Tag Archives: behavior

Social, Technology

Loss of Shame

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From paulbradley.ca

The Loss of Shame

Good or Bad?

As 2009 comes to an end, this has to be one of the most bizarre years for celebrities and sports figures – from Octo Mom, Chris Brown/Rihanna, the Rick Ross/50 Cent fiasco, and the endless ‘leaks’ of personal home videos from celebrities, this year is definitely a defining moment in the ongoing moral decay of society. Combine that with the ever-so popular YouTube videos of youth fights (especially the senseless killing of a Chicago teen), it can be said that we have lost our sense of shame. This point rings louder in the aftermath of the Tiger Woods incident where we have several women ‘proudly’ coming forward in saying that they had sexual relations with the Golf superstar. Let’s analyze the situation so we are all following; up to 16 women are coming forward saying they had relations with a married man … If this was even 50 years ago, these women would have not dared to pronounce such a thing as they would feel ASHAMED and EMBARRASSED. However, some ‘reappropriation’ or ‘reinterpretation’ has happened in the last couple of years because now what used to be ‘shameful’ can be almost worn as a ‘badge of honor’ on one’s sleeve.

So how did we lose the sense of shame? Was it lost with the rise of feminism as women became more vocal about their gender & sexuality? Or was it a reaction to the rise in ‘political correctness’ as a sort of a revolt or detest? I am sure there are a multitude of reasons to our moral decay, and all relates to a loss of pride, honor, and respect for ourselves. I mean, that has to be the only reasons for why women would proudly bolster themselves as hussies, modern day jezebels – we are using our greed for money and fame as an appropriate rational to engage in shameful behavior. Its funny, kind of, we are practicing the ENDS justifies the MEANS, where the ‘ENDS’ refers to money/fame/notoriety and the ‘MEANS’ is whoever or whatever we have to screw (literally and figuratively) over to get it.

This ‘loss of shame’ is everywhere through our society, and I guess it is a reflection to changing norms and attitudes. Some more relatable examples that are seen in everyday life are:

men who mooch off their girlfriends

Not saying that men can be the only ones who are the ‘earners’, but there are many guys out there that are proud that they stay home, play video games all day, and just spend their girlfriend’s money … can anyone say ‘role-reversal’? Lol, just kidding to my independent women.

The Whore Movement

Has always been around, but re-ignited with Paris Hilton, this movement pretty much teaches young females that it is okay to be slack, loose, film yourself – if it leads to money & material wealth. With hip-hop, now we have rappers like Nicki Minaj who have an almost cult-like following of young women who follow her on Twitter, dress like her, and talks like her (go to her MySpace to get familiar).

The most blatant example of our ‘Loss of Shame’ can be seen daily, hourly, on Twitter – sometimes I am disgusted of the trending topics and some of the comments/posts that people share. It really is a sea of madness and nonsense – but in the same breath, is this a product of our individualistic society where we are encouraged to say what is on our minds?

The ‘Good’ in the “Loss of Shame”?

From childhood, we are taught that we are ‘special’, we are ‘unique’, ‘no one is like you’, and to ‘speak our mind’, so is this merely the cost of our individuality – the loss of morals? It is an interesting trade-off that we seem to be battling with at the moment as it is a continuous cycle of conflicting views that go sort of like: If I am vocal of something that is perceived as morally incorrect, if I DON’T talk about it I am repressing my feelings & emotions – which goes against everything that society teaches me …. And if I DO be vocal about something that is morally incorrect, then I am expressing myself, even though I know it is wrong – so why am I expressing it in the first place.

Just thinking about this gives me a headache, as morality, ethics, freedom, and psychology interplay in this sticky quagmire of a situation.

Am I on point or far-off? Share your thoughts …

.::LiBM::.

