Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Hello Blog Family!!!! What Do You Want Me to Write About?

TwitThis


One of the things that I like about blogs is the level of interaction a writer has with her readers.

That being said.


What do you want me to write about?


More
about hip hop or less. Less about writers.


More
of my BBC antics. Less about BL?


More about cultural topics like the N-word?

Fewer
rants about being angry and a minority?

Lemme know. I have a couple of ideas up my sleeve and I want your input?

As what you all say will effect the priority in which I post?

~m.dot.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Harlem is About to Be the New East Village.

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Thats it. Harlem is about to be the new East Village.

Don't think that the East Village would not look the way the it does without the assistance of NYU, The New School and the Medium Box fashion chain stor
es.

What the East Village has that Harlem does'nt are abundant owner occupied a
partments and town houses. The EV also several blocks and areas zoned as historic.

I knew it was gonna happen. I just could not figure out how.


Then I saw this article and it crystalized for me.
City has built a dorm at 130 & St. Nick. Peep the excerpt below.
The scene might have been typical at any other university. But at City College’s 36-acre campus, it was an unusual sight, as students moved into the college’s new $56 million dorm building for the first time yesterday. The building, called the Towers at the City College of New York, is a beige-brick, ultramodern complex at West 130th Street and St. Nicholas Terrace. There are 164 apartments to house 600 students and faculty members.
Don't get me wrong. I understand that "Progress" is inevitable.

That is a major underpinning of property law.


However my question is allways, progress for WHOM?
Especially in Millionaire City!?!?!?!!?

A Blind Man can see that the evolution of Columbia and City College are going to be the two major forces that take Harlem beyond the tipping point.


N*ggas ain't even useta go past Avenue A ten years ago
. Unless they stayed there or if it was crack related.

Sh*t, when we usta go to Nuyorican's in '98 + '99 we usta roll kinda deep, lest we get caught out there onna late night. Hyped up from 3 hours of open mic performances.


Peep Jarett Murphy's dope piece in the Village Voice that brings all this issues together, tight, like a RZA beat.

What's more, you could end up working or studying in what will take their place in Manhattanville: nearly 7 million square feet of offices, research space, and housing for Columbia University. With scant wiggle room at its main Morningside Heights campus or uptown medical center, Columbia wants to move onto 18 acres roughly north of 125th Street and just east of Twelfth Avenue. To do it, the state's oldest college is asking the city for a special rezoning, scooping up parcels of land, and preparing to ask the state to invoke eminent domain if necessary.

Needless to say, not everyone in the area is thrilled with the idea. Residents, business owners, and some Columbia students have banded together to oppose the plan. The local community board is pushing an alternative development scheme. Civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel has signed on to resist eminent domain. A sign on a door in the area reads, "Dear Columbia: Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself."

In the constant evolution of New York neighborhoods, this sort of fight isn't anything new. And for Columbia especially, this is not a first. Thirty-eight years ago, the university's bid to expand into Morningside Park�coupled with outrage over the school's military contracts�touched off days off unrest on campus in which students occupied five buildings and, in some cases, clashed violently with cops. After the bloodshed, that expansion plan died. Columbia has pursued projects in the years since, but none were as ambitious as the vision for Manhattanville.

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Walt.
I read this and I thought of you.


“We’re not rednecks,” Will joked. “We’re Appalachian-Americans.”

Contrast the excerpt below with the journalist normally cover the side show.
Notice also the point made about how, if the ability to cruise is taken away, then the young bucks won't have anything to do.
“The kids ain’t gonna leave, I don’t care how many tickets the cops write,” said Laura Strother, 22, who had driven from Waynesville, a tiny outlying town with an odoriferous paper mill, she said. She was trolling Patton that weekend in her 2001 black Mustang — nicknamed Bullitt, after a favorite movie. Her cruising companion, Kelly Edwards, 17, also of Waynesville, who wore a tiny rhinestone stud in her nose, agreed: “If you take this away, then nobody has anything to do.”

