Sunday, September 26th, 2004

Peace At Home: Gangs, Domestic Terrorism, and Three Strikes

Take note, this morning’s New York Times featured a very important article: “Tattoed Warriors”, that is likely to reopen the discussion about gangs and gang violence, perhaps even as a campaign issue.

William Bratton, LA’s top cop, has called gangs “domestic terrorists” and has restored the same gang task force units that led to the Rampart scandal. Gang Injunctions, a legal strategy that failed miserably a decade ago, have been making a comeback.

Gang violence dropped dramatically during the nineties, but since Bush has been in office, it has climbed sharply every summer in cities like Los Angeles and Oakland. Except in those cities, the media has been largely silent about the surge of gang violence. Is it because the rise has been directly related to the failure of Bush’s domestic and economic agenda?

The recent rise in gang violence has been an urgent issue largely for street activists, community organizers, social workers, and sociologists. That hasn’t been entirely a bad thing. In Los Angeles, for instance, two major peace summits have been held in the last 6 months, and peace workers are making strong headway in the community. It’s possible they’ve been able to do this precisely because Bratton’s alarmist, reactionary approaches have as yet failed to win national attention.

This year’s ballot in California features Proposition 66, an act to amend the 10-year-old Three Strikes Law to include only violent offenses as a third-strike. Right now polls show a solid majority of Californians ready to do the right thing and pass this initiative. It would be a shame if Bratton’s pronouncements brought back the hysteria and scapegoating of the early 90s, which led to so many of these horrible laws being instituted in the first place, just at a point a grassroots movement for change is on the verge of moving gang members and citizens in the right direction. The people working for domestic peace don’t need wild emotionalism, they need popular support.

posted by @ 12:35 pm | 5 Comments

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004

Hot Words

OK yall, I gotta give it up to Felicia Pride’s The BackList. It’s a great website on the Black literary life I came across while searching for something else. It’s smart, hip, and completely engaging. It makes me fret anew that there really is no print magazine out there that doesn’t just insult the intelligence of us hip-hop-grown thirtysomethings. (And, believe me, some of us have been working on changing that situation for a minute…)

Anyway, here’s the proof:

+a great interview with Gwendolyn Pough and our MAN, Mark Anthony Neal,

+short features on Kenji Jasper, Carl Hancock Rux, and Black Artemis, all of whom I’m big fans of.

+scroll back issues for an interview with Chris Jackson, Crown’s storied editor.

Top notch stuff, definitely check it.

Bonus unrelated goods: this week’s Bay Guardian review section.

posted by @ 7:28 pm | 0 Comments

Tuesday, September 21st, 2004

Hatfield Was The Real McCoy

All this talk about how Bush received special treatment during the Vietnam War, and memos and denials and forgeries and stuff, not to mention all these supposedly new investigations into Bush’s cowardly, Daddy-save-me past that are turning up Page One in all these newspapers made me sadder than ever that J.H. Hatfield is no longer around to get his due respect.

Who was he? He was the journalist who did the controversial W. biography Fortunate Son, that came out before the 200 elections, then got squashed when the Republicans came calling. Hatfield had investigated and found Bush was arrested for cocaine possession in 1972. Richard Clarke and Kitty Kelley never got the kind of full-court hounding and harassment that Hatfield got from the Republicans. In 2001, he was found dead under mysterious circumstances. In his alleged suicide note, he cited the treatment he had received over Fortunate Son as one of the reasons.

Here’s a Democracy Now interview with the man. More importantly, read this book.

posted by @ 7:32 am | 0 Comments

Monday, September 20th, 2004

Whatever Happened To…The Avant-Garde?

To me, this is the best piece of cultural journalism news in a while, Margo Jefferson is starting a column to search for the avant-garde. Weird thing to get excited over, I know. But hey, Francisco got the book and Kerry is jabbing again, so me and reality are cool for now.

Great timing on this avant-garde thing, too. Spent the weekend eagerly devouring (and then, often spitting up) Hughes and Kuspit and others on this very topic.

So uh, does this mean I have to wear cargo pants now?

posted by @ 8:13 pm | 0 Comments

Saturday, September 18th, 2004

Some Polls Ain’t Shit

Back on topic, right?

You’re gonna see a lot of polls between now and November 2. Right now the general polls don’t mean shit. Here’s probably the best summary of the existing polls out there. They show the range of poll results out there: from Bush at 13 points up to Kerry at 1 point up.

The Gallup Poll, in particular, which shows Bush up 13 has been the cause of much hand-wringing. But before you start packing for Canada, here’s a smart refutation of its method.

