22nd Feb2012

DUH: FBI To Monitor Facebook, Twitter, Myspace

by iSpit

The FBI is looking to monitor all public information posted on social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace. The organization is asking for an app to do all the scraping automatically.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is looking to develop a Web app that can continuously monitor social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace, as well as various news feeds. The organization’s goal is to improve its real-time intelligence when it comes to current and emerging security threats.

The plan for such an app was inadvertently revealed by the FBI’s Strategic Information and Operations Center (SOIC) in a solicitation for a “Social Media Application.” The FBI typically avoids openly discussing how social networks are used as an intelligence tool, but the 12-page Request for Information document (PDF, half the pages are oddly blank) reveals in detail what the organization is interested in.

The FBI specifies the following operational capabilities for the app (notice the second and last points in particular):

  • Provide an automated search and scrape capability of both social networking sites and open source news sites for breaking events, crisis, and threats that meet the search parameters/keywords defined by FBI SIOC.
  • Ability for user to create, define, and select parameters/key word requirements. Automated search of national news, local news, and social media networks. Examples include but are not limited to Fox News. CNN, MSNBC, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
  • Ability for user to create, define, and select radius search functions that can be searched independently or in combination with an identified key word search/parameter.
  • Provide automated filtering of data that has been searched and collected based on defined search parameters.
  • Provide instant notifications of breaking events, incidents, and emerging threats that have been vetted and meet the defined search parameters.
  • Ability to display alerts visually by geo-locating alerts onto a geospatial map. Displayed alerts should be prioritized (i.e. color coded) in accordance with FBI defined priorities.
  • Ability to clear alert or maintain alert until its final resolution to be determined by the FBI designated user.
  • Ability to save and archive the alerts.
  • Ability for user to instantly select desired national and local news feeds to monitor breaking events and emerging threats, scrape the vetted news and social media information.
  • Ability to immediately access geospatial maps with coding in addition to providing critical infrastructural layers. Preferred maps include but are not limited to Google Maps, Google 3D maps, ESRI, and Yahoo Maps.
  • Ability to create templates that will allow user to quickly summarize (i.e. who, what, when, where, and why) threats/incidents identified and alerted by the application with geo-coordinates included. Ability available to immediately ingest the information into the Spot Report for time-sensitive threats/incidents.
  • Ability for user to immediately disseminate the summarized threat or incident by either single alert notification or mass notification to the appropriate field office and FBI Executive Management.
  • Ability to capture and summarize the investigative efforts conducted by the Field Office for resolution of the incident.
  • Provide “Spot Report” folders to save and archive past reports.
  • Ability to support Field offices by region by pre-designated or established tabs that will mirror the basic functional capabilities as the main SIOC site.
  • Each tab should have the flexibility to make immediate changes to effectively support the mission requirements for a specific division.
  • Ability to instantly search and monitor key words and strings in all “publicly available” tweets across the Twitter Site and any other “publicly available” social networking
    sites/forums (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, etc.).

Other parts of the document outline analytical capabilities and security requirements. This is a rare glimpse into what the FBI requires for its monitoring applications and shows just how seriously the government agency thinks about social media. The document, which was released on January 19, asks companies which might want to build such a monitoring system for the FBI to reply by February 10.

Privacy advocates have been strongly opposed to social media monitoring, especially if the data is saved and stored for long periods of time. If the scraping is limited to only publicly-available posts, however, they don’t have much of an argument.

The FBI app in question would likely include the most content from Twitter and Myspace users, since both sites have users that share publicly more often than privately. As Facebook pushes its subscribe feature further and emphasizes sharing more and more, however, the social networking giant is only going to see more public content from its users, and thus so will the FBI.

Category : General
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0 Comm
21st Feb2012

Live Nation Network President Russell Wallach Talks Brand/Artist Partnerships (Video)

by iSpit

Live Nation’s Russell Wallach has done his fair share of research into branding. Just this year, his company has paired Weezer with State Farm and 30 Seconds to Mars with HP to try and help each with cross-promotion. After appearing at the Billboard Touring Conference’s “Sponsorship Buyers And Sellers Weigh In: What We’re Looking For In Naming Rights, Tour, Event And Concert Partnerships” panel, he discussed just how those partnerships are working right now. Specifically, almost every partnership includes social media and mobile tie-ins, and are based around some type of exclusive content offered to the brand that they can in turn share with fans. “What we look to do is get the brand to be the hero for things that are happening at the show,” he said.

 

Category : News, Video
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0 Comm
16th Feb2012

@Twitter: Isn’t it Funny? By @LanaDot

by Lana

By: Lana Adams

My name is Lana Adams. I am a writer, by definition. I am a twenty-something year old, recent graduate of Temple University with a degree in Broadcast Journalism and I am interested in helping people. I want to help people in whatever way that I can, whether it’s informing people about pertinent issues, or lending them a helping hand, or helping them to reach their personal goals, the one thing I love to do, is help. I hope to bring clarity to the things that we sometimes overlook; I want to shed light on the stories that aren’t told in hopes that we will begin to pay attention and make a conscious change.

I find it very troubling that whenever a celebrity or popular public figure passes away, I have to immediately log out of Twitter. The popular micro-blogging site is fun when there’s an award-show on television, or when you and your favorite followers are tuned into this week’s episode of “Glee” or “Law and Order: SVU”, but when something devastating or tragic happens, I usually have to put my phone down and away to avoid frustration.

The recent news of the death of singer, Whitney Houston hit me just as hard as it hit the rest of her fans and friends. As soon as the CNN alert of her passing crossed my telephone’s screen, I immediately turned on the news to confirm it. I, like most people, took to Twitter to keep up with any recent developments. The first few tweets were tweets of sadness and disbelief from her fans and celebrity friends, then, like clockwork, the ignorance began. The jokes about Whitney’s crack addiction and her rumored love affair with R&B singer, Ray-J became more offensive than I could handle.

It never fails, as soon as something tragic happens, people feel the need to log onto twitter and compete for the most Retweets. This time, I was sick of it. I guess I am partially to blame because I control the people I follow on Twitter. With the simple click of a button, I can choose to ignore the foolishness and crude comments by unfollowing the people who choose to promote them.

I think this new age of media, with Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, we feel the need to share everything all the time—no matter how, rude or personal or disrespectful it is. This spirit of being so public and showing everyone every single aspect of your personal life is encouraging insensitivity to privacy. The tabloid magazines, and the need to know every detail of a celebrity’s life has been around for as long as there have been celebrities but now these sites give us the opportunity to know everything about one another as well. It’s why we can say that Bobbi Christina needs her privacy and we should leave her alone, but that doesn’t stop us from clicking the link to a story that’s headline reads something like “Was Bobbi Christina on Crack Too?”

We are curious beings by nature, but now, with information so constantly and readily available, we almost feel we need to know everything and want to protest when someone tells us to back off. It is why Whitney fans all over the world are upset over her family’s decision to have a private funeral service for her. Yes, Whitney was apart of all of our lives and our history, especially for African American females such as myself, but where do we draw the line? She was somebody’s mother, somebody’s daughter, and somebody’s friend. She lived her life publicly and was crucified by the media for it. Not only do we as a society feel we deserve to know everything about you, but we should be able to say whatever we want and share it with all of our friends on the Internet.