For some teenagers on this side of town, cruising becomes a chance to explore, and define, their budding identities. Will Thompson and his friends proudly fly Confederate battle flags — “They say ‘Heritage, Not Hate,’ ” Will emphasized — and crank up old Conway Twitty albums on the car stereo while cruising Patton. Most nights, they set up lawn chairs that teeter in the bed of their pickups.

“We’re not rednecks,” Will joked. “We’re Appalachian-Americans.”

The Dixie vibe is readily apparent on Patton Avenue in the form of rebel-flag bumper stickers and decals. Still, it’s hardly universal. Many of the teenagers would not seem out of place in Santa Monica, Calif., with their Abercrombie & Fitch meets “The O.C.” look — baggy jeans, flip-flops, oversize surfer-style shirts.

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One man's heritage is another mans hate.

Thats some deep sh*t to being a week thinking about.

How was your weekend la familia de la blog.

I have an interview with an artist friend in the works.

What have you all been working on.

By the way. I hate when my innernet service gets interrupted.

Other than that. Life is bien!
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Model Minorities with Harvard Pedigrees Still Lose.

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So, Wil-E-Coyote, the resident Scorpian Artistic-Know-it-All says I have a bit of Negro ADD. Its true. But my brand of ADD is special because I can have a conversation about three things at once AND keep track of that sh*t.

That's talent fam.



I mention this because I started this post, a few weeks ago.


And in browsing drafts of old post I realize that I was working on this, yet I never posted it. Yall know I am allways interested in issues relating to women & money, men & money, Sex & money, gender and money.

You add somthing to the cream and I will talk about it.



So this post is about how model minorties are making it up the ladder and saying f*ck it rather than toil, becuase that sh*t is too painful. It certainly gave ME something to think about.

Enjoy!

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There are a couple of articles out about professional model minorities and how they faring in a cash rules society. The first article is from the New York Times. It is about what Wall street is doing to keep women. Women are leaving for a variety of reasons. Among them are the fact that:

  • "Women are leaving once they hit thirty-two".
  • "Women leave to have babies"
  • "The firm needs to retain women because the represent an enormous brain drain.
Investment banks and brokerage firms typically lose women when they are in their 30’s, executives say. Expected to ramp up to reach coveted managing director jobs, many women feel that midlevel jobs offer them little while demanding a lot. Pulled to have children and pushed by a less-than-rewarding workplace and often uninspired midlevel management, they leave.
Only a substanial CHANGE in the way Big Law Firm, Wall Street Firm, Big Banking is structured will women be able to remain at the firms after 32. Companies are SIMPLY UNWILLING to change the power dynamic to reflect the fact that Firms are doin' little work shops here and there. But the bottom line is this. Both the egg and daycare situation need to be addressed.
  • They would also invest in another 300 million in egg freezing technology. If the desire to procreate is what is driving a womans decision to leave Wall Street. Address the issue by extending the window through which she can conceive.
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The other article is on the attraction and retention of Gay MBA's graduates. These firms going into model minority overdrive hunh!!?!?!!

Is it in the water?

And of course. While lip service is paid to "diversity", being progressive.

It all comes down the the cream. Peep the business week article.

Plus, there are economic incentives. In 2006 the gay community reached an estimated buying power of $641 billion, with 69% of gay people fiercely loyal to companies with progressive work policies, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights advocacy organization. "If the business world didn't reach out to the GLBT community, years from now the result would be staggering—not only to the U.S. economy, but to the global economy," says PwC GLBT Strategy Leader Matt Milligan.
What will Wall Street think of next?

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This weekend it went straight from summer to fall.

Overnight.

New York weather is sooooo dramatic.



The Bay be all cool and mellow and 58-75 degrees all year long.

Whereas here,
lets just say I found myself packing away the tank tops and unpacking the sweaters too.
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Tuesday, August 22, 2006

I want My OutKast Back.

