Big Brother is Watching FOR REAL!

1984, by George Orwell is arguably one of the best pieces of literature in modern times. Chock full of prophesies into today and our near future, it provided us with language used in popular culture (i.e. Big Brother, doublethink). If you haven't read it... cop it!

"It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same—everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same—people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world." —pg 181, 1984

So check it...

Geekologie.com: CRACK DEAL CAUGHT ON GOOGLE MAPS, March 25, 2008

Allegedly this is a picture of a crack deal caught using the "Street View" feature on Google Maps. It's in Chicago. Now why everyone is jumping to the conclusion that this is some kind of drug deal is beyond me. I'm sure there's a logical explanation for the picture that doesn't involve illicit substances, and I think this is it: Somebody was lost, and pulled over for directions. The guy in the picture there knows the area really well, so he provided significant help. The driver was so happy about this that they tipped the man graciously with a handful of cash. See? Perfect sense. It's just a good Samaritan being handsomely rewarded. For selling the best rocks in Chicago.

See the real close-up picture of the deal after the jump.

"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." —pg 61, 1984 (referring the Proles)

poor people there is something for you

Damian Marley - One Loaf Of Bread (Something For You)

Video was shot and directed by Jason Goldwatch on location in Haiti and South Africa.

"Christ feed the multitude with only one loaf of bread
poor people there is something for you
don't let the pressures of the system get up on your head
poor people there is something for you
mankind care not for his sisters anymore
still there is something for you
written in the book of life
we shall live forever more
there will be something for..."

thank you Damian!

Cuz we're all rebelling against something...

Brother at Yume party clearly didn't want to sweat his hair out.

Rebel against the humidity!

Um...yeah.

*shakes head*

(photo courtesy of Lichiban Blossom)

Um....

"No comment."

*shakes head*

You Live on a Million Dollar Block?

Do you live on one of Brooklyn's Million Dollar Blocks?

And we don't mean a block where the majority of real estate is pricey or the residents' net worth is at an average of a mill. We are talking about a block where where so many residents are in prison that it costs at least $1 million to incarcerate them.


In Brooklyn in 2003, there were 35 blocks that fit this category. In at least one case, the price tag surpassed $5 million. These blocks are, unsurprisingly, concentrated in the poorest sections of the borough, including East New York, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Brownsville.

In 1998, Brooklynite Eric Cadora was working at a nonprofit agency in Manhattan called the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES). He studied the plethora of ways mapping was used, including by the New York City Police Department to identify crime hot spots, and taught himself mapping software.
Cadora says, "People weren't coming at [mapping] from a policy reform perspective. Most of the [of the mapping] was about getting tough." Cadora - being the ultimate Brooklynite that he is - decided to create a new set of maps, which he hoped "would help people envision solutions."

He then began his first mapping project with the criminal-[in]justice data from a state agency on - what else?! - Brooklyn. With the help of colleague Charles Swartz, the two made a series of maps illustrating where inmates come from and how much money is spent to imprison them.

One element makes these maps "conservative." That is, they feature only prison costs—not jail costs. Prisons hold people who have been convicted of a crime; jails, like those on Rikers Island, are for people who have been accused of a crime and are not yet convicted, or for people who have received sentences of one year or less. There would be many more "million-dollar blocks" if jail expenses were factored in or if other criminal-justice costs—like those for probation and parole—were also added.

Word spread. Holla! Today, Cadora's maps are well-known in criminal-justice circles. By now, he and Swartz have made maps for agencies in states throughout the country.

This map, created by Eric Cadora and Charles Swartz, illustrates the estimated cost per block for people who entered the state prison system in 2003. To make the map, Cadora and Swartz obtained home addresses and prison sentences—like three to six years—for everyone who was sent to prison in 2003. Then they took each person's minimum sentence (in the above example, that would be three years) and multiplied that number by $30,000 in order to figure out what the total expense will be for his or her incarceration.

The darkest red areas on this map are "million-dollar blocks." In 2003, there were 35 million-dollar blocks in Brooklyn, out of a total of 9,589 blocks.

What would be possible if the $35 million plus that upstate economies received from the incarceration of our residents in 2003 was used within our communities?...

This is worthy of a REBELLION!

Visit the following sites for more info:

1. Columbia University's Spatial Information Design Lab
http://www.spatialinformationdesignlab.org/projects.php?id=16

2. The Real Cost of Prisons

http://realcostofprisons.org/

3. Jennifer Gonnerman's article in the Village Voice, 11/9/04

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0446,gonnerman,58490,1.html

Tell 'em where you're from...

(click image to view full strip.)

Some say Brooklyn is it's own planet. Coming from the West coast we (Sallome and Ashley) notice that Brooklyn has a lot of PRIDE! Truth be told when asked what Borough you REP, we are with Caesar, Throw ya hands up and Shout: BROOKLYN!!

So to all you Brooklynites, leave us a comment and tell us why Brooklyn is the sh*t.