinforcement
Positive reinforcement is an increase in the future frequency of a behavior due to the addition of a stimulus immediately following a response. Giving (or adding) food to a dog contingent on its sitting is an example of positive reinforcement. Essentially this means ‘reward youth’, when they do good, it may be best to show a tangible appreciation (if possible, like a gift or item), or at least an intangible appreciation such as accolades and praise. The common argument I heard growing up for when I do good is ‘well, that is what you should be doing’, which has some merits, but rewarding youth for their performance is a preparation for the real work world – where bonuses are giving to those that perform well. As with the real work world, once a person receives a bonus, they will try hard to maintain their behavior that led them to that award; thus, promising your kids a specific video game or outing for their performance may be advantageous – and if they fail to meet the achieved requirement, still supplement them with something that is appropriate, because you do not want them to feel resentment towards you.
Avoiding Displacement
As with everything, from time to time we may have problems with our significant others, work, school, or just the mundane annoyances of life, but that doesn’t mean that we have to displace our frustrations to our children. Displacement operates in the mind unconsciously, and involves emotions, ideas, or wishes being transferred from their original object to a more acceptable substitute. It is most often used to allay anxiety. That safe ‘acceptable substitute’ is usually our children, as they become the recipient for our frustrations.
When reading the statistics on the black family, the numbers are alarming and troubling – as a whole, we all need to be better educated on familial relationships techniques and inner dynamics. Being aware of such will hopefully lead to better independent and familial functioning for both the child and the parent. Now for some of the rough statistics, ‘rough’ as in ‘bad’:
The net worth of a black fmaily in America is $5988 versus a white family of $88651
9 million Blacks in the U.S. are in poverty.
U.S. Black women outnumbered Black males in every decade of the Twentieth Century.
White Males with a high-school diploma are just as likely to have a job and tend to earn just as much as black males with college degrees
Approximately 60% of children in public kinship care are African American.
45% of Black Children live below the poverty line, compared with 16% of White children
Although African American youth account for 15% of the U.S.
population, they account for 26% of juvenile arrests, 31% of delinquency referrals to juvenile court, 44% of juveniles detained in delinquency cases, 40% in residual placements, 46% of juveniles transferred to adult criminal court, and 58% admitted to state prisons.African American students account for 14.8% of the general population for the 6 through 21 age group, compared with 20.2% of the special education population in all disabilities. 18.3% are diagnosed with a specific learning disability, 34.3% are diagnosed with mental retardation and 26.4% are diagnosed as being emotionally disturbed.
Although African American youth account for only 15% of the
juvenile population, more African American juveniles than white
juveniles were murdered between 1988 and 1995.Source: http://www.blackangelnetwork.org/?q=stats
Knowledge is power …
.:: LiBM ::.
Not to go on a tangent but …
Don’t know why there are not more of these devices at the major retail stores. They are so handy when you are in a big box store like Wal-Mart near closing time, only 2 cashiers are open, you have under 10 items, and there is a long line with people doing their monthly shopping – full carts. With self-checkouts for 10 items or less, you can virtually eliminate that cash register that was designated as ‘express only’. AND, customers are more than competent to bag their own groceries – let’s speed up the process people – the other day I was waiting in line at a Wal-Mart and I swore I was able to have a mini power nap.
Its really asinine to hear the common objections from women and exercise, especially in relation to body toning/definition. Of course, women always want to lose weight, and the best way of doing so is by routine cardio activity – treadmill, bike, elliptical, etc. Try to bring up the topic of weight training, for the purpose of toning their arms or legs, get ready for strong objections – because you know, women working out with 5-10 pound weights will make them look like a man. They want to get rid of the flab on their arms/legs, but they don’t grasp the fact that cardio primarily loses weight mass; weight training tones and defines your body mass. But as much as I try to tell him that, picking up a dumbbell is like kryptonite to them. Furthermore, if I may, women to really burn fat, you need to get into your fat burning zone – meaning after a cardio routine, ‘you best be sweating’. That intense feeling where your heart is working hard to pump blood through your vessels, and you have to breathe extra hard and faster is your fat burning zone – brisk fully walking on the treadmill for 1/2 hour is not even equivalent to going full throttle, hard body on the same treadmill for 7 minutes. AND, don’t be afraid to sweat; its not ‘yucky’ or ‘eww’, it’s a sign of progress to a better you … lames.
