Archive for June 2008
A look at transient cities
Posted on: June 30, 2008
One thing the 50 largest metropolitain areas of the United States share in common is a transient population. But what makes people want to leave where they’re from to relocate in some place foreign. Having lived in a few transient areas myself I thought I would sit down and take a look at both the reasons I relocated, and why others may do the same.
- Transient cities offer the promise of quick money.
- Transient cities are accessible and easy to move to.
- Transient cities have a diverse population.
- There is a good chance a significant portion of the population, if not the majority of the population, is not really from there.
- Some cities have communities by transients for transients; neighborhoods, shopping areas and other cool perks for out of towners.
- Transient cities encourage outsiders to come in and cater to the needs of “out of towners”, in hopes that they may stay there.
Some of these stereotypes are true of some transient areas and some not so much of others. Some transient areas it is clear who is from there and who isn’t, in others not so much. Older metropolitain areas, like New York, have a long history of accepting outsiders and building rapidly to accomodate them that goes back to the 19th century. Others not so much, and are struggling to deal with the issues that a large influx of outsides can often bring.
If you’re an outsider, your opinion of the area will reflect your reasons for moving there, and why you felt the need to move to begin with. In other words, someone moving to New York or California is well aware of the expenses of living there, but dissillusioned as to how hard it is to work to stay there. They may find themselves in a situation where they are living with complete strangers or doing odd stuff just to keep a roof over their head a lot quicker than they had ever anticipated.
On the other hand, if you were moving out of necessity, because you couldn’t get a job, couldn’t get along with people where you were at or just plain out disaffected it is likely that you will carry your negative opinions about city life to the new area you’ve moved to. For example, after a series of unfortunate circumstances I ended up out in Virginia Beach, then hopped to another town in the metro and am now considering doing so all over again. It wasn’t my first choice, but for the cost of my expenses considering what I was going to get paid it was the easier thing to do, plus I knew someone there.
Once I finally did find a place to move into I realized that the money I thought I had was non existent. I was relying on the overtime at my job to pay the bills. I was upside down in a nice house trying to make it. Now I’m considering either working two jobs, moving again, or finding a cheaper place. A cheaper place might mean living in an undesirable neighborhood. Moving might mean living hand to mouth, with enough to pay the rent and some loose change to get around with public transportation.
It would also mean less land and a smaller place and a lot less for my money. I am not finding that satisfaction I was looking for. This is one of the major problems with transients; they have to deal with a major mindset as to why they aren’t necessarily satisfied with anything. They have to find some closure where they are at, but are hard pressed to do so.
On the other hand there are always enjoyable experiences to be found which you think are brand new, but share some similiarities to those you had in the last town you lived in. There are no perfect towns, some are better, some are bigger, some are cheaper, some are more expensive, some double as military installations and most of your transients may come from there and others are great as resort cities. Some people flock to looking for a government job, a job as a writer, artist or musician; anything that someone else told them was easy to get without a huge education.
Those with strong degrees may move in time, but the undereducated are typically the first to leave. You could have lived in a town for 40 years, and then go without working for 2 and you absolutely hate that place and want to leave. You’re broke, unemployment has ran out and you feel like you’re getting kicked in the face everytime you try to get up because the bills are tormenting you. You’re hungry, bored, and start to look for trouble you wouldn’t necessarily get into.
If you really wanted to stay in that town you could have done one of a few things. Worked on your education, opened up your own business, actually become a contributing factor in your own town. So when you move, are you that person that is just there to take everything you can; easy money, expensive trinkets designed to give the appearance of living well and trouble that finds you before you find it, or are you actually bringing something there with you.
Too many transients brag about where they’re from and how much life is better for them. But we never leave and quite honestly our mind wasn’t right to get by when we were living there. We weren’t motivated, lacked enthusiasm and were negative and narcissistic. Depending on the town we’re moving to, we may be absolutely nobody, yet again just in a different place, to anyone of importance. We eventually realize that we have to step it up a notch, or take the lessons learned to another town or back to where we called home.
That is the spirit that resides in some of our transient cities and metropolitian areas; a sea of constant change, a restlessness and a dissatisfaction with simple city life. So I stop for a minute and actually talk to the locals and get a deeper perspective and appreciation for where I find myself. Then I consider how much longer I am actually going to stay …
Everyone wants to talk about how Bill Gates didn’t invent anything and even bring into question whether or not he even made computing any better. There are some clear reasons why, regardless of what you think about Microsoft, you have to respect their hustle.
They made computing more accessible to everyone.
Listen I was that nerd that was as interested in programming in Basic, then C++ like everyone else. Microsoft dumbed it down, way down; trying to reverse engineer programming through Visual Basic which was a hell of a lot easier than dealing with C++. Granted most of us should have paid more attention to C++ because we could navigate Linux a lot better now and wouldn’t be crying in fourms about how we can’t get this or that to work. But Unix, and the programming languages that run on that OS and constitute it’s equivalent to Windows Registry, was never intended for the layman.
With Visual Basic and the associated Windows components people could create and develop programs a lot easier than they could with other languages. Sure it was bloated, inflated code, and you didn’t really have to get your hands dirty if you didn’t want to, but it got you in that front door. I hated programming on old computers where Basic was in the motherboard on ROM and didn’t really care to learn CP/M either. Of course I haven’t programmed in years, but I can see where Windows may have been someone’s first exposure to software development.