We already see how the Internet has limited direct communication in public by the number of bowed heads we see walking down a city street while looking at their cell phones. We don’t talk to each other any more, which makes it easier to disrespect one another. People feel they are disrespecting your twitter handle rather than the living, breathing, flawed, human being behind the computer screen, and that is a problem. We need to reconnect.

Category : A Truth Moment, Blogging, I Am Not A Rapper, ipad, iphone, Rant, Stupititity All Stars, Technology, The Facebook Killer, twitter
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0 Comm
15th Feb2012

The Best Man (Full Video)

by iSpit

Harper’s autobiographical novel is almost out, his girlfriend Robin desires commitment, and he’s best man at the wedding of Lance, a pro athlete. He goes to New York early (Robin will come for the wedding) to hang out with Lance and other friends, including Jordan, his former almost-lover, now in media and privy to an advance copy of the book. The men discuss women, never facing their own double standard; Jordan wants to try again with Harper, at least for one night; and Harper fears that Lance will read his book and learn that the bride-to-be slept with him once to avenge Lance’s many affairs. Can Harper mature before Lance kills him, Jordan seduces him, and he loses Robin?

Director:

Malcolm D. Lee

Writer:

Malcolm D. Lee

Stars:

Category : Movies, Video
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0 Comm
14th Feb2012

Facebook Aims To Prevent Suicides With Online Help

by iSpit

If you’re considering suicide, Facebook now stands ready to get you some help.

The gigantic social-networking site said Tuesday that if any of its 800 million users type a post saying they are contemplating suicide, the site will offer to connect them to a crisis counselor through the site’s chat system.

But the system requires human intervention, in the form of a friend who clicks on a link next to a troubling comment, the Associated Press reports today. Facebook says it then will send an email to the people concerned, encouraging them to call a crisis hotline or click through to a confidential chat with a counselor.

But a quick cruise over to Facebook shows no friendly button, so it’s not clear exactly how this will work in real life. As of this afternoon, Facebook’s help center recommends that people who’ve come across a direct threat of suicide “immediately contact law enforcement or a suicide hotline.”

Google has tweaked its search engine so that the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline turns up first when a person types in “suicide,” but this appears to be the first active effort by a social media site to connect users to health care professionals.

Facebook has been trying to do more to make its site more socially responsible. In March, the company announced new tools to protect users from online bullying, including a way to report threats to Facebook, and to let a parent, teacher, or trusted friend know.

Last year, the social-media giant started partnering with gay rights organizations to combat anti-gay cyberbullying.

But the anti-suicide effort is the first that isn’t intended to reduce malicious use of Facebook. Instead, it’s using Facebook’s vast networks to try to identify people in the midst of a mental-health crisis, and get them help.

“This is really problematic,” says Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum a nonprofit public interest research group. We all want to prevent suicide, she says, “but I’m not sure this is the right way to do it.”

The biggest problem, Dixon says, is that Facebook is a public forum. Companies regularly scrape the site for information, and could use that to market worthless treatments to people in the midst of a mental health crisis. And because the site is public, health information posted there is not protected by HIPAA, the federal medical privacy law.

Information on a person’s mental state might be subpoenaed from Facebook, Dixon adds, for a custody battle or other litigation. And Facebook could also be liable for the quality of mental health care delivered as part of their recommendation.

Despite those issues, many people say that sharing medical information with others on Facebook has helped them manage serious health issues, as I reported earlier this year.

This latest move by Facebook sounds like it could open the door to dozens of other potential interventions. Before too long, hearty eaters could perhaps start getting referrals to Weight Watchers, or the American Diabetes Association. And the legions of teenage binge drinkers who post their misadventures on Facebook, could suddenly be hearing from Alcoholics Anonymous.

Category : News, Technology
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0 Comm
09th Feb2012

Black Male Engagement (BME) Award Winners Receive a Combined $443,000 to Strengthen Communities

by iSpit

http://www.philasun.com/uploads/SuperSizerTmp/2593/oasis_01-29-12a.-w456-h303-p0-q70-Fa-S1.jpg?1327808557

Twenty men-teachers, businessmen, writers and pastors-have been named winners of the BME Leadership Award, created to honor black men in Philadelphia and Detroit who step up to lead the community.

“There is no cavalry coming to save the day in black communities in America. The answers we’re looking for reside right within the hearts, hands, and heads of community residents,” said Shawn Dove, manager of the Open Society Foundations Campaign for Black Male Achievement, which is helping to sponsor the award. “BME recognizes black men and boys as assets to the community, not as problems to be solved, and we’re thrilled to be a partner in this strategy.”

The BME Challenge offers the winners a combined $443,000 with the aim of inspiring others to step forward to strengthen their communities.

The funding will pair young people with senior citizens and culinary experts to plant vegetable gardens in vacant lots, equip new fathers parenting skills, provide therapy for autistic children, help veterans find services, and more. The winners’ stories, and information on their projects, are below. See and share videos of them at bmechallenge.org.

The BME Leadership Award is part of the BME Challenge, which is pronounced “Be Me” and stands for Black Male Engagement. BME is led by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in partnership with the Open Society Campaign for Black Male Achievement.

Earlier this year, BME asked local black men and boys in its two pilot cities to share the stories of what they do to make their communities stronger. More than 2,000 people in Detroit and Philadelphia submitted personal video and written testimonials, viewable at bmechallenge.org. Those who shared their stories were then eligible to apply for funding through the BME Leadership Award.

BME is an ongoing initiative that seeks to recognize, reinforce and reward black males who engage others in making communities stronger.

“The award shines a light on a truth that we need to remember: there are thousands of black men in these cities who choose to make it a stronger and better place to live for all of us,” said Trabian Shorters, one of the leaders behind the BME Challenge, which sponsors the award. “Perhaps if we tell their stories and others decide to support their efforts, you will see more and more black men and boys willing to follow their example.”

This spring, BME will be looking for local partnerships in Detroit and Philadelphia to encourage more black males to positively engage in their communities. This summer, BME will conduct another call for stories, to be followed in the fall by a call for a new round of applications to the BME Leadership Award.

The winners of the 2012 Black Male Engagement Leadership Award are:

 

Eddie Connor

Connor survived cancer as a young teenager and has since dedicated his life to serving as a teacher and mentor, working through schools and media to help young people understand their potential.

Project: Connor will lead book clubs at schools and at off-site field trips to expose Detroit teenagers to important life skills and character traits that he has embraced during his life. ($10,000)

Andre Dandridge

Dandridge is a law school graduate who helps small businesses overcome legal obstacles. As a young parent himself, he founded New Young Fathers, a local initiative to help equip young men with the skills they need to be great dads.