Even without a fro I dislike summer, because every activity, regardless if it is sitting (passive) or running/sports (active), your body temperatures jumps by like 5 degrees. Sweat increases from a light drizzle to torrential storms, and the funk is kicked up to George Clinton styles. You got to wash your hair more frequently, when cooling down from a workout you have to wait a little while longer as you spend most of your time mopping your towel on your head for sweat. I know the obvious fix to this ‘problem’ is to cut the fro, but I have and currently am reluctant to do so as I am the few that like the fro … so I guess I just have to make do, but I just wanted to get that off my chest (didn’t sweat at all when writing this).
.:: LiBM ::.
Apart from ‘beautifullest’ not being a real world, Keith Murray provided a lyrical dose with this debut track that focused on a simple boom bap beat, and raw lyrics. Released in the mid 90’s, this song was well received as this was a time when lyricism was promoted in the mainstream. Now, Keith Murray is working on new material, but unfortunately like most that reappear after long hiatuses, he probably won’t fit into today’s climate, but can’t stop from trying. Production by the great Erick Sermon of EPMD fame.
Art by Venomx
Many rappers can rap: talking about their ice, cars, hoes, and such – anyone can do it. But what distinguishes a rapper from an MC is their ability to tell a story; for 3-4 minutes to take you on a mental ride through their lives and how they see it. To feel their emotions: elation or pain, bliss or remorse, concept records have pushed the artform ahead, as rappers have stretched the boundaries of imagination.
Nas – One Love
– This was the song that got Nas on the hip-hop light as it was his first major music video. Even Mobb Deep was up in it
Canibus – I honor You
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a2yuIUxv9E
– Sick concept
First, this song proves that hip-hop lyricism doesn’t need a hardcore beat – take out the vocals, and this song is a very light and soft instrumental; fitting for an R&B record or even adult contemporary.
Second, add in the vocals, and this is one of the craziest songs of all times with insane metaphors and similes – I must have heard this song numerous times, and I still get chills and shivers; no one is currently going in like this. Canbus really took it to the next level on this and has to be the best song of his career.
Not to go on a Tangent but …
Preamble: This is the most politco, socio, humano (humanist) rant yet; but I think I balance it from both sides, so take it in, let me know what you think.
Protests
In Toronto, the Tamil community of Sri Lanka descent have been very vocal about the 20+ year ongoing war going back home in the community; the war has claimed thousands of lives. I get that, and in Western democracies, we allow free protest on issues – as long as those issues don’t impede or jeopardize public safety. So, with that said, protesting on a busy downtown highway, threatening to march on the 401 (one of North America’s busiest highways), and strategically demonstrating during rush hours on busy downtown streets, do two things. First, it really does draw attention to your cause and concern – it definitely draws attention, kudos. However, and most importantly, secondly, it questions logic and foresight of your cause and realism. Take your cause to the Federal government; not the provincial government; if you are really serious about your cause, shut down a major transportation artery in Ottawa or rally on Parliament Hill, not the Gardner Expressway. And my next point, which is a sad state of our world society, well sad state of ‘nations’; the world community usually only intervenes in areas where there is a benefit to them. Meaning, that nations will only sacrifice the lives of their own soldiers if it will return a benefit for them – they will go into Iraq because of the vast resources of oil, but they won’t go into places like the Sudan where genocide is going on for years, because there is NO investment on their return. Put some natural gas or precious metals in Sri Lanka, and the International Community will be quick to intervene.
With that said, I am not saying don’t protest; speak your mind – but I hope the protesters understand the totality of the situation, and hopefully the totality that was expressed here is not the harsh truth.
iTunes manual sync
This is random, but I’m a go in anyway – on my iPod Touch, I download a lot of podcasts – just to explore the good and bad of the Internet. Now, when I download the podcasts through the iTunes store on my Touch through a wifi connection, its gravy, with biscuits. But, as soon as I do a MANUAL sync of my Touch with my computer, the downloaded podcasts are sometimes deleted (even though it is on MANUAL sync). Furthermore, the PC version of iTunes doesn’t even see the podcasts that I downloaded via wifi connection to my Touch! Come on iTunes team, test all possible conditions of your software please; as soon as you started locking these things down (remember with the old iPods, you could explore the folders on a PC/Mac) then you introduced a whole lot of problems.