TwitThis


I remember when Sway told me that there are these two cats from Atlanta that were dope.

I was like, them dudes rappin' in the pool hall in they video.
(I had a self admitted East Coast Bias back then).

He was like, yeah, OutKast.

I responded, they cool. Its catchy, but I couldn't see myself bumping it in my walkman.

Then the album came out.

Get Up and Git Out was some righteous upliftment.


Crumblin' Erb was some mellow get right music.


Then there came Hootie Hoo and I figgered, aight, these nigg*s is cool.

Fast foward. Two years later, I was messing with this cat that went to Hampton. Mike C.

Mike rocked for OutKast. That was the only group he talked about on our winter break. OutKast this, Dungeon Family that.

So, I was compelled to get Atliens when it came out.


So when Atliens came out I was open.


How could you not be sprung off a group who starts off a song with,


I came into this world high as a bird.


Wait. Did he just say that?

He show inthef*ck did.

I came into this world high as a bird
From second hand cocain powder

i know it sounds absurd
I never tooted but its in my veins
While the rest of the country bungies off bridges
Without no snap back
and bitches they say they need that
To shake they fannies in the ass clubs
they go the other route turn each other out burn each other out
where a bonified nigga like me
can't even get no back rub these days
ain't that bleak on they part
but let me hold it down
cause they shut you down when you speak from your heart
now that's hard
while we rantin and ravin bout gats nigga they made them gats they got some shit that'll blow out our backs from where they stay at

So. Post Atliens, I came to adore 'Kast so much that I endured a night at the Tunnel, just to be able to see them for free.


Trust me.

The Tunnel is not a place for the faint of heart. You got BK, Queens, Uptown, and all kinda kids rockin' there. And the place is huge and cavernous. In fact it reminded me of an airplane hangar.

Which brings us to 2006 and Idlewilde.

I miss Atliens Outkast.

Is it fair to want 'Kast to be same cats that spit the same jawn over and over again.

No. People change and circumstances change.

If an emcee or any artist for that matter creates something that gives relevance to our lives, then it is reasonable to want that same type of interaction with the product from that artist. However. Artist, like the rest of us are human. Life changes and music changes.

I have not heard Idlewilde in its entireity.


I don't think that it is going to touch or move me the way that Atliens did.
I have heard a couple of singles and they have been ai'ght. But nothing that made me go OOOOOOH SH*T thats tight.

I feel like a lost a friend a 'lil bit.



As a group I would imagine that it is difficult for them to be the conduit through which people interpert both goings on of the hood and the world at large. Idlewilde is ambitious. Lots of instruments, lots of jambalya, Color Purple type. It ain't Atliens.

Its their current state and as fan's we have to be present with that.

When Oakland Hurts I Feel Like a Failure.

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This makes me feel like a failure.

Crime is so big in Oakland, that the New York Times is talking about the way that they are dealing with it.

Apparently, the police have compiled a list of recently parollees and are inviting them in for "conversations". The idea is to make folks aware of the resources available and to let them know if they commit a crime, they are going STRAIGHT back to jail.


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There are constitutional issues that arise when someone is taken down to the police station for a conversation.

I see the PD's sentiment interms of reducing the number repeat offenders.

However, it comes across as too little too late.

When folks was considering three strikes, they did not take into account the psychological affect it would have on people serving time and on the overall cultures perception of prison.

Prison has become an accepted part of the lives of many brown and black men.

Now po-po wanna "intervene".

That sh*t is damn near a perverted rights of passage for fools.
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Monday, August 21, 2006

Chikenfried and Gentrified

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I have been ranting and raving about Chango's Fire for the last two weeks.

It is an imaginative book about gentrification in Harlem.

About burned buildings in the Bronx.

About Dutch, Dominican, Russian and Puerto Rican immigrants.

About what it means to have your home in the hood.

A place that looks like nothing, and you flip it into something, because t
hat is all you have at the moment.