In any case, the polls that really matter are the state polls and the electoral counts. Who needs the popular vote these days?

And here’s where you can go for that data:

+Pro-Kerry state polling and projected electoral vote counts.

+Pro-Bush state polling and projected electoral vote counts.

Interesting point: the pro-Bush pollers give Kerry a much closer race at this point.

Another interesting point: there is quite a debate raging now over how accurate these polls are because of the cell-phone effect. See here for more detailed discussion.

Main point: Clearly Kerry has squandered his lead. Back in mid-August, both sides concluded Kerry had as much as a 100-vote electoral victory in hand. That’s reversed now.

My take: He’s gotta stop talking like Gore ’00 and start talking like Gore ’04: get some backbone and some fire. Bottom line: if this race is going to be won in the trenches, the street soldiers have to be fired up.

Why do these fools only seem able to speak their mind if they have no intention of seeking office? Hope we don’t have to ask this on November 3.

posted by @ 9:52 am | 0 Comments

Friday, September 17th, 2004

Going Down: Kobe’s Transcript

I may be late on this, but here’s the entire transcript of Kobe and the cops, courtesy of the Vail Daily. It more than speaks for itself.

posted by @ 12:40 pm | 0 Comments

Friday, September 17th, 2004

Schloss on Sampling Via Snoop

Joe Schloss Shizzolated!:

“I wuz actually surprised by this lawsuit, because da standard they set wuz what I thought da standard already wuz.”

Yo’ ass know, there are two sets of rights, da master rights ‘n da publishing rights n’ shit. The publishing refers da song as a conceptual entity ‘n da master rights a specific recording of that shiznit n’ shit. So my understanding has always been that questions ’bout how much of a song yo’ ass can use only has do wit publishing rights, ‘n that they are basically like any other plagiarism case, know what I’m sayin’? Like, exactly how many words can yo’ ass take before yo’ ass’ve stolen someone’s book? That is a hella subjective question, which is why that shiznit’s constantly being debated ‘n changed n’ shit. But master-wise, which is what this decision seems deal wit, my understanding wuz that *any* unauthorized sample of a recording is not legal ‘n never has been.”

The ‘unrecognizable amount’ standard wuz, ‘n I guess still is, de facto, know what I’m sayin’? If yo’ ass think ’bout that shiznit, that shiznit really doesn’t make any sense as a legal standard: if that shiznit’s unrecognizable, that shiznit’s unrecognizable – they can’t bust yo’ ass fo’ that shiznit, because they can’t recognize that shiznit.” Conversely, if they can bust yo’ ass fo’ that shiznit, then – by definition – that shiznit is recognizable n’ shit. Which brings me back why this decision is so weird: I’ll buy that shiznit as a statement of legal principle, but as a law, simple logic dictates that that shiznit’s totally unenforceable.”

Thanks to O-Deezy for the link to the link n’shit.

posted by @ 12:37 pm | 0 Comments

Friday, September 17th, 2004

Shorts

Because these days The Man won’t let us do pants.

+Jess Harvell on Ashlee Simpson.

+Popwherry on Kobe and R. Kelly.

+Yancey Strickler does DFA.

+Me on Talking Heads live.

+Hua on more live albums. Bonus! Racist Slate reader commentary!

Hey Hua, do you ever feel guilty for taking menial, low-word-count, shit-paying rock critic jobs away from good old red-blooded Euro-Americans?

Cause this laundryman sure fucking don’t!

posted by @ 6:56 am | 5 Comments

Wednesday, September 15th, 2004

Trade Kobe To The Rangers

Sports Illustrated reveals what Kobe’s lawyers were really trying to cover up.

posted by @ 10:38 am | 0 Comments

Wednesday, September 15th, 2004

Alright Alright

OK, so we didn’t get our onfield justice. (Come back tonight, tho.) But it won’t end there. (Here’s Ratto’s take.)

For the record, I was at the game sitting a few sections from where a fan threw a cell phone at Carl Everett. Even though Everett’s a punk who started it by turning around and giving fans the finger, that was dead wrong. If the cell phone had been flung from higher up and faster, Everett could have been injured.

So nothing excuses tossing a chair–bar-room brawl style–into the stands. It’s pennant time, you’re mad that your team has been clobbered all year by the A’s and has just as miniscule chance of getting into the playoffs as it did the year before. People are talking shit, as they always will. Deal with it. It’s the game.

I hope Francisco gets the book hurled at him.

posted by @ 7:06 am | 0 Comments



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