Entertainment, Hip-Hop, Popular Culture, Social

Guide to a Hip-Hop Blog

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guide-to-hiphop-blog

BlogStar

A guide to making a Hip-Hop Blog

Its been a minute since I have actually ‘written’ anything on the blog; notice the word ‘written’. Due to a busy and demanding schedule I had to resort to what my peers do so often – post Youtube/video clips. Now, there isn’t anything really wrong with that – heck, if a video is worth posting, then one should post it, right? And that is what many of my peers (the hip-hop/black blogs) seem to be doing constantly as they post the newest and latest audio track from Drake, Weezy, or Gucci Mane (which baffles me). To get into it, I have noticed that many of the hip-hop blogs out there have the same content, sometimes the posts are in the same order – meaning that they are importing a feed from somewhere. And I was like ‘wow’, this is really lame. Its good to see that the hip-hop/black blogs are out there, but people are not really giving opinions, no fresh ideas, or insightful wisdom is coming out – just regurgitated content coming from a few sources. So I had to ask myself ‘why is this the case?’, I mean the supply of content is plentiful, so why isn’t there varied content ranging from entertainment to social, psychological, and political issues? Or is the demand only focused on the entertainment?

Steps to Blog Fame

So with that said, I thought it would be prudent for aspiring blog ‘writers’ to have a guide as to how to produce and maintain a blog:

1. Cool Name

– Take a common phrase from hip-hop culture, like ‘Swagsterboys.com’ or ‘onthecorner.com’ or some other madness

2. Jack Off

Not literally, but if you do, do ya thing. But this refers to where you pull your content from, many bloggers like yourself get their content from RapRadar, Allhiphop, hiphopdx, worldstarhiphop, and vladtv. If you are ‘tech with it’, you can even take their feed URL, burn their feed with FeedBurner, and re-publish that feed for your own creative, unique, and suave blog.
– www.google.com/feedburner for more info

3. Collective Commentary

Of course you must distinguish yourself from the others, so what other way to do that than to comment on the content you ripped. The sharp and quick one-liners add flavor to your blog; even though the one-liners may be from the source you got the video from – hey, its ok, its still your own hands that wrote it!

4. That’s a wrap!

I mean, there is nothing else more to do right? Just mention your blog to your friends, your social network, and claim to have the latest and best content!

With the sarcasm aside, maybe I am expecting too much from these blogs, maybe I need to understand that this is only a section of hip-hop/black blogs. I mean, there are many good blogs on AOL’s BlackVoices.com, but outside of that, I don’t think there are much more. Maybe I am confusing the relationship between hip-hop & black blogs – though I am finding that most of the Black Blogs ARE hip-hop blogs. And then, maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t complain as much as I am in my own lane, and I can actually string together words to make sentences, that makes paragraphs, that makes a ‘thought’ or an ‘idea’ ….

Step your game up peers.

.:: LiBM ::.

Popular Culture, Relationships, Social

Racists or A-holes?

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Racism or A-holes

Gross ambiguity in ascertaining motivation

How we interpret events really depends on our perception; which is developed over time through experiences.  When we feel that we are ‘wronged’ or we are suffering some sort of injustice from our neighbors, ‘the man’, teachers, other authority figures – sometimes the only conclusion that we can arrive at to explain why people are treating us in a certain way can only be explained by ‘hatred’.  This ‘hatred’ though is ambiguous as it may be colored through ‘racist’ or ‘asshole’ goggles.  Ok, your probably not following, so let me paint this with examples:

The guy in this video is clearly an asshole, it is quite evident. Now, if you were the doctor, and you were black, some may interpret this as the guy not being an ‘asshole’ but a ‘racist’ – to explain why he is behaving so badly.  Essentially, you would have no choice to come to a conclusion such as that – this is why ‘context’ is so important and can lead to so many implications.

Many Cry

Thus many of the cries I hear from people in their attempt to describe authority figures like Cops, Teachers, bosses, etc. may be a mis-diagnosis — they are probably just assholes more so than racists.   To be an asshole usually suggests that one is not happy with themselves, and they take out their frustration on any and everything out there.   These people are rude, abrasive, and very self-centered – also mix in some condescending behavior and sarcasm, and you have an ambiguous person that can either be labelled a ‘racist’ or an ‘asshole’, depending on the context of the situation.

I guess if you find yourself dealing with an individual that you think may be an ‘asshole’ or a ‘racist’ … in the end it may not really matter how you label him; it just matters that you deal with the situation accordingly – if that means walking away or addressing it directly.  Just don’t let a false ‘labeling’ of such behavior fuel your anger to make you do/say something that you may regret – because then you may end up as an asshole yourself.