Ernesto is that Dude.

I present to you.

Chango's Fire.


Spanish Harlem was worthless property in the seventies and early eighties. Many property owners burned their own buildings down and handed the new immigrants a neighborhood filled with hollow walls and vacant lots. Urban Swiss Cheese. The city would then place many of us in the projects creating Latino reservations. These city blocks, full of project buildings on each corner, were built not so much to house us as to corral us. To keep us in one place. We were slowly but surly relocated, as many who owned real estate burned the neighborhood, collected the insurance, sat on the dilapidated property and waited for better days.
Today, the wait is over, Spanish Harlems burned out buildings are gold mines. Many of the same landlords who bruned their tenements are now rebuilding. Empowerment zoning has changed the face of the neighborhood. Chain store rise like monsters from a lake. Gap. Starbucks. Blockbuster Video. Old Navy. Like the new Belin, El Barrio is being rebuilt from the ashes. THe rents are absurdly high, and it breaks my heart, because Spanish Harlem had allways been the springboard. A place where immigrants came to better themselves and, when they had reached the next plateau, they'd leave traces of their culture, a bit of themselves behind, and move on. A melting pot pf past successs stprioes- Dutch, Jews, Irish, Italians.
I know all neighborhoods must change, but if you are Puerto Rican and need to learn where you came from and who you are, you need to start in Spanish Harlem. The spiritual landmarks are still here in El Barrio. Helens people don't seem to have mystical places like ours. They don't have a sacred Harlem, an East L.L., a South Central. They don't have a poor holy place that speaks to your soul, vibrant streets that tell you about those that came before you. All they have are small towns that either die or stay the same. Small towns that they don't care to romanticize. Small towns that they try and kill inside themseleves when they leave for New York City or whereever and never look back.
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1. Spiritual Landmarks. What!?!?!?!!

2. Poor Holy Place. What !?!?!?! Who is this guy and why doesn't he teach a fiction class at City?


3. Sacred Harlem!?!?!?! What. A neighborhood. Sacred. Who knew?

4. What do you all think of the excerpts. Are they over the top. Too politcal. Not politcal enough.

I find them timely and endearing.
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Sunday, August 20, 2006

The Economic Effects of Crack

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So I have been thinking of moving toward taking about the economic effects of issues that we discuss here on mm. So I bring you, the economic effects of crack. We often do the moral. But rarely do we do the economic. I find that the economic anlysis provides a more nuanced view of an issue.

1. More county/state money devoted special ed in schools. You know babies born addicted to crack have crazy learning disabilites. The more kids w/ ld's in your district, the more $$ you gotta spend educating them.

2. No tax base in the hood, which results in poorly funded schools. School finance is tied to a districts tax base. D-boys don't pay taxes. If they ain't paying taxes, then the schools are getting less revenue. The less revenue they get the worse shape they will be in.

3. The county has to divert city funds to treating crack related crimes. For example, take Drive by victims. D-boys don't have health insuranc
e. So. They get shot. They get taken to Highland or SF General or Harlem Hospital. Who pays. Tax payers. (I think I just sounded like a libertarian. Wierd. I hope this is not evolving into a legalize crack post...ohhhhweee, I just got the chills. What a weird idea).

4. Crackalicious neighborhoods tend to have depressed property value. However, this does not necessarily have to be true. As you can buy a $400K victorian in West Oakland, and STILL have d-boys on the corner. But the Bay is a housing anomoly. So lets just go with the rest of the nation and conclude that having crack sold in your neighborhood depreciates your properties value, which affects your families wealth and serves as a disincentive to buy in THAT neighborhood.

5. Crack time provided micro finance - seed money for various independent Hip Hop labels. They all know who they are.

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Wow. Writing that post was a tad bit depressing. But it is what it is, right!!?!?!?! I feel like I am missing one of the affects. Perhaps it will come to me later. I know yall know.