The other part about the accessibility factor; Windows thoroughly knocked off their computers in the productivity genre of software. Simply put Word Perfect, Lotus 1 2 3 and Netscape Navigator were interesting products, but there was no integration. Looking back on it that was a very good thing but the way that Microsoft idiot proofed productivity apps revolutionized computing for many. There are still doctors offices and small businesses using what can be described at best as a rudimentary solution to their IT needs through Excel and Access, as weak as those Apps are. In the nineties knowing either software gauranteed you a job making at least $15 an hour, though those days have since passed us.
It (Windows) encouraged PC gaming, which was in it’s dark ages at the time.
Before game developers took to Windows they had to write for individual machines through independent platforms. Sure geeks would still fire up the Amiga 2000 to play a game with rudimentary 16 bit graphics and your grandmother knew how to work a Commodore 64 but there was little gaurantee if you had an obscure system, like a Timex Sinclair, that you could find a game. These days people are writing their own games at home and putting them out there for sport. You do see some of that going on in the Linux community but I think that Windows was the first real platform to open up computing and remove it from the “well the Commodore 64 is a great gaming machine but not really good for productivity” type of mentality.
They idiot proofed website development and server administration.
Any idiot could use Front Page when it popular to create a website and then serve it from a cheap PC running the precursor to IIS. In fact when it came to actually running a server many swore by their server OS, despite the fact that there was always a better answer to be found in Novell. NT 4.0 was the final nail in the coffin, though they were smart enough to realign themselves in Novell as that company moved towards Linux. People hate Novell for their business agreements with Microsoft though, but until either finds a way to really monetize open source it is what it is.
They built a rabid fanbase that helps to continue their legacy and attempts to provide an alternate viewpoint on anti-Microsoft discourse.
Yeah I don’t necessarily agree with it either. But when you take someone who has invested decades of their hard earned time and money into Windows, and then tell them they know absolutely nothing because they can administer Windows Server but cannot navigate around Linux I can see where they take it personal. Back in the day you obtained that certification, you were making a good $20 an hour and things have looked up since then. Now someone comes in the gate with a free OS, you do not have to be certified to find a job running it and virtually every “consumer” variety of Linux can just as easily be ran as a server. There is no real differentiation; which is the way that it always should have been.
Microsoft has some obvious flaws though. First off they spend entirely too much time and money researching ways to get into the newest variants of computing they almost miss the boat. They were lucky with Netscape; that company tried desperately to tie everything into what was becoming a bloated browser that didn’t always render pages correctly, if it did at all. A lot of newbies started optimizing their websites for Internet Explorer, though it was a horrendous product until version 5.0. To make matters worse Firefox stole what little thunder Netscape would have trying to return to the market, taking most of their installed base and aligning themselves up with Google.
Microsoft is trying to get into cloud computing, technically too late, but early enough as laymen still do not really realize the portability and accessibility to data that it offers. They are getting into virtualization too late, though if they dumb it down enough end users may want to use it instead of just techies. They missed the boat on the iPhone, though they already had surface computing. Furthermore, Zune is a closed enough platform with respect to DRM that no one is adopting it (you would think they had of learned their lesson with Plays for Sure) and the Xbox is still a shell of a gaming system, not because of the technology but because of the mediocre line up of titles of which Playstation is still eating it’s lunch.
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are businessmen, no more, no less. Bill may have been slow to adapt the latest ideas, but he always enough cash in the bank that he could afford to take his time figuring out how best to do so. You can’t say that about a lot of the smaller startups that Microsoft and Apple have acquired over the years.
They screwed up on Vista. On paper there were some truly revolutionary ideas but in action it leaves a lot to be desired. Earlier I mentioned using a USB drive to extend your memory virtually. That works until you have a few different software packages running on your computer. I ran and installed Expressions, their Web app. It’s like 400 MB, far larger than other development tools yet surprisingly only has what you need, unlike Office.
Microsoft has to stop over promising and under delivering. Had they not been as ambitious as they were with Vista and simply focused on one of a few issues, like security and making the Aero interface less memory consuming, it could have been a hit. I could go back to XP, but that sucked as well and it’s eight years old. It is okay for consumers to digress but if you’re into technology you are supposed to move on. You learn how to make it work; you are supposed to know a little bit more than the person you are trying to assist over the phone.
The primary advantage Microsoft has in the marketplace is the same that they have always enjoyed. Your average person doesn’t want to know that much about computing, isn’t a geek or hobbyist and is content with something that “just works”, regardless of what it costs. That isn’t just computing, that goes across the board; Americans wear plain clothing, why do you think denim and khakis are omnipresent, there are other choices but they require you to think. We want dumbed down automobiles, which is what kept Ford and GM strong for decades, and is why cheap Japanese cars are so popular. We want dumbed down television programming, Internet video, music, pop culture.
It doesn’t dawn on the average person, that they could learn about computing by trying out something other than Windows, and perhaps make a try of it actually working in the field instead of abusing their systems to play solitaire and browse the ‘net. Again, in a culture where you can earn enough money knowing how to navigate around Access or Excel not to have to stress about the bills you get complacent, and you are relying on the latest iteration of Windows to take you forward.
That’s a huge part of the argument people really have against Vista, if you really look at it. Computers are always running bloated software that hogs up resources, that is the nature of the beast. We just figured that MIcrosoft would create yet another idiot proof operating system; in some ways they did, but in others they sort of screwed themselves because the stuff that it was supposed to idiot proof the most, consumed the most memory and caused the most heartache.