Check out the Asshole song by Denis Leary (90’s) here

Hip-Hop, politics, Social

Jasiri X – Blackface

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Jasiri X – Blackface

Just getting caught up on Jasiri X as he is capturing the essence of how this thing called hip-hop got started; that is by reporting on the issues that affect the black/urban community via rap. Apparently he has weekly music videos that are a summation of the weekly events, this week in particular focuses on the re-emergence of ‘Blackface’ entertainment; as featured on CNN and YouTube.
Check out his YouTube channel here at http://www.youtube.com/user/jasirix

Logic, Social

Social Sheriff – Action & Consequence

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Action & Social Consequence

The Social Sheriff is still relevant, crucifying those that act out of line

Every action has a reaction, this guy thought he could kick a little kid – with no consequence; well, he got a ‘face-full’ of consequence … I mean, at least try to block the hit.

Now after you are done laughing, I have to say that this quite refreshing as Social Justice as reared its vengeful head on this supposedly ‘mature adult’ with the glasses. Yes, the boxer who boxed out the lame, in the eyes of the law, will probably be charged with some sort of assault. However socially speaking, the man that had the nerve and audacity to kick a little child should be charged with some sort of offense for even thinking of the thought that he could do such a thing and get away with it. Now, we don’t have audio in this clip, so we don’t know if there was any provocation or what verbal events lead up to the man doing such a thing – not that anything would explain his actions, but it would give insight into why he ‘did what he did’. And ‘what he did’, got him a swift box.

Many other people should take on the ‘Social Sheriff’ role and ‘check’ people that get out of line, like:

Kanye West

Somebody should have gone up on stage, or just as Kanye was leaving the stage, and give him a swift box

Paparazzi

They invade celebrities privacy, cause disturbances, and remind me of cockroaches when the lights go on – some celebrity needs to get out the ‘RAID’.

Those that watched

This era of ‘Instant Social Media Popularity’ has desensitizied the youth; as many youth in Chicago watched, laughed, and even filmed a brethren, a human being, get killed. Then such individual(s) thought it would be cool to share it on YouTube. In this instance, I’m pretty sure you can figure out what the Social Justice would be ….

Wrapping it up and going back to the beginning of this rant, let’s be thankful that guys like the overhand throwing man in the animated gif at the top still exist to protect those that can’t protect themselves, and who stand for something.

.:: LiBM ::.

Love, Social

Gross National Happiness for Women

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GNP for Women

How to increase the Gross National Happiness for Women

Gross National Happiness (GNH) is an attempt to define quality of life in more holistic and psychological terms than Gross National Product.  The term was coined in 1972 by Bhutan’s former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who has opened up Bhutan to the age of modernization, soon after the demise of his father King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk. It signaled his commitment to building an economy that would serve Bhutan’s unique culture based on Buddhist spiritual values. Like many moral goals, it is somewhat easier to state than to define. Nonetheless, it serves as a unifying vision for the Five Year planning process and all the derived planning documents that guide the economic and development plans of the country. 

After reading this I thought of a great correlational study; can the GNH apply to Women?  Women always complain about not being happy, not getting their way, so maybe if they followed (or more importantly, their man followed) some of the GNH 7 steps to happiness – modified for women, then women may achieve a high GNH.  But knowing women, they probably would never be satisfied.

7 Steps for Happiness

Now there are 7 steps that would lead women to overall good GNP; some of the steps are adapted/modified from Med Jones (2006):
1. Economic Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of economic metrics such as consumer debt, average income to consumer price index ratio and income distribution
(Women’s Interpretation: you better not be sitting around the house and not pulling in any income – you have to support her shoe habit, because she can’t dare rock last year’s shoe in this season)

2. Environmental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of environmental metrics such as pollution, noise and traffic
(Women’s Interpretation: stop littering and care about the environment; more importantly stop leaving your ish all over the house)

3. Physical Wellness: Indicated via statistical measurement of physical health metrics such as severe illnesses
(Women’s Interpretation: don’t get out of shape and gain a pot/beer belly – or I will start singing Beyonce’s ‘Irreplaceable’)

4. Mental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of mental health metrics such as usage of antidepressants and rise or decline of psychotherapy patients
(Women’s Interpretation: if you want to sleep comfortably, watch football on Sunday’s, then do what I say – or I will raise hell)

5. Workplace Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of labor metrics such as jobless claims, job change, workplace complaints and lawsuits
(Women’s Interpretation: he better not be flirting around with that bimbo receptionist at work, as she may need fully functioning tires to get home)