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Saturday, August 19, 2006

The Gumbo Post.....

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Even though they outta stock.
These is hella fresh.
Talk about affirming something positive.

From 10 deep mens T's.

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Here at Model Minority, we go from hood books to super woman stamps and round it out w/ photos of Evander Old @ss Holyfield, who in fact won last night.
We can't be serious all time. Enjoy the post!

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Get 'em here!

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You best- protect your- er- head.

Police: Neighbor's severed head in suspect's car

Long Island man arrested in killing, dismembering of retired teacher.

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Don't talk about it be about it.
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Juan Williams need to sit down. He act like the don e' drank somma that Reublicrat Kool-aid.

Is Bill Cosby Right?

Help thyself, a black social critic says to the upcoming generations.

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I hope they were wearing deodorant.


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Help kitty or get bucked.

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Bay Area Young Bucks Be Buckin'
Victim halted group beating .
Police say man was shot to death for intervening in attack.

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Ignorance of the day.

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Look at these other stamps.
I know. I am a nerd.


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This is like a b-girl's dream charm by Rocksmith.


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It started raining again.

Which is cool.

I bought 4 elephant ear plants at the farmers market today.

I am working on an OutKast post.

It was going to be mean in tone, but now I am rethinking it based on
an article in the Times.
BL is doing the lemonade fast.

I am watching from a far, jealous of his will power.


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Monday, August 14, 2006

Zora Neal Hurston Had a Fight with Urban Fiction and Lost.

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Hood Lit 101.
We have all seen them.

"Around the Way Girl 2."


"Homo Thug."

"Let That Be the Reason".

Its Hood Lit. Urban Fiction. Hip Hop Fiction.
You see folks reading them on the train. Ladies takin' they slow @ss time going up the stairs at 14th street because they are engrossed in chapter 5.

I have seen teenage girls, sharing a SINGLE book between the two of them, one flap on each of their laps, on the train ride to school.


Mean Sexy says people love 'em because of the marketing.

Which is partially true.

The cover images certainly do provoke a reaction.

I think it that it is the marketing and the accesibility of the language.
Kids like racy, sexual, street based fiction.
On top of that, kids have allways wanted to read and do sh*t that there parents did not approve of.

Urban fiction is racy and allows for teens to be quasi defiant.

When it comes to Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Be True to the Game,
I don't think we have to choose.

There is room for Urban Fiction and the Black Cannon. For Nikki Turner and Walter Dean Myers.

A View From Inside the Publishing I
ndustry
The hood writers and the black cannon need to come toge
ther to see what they can learn from one another.


Malaika Adero, and editor at Atria says that the canon needs to up their grizzle,

But literary writers often invest less of their time and resources in learning how to promote their work, expand on and respond to the desires of their prospective readers, and associate themselves with all kinds of other writers and artists—not just the ones who teach at the right universities and have the enviable contracts with major houses. Commercial writers model for the artsy set new ways to cultivate and expand their audience, and fashion themselves into better business people.
She says that the urban writers need to get them writing workshops going,
On the other hand, so many of the commercially successful authors—once self- or small-published—are amateur writers, albeit with great storytelling and entrepreneurial instincts, and tremendous drive. They could learn from the example of their colleagues who study with and expose themselves to the criticism of their peers and academics; who discipline and challenge themselves to be more creative, rigorous and ambitious in the practice of their craft.
How I Feel About Hood Lit
As for my own personal taste.


I can't get into most of them. And trust me I try. Not because the stories are bad. The writing bother's me.

Most of the folks writing the books have great imag
inations and can weave a good story.

But the language is like walking barefoot on broken g
lass, in Howard Beach at night, in the middle of July. All bad.

Many of the writers need a writing workshop. Period. Point. Stop.