You can’t tell someone that only knows Windows or Macintosh to suck it up and buy more memory, or to turn off Aero, or any other number of tweaks to make Vista run smoothly. Techs will do that while the software is still in beta, but end users will simply move on. These days everyone is moving to Mac looking for the ease of use they thought they would have with Windows. They’re okay with that at first until they realize that outside of what is already included, they may be hard pressed to find third party apps. If they want to go under the hood they can’t do as easily as they could with Windows. Linux on the other hand, opens up the entire OS for fun and games but can be overwhelming. You can break almost anything and everything if you’re naive, particularly if you want to divert from the beaten path and try to install something that isn’t really supported or hasn’t been thoroughly tested first.
Microsoft will have to move beyond their legacy, which was toy apps for people with heavy word processing needs and offer some real solutions for consumers that want to do more than just create macros. That was fine 20 years ago when that was all that people really wanted to do, but now your 5 year old is doing that and wants to move on. Microsoft took a lot of people oh so far, and then sort of left them there to fend for themselves. The vitriolic response to Vista is a testament to that type of abberation and neglect, particularly the way they punish people through their liscensing agreements.
Now the country has devolved to giving away XP in order to combat Linux, for like $30 or less. They did the same in China years ago having realized that they can do little to battle piracy there. It’s time to move on, hopefully Microsoft will before everyone else does …
Supreme Court ruling against usage of the Death Penalty in child rape cases
Posted on: June 26, 2008
It’s hardly surprising; figure that since we’re still undecided on how to handle abortion cases in this country how can fully expect the children that are here to be adequately protected by law when those that are unborn aren’t. Rape is a heinous crime in any event, personally I would like to see men who commit the crime against adult women be put to death when there is clear evidence against them. A big part of the difficulty of determining the extent of the damage rape has caused anyone though is a matter of interpretation.
For children though you would think that wouldn’t be an issue. Clearly, when children who have yet to experience puberty show that physical trauma in said bodily regions it seems plausible to conclude that rape was used as a show of physical force against the child. But if you cannot use the death penalty in a rape case, and attempts to either rehabilitate or deprogram the offenders fail to work and they simply commit the crime again then what punishment is truly adequate by law?
I am hard pressed to agree with the usage of the death penalty in any case though because of it’s questionable use as a deterrent to crime. The only real justification for it seems to revolve around the question of whether or not individuals actually deserve to live in light of having committed a crime, as opposed to whether or not the premise of death is enough to deter them from wanting to commit the crime. In most logical situations it could be a deterrent however given the immediacy and passion that is typically invoked and the catylist behind why some of these crimes are committed the death penalty is simply the answer the society has as to whether or not someone should be allowed the luxury of life, which isn’t an inalienable right of the community.
Society has always had clear views and opinions on who should or should not live. As mentioned earlier, it has already been established that an unborn child can and should remain as such by the society given the situations that child would have to be under once they did come into the world. No one wants a child to be born into circumstances where the neglect or indifference of the parents facilitate death to begin with. Euthanasia is a clear societal view on the surrender of the rights of the community in light of the rights of the sick to want to die. If those closest to the individual that knew them best feel that is the best option for the individual, particularly if the financial resources are being drained by the medical establishment and it is likely that taxpayers will ultimately pick up that bill as opposed to the caretaker, it has clearly been established as an option.
The dystopian view is that euthanasia will turn into a tool of convenience for society and that the world view will turn into one where the inconvenience to society will take precedence over any realizations of the quality of life. In other words if someone is old, regardless of whether they are conscious and physically active or not, euthanasia is preferred because of the technical loss of value that person presents to the society. The only real obstacles to that from a layman’s point of view is that going forward into the twenty-first century most work to be preformed is of mental exercise, not physical. These days if somewhere were 120, and still had a bright mind and were still sharp they could continue to work in some capacity and would still be of some value to the society. The question is whether or not society will continue to see the esoteric view, or whether or not the mainstream will inevitably rise up against the elderly population.
Right now euthanasia for any other reason seems reprehensible. We all remember the trails of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, whom was portrayed as practicing euthanasia for sport in the media; but in a society that seems increasingly obsessed with it’s youth it such a future doesn’t seem that far fetched. Now we say that we want to protect our children, but does that sexual component of rape, that seemingly nagging compulsion to act out on forbidden desires listen to anything else of reason? In other words, given what we have already seen of child molestation in this country is it plausible to think that death would deter anyone as nothing else seems to have that effect?
On the other hand, when rape is used as a tool of violence to demean or humiliate an individual or take their power and autonomy away from them, which is the enlightened view, had these children not be raped it is not that far fetched to wonder what other form of belittling would or already has taken place that no one else knows about. A mother who is depressed and kills her children has committed the ultimate crime but can no longer perpetrate her crime against her victims, yet a rapist when convicted, may inevitably be released into society just to perpetrate the same crime against another child in the future.
Yet again, this isn’t an act that the penalties of crime is going to deter in the first place. When a man and a woman get into an argument and things turn violent and the two of them begin to devolve in the cycle of physical violence as being an integral part of the relationship the death penalty is not going to stand in the way of anything happening to anyone. The same could be said for a desperate drug dealer wanting to maintain a presence because coming across as weak puts you in a situation of being as good as dead; the individual is more afraid of what can happen to him on the streets than he is life in jail; the death penalty is no possible deterrent here.