Project: Dandridge will lead a series of in-depth workshops that New Young Fathers will conduct across the city. The workshops are designed to better prepare young men for fatherhood and help them become more aware of their potential. ($25,000)

Brook Ellis

Ellis was in prison when his life was transformed by reading the biography of Reginald Lewis – lawyer, investor, philanthropist, and the wealthiest black man of his day.

Project: The Reginald Francis Lewis Reading Academy will strive to improve literacy, civic responsibility, and academic achievement at Martin Luther King, Jr. High School. Each enrolled student will read and write a self-affirming essay on the Reginald Lewis biography and “Lonely At The Top” a new e-memoir by his daughter, Christina Lewis-Helpern, and be exposed to a literacy mentor; 30 boys will participate in a competitive college readiness program at Michigan State University. ($40,000)

Emu Michael Kumane

Kumane is a manager in the auto industry who volunteers at local schools through Big Brothers Big Sisters Detroit.

Project: Drawing on his network in schools and in the corporate community, Kumane will lead a project to expose 100 young people to the business world. They’ll meet with 20 local businesses, learn how the businesses work, and devise a plan for an enterprise they’d like to start. ($25,000)

 

Curtis Lipscomb

After coming out as a gay man with HIV/AIDS, Lipscomb began helping young people around him take action against discrimination.

Project: Lipscomb will oversee the LEAD project, which will facilitate an in-depth training of 22 young Detroiters to become more effective advocates of social issues facing the city’s LGBT community. ($20,000)

 

Miguel Pope

Pope is a global career development facilitator and motivational life coach who advises and volunteers for various community projects in his neighborhood and the city.

Project: Pope will launch Be Exposed, a program to inspire ambition in young people by exposing them to new cultural and social activities, including shows, restaurants, and field trips to new cities. ($5,000)

 

Shaka Senghor

Senghor started writing while he was incarcerated and later developed a career as an author and speaker who inspires young people with his voice.

Project: Senghor will launch and oversee the Live in Peace Digital and Literary Arts Project, which will coach young people on how to fully express their life stories across media. The project will result in each young person creating his or her personal “anthology” of stories. ($25,000)

 

Yusef Shakur

Shakur is a formerly incarcerated person who has become a well-known community activist focused on youth empowerment in a Detroit neighborhood known as Zone 8.

Project: Shakur will increase the impact of the cyber café he has opened in his neighborhood by providing literacy classes, digital training, and school supplies to young people in the neighborhood. ($10,000)

 

Dennis Talbert

Talbert, a former media executive, is now a pastor devoting himself to mentoring youth in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood.

Project: Talbert will lead Rescue 51, an initiative of four BME Challenge participants to develop literacy skills, character, and a knowledge of health and wellness issues for 51 children in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood. ($20,000)

 

Fran Westbrooks

Westbrooks is an advertising executive who founded Detroit Comeback Kids, which offers young Detroiters innovative, project-based experiences across the city.

Project: Through Detroit Comeback Kids, Westbrooks will help kids plant vegetable gardens in unused lots across the city by matching young Detroiters with local culinary arts experts and senior citizens who own vacant lots they seek to beautify. Small vegetable stands will offer extra produce to the community. ($20,000)

The winners of the 2012 BME Leadership Award in Philadelphia are:

 

Greg Corbin

Corbin is a teacher who integrates hip-hop, spoken word, and poetry into his classroom lessons to help better reach students. He also founded the Philadelphia Youth Poetry Movement.

Project: Corbin will launch The Legacy Project, which will explore the multi-layered experience of Black men through a one-man theatrical performance and community workshops. ($25,000)

 

Tyree Dumas

Dumas is the founder of DollarBoyz, a youth entertainment company, and CEO of Youth Now On Top (Y-Not).

Project: Dumas will lead Y-Not Youth, an after-school program that offers a safe haven, dance instruction, and homework help. ($35,000)

 

Russell Hicks

Hicks owns Ebony Suns Enterprises, a consulting business that provides social media training for youth and social entrepreneurship programming to schools and nonprofits.

Project: Hicks will lead FLASH MOB, where young black men will learn how to create – and then implement – a business-branding campaign via social media. ($20,500)

 

Brandon Jones

Jones, who was formerly incarcerated, works to reduce the amount of shootings in North Philadelphia by mentoring high-risk youth and mobilizing the community.

Project: Jones will create a curriculum that helps prevents youth from going to prison and returning citizens from recidivating. ($35,000)

 

Reuben Jones

While serving a 15-year prison sentence, Jones fought and won custody of his son. After his release, he founded Frontline Dads to help others in similar situations deal with custody and child support issues. The group also conducts a mentoring program for at-risk youth. Jones pursued a career as a therapist and has a master of human services degree.

Project: Jones will launch the Frontline Dads Comprehensive Transformation Initiative, a mentoring/intervention program that fosters critical thinking skills, conflict resolution, creative expression, and counseling. ($20,000)

 

Solomon Jones

Jones, who originally dropped out of college, overcame addiction and homelessness and pursued a degree and a career as an author of seven novels, an award-winning columnist, and a professor at Temple University.

Project: Jones will expand Words on the Street literacy program, which aims to increase the literacy of more than 600 students through role modeling, workshops, and the opportunity to write a story that will be published in The Philadelphia Inquirer. ($20,000)

 

Ari Merretazon
Merretazon is a Vietnam veteran who shared his life story in an anthology on black veterans and has since worked to help those returning from war. The movie “Dead Presidents” was loosely based on his life.

Project: Merretazon will expand Pointman Soldiers Heart Ministry, a group of Vietnam and Desert Storm veterans, to help returning veterans from the Middle East find counseling, job services, and benefits. ($25,000)

 

Alex Peay

During his sophomore year in college, Peay founded the mentoring program Rising Sons. After losing interest in going to law school after graduation, he decided to bring his organization to Philadelphia and dedicate his life to help black males achieve their goals, dreams, and ambitions.

Project: Peay will strengthen Rising Sons, an after-school program where recent college graduates and college students between 18-25 mentor boys at three Philadelphia public high schools. Rising Sons will also train students to mentor boys at two local elementary schools. ($4,650)

 

Eric D. Williams

Williams is the father of three children, one of whom is autistic. When he couldn’t find services for autistic children in his neighborhood, he started his own.

Project: Williams will expand Project Elijah Empowering Autism, an after-school program for middle-spectrum autistic students ages 8-14. The group will open a new facility in Philadelphia in 2012, and will use the funding to offer speech, gross motor, recreation, music, and life skills therapies. ($38,700)

 

Shawn White

White is a recording artist/producer and the project director for the University of Pennsylvania’s “Shape Up: Barbers Building Better Brothers program”, which conducts HIV/AIDS and violence prevention through barbers and their clients.

Project: White will launch Phreman Audio Studio Academy, which will teach audio recording and mixing to young people while promoting HIV/AIDS prevention and anti-violence strategies. ($19,300).

 

Contact Maria Archuleta about this release at marchulta@sorosny.org or call 1-212-547-6916

 

###

 

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. We believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.

