Archives for July 2010

On the way to his corner deli around Williamsburg, Danny, 17, walks past a poster that’s advertising cigarettes at $11 a pack. He takes a quick glance at the poster, shrugs and continues to the counter where he asks the cashier for a pack of Newport cigarettes.

Like Danny, some teenage smokers are unfazed by the cigarette tax increase from $2.75 to $4.35 on July 1. Though New York City’s cigarettes now cost nearly $12 a pack, many teenage smokers continue to smoke.

There have been many attempts to lower teenage smoking rates. These attempts include restriction of smoking and making it illegal for people to sell cigarettes to anybody under the age of 18. But one of the best ways to lower teenage smoking is to increase the price of cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But in this instance, things don’t look that way.

When Tony, 16, a student at Thomas A. Edison High School, heard about the steep price increase of cigarettes, he wasn’t happy but he wasn’t too concerned either. Like all teens interviewed, Tony asked that his last name not be used so his parents wouldn’t find out about his habit.

“I feel that the city shouldn’t add any tax to addictive products, especially when their products are used to relieve people’s stress. Even if the economy is in trouble and the cigarette prices are outrageous, I need something to relieve my stress,” said Tony.

“Regardless of the price of cigarettes, it really doesn’t matter to me, I don’t really care, I have other sources to get cigarettes; my friends. They usually charge me nothing but occasionally they might charge me a little bit, but it will come nowhere close to $11 a pack.“

“I normally buy cigarettes from a store nearby our school. They’ll let you buy anything, even if you’re a minor,“ he said.

Many of the teenagers that smoke aren’t happy about the new prices but most of them like Danny, feel that they need to smoke.

“I needed something that can make me forget about everything. Something that will relieve me of all my stress. Smoking can be considered my refuge, “ said Danny, who felt stressed out and depressed and started smoking when his family members got killed after a fight and his parents got divorced.

“I normally smoke a pack a day. If I do smoke less because of this increase in price, it’ll most likely be one less cigarette a day. If anything, I can always work overtime for some extra change,“ said Danny, who works as a supervisor for a children’s day care.

Most teenage smokers have other ways of getting cigarettes besides buying them, such as stealing from their parents.

“Sometimes my father will get them overseas. When he is not looking, I will steal a pack,” Danny said.

Over the past few years that Hyo Man Lee has been working as a manager for a deli at Cortelyou Road, he has had teenagers coming in trying to buy cigarettes. He understands that it is illegal to sell minors cigarettes but there will always be stores that will break the rules and sell cigarettes to minors.

“To teenagers, what matters to them isn’t the price of a pack of cigarettes, it’s whether or not they are able to smoke in general,” said Lee. “The increase in cigarette price will only decrease the rate of adult smokers.”

“If I’m really overly stressed, I’ll continue buying cigarettes no matter what the price,” said Danny, “even if it increases to $20 a pack.”

Laugh and the world laughs with you. This quote holds much truth. Movies with canned laughter receive more laughter than movies without any canned laughter. Sociologists researched and conducted many experiments to solve this psychological phenomenon. They came up with the principle social proof.

Recently, in Mosul, Iraq, members of Al Qaeda had been taking control over blood banks and hospitals. The point of this action is to steal blood for their wounded fighters rather than risk having them arrested.
Iraqi health officials said that these raids have been occurring for a while in areas with large Sunni Arab populations.
At the medical facilities, there are normally Iraqi security force members that guard them but when the robberies came, they often stood there, doing nothing and letting the robberies continue.
The question that comes into play when they steal so much blood is whether or not the stolen blood will do any good for an injured person. If you do not match the blood perfectly, it will be fatal. But most doctors in Iraq believe that Al Qaeda has its own specialist who can perform blood transfusions.
My reaction to this event that is occurring in Iraq is that I feel that Al Qaeda is getting desperate. They are losing large amounts of their soldiers to the point where they can’t risk any more casualties.
They are stealing blood from blood banks and hospital to heal their injured so that they can safeguard their main forces. I believe that they are almost at their limit since they are trying so hard to heal up their forces and to prevent any more casualties.
Al Qaeda is getting desperate and they are using any means to help their remaining forces, even if that means stealing blood.

The eight year school Eagle Academy has grown to be one of the best schools in the Bronx , in which it takes in young men of color and turn them into college ready scholars. Under the leadership of principal Afrieye the school has had four successful graduating classes of an overall 83 percent rate and compared to other co-ed and single gender schools 83% is pretty high. Due to administration problems principal Afrieye was recently fired and as a principal many people did not like him but he recieved respect which kept a sense of control and now that he’s gone who will control the Eagle Academy students? There is no leadership now that he is gone and students were comfortable with him after being with him for three years. So bringing someone in for our senior year is bad because students will not respect the principal and they will rebel which will also affect their academic performance, which may destroy the whole purpose of the school.