The death penalty perhaps could work as a deterrent for those of which the decision to commit such an act of hostility or show this use of aggression that are a bit unsure or uncommitted. People who are not really criminals in the first place. Again this brings us back to whether or not we truly feel that the death penalty is a deterrent in situations of child rape or the articulate retribution and revenge of society against the perpetrators of such a horrendous crime. The society feels as though such individuals can and should have such hostility perpetrated to them in jail preferably by the authorities but if it happens amongst the prison population that is the second best thing. It isn’t okay for someone in jail to commit that crime against someone but with the system we have there is a belief that one would not have to experience any real punishment because they have already been incarcerated for life as sentencing for other crimes that they have committed, essentially they have nothing to loose.
The bottom line is whether those politicians who continue to pursue this avenue of punishment against those who commit what is perhaps the most damaging crime against an individual against children have truly spoken for the people. We are sick and fed up with hearing about the crimes that are committed against children, which seem to grow increasingly sick and disturbing each time news of them is spread through the media. Yet at the same time, if it is rape you are talking about we are still on the fence if the death penalty applies to perpetrators of the crime against fully grown women and adolescents, let alone toddlers, tweens and young children. It will be interesting to see how this develops, just that hopefully, we do not have to hear about another horrendous act in the interim …
CNN is hosting a special report Black In America, on July 23 and 24. There will also be an HBCU tour where CNN tours such Historically Black Colleges and Universities as Hampton University, Howard University, Atlanta University and A & M schools in North Carolina and Florida. To promote the tours CNN is hosting a contest where students can submit a video report on such subjects on how HIV and AIDS is affecting African-Americans, why you should or should not choose an HBCU over a regular school, the state of professional Black women that have never been married and other issues.
This is great news first off because African-Americans need positive discourse about the state of affairs in the African-American community that will be watched by someone other than just other African-Americans. Secondly the platform is CNN, whch is still a trusted source in the news media particularly for positive and uplifting news and third this isn’t another State of the Union type of presentation hosting by Blacks for Blacks. Usually, when there is a special presentation about something in the African-American community it tends to be negative. There are exceptions, particularly the dedication that PBS tends to show throughout the year though it is more prevalent during Black History Month when everyone else is wearing their badge proudly as though it were the pink ribbon of breast cancer research.
They also get you to think because they still host programs like Tavis Smiley’s show where he hosts one on one interviews with some of the brightest minds in entertainment, politics and academia. CNN has always had a presence but is probably better known for their commentary by Roland S. Martin than anything. I was watching the BET Awards Show yesterday and they were hosting promos for another installation of Baldwin Hills; a show not unlike The Hills of MTV though here the focus is of one of the richest predominately African-American communities in the nation.
This is the problem with even considering making a television show like Baldwin Hills or College Hill. Almost every African-American who has been to an HBCU can attest to the shenanigans of college life which aren’t radically different from those of so called party schools, state institutions that have digressed to having to showcase their party atmosphere to recruit students by word of mouth, though openly these are supposed to be prestigious schools. The show trivializes the importance of academia at the colleges it tours (it is a different college each season) and tries to dumb down the college experience in the vein of such MTV reality shows like The Real World. It could serve to advertise or promote those schools to get young Blacks to want to attend, but then again so did Drumline and School Daze.
As far as Baldwin Hills what African-American city dweller doesn’t know of a prestigious African-American neighborhood where the drama shown on that show doesn’t go on. In fact since these African-Americans had either arrived financially or were born into such a socio-economic situation why do we feel the need to watch other Blacks have a falling out just under the guise of it being entertaining because they are more affluent than we are. Isn’t there already enough of that sort of thing going on in the entertainment industry for African-Americans; it’s why shows like Keisha Cole “The Way I Am” are so popular. Yeah we like to hear about her life in the ghetto, but it isn’t interesting until she has drama at a radio talk show.
Taking a look at some of the general news topics on the Black In America website you see where Obama is calling Black fathers to task as well as the historical significance of his capturing the democratic nomination. But there are also some familiar themes as well that are fodder for everyday conversation in the barbershop and at the street corner but are difficult to articulate in a professional forum where the whole nation is listening and watching. Such as why African-Americans can’t get over race, Transracial adoption, which isn’t so much about the fact that Caucasians are adopting Black children but whether or not they truly understand the needs of African-American children.
You see the little kids in Black strollers with nappy hair and ashy feet; granted, you also see some of this amongst us with our own children as well, which isn’t any better. But when you see the kids, and then see the White parents, typically middle aged people that may not be able to have children anymore or who wanted a young child and did not want to spend months on the waiting list to recieve a infant of their own race, people want to ask questions. Some make the argument that the parents have the love and the financial resources to give that child a better life than they could have had in Ethiopa, yet others see it is as a reflection of African-American attitudes towards adoption in general.
Morehouse University has had their first White valedictorian. Should this be a big deal; Whites have been attending HBCUs ever since the days they stood hand in hand with us during the civil rights era so it shouldn’t surprise anyone. A lot of HBCUs have White professors that have a unique passion to teach young adults, but how will this be perceived in the African-American community? On the other hand, students at universities in North Carolina say that racism is still alive and well. The last time we had a real look at North Carolina may have been the Kings of Comedy tour via Spike Lee, or it could have been when Fantasia won American Idol I mean North Carolina seems that conveniently overlooked aspect of African-American culture to those obsessed about what it means to black elsewhere.
