Context to a Businesskid On A Cloud:
FREE YOURSELF FROM MENTAL SLAVERY. Or follow this blog to do so.
I'm a bald head Samsonite Rastafari with a liking for politics, media, sociology, psychology, economics, ganja and other topics.
What you'll read here are usually posts analyzing the world around me through a Gestalt lens. The picture is clearer when you look at the whole thing, rather than just the flower in the foreground. Join(t) me and read about a world of interconnected problems and possible solutions! And of course, random rantings and weed.
So since no one in the article will point out the pink elephant, I will. The Bronx is the poorest borough in New York City. It holds the poorest Congressional district in the nation. Anti-obesity education will NOT work unless they are coupled with economic empowerment so people in this borough can afford to eat healthier and participate in club memberships at gyms and sports facilities. But nah, rather than attacking the root Mr. Bloomberg has decided to attack the stems: pushing a ban of high sugar beverages. Clearly, that’s easier than actually trying to serve your constituents by designing and enacting policies to create a functioning pipeline out of poverty.
The chairman of the NYCHA did have the agency spend $10 million, paying the firm he used to work for to conduct a study on the NYCHA repair system. What type of fuckery? Same way they did do now with education: Administrators use agency funds to line their own pockets, either directly or through other businesses they own.
Interesting satire on how to fix Stop and Frisk in NYC. The writer makes a half-baked comment about critics forgetting that minorities are the highest demographic in crime statistics. Ironically enough in writing this he has forgotten (or is obviously unaware) of the social dynamics that complicate the accuracy of such statistics. Either way if we really were to use stats to target Stop and Frisk white men would be the main demographic, considering they’re caught the most frequently with weapons when searched.
Stop and Frisk: Race vs Weapons found comparison
There’s a possibility the Feds will be investigating the #NYPD’s stop and frisk policy
I for one, am glad we’re making progress to an age where a Federal judge can conceive of ills arising from over-policing and profiling minorities.
Closing down schools is no answer to faulty public education. Improvement, not trimming, should be the concept. Otherwise you’ll find yourself constantly “trimming” schools in the same low income neighborhoods.
The NYPD has done it again! Over policing in NYC public schools is no new story, but finally is receiving some light. It’s also no new story, in this country, that Black kids are taking the brunt of school police abuse. The oppositional defiant behavior characteristic of black students (but not unique, this is a result of environmental factors such as racism in the job market and prejudicial education systems that have destroyed faith in an education system that can appropriately and respectfully teach minority students or guarantee them a future job), consistent labeling by administrators, and a never ending focus on criminalizing what otherwise would be normally deviant behavior makes minority students, especially blacks, particularly vulnerable to targeting by school regulation enforcement. The problem is only made worse when enforcement is done by a crime control agency such as the NYPD.
My first NORML meeting
You aren’t a true pot lover until you go to a NORML meeting.
Ok that isn’t true, but it is something different than a ciph! At least I got that impression.
I went to my first NORML meeting, which also happened to be the construction meeting for the first NYC NORML chapter, last Wednesday. It was an interesting scene. Walking in you notice right off the bat that the people have few physical traits in common (Aside from the fact that they were mostly white. That sucked. Considering who’s suffering the most from NYC pot policy, it would have been nice to see some more Black and Hispanic folk). Any stereotypes you had of the common smoker would have probably been shattered walking through the door (aside from this one “Rastafari” woman, who seemed more eccentric than Rasta to me), if not at that point then when the introductions happened. They crowd varied so much, from practicing Lawyers and MA holders to university statistic students and nonprofit employees. We all did have one thing in common I figured out: We knew the NYC marijuana law or seen its effects in action, and wanted it changed.
Now when and how is the question.
Bloomberg, the NYC Mayor is trying to argue that Cathie Black, a magazine publishing executive, should be the next NYC School Chancellor. Talk about turning our education system into a fucking joke. As if we’re not already lacking high ranking officers with a knowledge of education and adolescent psychology. In addition, Bloomberg WANTS the prerequisites to becoming Chancellor removed entirely.
NYC, I don’t know what you’ve done giving this man another term, but we royally fucked up.