Making a change is always a good feeling everyone likes to experience. Especially when it’s a good change. I’m an active participant in a Hispanic youth group known as Journada. Journada is Spanish for the journey. It’s a metaphor for the morally correct religious choices that an individual should make in their every day life situation.

 As black teens we are taught that our future is determined on the color of our skin. That may have been true when the people who told us this were born but now it is not all about the color anymore, it’s not that our Caucasian counterparts are superior because their skin is the color of snow and ours is the color of the beautiful night’s sky. It’s merely about our intelligence, morality, and our persistence.

You may ask what I mean by our morality. When I say our future is based on our morality I mean that our future is dependent on whether or not we know right from wrong. FromWikipedia.org, morality is defined as follows: “Morality (from the Latin moralitaser manner, character, and proper behavior) has four principal meanings. In its first descriptive usage: morality means a code of conduct held to be authoritative in matters of right and wrong, whether by society, or religion.” If we as in black people took the time to think about what we do, what we say or what’s right and wrong maybe then we would get out of this trap, saying that it’s because of the color of our skin that we cannot get from this hell whole we call poverty or this slave ship we call jail. Because of our lack in understanding right from wrong or our lack in morality we cannot see the bigger picture; our eyes are being over shadowed by the past that we just stopped our success in the future. We are sitting here being morally wrong, still finding someone to blame for our own misfortune that we are not doing anything to change the future. As teens we act on what we hear. When your teachers or parents say that, because of the color of our skin we can hardly get good jobs we tend to follow down the path of being morally incorrect, our parents may not know it, our teacher’s may not know, we may not even know it, but they are a part of us being in moral captivity, because they are still living in the past they make us to think in the past as well.

    Persistence has a lot of effect on us in the future. If we continually, or persistently think in the past, walk in the past, talk in the past, talk in a racial tongue, saying nothing’s going to really come my way because I am black, or we look through our eyes and all we see is black and white we are going to persistently fall flat on our faces and then that’s when we are going to get nowhere. Every year every teen must have heard it once or twice from a teacher telling them to “worry about yourself and not about other people” well it does not seem that they or your parents are taking it to their own heads. They tell us not to worry about other people or we would fall flat on our faces, why are they consistently worried about the Caucasian race, maybe that’s why we are going nowhere.

   Our intelligence is another major key in our future, because of the knowledge that I parents or teachers bring to us about being black we{teens} think that since we are not really going to get anywhere, what is the sense of staying in school. {That is why we have such a high dropout rate.} We are taught to stay in school, and then we are taught that because of our skin color we are going to be deprived of some of the luxuries of life, and that is when our lack of morality kicks in, we don’t know that having an education is right and depriving yourself of one is wrong, that we choose mind over matter, we let whatever is in our mind chose, instead of thinking about the future where we as a race Is going to be in 20yrs, which really matters.

When asking question about how this article made you feel, I was left with a lot of positive feedback from the African American community:

The journey of life is perhaps the most unexpected or unpredictable series of paths that life can provide. Sometimes the paths we select are wrong and they take us down a road of regrets, worst of all failure. Other times we succeed, but the success comes from the hope that we receive during our moment of failure. In that moment we learn that any person’s day or frown could be turned around. Instead of us feeling scared and threatened by our mistakes we realize that there is a bigger lesson to be learned.  The lesson to be learned is that darkness has no answers. Darkness makes it impossible for you to see which way is left, which way right, which way is up, which way is down, and most of all what is erroneous and what is precise. Your only answer is light. At times it is hard for us to see the light once we are deep within the darkness but you have to believe in yourself more then you did or will in order to see your true path in the journey of life.

From the moment you are born to the moment you die, life throws obstacles; occasionally these obstacles leave you in a stage of confusion and self doubt. However, obstacles can prepare you for the superior and the dreadful moments in life. Every now and then you have to keep in mind that courage is the most powerful tool towards the insecurities and the ignorance that an individual might face.  Maya Angelou once said, “One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.” In my personal moments of darkness this wonderful quote by this wonderful person has given me hope. It showed me that every person is capable of exceeding excellence.