So that means that there is a story there that needs to be heard, just as there was a few years back in Jena, Louisiana. We need to shift our focus to what is happening in areas like Detroit, New York, Chicago, LA, Atlanta and other cities with strong African-American communities and look in new directions towards Louisiana, North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and other areas that have African-American communities that are just as influential, just as tight knit, just as proud as those we like to look at out of convenience. There are very successful, affluent, interesting communities in those states I’ve mentioned, but no one really wants to talk about them or really take a serious look at them. Katrina forced some of us to look at Louisiana, we complained that the President didn’t treat them right, that Whites had overlooked them and left them at bay, but we ourselves didn’t really think about or consider New Orleans at all unless you were talking about Mardi Gras.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I did because it was a passing fascination but one I had never really thought about until I lived in the South. Then Katrina happened, and there were parts of me that was interested to think about what that area would have been like if Katrina had never happened. I tried to keep up with the story, but there were always distractions and by the time that controversy at Duke University happened with those strippers I had moved on. Last I heard the state was allowing those in the hospitality industry to build massive hotels in those same areas, rather than do the right thing and encourage redeveloping the area for the lower class to move back into.
There are a lot of good, positive stories about Blacks in places you had never considered, and a lot in those you regularly do, that aren’t being told because they’re not sensationalistic and no one really cares to talk about it. Stories that quite honestly don’t sell and aren’t lucrative enough to develop a television series around. Black women who do have tight knit friendships that aren’t preoccupied with finding a man and aren’t materialistic or narcissistic. Black men who are encouraging their friends to do the right thing, not just by Black women, but people in general. African-Americans who actually go to church and are really living a righteous life, not just pretending on Sundays.
The best we can do is hope that CNN either tells these stories, or can help make it fashionable to do so. I used to love to watch BET because they had a program called Teen Summit that had their ear to the street and made living in DC look really cool because here you had entire communities of African-Americans that were well to do, getting along, and didn’t have the problems you tend to see elsewhere. That was a romanticized version, what I wanted to take away from it, but you don’t get that from BET anymore; then again I’m entirely too old to concern myself with what BET airs, I’m not their demographic, except on Sunday when Bobby Jones Gospel airs. Yeah that’s when I’ll tune in …
Trying to stay above the fray while proving to old heads that he is indeed as good if not better than those legendary rappers, his attempts at winning the hearts and minds of his harshest critics is when things really start to get interesting. Lil’ Wayne was never necessarily a bad rapper in anyone’s minds, but few want to conceded that he is the best rapper out there. Personally, I had to go from, okay he’s not the best rapper, as there are clearly more interesting underground artists but as far as the mainstream is concerned he has the be most enigmatic, erratic, emotionally complex rapper we’ve seen in some time.
You don’t want to admit that Wayne is one of the hottest rappers, next to Soulja Boy, who mainly has the attention of tweens and adolescents that are sick of hearing yet but another pretentious rapper. Soulja Boy offers fun, ignorance, and good times all the while disrespecting women in imaginative ways and fusing his raps out of using dance moves as metaphors. The bottom line is that you aren’t really clear whether he is talking about women or dancing with a lot of his lines, yet he has found a way to resurface that angst found in crunk music leaving Lil’ John in his wake. He is that Bone Crusher for the new generation, but not so serious until you his other records that aren’t mainstream that aren’t meant for radio airplay. Unless you’ve heard those you’re totally missing the point.
Lil’ Wayne on the other hand does want to be better than those legendary nineties rappers. Pound for pound it’s difficult to dispute if he really is, one of the primary criticisms of Wayne is that he had no legendary albums. But now that Tha Carter 3 has received four and a half stars from Rolling Stones, features a line up from some of the hottest producers in the game and has Wayne trying to outdo himself from the days of old radio classics like “Go DJ”, a summer hit a few years back in 2004 off of the first iteration of Tha Carter, classic 106 and Park material, through definitively mainstream records like “Lollipop” you have to take another look at this young artist.
Over there at Rolling Stone the writer tried to slip in the suggestion that “Lollipop” was not only the hottest record of the summer but one of the hottest summer hip-hop anthems in general, which is reaching a bit. But it does suggest that Wayne shows he is adept at creating those summer records for his female fans without loosing any of his integrity, which is exactly the point. Biggie’s career blew up off of records for the women and hardcore records for everyone else almost simultaneously. With Tupac you often heard the same love and confrontational hostility off of the same record as he was able to switch between the two modes, almost in the same verse. A love record was not without references to the gangster bravado and references to politics.
We haven’t seen that yet with Lil’ Wayne. On the other hand, Wayne often sells without reaching any farther lyrically with concern to intellectual curiosity than he has to. Wayne keeps rap very simple; nineties style wordplay with early eighties depth ensures that everyone can respect his sick wordplay but doesn’t alienate anyone whatsoever. That is the issue at hand, when you’re over 25 you’re not supposed to like anyone like Wayne. You want the next Public Enemy, someone talking about dodging the draft and starting a prison riot, only this time over serving in Iraq instead of whatever war Chuck D was talking about. You like Kanye West because he is self-righteous and at least has the pretension to want to talk about something, yet only offers his own emotional complexity as subject matter, atypical of many of middle class college dropouts out there.
So when you’re forced with having to choose between Lil’ Wayne and Soulja Boy as the next rap artists to take over the mainstream charts you’re conflicted. The former has been in the game since at least 1997, and the latter is a freshman who has been exploiting social networks for a good two years and building up his audience through the grassroots. Speaking of Kayne West, he dubbed Lil’ Wayne as a God, which is interesting considering he considers his own travails as being those of the son of God, Jesus Christ himself. I think we get the point though.