6. Social Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of social metrics such as discrimination, safety, divorce rates, complaints of domestic conflicts and family lawsuits, public lawsuits, crime rates
(Women’s Interpretation: you can’t always be hanging out with your friends doing a whole bunch of nothing)

7. Political Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of political metrics such as the quality of local democracy, individual freedom, and foreign conflicts.
(Women’s Interpretation: get involved in politics and abandon the “I don’t care” approach, if you need help, then believe what I believe in)

In summation, the GNH for women can probably be paraphrased, summed up, described as ‘Just Listen to her for peace’, or she will rip you to ‘pieces’ and/or will never allow you any ‘peace’ and quiet. And of course shoes, lots of shoes.

Just to show you that the whole concept of GNP is not a joke, check the following video:

LMC presents: Ann Muller & Gross National Happiness from another being creative on Vimeo.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness

Economics, Popular Culture, Social, Technology

Buy yourself a Personality: MacBook

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Associative Qualities of the Mac Culture

Buy Yourself a Personality: MacBook

In my little opinion, Macbooks are not much superior to Windows and/or Linux based computing systems. The price of a Macbook can range anywhere from the $1300-$2500 and they are only optimized for their performance in memory intensive usages such as audio recording/editing and video rendering. If you are even doing Photoshop image manipulations, and you are not working with RAW files, then you do not necessarily need a MacBook. If you are reading this, and don’t even know what Final Cut, Compressor, Avid, Motion 4, Pro Tools, then you are one of those people that I like to call ‘Buying a personality’.

Cool & Trendy Factor
There is some statistic that states that out of the Personal Computing market, Apple has like less than 5% of the market share; so having a MacBook will automatically make you stand out from the pack; combine with Apple’s sleek and stylish design, people will gravitate and ask you asinine questions about your MacBook. Which essentially forces the individual to become a ‘Mac Ambassador’; someone that can give advice and their opinion about their Mac experience – and resoundingly enough it will bend toward the positive. Thus, when people become the Mac Ambassador they are embracing and becoming one with the ‘Mac Culture’; which can be defined as a free-spirited, creative, liberal, defying convention, eager individual – whom values his/her individuality from conformity (conformity being Windows culture). Those qualities will then be expressed in their clothing and swag; which is perfectly captured in the popular ‘”I’m a Mac, he’s a PC” ads.

Now, this isn’t ‘Mac resentment’ or ‘hate’; the Apple OS is a unique user experience that in my opinion is slightly better than Windows, but the cost differential is not worth it if you plan on using iMovie or iLife, or watching video on YouTube. You have to give Apple some props though, they have done a creative maeouver in giving the perception that when you buy a MacBook – which is essentially a plethora of computer parts made by other manufacturers (just like Windows machines) – you are not only being a computer, but you are buying a lifestyle. And that ‘lifestyle’ is priceless.

.:: LiBM ::.

Health, Logic, politics

tan(012) – Death Squads look for Happy People Whispering

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tan(012) – Death Squads, Happy People, Work Whispers

Preamble: Been kind of light on the tangents, not that sh*t isn’t pissing me off, I guess I am just controlling what does and does not piss me off. Its a slow curve to equilibrium, but I’m gettin gthere.

Quiet Whispers

It always humors me when I am at work, and their will be two people talking regularly, then suddenly they creep away from you and their voices become softer and then non-coherent. This is done for one or two reasons; first reason would be that the conversation has suddenly changed to the topic of ‘you’ or someone that is close to ‘you’. The second reason would be is that they are talking about something that is ‘socially inappropriate’ at work. Either or, my whole thing is that I could really not be interested in what they have to say – I really don’t give a f**k. Even if you are talking about me or not, you are so irrelevant from my world that the best thing that I can say, well, what I WISH I could say, is by the great lyricist Styles P in a bar, “I don’t give a f–k who you are, so F–K who you are!”. Yup, that sums it up definitively.

