Archive for the ‘Social Upheaval’ Category

Unfortunately For Haiti, The Doctor Is In…

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

duvalier

Only one short year ago Haiti was rocked by a natural disaster hardly seen in this hemisphere. The 2010 earthquake left a country already on the brink of economic ruin in absolute tatters. The news that Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier has returned to the country from an imposed exile could be the tipping point for utter social anarchy.

Political and economic forces from outside the country continue to play the Haitian people like so much as marionettes on a string. Duvalier’s return is like the illegimate child who comes the funeral wake to see what money has been left for him. Duvalier is not in Haiti for the Haitian people and the people’s memories aren’t keen enough to know this.

It’s A Free Country…

Friday, January 14th, 2011

ghana

Check out my new column at the WNYC blogsite…

Dallas Penn Can Save America

CHEA!

Your Medical History Is His Story…

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

medical records

This is that bullshit.

Arizona Hospital Workers Fired For Accessing Patient Records

Hospital workers are selling people’s medical records? It turns out these fuckwads don’t even work FOR the hospital, but for a private company that the hospital has a contract with. Goddamn contractors.

Capitalism means that everyone is a fuckin’ mercenary in the new American economy.

THE REAL LIFE CRAZY EYES KILLA…

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

jared lee

Dude is definitely crazy, but that begs the question why no one wanted to act on this fact until the murder spree?

When a Black kid gets the crazy tag in kindergarten he is then put into the special ed classes that stymie his development until he drops out of school. After that he gets sent to prison for the rest of his teenage years for selling marijuana and then returns to prison early in his adulthood for felony larceny or other drug convictions.

The Black kid doesn’t have the support network that would allow him to shoot a Congresswoman from point blank range like Jared Lee Loughner had. The Black kid is institutionalized way sooner than this kid and the chances are the Black kid is way saner. At every turn of Jared Lee Loughner’s development when it was obvious that the dude needed help people just passed him off to his parents.

The argument shouldn’t be about which talking head incited this unstable kid to commit mass murder. The discussion needs to be about who saw that crazy look in this boy’s eyes and then looked away in the hopes that someone else would deal with the problem.

Rebel Rap Rock Music…

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

game rebellion

Rock and roll has been awaiting the coming of Game Rebellion for a long time: An all Black, all outta Brooklyn band whose metal, punk and rudeboy skanking licks sound as credible and crunchy as their Hip-Hop lyrics and head-bobbing bounce. Game makes the difficult sound effortless and the miraculous seem second nature: A hard rock band with a B-boy MC who can actually spit? No problem. A street worthy mixtape of hiphop anthems created by a band that actually rocks and flows? No problem.

Game Rebellion has been making big waves on the New York Afro-punk/Black Rock scene for about three years. In that short time they’ve ventured out even further out to slam heads rock houses and muddy the lilywhite waters of alt-rock from NYC and Cali to Puerto Rico and the UK. They just may be the best-kept secret in music right now (their vaunted endorsement sealed with a kiss from Sade notwithstanding).

A band of rowdy brothers with higher education pedigrees — Yohimbe and Netic have college paper, Chief Med is a qualified acupuncturist. They’ve got skills on the mic with book learned brains and aren’t afraid if today’s dumb and dumbered-down Hip-Hop knows it. The rebels are no strangers to the classroom, the rehearsal studio, the protest line or as one might suspect, the police.

So when are you gonna give their brand of gangsta-militancy a listen?

GAME REBELLION EPK from Royal Ras on Vimeo.