Let’s also take into consideration the authority that Rolling Stone has become in mainstream music, even over magazines like The Source and Vibe, whose pens only offer up commentary with a fraction of the intensity that Rolling Stone brings. West’s Late Registration record received 5 stars, which puts it in the company of such great records like N.W.A. Straight Outta Compton and Beastie Boys: To The 5 Boroughs. You’re hard pressed not to give Straight Outta Compton 5 stars yourself, unless you just have that much of a problem with gangsta rap, and To The 5 Boroughs is yet another ambiguous artistic effort by a band that is probably the most quintessential definition of what hip-hop is, yet is continuously overlooked because a lot of their records aren’t actually rap songs, but share a lot with hip-hop in other ways.
On the other hand, Hip Hop Is Dead by Nas only received 4 stars, and for good reason. While it was a beautiful comeback effort from the lyrically tough yet artistically and musically dead double disc that preceded it this album was far from the classics that Nas had offered years ago. It wasn’t Illmatic, though it may stand better than his yet to be released album that was titled N*gga but renamed.
There are a plethora of highly ranked hip-hop albums in the mainstream media of mainstream records. While true hip-hop heads do not want to place any mainstream record in their top 5 some albums are undeniable. Given the melancholy and weak offerings of most critics of both Lil’ Wayne and Soulja Boy as they rarely offer a viable alternative themselves it’s easy to see how Lil’ Wayne managed to sneak in a great review in a magazine that was the MTV of music journalism; not really wanting to review hip-hop records in the first place, and unduly tough on the records they did review.
With them you have to beat out artists that are not just the next best thing, but have had top albums consistently or are seen as the artists of their decade. Right now we’re still disputing whether or not Lil’ Wayne is indeed the artist of this millennium, which we just figured would have been either Jay-Z or 50 Cent. The former is just plain out uninspired and the latter more thoroughly contradicted himself by recording with Justin Timberlake and Ciara than he did having aggressively positioned himself with tweens through his vehement attacks on Ja Rule which were classic 106 and Park material when they aired. We want someone that isn’t hating someone just because no one really knows who he is, we need someone that isn’t sick of the rap game but is still recording to keep his rep up because everyone else is trying to pounce on his title while he is away, this summer it seems that we need Lil’ Wayne. Everywhere you go, if you hear a loud system via means of amplifiers too big for the electrical systems of the cars running them you’re hearing Lil’ Wayne. Perhaps the streets have spoken; Wayne himself has already left the building …
- In: fashion | opinion
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Funny thing about discount stores. Some maintain that the clothing in them are junk products that the designers couldn’t give away while others maintain that they are the only place where you can find unbelievable deals on designer clothing. To them you can actually get a lot more for your money than you can shopping at department stores or boutiques. The true answer is often somewhere in between, as discount stores often give away subtle clues about the clothing lines the designer puts out and the overall success that company may be experiencing.
You have to take into context the overall quality of what is being offered at the discount stores before you draw any quick conclusions about a clothing label. Discount stores are often better for this because department stores will inevitably discount everything in the store to some degree when last years merchandise is getting in the way of store space for the next season. With a discount store though various seasons are often sold right next to each other, except when it comes to outerwear. Other than that people have been known to wear various lengths and weights of clothing throughout the year for various reasons, so those stores will continue to sell heavier weights of trousers and shirts.
Take Tommy Hilfiger for example. Quality was an issue in the early days when no one knew about the label and had risen to a certain point when the label had reached that saturation point. The label continued to exist on it’s own momentum until the early part of the new millennium then sharply dove once Tommy tried to revive the brand through a series of new labels that failed miserably. What is often missed though is that the actual quality of the materials that go into the product is probably better than ever now.
For most consumers that were strong followers of the label it probably had a lot more to do with the fact that the label seemed to be stuck in the late nineties than anything else that drove them away from it. Seeing it for myself in the factory stores and even in a discount store the other day and again a few months back, clearly the quality is still there. In fact it seems luxurious compared to a lot of other newer labels that left it in their wake.
A good example of where that is not the case though is with labels like Pierre Cardin, which were heavily diluted through entirely too aggressive attempts to extend the reach of the label with an exorbitant amount of licensing deals and FUBU, which is a shell of it’s former self. Granted the quality of the materials going into FUBU were never really that good to begin with, particularly the Platinum label which relied heavily on thick polyester but the design alone made it a very difficult label for other urban-wear labels to position themselves against.
Once FUBU had begun to concede to a number of newer labels spearheaded by the executives of record companies; Phat Farm, Sean Jean, Rocawear, it seemed as though it’s obituary had already been written. The company did well against Karl Kani because his stuff was conservative in comparison and he had his own problems with counterfeiters diluting his brand. It also survived well against European urban-wear companies like Girbaud and Pepe Jeans of London mainly because they simply did not have the same customers. Slowly, these other companies not only began to compete with FUBU on price and on design, but they offered better quality, though at first it was rather negligible to what degree their product was better.
It’s difficult to determine whether or not price and quality were the real death of FUBU or simply the fact that someone else was offering something different in general. Once FUBU had lost it’s following amongst men it began to invest heavily into it’s women’s line, and the results were actually pretty good. Yet once Baby Phat began to really take off though, as unique as the designs in their womens line was, particularly for plus sized women, the sheer popularity of the Baby Phat label seemed to have the effect of not only shutting down what few offerings the label had for women but for everyone else across the board as well.