 

Active in more than 70 countries, the Open Society Foundations work to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. Working with local communities, the Open Society Foundations support justice and human rights, freedom of expression, and access to public health and education.

 

Category : Giving Back, News, World News
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0 Comm
01st Feb2012

Are You Employable in 2012?

by iSpit
Are You Employable in 2012?
Do you have community management skills? Can you set up and man listening posts? Are you an expert at setting up and processing Google Alerts? Can you cleanup, size and manipulate digital pictures and graphics? Are you a PowerPoint Ninja? Do you have more than half of the PC Keyboard macros for Excel under your fingers? Can you write a SQL query? Can you craft custom reports in salesforce? Do you have expertise in a particular kind of CRM software? Can you interpret and respond to questions regarding Google Analytics? Are you facile with FTP software? Are you a master of digital communication in your industry?

These are just a few of the questions you might field in a job interview this year. I just listed a job opening for an administrative assistant and, to be honest, I am appalled at the lack of understanding of how to apply for a job, let alone what might be required to obtain one.

 

Here are a few tips to applying for a job in the information age.

 

Cover Letters Matter — Your cover letter should be in pure text and in the body of an email. No fancy fonts, no images, just text. The topic sentence should be awesome and separate you from the pack. The supporting paragraph should make me want to hire you without looking at your resume. It must, must, must mention the things your prospective employer is seeking and describe why you are the perfect candidate. Proof read this document several times. “I lernt frm xperience that i’m a realy grate receptionist,” is an actual sentence from an actual cover letter I received this week. I have no idea what this person’s résumé looked like, I just copied the sentence for this article and deleted the email.

 

Résumés Matter — Take the time to craft the résumé for the job you are applying for. If you haven’t worked in the industry before, say it in the cover letter and say why you think your experience will apply. If you have worked in the industry, take a moment and figure out what your résumé should look like for this opportunity. Résumés should be .pdf files — do not send word documents or .txt files or PowerPoint documents or anything other than a one-page (two page max) .pdf file.

 

Honesty Matters — Don’t put “Expert in Microsoft Office” on your résumé if you are just “proficient.” During our telephone interview, I will ask you a question that an expert can answer, when you can’t — you’re out. I have no time for people who cannot do honest self-assessments of their capabilities.

 

Skills Matter — This is the Information Age, you need Information Age skills. Yes, you will learn a great deal on the job, but you need to come to the opportunity with very high-level digital skills. Why? Because there are literally a dozen digitally skilled candidates that will apply for this position. They are more cost-effective for me to hire because they can do more for the same money I will have to pay you.

 

Work Ethic Matters — I want people around me who are self-starters and who know that the sentence, “Can I help you?” is the least helpful sentence you can utter. What’s the right way to impress me? “Shelly, I’ve identified this issue. I have three solutions, please tell me which one you would like me implement.” I will do anything for people who approach work in this manner — they are awesome!

 

Understand What Work Is — If you are looking for a skilled job, understand what work is — a mechanism to translate the value of your intellectual property into wealth. This is a non-trivial distinction between a “job for a paycheck” and a career. If you want a job, you are not someone I want to hire for a full-time position. If you have a career, and you are looking to grow by acquiring knowledge, tempering it with wisdom and forging it with failure, I want you on my team!

 

Understand The Value of What You Know — There’s an old cliché, “Youth is wasted on the young.” When you’re looking for a job in 2012, don’t waste the value of your youth. Yes, you may be young and inexperienced, but you have a valuable asset in your age. If you are born after 1989, you are a digital native. This means that you think differently, act differently, and, in fact, are different than the middle-aged hiring manager you’re speaking with. Your inexperience and youth is also a liability. Get smart and use this combination of strength and weakness to your advantage. Our culture aspires to be young — it’s news you can use.

 

What If You Don’t Have The Necessary Skills — This is the key to everyone’s future. You must acquire them. No one can afford to hide behind the affectation that “Digital is for the kids.” It’s nonsense, and it is a virtual guarantee that you are unemployable in the 21st century. You no longer have the luxury of saying it. In fact, you cannot even think it. Social media are being used to “Occupy” places and overthrow governments. If you’re not a social media expert, you are at a strict disadvantage. Facebook and LinkedIn (and 500 other social networks) are replacing email. Google is mapping the interiors of retail stores. Amazon is giving people $5 off of any purchase made by taking a picture of an item in a brick and mortar store and then making the purchase via your mobile device. There is no more analog — the world is digital. And, more to the point, there are now only two kinds of people and two kinds of devices: connected and not connected.

 

Job One — I’m still looking for an administrative assistant with awesome digital skills to work for my executive admin. Will we find the right person? Of course we will. For all of the horrible résumés and cover letters submitted, there were several gems. But the sheer volume of worthless communication from unemployable candidates has been remarkable. If job creation is our number one national priority, maybe we should start by helping people learn how to properly prepare for employment in the Information Age and then, teach some basic job-hunting skills.

Category : Edu-tainment
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0 Comm
31st Jan2012

Mumia Abu Jamal – Rosa Our Rosa

by iSpit


‘


Rosa Our Rosa by Mumia Abu-Jamal

 

For Mumia Abu-Jamal, I am Goldie, his daughter.

 

For Mumia Abu-Jamal, I am Frances Goldin.

 

 

 

We gather today over 140 years after the birthday of Rosa Luxemburg –

 

The brilliant thinker, writer, activist and revolutionary who’s memory still burns bright around the world.

 

As I’ve thought of her this season I wondered – what would she think of the Occupy Wall Street movement here in the U.S.?

 

Having read some of her political writings and her journal entries from prison, I think I have a taste of her thinking. I think she would reply, in her typical boldness:

 

“This is a movement?  If anything it is the beginnings of a movement; for movements lead to revolutions, or, betrayed, they lead to apparent reforms that often end up in setbacks, especially for the working class and the oppressed.

 

That’s because capitalism co-opts movements; they buy off leaders, and when that doesn’t work, they bring the iron hand out from under the velvet glove – and crush them. “

 

Wow – I’d reply, and add: But it’s actually a leaderless movement of mostly unemployed students.

 

To which Rosa would say something like:

 

”Aha! I see perhaps two possible outcomes; a) the bourgeois media depicts the entire movement as miscreant, sex friends or drug addicts (and then they crush them); or b) the police spies among them, identify key personalities and offer them lucrative jobs in high finance or some other sector, and once bought off, use them as a wedge against their former comrades. “

 

Wow, Rosa – that’s a pretty grim picture, I’d say. And she’d answer:

 

“It’s called class war, brother – not a dinner party! And as many of these activists are unemployed, capital can spare a few shekels to buy off the most advanced layer. “

 

And, finally, I’d say: Rosa – why are you so done on students? These kids are doing some remarkable things! “

 

And Rosa would reply:

 

“Students can spark a movement, as they’ve done all around the world. But can they carry it through? Can they engage the workers? The teachers, the tradesmen, the postal unions, the transit workers – if they can’t, then they can’t really top into a social force that has the potential to stage mass strikes that shuts down production – and that’s all Wall Street – - or any capitalist – - really cares about!“

 

Me again: “That sounds good, Rosa, but these students“- -

 

To which she’d interrupt:

 

“Jamal – c’mon – don’t be a dombkopf!  Students – schmudents! First of all, if they’re graduated, they’re not students anymore – they’re unemployed workers! Secondly, years ago, when you were a young guy, there were vast student’s movements – anti-war, pro-black-rights, pro-prisoners’ rights, anti-imperialists, etc., etc. Where are they now? Didn’t they get caught off? “ – - “Oh, and aren’t many of them these kids’ parents? “

 

To which I’d shut up.