Peep what Nick Chiles had to say,

That leaves me wondering where we - writers, publishers, readers, the black community - go from here. Is street fiction some passing fad, or does it represent our future? It's depressing that this noble profession, one that I aspired to as a child from the moment I first cracked open James Baldwin and Gabriel García Márquez about 30 years ago, has been reduced by the greed of the publishing industry and the ways of the American marketplace to a tasteless collection of pornography.
Earth to NICK. The same thing that happened in Hip Hop is happening in literature. Why?

Because Random house, Simon and
Schuster, like Universal and Island Def Jam are obligated to please their SHAREHOLDERS not Black Readers.

Hate the game, hate the game.

Reading is Fundamental Fam

However, it is important to note that Black pe
ople are reading these books by the truck loads because they find them appealing.

I ain't mad at that.


Reading is reading is reading.


I hope that the books play a role in inspiring an entire generation of readers and writers of all genres.


Authors are Getting Money
In researching this article I came across this.

While she allready a publish writer, she freaked a p
seudonym, to get that urban lit cash.


Muy interesante.

I remember seeing that book cover earlier last
year and thinking that I liked it.
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Jeff, I know you don't want to hear it, but our Beloved Cody's books on Telegraph
could have stayed open had it done two thing
s:

a. Expanded its offerings on childrens books.

b. Offered more Hood books.


These two areas are explosive.

Think "Harry Potter". Think "Lord of the Rings. Think, "True to the Game". Think. "Diary of a Diva".

Kids would have been up in that piece.

Yes. They may have needed to hire a security guard, to keep the ruckus down,
but that is just the cost of doing business.

Just like the blaxpoitation era in the 70's saved Hol
lywood from bankruptcy, urban books are providing some well needed revenue to the publishing world.

White Folks Writin' Urban Lit

Even the majority is getting some of that Urban lit Cash.

Peep.
I was on this site, looking for an image of one more book to add to this post. When I came across her.


Wrote this.


Her profile qualifies as the racist item of the day.

Peep.
Biography
Allison van Diepen is a high school teacher who is often mistaken for a student. She spent three and a half years teaching at one of Brooklyn's most dangerous public high schools.This is her first novel.

Its mad racist sh*t up in those three sentences.
a. Allison van Diepen is a high school teacher who is often mistaken for a student.

i. Read- she is young, impressionable and vulnerable in her Brooklyn Jungle of a high school.


b.
She spent three and a half years teaching at one of Brooklyn's most dangerous public high schools.

i. Perpetuating hella stereotypes. Brookyln = Automatically Dangerous, right.

ii. Translation. She has spent 3.5 years observing niggerdom upclose and personal which qualifies her to write a book for teenagers about a teenage drug dealer. Excellent.

ii. Which I presume lends credibility to her novel. That statement is careless, irresonsible and self-serving.

iii. Even if the statment is true, the purpose of it being there is to give her credibility that she innately does not have.


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Dang. That was a long post. Where erry body @?
*Miss Ahmad. I think you in Hawaii on vacay!?!?!
* J!?!!?!?!!? You moved back and lost yo innanet service?
* Vik. Well vik, you post more than me, so you stay busy.

* Ms. TPW. I got a hunch you in NYC right now.
*sticks out tongue. Runs out room*


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Sometimes I post and I don't know what to call it so I ramble because rambling is cathartic.

TwitThis


I went to go see this flower at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden on Saturday.


Its was on a fluke but I am glad I did.
That sh*t is straight up and down little shop of horrors.

My homie dekka made fun and said, you prolly was the only brown girl there.

I wasn't. There was some carribean folks there to. A man and his momma were taking pictures with the flower.


But he did have a point.

I've allways been weird though:)


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My dad scared the sh*t outta me yesterday.

I was getting some advice from him regarding whether or not I should bring an issue up to BL regarding his family and their dynamics.
Poppi said, "M dot, people don't like you looking all up in their soul".

Me- "Whacu mean?"

P- Well. When you start questioning a person a
nd who they are, you are looking all up in their soul. M- Word!?!?!
P- Yes. You have to be careful. Its a gift. Very few people can do it, and even fewer are willing to share what they see with the person. M- Wow. I never thought of it like that. P- Its a powerful thing. Be careful.