What had really happened there? Baby Phat offered a very luxurious product for women, then again so did Rocawear and a number of other labels. Sean Jean never really got too heavily involved and these days their womens label is all but nonexistent. In fact Baby Phat did to women’s urban-wear what Phat Farm couldn’t do for men’s clothing in the urban-wear genre. They have went on to offer a definitively more luxurious line absent the logos that appears to more directly compete with Italian and French clothing labels providing an interesting product at a lower price point than what some of those labels though with an urban flair that you expect.
By the time Baby Phat had peaked in it’s popularity FUBU had it’s work cut out for it. There were literally hundreds of urban-wear labels out there, 30 of which appear to be the main draw for those shopping at discount urban-wear stores. Even Joseph Abboud has an interesting jeans line out there. Those European lines aren’t in the discount stores because of concerns about quality though, that had never really been an issue, what does seem prevalent is that the style seems to be more couture and experimental than even urban-wear often allows itself to be. None of those labels are really that popular either as they have all seen better days around 15 years ago.
They can also be somewhat conservative as well; anyone in Miskeen, Parrish, LRG or Bathing Ape wouldn’t have much of a reason to wear those old labels. What I’ve noticed, is that labels like Tommy Hilfiger aren’t in the discount stores more when they aren’t popular, they’re actually there a lot less. That could suggest that those companies aren’t purchasing as much of the product these days or that they want to save space to push other designer clothing at deep discounts it’s not sure. But the days of finding every single store over saturated with the likes of Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger are pretty much behind us.
Times have changed dramatically. Newer clothing labels are just starting out with better quality, better design, and more luxurious materials than the older labels we grew up with did. Newer labels are born almost every minute, but people only seem to want to talk about the urban-wear labels because that is the mainstream product that will show up in boutiques across America, rather than just in New York or Paris.
So what can you take from seeing goods in discount stores? First off most labels will have a small percentage of goods in a discount label regardless of how well it is doing. Now if the discount store is the only place where you can find the label that is another thing entirely. Discount stores are often the first place people find out about labels that are outside of the mainstream for any number of reasons. For example Bugle Boy was huge in the eighties and then had almost disappeared into near obscurity before resurfacing at Family Dollar.
Technically Bugle Boy was a better label back then, but at least they have a way to coexist in a changing market. The other takeaway from seeing clothing says something about what people think that designer goods are worth. You may be perfectly willing to pay $120 for a t-shirt, but not everyone else is. A great example of this is what happened with labels like Coogi and Ed Hardy. Most people know the latter for their t-shirts, and the former for their reintroduction into the fashion world as a competitive urban-wear label. Coogi was a very rare and hard to find label before they got into urban-wear, and a discounter would be the last place you would ever find their merchandise.
I have to admit I was doubtful at first, because the only staple they ever had was this hideous sweater that looked like a bunch of one celled organisms squished together. But in the end their stuff was great; not only did they do for urban-wear what Tommy had done for the college prep look over a decade ago they had a lot of a followers and had developed a serious presence in urban-wear. Yet a lot of their stuff ends up at the discount stores for a few reasons. One is the stuff is ridiculously loud and it takes a lot of nerve to wear their stuff. The other is that is prohibitively expensive for a lot of people. But at the end of the day it may actually extend the brand to those who aren’t willing to shop amongst a bunch of teenagers in a boutique looking for something different.
With Ed Hardy it’s a bit different. Everyone loves the shirts but not everyone wants to pay for them. Every once in a while you’ll actually see one of the shirts in a discount store, still selling for like $40 but for some that may be reason enough to take it into consideration. Also it’s great that the stuff is just hanging there in a bunch of unrelated stuff, it sort of surprises you there is everything else and then there is this. Usually that “everything else” is stuff that just can’t compete.
The irony is that Ed Hardy is under a company that sells it’s own label of t-shirts for a lot more that is very difficult to find. Usually three times the price, few skulls or hearts, but with bizarre tripped out themes that are a lot more interesting. When consumers do their homework Ed Hardy can be a gateway into the world of Christian Audigier, which has a few different lines, including wine. In this way the discount store turns into a serious promotion for the brand, assuming that individuals will be interested in the origins of the attire enough to seek it out for full price.
Discount stores serve a lot of different purposes for a lot of different people and shouldn’t be easily dismissed as places that sell stuff “that is on sale for a very good reason” or stuff that “nobody wants”. Sure when you’re young and a teenager and you think the only way to get ahead is by paying top dollar for the latest stuff it’s easy to assume that. But give it some time; you’ll not only find some labels that you could never convince your parents to buy for you, even on sale, but you can learn a lot about how fashion works by observing the trends. Not the flashiest place and a bit pedestrian, but then of course the real treasures are rarely found where everyone else is searching for them …
This is a short primer for non techies looking to use their Windows Vista computer without crashing with 2 or less GB of ram. Microsoft isn’t too ready to admit this, because it shows that they realized that there were obvious memory consumption issues with Vista, but they made adding ram through USB flash drives idiot proof for non techies through an implementation known as Windows ReadyBoost.
This implementation has been around since the beginning of time on Windows systems, but you had to know how to do it. This is how it works; purchase a USB flash drive with more than 256 MB of memory and a dialog box will open up asking you what you want to do with it. The 5th tab of the box actually says Windows ReadyBoost.
Click on the 5th tab. Click on the Use This Device radio button and then move the slider all the way to the right. Windows will then use up the entire USB flash drive minus 200 mb as extra RAM. Click on Apply and then click on OK. If you keep the device plugged into the back of the computer you will not have to set these properties again; Windows retains these settings.