Death Squads

The healthcare debate in the U.S. is very tense; as many people (as they should be) have passionate opinions on the current state of healthcare and where it should go. Obama’s plan is getting not so favorable reviews from both Democrats & Republicans alike, and at the Town Hall meetings, tempers are high – with many people shouting, pushing, and even fighting each other. The Republicans, along with their media outlet (Fox News) are pushing an interesting rhetoric, such as “Death Squads”, and “let’s take back our country”, and proclaiming that Obama and his goonies are socialists. Glenn Beck, the actor/news reporter (that was an intentional ‘/’ used to describe him) is even making arguments to compare the Obama administration to Nazi Germany. Below, are some funny and telling clips of how media, if not followed closely, can easily mislead and persuade a masses – it also shows double speak. Double speak is the fine art of:
“language constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., “downsizing” for layoffs) or deliberate ambiguity.”

Happy People
When I say ‘happy people’, I am referring to those that always have a smile on their face; they are always grinning from ear to ear. In the morning, afternoon, the night, during the cold winters, and the scorching heat – always smiling. What is up with that? Maybe I am just grumpy, but I feel some sort of hateration when I see these individuals; as I am secretly wishing to bask in what they are projecting. However, I take solace in the fact that what they are projecting is probably a mask to cover up something else, so I justify my hate, and I am content with that.

Life is tooo short! Be Happy! …. but don’t over indulge!

.:: LiBM ::.

Logic, Social, Work

tan(011) – My Intuition parks bad on the streets, sickly

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tan(011) – Against your Intuition, Street Parking, Sick from Work

NOT to go off on a Tangent, but …

Preamble: Without the venting of frustrations, one is destined to be a very hot pressure cooker, so let the steam go!

Against Intuition
This is a rant against myself. Against my fault for having too much faith in other people and their abilities to fulfill an order. The ordeal happened when I was renting some audio equipment for a friend’s going away party, and to make a long story short, I rented speakers and speaker cables from a local audio rental store that will go unnamed; but the customer service rep gave me incorrect speaker cables – rendering the speakers useless. Now when placing the order, I suspected that the customer service guy was a bit new and somewhat inexperienced; and at this store, it is a requirement that you know your stuff, very well. Preamble, I have rented from this store numerous of times in the past though; with no bad experiences, they have always given me the right pieces of equipment and necessary cords (I never had to check before I left the store). However this time, because of the inexperienced and uncertainty vibe that I was picking from the CSR, I wanted to do a physical check of the equipment, but I was reluctant to do so. I think my rationale for NOT checking was that if I persisted to check, that action may have been insulting to the CSR; so I was kind of being sensitive to his feelings. But, after having to drive across town and back to pick up PROPER speaker cable from my house, I will be LESS sensitive in the future

Street Parking
Pretty simple concept: if you are going to park on the street, and clearly there is enough room for two cars to park, park APPROPRIATELY. That means, consider other cars that may want to park; so that means, don’t park in the middle of the space so that only your car can fit – instead move up a bit and park so that another car can park behind you. Simple concept, yet some people have no consideration for others and will park selfishly so that no others can use the parking space. Let’s be aware people, you mofo’s aren’t the only ones out there; let’s have some thought for others. And not to digress, but this is also a gross act of laziness – especially when your girlfriend is to friggin lazy to move the car up a bit so that you can park behind her. Instead, you have to go park across the street in a private lot that is subject to parking tickets and towing … and she has the nerve to call me ‘selfish’, hopefully she isn’t living in a glass house, lol.

Sick for a Day
I hate it when you are sick for a day, and one of your fellow employees goes to your workstation to ‘see what work needs to be done’, and they completely reorganize your stuff. It’s a simple concept dumb mofo’s; leave things the way you found it. Don’t change the position of the phone, don’t move papers around to different locations, put it back the way you found it. You are not doing anyone a favor by moving stuff around dummy. Lame dummy.

Hip-Hop, Social

The United E-Thugs of Internet Soldiers

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Internet Soldiers!

The growth of the E-Thug

They …
Spend all of their time threatening people over the internet to compensate for their ‘lack of a life’ and hatred of humanity for not accepting him.

They …
Are a computer geek that only exists on the internet and thinks he is top sh*t by typing in CAPITALS, swearing excessively and thinking they can beat you down in a fight.

They are the E-Thugs, because they will never think about getting at you in the streets; they exist only in standard unicode web fonts.

BE CAREFUL WHEN you approach these characters they may TWEET you to death, TEAR UP that wall on your FACEBOOK, and simply mess up your MYSPACE … thought they will never breach your physical space … lames!

.:: LiBM ::.

http://www.sneeko.net/images/macros/e-thug.jpg