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this mental exercise, done with the highest regard and respect for a socialist intellectual and revolutionary: Rosa Luxemburg.

 

I chose this topic which may not be immediately familiar to you in Germany, which is, in the United States, a subject of endless fascination by much of the population, because it has taken the country by storm.

 

In the beginning of September, 2011, no such movement existed. But the events of Tahir Square in Egypt, the rising unemployment which left many college students unemployed, and the growing social inequality in American society, as shown by the obese well-being of Wall Street and the bankers, converged in a movement to show deep social dissent with this state of affairs.

 

When young people, most using cell phones and other instant media, began calling for a protest gathering at the iconic bull sculpture known worldwide as the symbol of the rampaging markets of New York’s Wall Street, hundreds, then thousands swarmed into the streets.

 

And, like that, a Movement was born.

 

Within days the call was met by crushes of students, most angry at the bottomless greed of the economic elites – the 1%.

 

They started the „We Are the 99%!“Chant, and again, within days, similar occupations sprang in Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles – - and beyond.

 

Within weeks, over 100 city centers, home of the moneyed elites, were occupied.

 

But what really kicked them into high gear, was when cops in New York, blithely sprayed chemicals into the faces of young women doing nothing more than marching with an anti-capitalist banner. Carried via YouTube, it reached millions, and inspired more to join the protests.

 

Rosa, I’m convinced, would’ve loved it!

 

As I write this year’s message from prison, it’s the first time I’ve done so without death sentence.

 

That’s entirely due to you – and people like you – who have stood with me through thick and thin.

 

Danke – viel viel Danke – to ALL of you brothers and sisters in Germany, in France, in Spain, in England, in Canada, in India, and yes – - in the United States for making this happen.

 

As you know, the struggle continues.

 

This battle ain’t over until we all are free!

 

Mao used to say “The journey of a thousand leagues begins with one step.“

 

We have taken this step.

 

We are one step closer to freedom!

 

Lang lebe Red Rosa!

 

FREIHEIT ! Free the Move Prisoners! Free Leonard Peltier!

 

Dismantle the prison-industrial complex!

 

Meine Freunden – Bewegung!

 

Aus der Todeszelle, hier sprecht

 

Mumia Abu-Jamal

 

Auf Wiedersehen!

 

Goldie for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

 

Frances Goldin for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

 

Prison and government officials are trying to censor and silence Mumia Abu-Jamal. I stand as one of many Americans who believe that there is tremendous value in his voice being heard. I and others will fight to make sure that both his voice and his body are free.

Category : Audio, Interviews
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0 Comm
19th Jan2012

Internet Access Isn’t A Human Right, Says Google VP

by iSpit

Google VP and Internet evangelist Dr. Vinton Cerf writes in the New York Times that Internet access isn’t a right – it’s just a tool towards enabling free speech.

Dr. Vinton Cerf, a Google VP and its chief Internet evangelist, took to the pages of the New York Times late last week with a opinion piece provocatively titled “Internet Access Is Not a Human Right.” But if the title doesn’t immediately make you close the browser tab, Cerf provides a philosophical look at the case against the concept.In the wake of the so-called “Arab Spring,” the role social media played in enabling protesters to gather and exercise their human right of free speech sparked a lot of discussion on the necessity of Internet access. In fact, France and Estonia have already officially recognized Internet access as an essential human right.

But, as Cerf writes:

“[That] argument, however well meaning, misses a larger point: technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself. There is a high bar for something to be considered a human right. Loosely put, it must be among the things we as humans need in order to lead healthy, meaningful lives, like freedom from torture or freedom of conscience. It is a mistake to place any particular technology in this exalted category, since over time we will end up valuing the wrong things.”

To use Cerf’s own example, it used to be that you needed a horse to make a living. But the related human right was the right to earn a living, not to own a horse. And it’s the same for the Internet: technology enables and enhances the right to free speech, but it’s just a tool towards that end.

The argument for Internet access as a civil right is stronger, Cerf writes, but runs into the same problems. Civil rights are “conferred upon us by law,” as Cerf puts it, and the United States already provides for “universal service” for things like telephones, electricity, and by extension, the Internet.

But all of that misses the point, he writes:

“Yet all these philosophical arguments overlook a more fundamental issue: the responsibility of technology creators themselves to support human and civil rights. The Internet has introduced an enormously accessible and egalitarian platform for creating, sharing and obtaining information on a global scale. As a result, we have new ways to allow people to exercise their human and civil rights.”

Rather than letting law or judicial bodies set the pace, Cerf says that engineers and technologists have an obligation to both empower their users and to protect them from harm from viruses and the like. In other words, there’s a civic responsibility that goes alongside technological innovation.

In conclusion, Cerf writes:

“Improving the Internet is just one means, albeit an important one, by which to improve the human condition. It must be done with an appreciation for the civil and human rights that deserve protection — without pretending that access itself is such a right.”

Heady stuff, to be sure. And given Dr. Cerf’s role as evangelist, it’s a lot more clear where Google’s commitment to transparency and user protection comes from (I’ll leave the discussion of how well Google fulfills that commitment up to the comments).

This isn’t the first time Cerf has touched on topics of Internet governance and the future of the web, but his New York Times op-ed was his clearest statement of intent yet. It’s not nearly as controversial a response as it seems, but I’m wondering what the industry response is going to be, if anything at all.

Category : News, Stupititity All Stars, Technology, World News
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8 Comm
19th Jan2012

America Has Lost A Generation Of Black Boys

by iSpit

There is no longer a need for dire predictions, hand-wringing, or apprehension about losing a generation of black boys. It is too late. In education, employment, economics, incarceration, health, housing, and parenting, we have lost a generation of young black men. The question that remains is will we lose the next two or three generations, or possibly every generation of black boys hereafter to the streets, negative media, gangs, drugs, poor education, unemployment, father absence, crime, violence and death.