Now for the stupid answers to stupid questions. Is this literally extra RAM; no, but it is a way to use Windows SuperFetch to boost the time that it takes for your computer to anticipate what you normally do with it in order to help you use your computer faster. To me as an end user, is it as good as extra RAM; it could be if you just want the computer to work without crashing. Keep in mind that Windows Vista crashing isn’t the worst thing in the world; I’ve done it with 1 GB of RAM on a 320 MB hard drive all the time and haven’t lost any information yet, but it is aggravating. As soon as I installed a 2 GB USB flash drive and set up Windows ReadyBoost it worked like a charm. It doesn’t work with just any USB flash drive though; if it isn’t at least 256 MB and it isn’t USB 2.0 don’t even waste your time.
Most drives will detonate themselves as being ReadyBoost compatible. I copped this cheap 2 GB SanDisk drive for $18 at a major retailer that did the trick. You can buy extra memory for your computer and pop the lid and have a go at it. You can even buy a bigger hard drive or an extra one and try that as well. But increasing your page file won’t give you the benefits that ReadyBoost will and it’s best to just continue to allow windows to manipulate that.
If you’re using less than 2 GB of RAM Windows Vista is killing your hard drive; the light is on all of the time from the time the computer is turned on until it is turned off which isn’t good for your PC. Since Vista is going to use the memory anyway why not use cheap interchangeable components to do the trick. If you don’t want a flash drive sticking out of the back of your computer you can also use memory cards to do the trick. Keep in mind though that memory cards are 2 to 3 times as expensive as flash drives though.
What you will notice, is that the light on your flash drive will blink slowly while you are using ReadyBoost; it isn’t a steady amber, so it isn’t necessarily being used persistently but you can see where it is making a difference. My computer hasn’t locked up, and I am back to opening up multiple programs and switching back and forth between applications quickly and yes I am running Windows Defender as well as Spybot Search and Destroy and AVG anti-virus all scanning the memory constantly and it’s running as though I haven’t set any of those programs to be memory resident.
Actually the slow performance was the only reason for putting Spybot Search and Destroy back on the computer, Defender seemed to be working fine I may take it off I don’t know. On some level though Microsoft simply took ownership of a procedure that other software companies were offering through different implementations and put a fancy name to it and dumbed it down. However regardless of what anyone says I don’t think the need to extend memory has been as prevalent on other versions of Windows as it has been on Vista.
One last thing about ReadyBoost; it caps out at the same 4 GB that Windows Vista does. You really don’t need more than 4 GB on Vista anyway, most dual core 2 GB systems will do the trick although on a single core 2 GB system you’ll be reaching for a way to extend your memory. A non techie is hard pressed to find a way to use more than 4 GB, though once gaming becomes popular on Vista that may become a serious concern. So I sort of have 3.8 MB on this system now, and I sort of don’t; but what I do know is that it works, finally. It was really bad I had to wait like 5 to 10 minutes for an application to respond …
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Nothing better to do so I figured I’d go back in time and check out some of what I consider some of Micheal Jackson’s most innovative videos. First up is “Liberian Girl” which doesn’t rely on any special effects or cgi, but in which Micheal plays a trick on all of his friends by directing his own music video while everyone else looks for him. Of course Michael Jackson knows literally everybody in Hollywood, so there are entirely too many cameos to count.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjtI2WZTZ9k
Michael wanted to change the world. This song is one of those rare finds where you get to see the utopia of people holding hands all over the world. A familiar message, but one of which Michael does better than everyone else, of course.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P06fI4n1MH8&feature=user
This is a familiar motif that has been ripped off by everyone, most notably Nas on One Mic. Those the Nas song is one of his best, the video itself; using the backdrop of Africa as a medium in which to describe what Black people all over the world are going through, isn’t really all that original.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCqQ2JcQWGs&feature=user
This song intrigued me for two reasons. First off musically it is one of Michael’s more geniune and honest attempts at creating a great song for music’s sake that just happens to crossover without actually sounding like the obvious stuff written for the charts. The other reason is that I never really knew what this song was about, still don’t; I’ll have to ask around and see what I come up with. The consencous seems to be about being lonely as a celebrity, but as most of Michael’s songs; it’s often about what you want to take away from the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfZz-q8CRLE&feature=user
Another interesting takeaway from that song is that by the time Stranger In Moscow had came out, Michael was more of less writing songs about whatever he wanted to write about and you either had to accept it or reject it. If Michael was ever writing songs specifically for the public, instead of himself, it became increasingly more difficult to see so as his career moved on through the eighties.
“Gone Too Soon” is not one of my favorite at all. In fact it’s corniness is reminiscent of R Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” but the video is indisputable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=101iXwPTNE0&feature=user
One of Michael’s classic videos, heavy on the effects, but still original for the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5KAJw4y8wE&feature=user
Yeah this next video I know what you are thinking. But it is one of Michael’s best. Almost better than Thriller itself. The first 3 minutes are so Twisted Sister, but it get’s pretty interesting once the song actually starts.
FInally, “Scream” a great video, though by this time things seemed to have turned around for Michael. The song itself seems uninspired and dated, though the video still stands the test of time. It was also a great idea for him to work with Janet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNl2Pm9-7Vk
So thanks for the memories. Until next time, while you’re waiting check out this new video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEObeRJrq-Q
This one sounds a lot better though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V87yIn_ZZg&feature=related
okay so the skinny jeans didn't work out for me so well ... 
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