Protecting the State
So the Obama administration in an attempt to make good on their campaign promises, somehow bring about the topic of prisoner abuse that occurred during the Bush Administration – I thought this was dealt with a few years ago, but that is besides the point. Now, they are attempting the block of releasing more pictures of the abuse that we all know happened; essentially trying to close Pandora’s box (that they themselves opened). In all this, Cheney has been very vocal in defending the tactics used; going on CNN, Fox, ABC, and a whole slew of news shows to reiterate the fact that the interrogation tactics work, and such tactics have prevented attacks. A side debate on all of this drama, is the argument that the Obama administration should not be releasing this information; as it will fuel further disdain for America across the world. Nothing good for the state can come about the further public exploration of this topic; it was already discussed a few years ago, and we know the ugly truth – we should learn from our mistakes and move on. For the Obama administration to berate the situation like beating a dead horse is asinine, and will not do anything to benefit the American people. Move on, and learn from the mistakes; but don’t further expose your state to public scrutiny that your enemies can use against you … Obama may need to read the book ‘The Art of War’ …
.:: LiBM::.
Image by The Jader
Analogies, comparing, knowing when to call it
2 is to 1 as one is to next inline to take over the ‘number one spot’; all of the analogies, with all things being equal in the universe, should over time, take over the number one spot from the current occupier in their respective field. So really it comes down to ‘how’ that change will happen; will it be a hostile takeover? Will the number one’s relevance diminish over time? Or will the number one bow out before they are still on top? When dealing with sports and entertainment; both are in the public eye, but the changes are very different – with sports figures usually going out on top to cement their legacy, and with entertainers they usually stay in the schoolyard too long; kinda like a College kid still hanging out around their High School – it just looks off.
So here are some examples of number 2’s hovering/vying for that number one spot:
Designed by: alexds1
Designed by: mapx
Designed by: djcharly
Designed by: W-Tash
Designed by: mysticm0nkey
Designed by: blesstherebel33
Regardless if it is an R&B singer trying to overstep her boundaries, a manufactured pop tart trying to overtake an established pop tart, a great ball player challenging an olympic and multi NBA championship-winning player, or teeny rappers fighting over who gets the most adoration … eventually we all have to learn when to bow out and move on to another chapter in our lives. Unfortunately with these examples, they probably will stick around High School well past until they are finished College, lol.
.:: LiBM ::.
a hinderance or an accelerant?
To all blend DJ’s, abstract artists, digital designers, application program developers, fiction writers, and like-minded individuals; hypervigilance, which you may interpret as paranoia, needs to be realized, channeled, and understood appropriately for your forward momentum. Growing up, I am sure we can all recall those kids that were weird, dressed funny, socially were out of place, but they excelled in the arts; paintings, drawings, molding, et cetera. A possible reason for this is having hypervigilance, which can be described as “an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect threats. Hypervigilance is also accompanied by a state of increased anxiety which can cause exhaustion. Other symptoms include: abnormally increased arousal, a high responsiveness to stimuli and a constant scanning of the environment for threats”. So in the structural definition, a hypervigilant person can be likened to one who is very paranoid about themselves, their surroundings, and exaggerate subtle environment cues as threats to their own safety.
So if this sounds like you, don’t worry, its even better if you are somewhat creative as researchers have correlated links between hypervigilant people and creativity, a study in the September 2003 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that the brains of creative people appear to be more open to incoming stimuli from the surrounding environment. A University of Toronto press release noted, “Other people’s brains might shut out this same information through a process called ‘latent inhibition’ – defined as an animal’s unconscious capacity to ignore stimuli that experience has shown are irrelevant to its needs. “Through psychological testing, the researchers showed that creative individuals are much more likely to have low levels of latent inhibition. “This means that creative individuals remain in contact with the extra information constantly streaming in from the environment,” says co-author and University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson.
It appears that reduced latent inhibition can be beneficial for creativity as decreased latent inhibition may make an individual more likely to see connections that others may not notice. This may explain why so many creative individuals partake in solitary acts; it fosters inspiration and creativity by absorbing environmental stimuli. Or how you may have some friends that will comment and be able to talk about the strangest and peculiar details of life. However, with all this sensory stimulation, one can be overwhelmed – which in some cases, can lead one to madness. But interestingly enough, Einstein, Newton, and other creative individuals that have enhanced mankind were labeled as ‘genius’, but many said that they bordered on the line of madness and insanity. Many times, I always thought I was a genius or maybe I was just crazy … I am sure many of the hypervigilant folk can relate.
And now, onto the creative art
Sources:
http://highlysensitive.org/highly-sensitive-people-latent-inhibition-and-creativity/
http://your-austin-dwi.com
A logical Mess, Road Closures, Paypal fees
A Logical Mess
Its always the worst when your away from work for a couple of days and your work peer comes over to your desk to do your work and completely reorganizes your things. They say that they were just trying to ‘clean up’ your things, but b**ch, the perceived chaos/mess is subjective – and usually items are strategically placed in certain areas for a reason. Its really rude and abrasive to come into another person’s work area and go through their stuff; business and/or personal – usually they do it to snoop, lames. These types of people need to be dealt with; severely and swiftly (you know what I mean).