     Most young black men in the United States don’t graduate from high school. Only 35% of black male students graduated from high school in Chicago and only 26% in New York City, according to a 2006 report by The Schott Foundation for Public Education. Only a few black boys who finish high school actually attend college, and of those few black boys who enter college, nationally, only 22% of them finish college.
     Young black male students have the worst grades, the lowest test scores, and the highest dropout rates of all students in the country. When these young black men don’t succeed in school, they are much more likely to succeed in the nation’s criminal justice and penitentiary system. And it was discovered recently that even when a young black man graduates from a U.S. college, there is a good chance that he is from Africa, the Caribbean or Europe, and not the United States.
     Black men in prison in America have become as American as apple pie. There are more black men in prisons and jails in the United States (about 1.1 million) than there are black men incarcerated in the rest of the world combined. This criminalization process now starts in elementary schools with black male children as young as six and seven years old being arrested in staggering numbers according to a 2005 report, Education on Lockdown by the Advancement Project.
     The rest of the world is watching and following the lead of America. Other countries including England, Canada, Jamaica, Brazil and South Africa are adopting American social policies that encourage the incarceration and destruction of young black men. This is leading to a world-wide catastrophe. But still, there is no adequate response from the American or global black community.
     Worst of all is the passivity, neglect and disengagement of the black community concerning the future of our black boys. We do little while the future lives of black boys are being destroyed in record numbers. The schools that black boys attend prepare them with skills that will make them obsolete before, and if, they graduate. In a strange and perverse way, the black community, itself, has started to wage a kind of war against young black men and has become part of this destructive process.
     Who are young black women going to marry? Who is going to build and maintain the economies of black communities? Who is going to anchor strong families in the black community? Who will young black boys emulate as they grow into men? Where is the outrage of the black community at the destruction of its black boys? Where are the plans and the supportive actions to change this? Is this the beginning of the end of the black people in America?
     The list of those who have failed young black men includes our government, our foundations, our schools, our media, our black churches, our black leaders, and even our parents. Ironically, experts say that the solutions to the problems of young black men are simple and relatively inexpensive, but they may not be easy, practical or popular. It is not that we lack solutions as much as it is that we lack the will to implement these solutions to save black boys. It seems that government is willing to pay billions of dollars to lock up young black men, rather than the millions it would take to prepare them to become viable contributors and valued members of our society.
Please consider these simple goals that can lead to solutions for fixing the problems of young black men:
Short term
1) Teach all black boys to read at grade level by the third grade and to embrace education. 2) Provide positive role models for black boys.
3) Create a stable home environment for black boys that includes contact with their fathers.
4) Ensure that black boys have a strong spiritual base.
5) Control the negative media influences on black boys.
6) Teach black boys to respect all girls and women.
Long term
1) Invest as much money in educating black boys as in locking up black men.
2) Help connect black boys to a positive vision of themselves in the future.
3) Create high expectations and help black boys live into those high expectations.
4) Build a positive peer culture for black boys.
5) Teach black boys self-discipline, culture and history.
6) Teach black boys and the communities in which they live to embrace education and life-long learning.

-Phillip Jackson

Category : Do The Knowledge, Exclusive, Freeing Slaves, News
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7 Comm
17th Jan2012

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (Full Video)

by iSpit

The classic Canadian documentary Manufacturing Consent based on the Noam Chomsky/Edward Herman book by the same name. Explores the the propaganda model of the media.

Category : Documentary, Video
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3 Comm
17th Jan2012

Should Amazon, Google & Wikipedia “Nuke” The Web To Stop SOPA?

by iSpit

Maybe blacking out their Web sites would be over-kill, but the Internet giants could use other joint tactics to kill Stop Online Piracy Act off.

With the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), Congress, at the request of big media, is still considering trying to censor the global Internet in the name of preventing media piracy The major Internet companies, who don’t like the idea of being forced to monitor customers’ traffic and block Web sites suspected or accused of copyright infringement. They don’t want any part of being in the Big Brother business. So it is that Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia appear to all be considering the ‘nuclear’ option.

According to multiple sources, the nuclear option would mean many major sites would simply and simultaneously go dark. Were you to go to any of them, you’d either find a 404 error page not available message or a page explaining why the site’s currently unavailable. The most popular Internet sites would simply go dark.

This is pretty drastic, but then so is SOPA. SOPA, while a proposed American law, attempts to censor sites throughout the world. In effect, as it’s currently written, SOPA would try to impose global censorship almost as bad as the Chinese firewall.

But, would simply shutting down major sites that hundreds of millions of users rely on every day actually get the message across? Or, would it simply tick off 99% of the Web using population who couldn’t even spell SOPA much less know what it’s about? Even today, I find otherwise intelligent Internet professionals who think that SOPA is a good idea. They simply can’t see that stopping Internet music and video piracy with SOPA is like burning down a house to get rid of mice.

So, I have a suggestion for the NetCoalition, the lobbying group representing leading global Internet and technology companies, including Google, Yahoo!, Amazon.com, eBay, Bloomberg, and Wikipedia, and which is also a major organizer of the Internet powers’ SOPA opposition. Instead of blacking out the Internet, educate it.

Pick a day, a week, when all participating sites will show their visitors a page about what SOPA is, why they’re against it, and then list by name the Congressmen and women who are supporting this law and urging everyone to vote against them in the 2012 election. After that, let the visitors go about searching for the latest football scores, a cheap copy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, whatever.

Even that will annoy most users, but it will get the message across to everyone. What’s more important though is that it will deliver the message that we will not stand for SOPA to the people who need to hear the most: the law-makers who’ve been bought and paid for by big media. If Internet registry Go Daddy can change its spots when it comes to supporting SOPA after it became clear that its customers wouldn’t stand for it, I know Congressmen faced with losing their comfy jobs will listen.

Category : News, Technology, World News
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2 Comm
30th Dec2011

With No More Cotton To Pick, What Will America Do With 36 Million Black People?

by iSpit

What will America do with 36 million Black Americans now that there is no more cotton to pick?  Even in states like Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, Black people are not involved in the planting, growing or harvesting of cotton.  This is now done by White and Latino men and women who drive machines that plant and pick the cotton, as millions of Black men of working age stand idle on street corners.  For Black people in America, there is no more cotton to pick.

Black people were brought to America as slaves to pick cotton, tobacco and sugar cane.  America‘s dilemma today is: what to do with 36 million Black American descendants of slaves who were shipped to American shores 400 years ago for their economic value yet whose heirs today have lost that value?  While America might have once considered shipping Black Americans back to Africa, that is no longer a practical or palatable option.

So America has a serious problem that demands a solution.  What will America do with 36 million Black Americans who have lost their value to the American economy?  As the world moves towards science, technology, engineering, math and medicine (STEMM), fewer than fifty percent of Black boys graduate from high school in the United States.  Many of those who graduate are given diplomas that qualify them for low-wage jobs or no jobs at all, street-corner hustling, incarceration and violent death.  At best, the majority of Black students in America get an education that prepares them to only pick cotton – if there were cotton for them to pick.

According to an October 2010 Research Update to The Crisis Deepens 2009, from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for Economic Development, the Black male (ages 16 to 64) joblessness rate (53.3%) is the highest ever recorded among working-age black males in Milwaukee – the second highest American city jobless rate after Detroit (59.5%).  Other metropolitan cities at incomprehensible levels include Buffalo, 52.3%; Cleveland, 52.3%; Chicago, 50.3% and Pittsburgh, 50.3%.  Additionally, a December 2010 policy brief, Unemployment in New York City During the Recession and Early Recovery: Young Black Men Hit the Hardest by Community Service Society of New York shows only 25% of young Black men in New York City between 16 and 24 years of age have a job.