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Reading this blog, was the first time I read something written by a dude in the bay and felt like, they were my innernet cousins.

However, Then the more I read. The more trouble I felt.


Because of their loose usage of n*gga as well as the over all content, I needed to know whether they were black or a "tropical people".
I was having a Dave Chappell moment. I think. God, I am getting old:( Some of the post titles are:

  • Wine country got a n*gga finna kill someone for innanet!

  • What You Know Bout Programming Motherfucking Remotes.

  • PS3 Controller: A Niggatorial

Granted they sh*t is funny. Naw. That doesn't even do them justices.

I got tears in my eyes. For trill.

I couldn't tell if they were just being funny. Or making fun of n*ggas. Anyhoo, I resolved to deal with ambiguity and enjoy it as a guilty pl easure.

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So this is the point in the matrix that we have been waiting to get to.

TESTING DRUGS ON PRISONERS.

Excellent, big Pharm+ Government Cooperation + Tuskegee
Syphilis experiment = All Bad for Negroes.

For Leodus Jones, a former prisoner, the report has opened old wounds. “This moves us back in a very bad direction,” said Mr. Jones,

who participated in the experiments at Holmesburg in 1966 and after his release played a pivotal role in lobbying to get the regulations passed.

In one experiment, Mr. Jones’s skin changed color, and he developed rashes on his back and legs where he said lotions had been tested.

“The doctors told me at the time that something was seriously wrong,” said Mr. Jones, who added that he had never signed a consent form. He reached a $40,000 settlement in 1986 with the City of Philadelphia after he sued.

“I never had these rashes before,” he said, “but I’ve had them ever since.”

The Institute of Medicine report was initiated in 2004 when the Health and Human Services Department asked the institute to look into the issue. The report said prisoners should be allowed to take part in federally financed clinical trials so long as the trials were in the later and less dangerous phase of Food and Drug Administration approval. It also recommended that at least half the subjects in such trials be nonprisoners, making it more difficult to test products that might scare off volunteers.

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Clarett Update.

They had him in the Times this weekend.


  • Apparently, he had most of his worldly posessions in his car with him that night.
  • He may be under stress because of money he borrowed from cats when he thought he was gonna make it on the Bronco's.
  • His daughter was born, premature on July 17th, 2006.
  • He e-mailed a writer from ESPN, two hours before he was arrested. Here is the account:
  • About two hours before he was arrested early Wednesday, Clarett phoned Tom Friend, a senior writer for ESPN the Magazine who has written extensively about Clarett. Hoague, the lawyer, was also patched into the call, and described Clarett as saying, “I’m getting my life together,” that the birth of his daughter had humbled him and that she “means everything to me.”

Yet Clarett also seemed melancholy and “possibly drunk,” Friend wrote on ESPN.com. Clarett said he would do anything for his daughter, even that “he’d go to jail for 30 years for this little girl.”

Wistfully, Clarett said of his life, “I have done nothing but run a football.” And: “I’m a young man going through stress. I’m a person who was scheduled to make millions and didn’t make them.”

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That was certainly a mixed bag post. Summer '06 is a wrap fam. I know you enjoyed it. If this weather keeps up, I may just stay happy forever. Oh. I am working on a fashion blog. I got a concept. But I can't decide on a name. It's so annoying:( _______________________
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Sunday, August 13, 2006

@ss kissing 101

TwitThis

A little @ss kissing is healthly, right?!?!!?!

Well. I am blowing the kisses because I need some help.

If there any techies reading this, I need your help. My pings on technorati are not working. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
~m.
readingiswhite@yahoo.com


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Oh. I have been nominated for a Black Blog Award. Show love for the homie and vote for me here. I promise you instant karma:)

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This was by far the best weather I have seen this summer.
Why does haagen daz cost $2.50/bar?

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