Road Closures
Driving on the highway especially in the summer is an interesting time as construction narrows lanes, roads are unpaved, and they always have signs indicating that a certain part of the highway will be closed during a certain time between certain intersections. This is a gross logical error, because if you are traveling eastbound, the signs will tell you the closures that affect eastbound traffic only; but, the driver most likely will need to know of any construction occurring on the westbound lanes (as it will be rare that the driver will travel eastbound again after returning westbound). Am I the only one that has noticed this? Does it not make sense to give notice to the most likely course of actions of drivers?
Paypalery
This will be quick and sweet, but isn’t it odd that Paypal is quick to charge you fees for your transactions whether you are buying or selling, but when you need to withdraw some money from paypal it takes 5-8 business days … Just saying …
.:: LiBM ::.
Some funny legal cases from http://www.re-quest.net/g2g/humor/cases/
We have, and will probably always be in a litigious era where lawyers run rampant trying to sue over every little thing. This leads to a tie up of our judicial system, which in turns causes taxpayers more money; and now, more than ever, we need to find ways to save money. Anyhow, enjoy:
United States ex rel. Gerald Mayo v. Satan and His Staff
54 F.R.D. 282 (W.D. Penn. 1971)
A Real Devil of a Litigant. Plaintiff filed suit against Satan and his staff for violation of his civil rights. Among the allegations were: (1) that Satan had on numerous occasions caused him misery and unwarranted threats, all against his will; (2) that Satan had placed deliberate obstacles in his path that caused Plaintiff’s downfall; and (3) that by reason of the foregoing acts, Satan had deprived him of his constitutional rights.
The court noted that, “Even if plaintiff’s complaint reveals a prima facie recital of the infringement of the civil rights of a citizen of the United States, the Court has serious doubts that the complaint reveals a cause of action upon which relief can be granted by the court.”
The court went on about its concerns and further noted, “We question whether plaintiff may obtain personal jurisdiction over the defendant in this judicial district …. the plaintiff has failed to include with his complaint the required form of instructions for the United States Marshal for directions as to service of process.”
Case dismissed as frivolous.Carter v. United States
530 U.S. 255, 185 F.3d 863 (2000)
Playboy Mystery Writer Unveiled? In a dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Ginsberg wrote, “The Court’s woodenly literal construction gives rise to practical abnomalies and effectively shrinks the jury’s choices while enlarging the prosecutor’s options.”Ruth v. Congress of the United States
71 F.R.D. 676 (D. N.J. 1976)
Right to a Speedy Trial? Plaintiff, while a guest in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, filed suit, in pro per, against the U.S. Congress. Among his allegations were the constitutionality of a number of statutes dealing with the salaries, retirement pay, survivors’ benefits, etc., of Judges, U.S. Attorneys, Clerks, Marshals, and others; and that he was unjustly tried and convicted in both Federal and State courts because the charges against him were processed and tried by the court and staff in an extremely rapid manner, failing to consider all issues, due to the fact that the court “was overworked and under paid.”
Case dismissed as frivolous.Koutsouradis v. Delta Airlines
___ F.4d ___ (11th Cir. 2005)
Batteries Included. A 36 year old married woman filed a lawsuit against Delta Airlines for being publicly humiliated after she boarded a Delta Airlines flight with her husband in Dallas, Texas on a stop over from Las Vegas, Nevada to her home in Clearwater, Florida. After boarding, the woman surprising heard her name being called on the plane’s P.A. system asking her to identfy herself and to please come forward. Alarmed, the woman complied, and was greeted by a Delta security agent who informed her that something in her luggage was vibrating. The woman was escorted off of the plane by the security agent and lead to the tarmack next to the plane where her luggage had been placed. The woman explained to the security agent that the vibrating must be from an adult toy she purchased while in Las Vegas. The security agent, not being satisfied with this representation, made the woman remove the toy from the luggage and hold it up for inspection, in full view of curious passengers looking out the windows of the plane as well as in front of a few Delta ground personnel who, as the complaint alleges, “began laughing hysterically.” The woman was allowed to repack her luggage and return to her seat on the plane. Albeit, a little red faced we’re sure.
Check out http://www.re-quest.net/g2g/humor/cases/ for more funny and dumb cases!
.:: LiBM ::.