While Black America laments the disastrously low employment rate of Black males, hundreds of thousands of foreign H-1B Visa workers (primarily but not exclusively in the high-tech industry) are imported to the U.S. to take jobs paying $100,000 a year and more.  At the same time, many Black males in America who want to work will not be able to get jobs sweeping streets, cleaning toilets or picking cotton.

Our Northern cities have tired of their Black populations, and America is now “getting out of the Black people business.”   Neighborhoods that used to be “Black Belts,” like Harlem in New York City, Bronzeville in Chicago and much of Washington, D.C., have gone upscale, and, as a result, most Blacks cannot afford to live there.  So it is back to the South for many of them.  This time, however, they will not be allowed to even pick cotton because there’s no more cotton for Black Americans to pick.

If Black America is to survive (and there is no assurance), these are the five keys to fixing our economic and social problems:

1) Rebuild the Black family.  Every major problem in the Black community, including poor education, massive unemployment, senseless violence, hyper-incarceration, lost spirituality, low-quality housing options and high mortality rates, can be traced to the disintegration of the Black family.

2) Provide Black boys with strong, positive Black men as mentors, role models and, particularly, a connection to their fathers.  Black boys, like any other children, will imitate and become what they see.  It is critical that Black children see strong, positive Black men.

3) Control the negative peer culture and electronic media that mold many Black boys and men into violent, irresponsible and uncaring human beings.  Either Black people will control the media that we consume or the media will control us.

4) Understand that for the rest of our existence, Black people will live in a “STEMM” world, a world based on Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and Medicine (STEMM).  If we are to survive, it will be because we understand and master “STEMM.” We must teach Black children accordingly.

5) Control our economic fate by mastering the principles of entrepreneurship, business, management, finance, accounting, manufacturing, saving, investing, banking and tithing, and by teaching these principles to our children.

This is the way, and the only way, to solve the problems of Black people in America.  Unless we, Black people, quickly respond to the changes in our world, even our cousins on the continent of Africa will not want us. And we will truly be “a lost tribe” wandering the world without a home.   We must realize that we live in an “Educate or Die” society and an “Educate or Die” world!  There is no middle ground.  There is no more cotton to pick!

Category : mac, News, World News
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5 Comm
29th Dec2011

#IAmNotARapper Presents: #TheNine Interview Series w/Minister of Information JR POCC

by iSpit

News imageIntroduction: So, as promised we have more new segments to come from I Am Not A Rapper and, unlike the still as yet untitled podcast, this one has a title: #TheNine: Words & Numbers Have Power.  #TheNine is an interview series where we will ask 9 questions of whomever we are speaking with. Within those nine questions, you will be able to have a clear yet concise insight into the mind of the interviewed & possibly be left wanting more… in which case ( judging by your comments/emails) a part 2 will take place. Think of it as the transcribed version of the podcast. #TheNine has many meanings, each of which will be revealed little by little with every interview in the form of facts about the number 9. Enjoy!

Fact#1 – Nine (9) is the highest original number, all other numbers are composites (i.e. 10 = 1 & 0, 12 = 1 & 2, 11 = 1 & 1, etc.)

Special thanks go out to The Minister of Information JR for granting us this interview, shout out to POCC Block Report Radio & be sure to visit www.blockreportradio.com. Also CLICK THE PICTURE ABOVE TO PURCHASE A COPY OF J.R.’S BOOK “BLOCK REPORTIN“

9 Facts About JR:

1. J.R. Is the author of 2 Books

2. J.R. is the creator & founder of Block Report Radio

3. J.R. created the documentary “Operation Small Axe”

4. J.R. is from Oakland California

5. J.R. was arrested & falsely accused of Arson during Oakland riots

6. J.R. is the associate editor for San Francisco Bay View newspaper

7. POCC stands for Prisoners of Conscience Committee

8. J.R. dove into journalism at San Francisco State as an eleventh grader

9. J. R. conducted the now infamous “Yusuf Bey IV Interview”

1.Historically, stories pertaining to violent crimes involving white people get more attention than those pertaining to minorities (as was the case with Casey Anthony & Caylee), How do you feel about the role “new media” (twitter,YouTube,Facebook, Google,etc) plays in the way news is reported and how this can be swayed positively for minorities?

 

 I think that “new media” represents more of a democracy in terms of people passing on what they think is interesting, instead of having corporate media cram the “story of the day” into their minds. The control of corporate media will be severely curtailed when we start creating, and distributing our own media more, instead of passing what they have created back and forth.

2. Since the brutal police beating of Askia Sabur in Philadelphia, police activity has been heightened in that area, how do you suggest residents combat this without also being beaten?

 In my opinion, the community has to get pass being scared of ”also being beaten”. The slave-masters were able to keep the enslaved in check through fear. We should be more scared of not living in a just society than being simply scared all of the time. Police terrorism will stop or at least be curtailed when we put the message out there that we will do anything to stop the police from beating and killing us. We have to use our imagination in coming up with new ways to expose and stop the police terrorism that is going down in our communities.

3. Tell me a little bit about your role in the organizing of a usually divided Oakland in support of the Grant family & in protest of what had taken place?

The first thing that people have to remember about Oakland, is that Oakland is the birthplace of the Black Panther Party, so there is a certain type of spirit that dwells in the residents of Oakland. My role was a liason between the hood and other members of the campaign against police terrorism, as well as a reporter who helped to articulate and spread the politics and sentiments of the people who were rebelling against the police occupation, of our communities. And I want to make the correction that we were NOT organizing in support of Oscar Grant‘s family, we were organizing in defense of the community that the Grants are a part of. When the struggle starts to just be about a family, then it is easy to kill once that family is paid off or dealt with in some other kind of way.

4. Can there ever really be justice for the Oscar Grant family? Is any monetary compensation really enough?

 The truth is that no one can bring Oscar Grant and the countless other victims of police terrorism back. The money is definitely not enough. Oscar’s daughter needs her father. The money can not talk to her, the way her father would have been able to.  

5. Why was the overseer (officer) who killed Oscar Grant released after only serving 11 months prison time?

I want to make the correction that Oscar was killed by more than one officer, its just one who pulled the trigger and was convicted for it, there is a difference. The others held him down, and made sure that his friends were handcuffed. If the shoe was on the other foot, everybody who was with Oscar on the platform, if he killed a cop, would have been prosecuted. Ultimately the short amount of time that Mehserle served just reflects the gang mentality of the police in the U.S.. They could kill with impunity on camera, and he only got 11 months because of the millions of dollars in property that was destroyed in the number of rebellions in Oakland, that came about as a result of this case.

6. What was Oakland like the day the verdict was given out?

 Tense. We knew that Mehserle was not going to be giving life, but I still think that most of the community hoped that this time, if only this once, the Black community will feel some form of vindication. We have soon come to realize collectively that the police don’t prosecute the police. NFL star Mike Vick spent more time in jail for (allegedly) killing dogs than Mehserle did for killing a Black man on camera.

7. How do you feel about the sentiment that black people need a new “black leader”? (as if we can’t be self-governed)

We need to become the leaders we want to see. Whites don’t have a leader, so why do Black people need one? We have to feel empowered to take the steps necessary to change our community in a constructive manner, it is our responsibility. We’ve had a number of leaders in the past who have shown us the way.

8. Who/what is your target demographic for BlockReportRadio?

 The target demographic of Block Report Radio, is Black and Brown young people from ghettos, barrios, reservations, quilombos, shanty towns, and favelas around the world. The Block Report is the voice of the disenfranchised teaching and talking to the disenfranchised. It is named Block Report Radio because we are taking up the responsibility to educate our own communities around issues that are important to us.

9. What caused you to create BlockReportRadio?

 The fact that there wasn’t anybody on the radio in the Bay speaking for ghetto people’s from our perspective, cause me to create Block Report Radio. The Black people that were on the radio that I came into contact with were always the careerist type, who cared nothing for the community. They only seemed to care about trying to kiss the ass of the boss, so they could get a raise. In my opinion they are like circus monkeys who do tricks for snacks. The Black community needed something, and still needs more shows, who can raise the intellect in our community. We attempted to fill that void in 2003, with the creation of BlockReportRadio.com.
Category : #TheNine, Books/Magazine, Charity, Do The Knowledge, Dont Believe The Hype, E-Book, Edu-tainment, Freeing Slaves, I Am Not A Rapper, Interviews, Jail, Lawsuits, Magazines, News
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3 Comm
18th Dec2011

Great North Korean Leader Kim Jong IL Dies At 69

by iSpit

If you love Kim Jong IL like I do, you must visit this tumblr –> http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/

North Korea‘s leader Kim Jong Il has died of apparent heart failure. He was 69.

In a “special broadcast” Monday from the North Korean capital, state media said Kim died on a train due to a “great mental and physical strain” during a “high-intensity field inspection” Saturday. It said an autopsy done Sunday “fully confirmed” the diagnosis.

Kim Jong Il wanted his successor to be his son, Kim Jong Un, who is believed to be in his late 20s. But there was no immediate word on a new leader in North Korea.

Kim Jong Il was maligned by some as a delusional dictator and an eccentric playboy who was responsible for famine at home and terrorism abroad. To others, he was a political survivor who managed to hold his own in a high-stakes game of nuclear poker with big world powers.

A Political Foundation

Kim’s official biographers say he was born on Mount Baekdu, the mythic origin of the Korean race. In fact, he was born in 1942 in the Russian Far East, where his father, Kim Il Sung, was waging guerrilla warfare against the Japanese occupation of Korea.

Given Kim Il Sung‘s stature and charisma as North Korea‘s founding father, Kim Jong Il was at a disadvantage from the start.

“Kim Jong Il has been more than a frontman, but less than the totalitarian leader his father was, able to just issue diktats and do whatever he wanted to do,” says Selig Harrison, a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. Harrison met twice with Kim Il Sung. He says Kim Jong Il was not the natural-born political animal his father was.

Kim Jong Il was the son of Kim Il Sung‘s first wife. His second wife wanted her eldest son to be heir, not Kim Jong Il. Many of the old guard within the ruling Workers’ Party, meanwhile, felt a dynastic succession from one Kim to the next was “un-Communist.”

“I think this had a lot to do with making him a very defensive, very manipulative, cunning operator who did eventually get his father’s nod as the heir, who faced tremendous opposition from within the Workers’ Party,” he says.

Replacing His Father

The death of his father in 1994 thrust Kim into the spotlight. The following year, economic collapse plunged the country into roughly three years of famine that killed more than 2 million people.

B.R. Myers, head of the international studies department at Dongseo University in South Korea, says that even with the regime’s many tools of repression, it’s amazing that Kim was able to prevent a massive exodus of starving refugees.

Myers says when Kim took over the country in 1994, the economy was already in free fall, and the country had lost its main benefactor in the Soviet Union.

“When you think that we were all predicting North Korea‘s downfall within one or two years back then, when you think about how well he played that card during his rule, it really is extraordinary,” Myers says.

The late Hwang Jang Yop was Kim’s mentor and a top Workers’ Party official until he defected to South Korea in 1997. After that, he was a harsh critic of his former bosses. But he recalled that even at the height of the famine, Kim commanded intense loyalty from many North Koreans. Hwang recalled visiting a North Korean logistics officer during the crisis; the officer said they were “OK to die of hunger” out of loyalty to Kim.

Kim responded to the famine by launching some limited economic reforms, including the jangmadang, or private markets for food and daily necessities that the state-run economy could no longer adequately provide.

He also stepped up diplomatic engagement, leading to the first inter-Korean summit in 2000.

In a 2009 interview, shortly before his death, former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung recalls that Kim the dictator was abhorrent, but Kim the summit host was a far cry from the foreign media caricature of Kim as Dr. Evil in a leisure suit, platform shoes and bouffant hairdo.

Wendy Sherman, a special adviser to President Clinton on North Korea, accompanied then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Pyongyang in 2001, and met Kim along with Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson.

“We shared similar impressions of meeting him. He was smart and a quick problem-solver,” Sherman says. “He is also witty and humorous. Our overall impression was very different from the way he was known to the outside world.”

Sherman sat next to Kim at a stadium to watch a huge festival of synchronized dancing. She says she turned to Kim and told him she had the sense that in some other life, he was a “great director.”

“He clearly took such delight in putting these performances together,” she says. “And he says, yes, that he cared about this a great deal and that he owned every Academy Award movie, he had watched them all, and he also had every film of Michael Jordan’s NBA basketball games and had watched them as well.”

A Nuclear North Korea

North Korea announced it tested its first atomic bomb in 2006. Pyongyang then played the nuclear card in a game of brinksmanship. It promised to disarm, but then backtracked if it felt slighted or wanted more political and economic benefits in return.

President George W. Bush maligned Kim as a “moral pygmy” and placed North Korea squarely on his so-called “Axis of Evil” along with Iran and Iraq.

Pyongyang pointed to Washington’s rhetoric as evidence that the U.S. was poised to attack the North or seek regime change. Kim used the threat of U.S. hostility, meanwhile, to divert domestic attention from economic hardships.

Zhang Liangui, a North Korea expert at the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Party School in Beijing, says Kim’s reading of his regional opponents was spot on, and he was effective in exploiting the differences among them.

“North Korea is a small and weak country, yet Kim was able to manipulate so many big countries in its hand,” Zhang says. “Kim made the other countries in the six-party talks dance to his tune, and there was nothing the other parties could do about it.”

In other words, North Korea is a small country shaped by the big powers surrounding it: China, Russia, Japan and the U.S. But North Korea‘s geo-strategic position in Asia is such that a shrewd tactician, perhaps with a little nuclear clout, can turn the peninsula into a tail that wags quite a few dogs.

Category : In Memorial Of..., News, Suspect Line, Technology, The "I Told You So" Files, War, World News
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