Although in order to exceed excellence you must believe in the greatness that you have within yourself. The inspiring quotes like the one of Maya Angelou did give me hope, that hope helped me get through some though days. However in spite of all the hope, there are times in my life where I find it hard to believe in myself. The majority of time that I felt this way was because of people and pressure. The moments in which I didn’t believe in myself were mainly because of people who do not consider happiness as a form of living. These people only admire hate, jealousy, and pain. Hateful people only go after one thing and that is to make others feel less of themselves, these individuals want their victims to feel as if they are not worthy. These individuals criticize you on your flaws and on the things that make you different. However to all the people who feel unworthy, believe me when I tell you your flaws or whatever makes you different is nothing to be ashamed of. In matter of fact, you should be blissful about your flaws because they are a part of who you are and what makes you unique. Sometimes people see different and think it’s a bad thing, but it’s not, if anybody is willing to be your friend, or be your love interest, they are going to be with you for the things that make you unique.

If any person that you know is making you feel worthless or is saying things that make you feel insecure, I would advise that you ditch this person before they ditch you and leave you with the pain in your heart or that sudden feeling of emptiness in your soul.  This person could be a friend, a love interest, or sometimes even a family member, it hurts to leave behind the person that erases your empty days on a calendar but you have to consider that it’s your feelings that are on the line, it is your feelings that are being played with. Some people stick with what they have because they feel that there is no one else, other times people feel that it is easier to be with someone that’s ok rather than search for better because they’re afraid that if they don’t find it they’ll be left with nothing but themselves. This could be an opinion or a fact but it is said that the only thing harder than being in a relationship is being alone. 

Six Flags Great Adventure had probably never seen anything like what happened on July 10, 2010.
Thousands of West Indians, Trinidad and Tobago being the prominent country, invaded the amusement park and brought along some of the best talent the countries have to offer. Machel Montano, better known as the King of Soca, “mashed up the place,” as Trinidadians would say. He sang many of his old hits such as “Music Farm” and “Big Truck” without forgetting to sing some of his more recent songs such as “Bumper to Fender” and “Woii Gyal Woii.”
Soca is a genre of music indigenous to Trinidad and Toabgo. It is also referred to as the modern break off of Calypso music. Machel Montano is the most widely recognized soca artist in the world.
The concert opened with Montano’s latest Road March Contender from Trinidad and Tobago Carnival 2010, “No Behavior.” The crowd went absolutely wild to see Montano come on stage. It was exciting just to be in his presence. Some people, however, were a bit too excited. The concertgoers could not stand and simply watch Machel Montano perform. I am of Trinidadian decent so I completely understand the need to jump and wave when you see your favorite soca artist. I felt, however, that the behavior of some adults was just out of control. They were pushing and shoving. The unnecessary wildness may have been that they considered “dancing,” was becoming a bit unbearable. Therefore, like many other concertgoers, I took a few steps back and allowed them to behave wild by themselves.
I can still say that this was one of the best Machel Montano concerts that I have ever been too. He sang many songs that brought me back to being that bad behaved 3-year-old sitting in a stroller sucking on an orange creamsicle pop. That was a concert for a “True Machel Montano Fan.”
Other soca artists such as Lyrical, Patrice Roberts, Farmer Nappy, Shal Marshall, JW & Blaze performed as well. Lyrical is a local Brooklyn artist who performed songs such as “All Over De Gyal” and “Ramajay.” It seemed as if the crowd was disconnected to his music. I think it was because he was popular among Brooklyn partygoers and not everyone was familiar with his music. Patrice Roberts and Farmer Nappy are a part of Machel Montano’s band ‘Machel Montano and the HD Family.’ Farmer Nappy, had a particularly great year for Trinidad Carnival 2010, and he sang many of his popular songs such as “Pavement” and “I Pay For This.” I could feel the energy and exciting pouring from Farmer Nappy’s performance. Patrice Roberts sang many songs alongside Machel Montano. However, she was able to squeeze in some of her own songs such as “Roadshow” and “Wuk it.” Shal Marshall, Trinidad based radio and TV personality/artist , sang his major hit “Police.” Lastly, JW & Blaze sang the biggest soca song to hit Trinidad Carnival in a few years “Palance.” As expected, the crowd began running from side to side as instructed in the song. I expected them to steal the show, yet I do not feel that their performance topped Machel Montano’s well-executed show. It was, however, an exciting way to end a fabulous show full of great performances.

Its weird, when I say I am half Irish people just laugh at me. For some the fact that I could have Irish blood in me strikes them as odd. They will never believe me until they see my grandfather or look at my family heritage.

Its weird, when I say I am half Irish people just laugh at me. For some the fact that I could have Irish blood in me strikes them as odd. They will never believe me until they see my grandfather or look at my family heritage. I can’t believe that in this day of age where we have come so far and have made so many advancements in life, that we still see people in color. For example, once when I was in the first grade my teacher made us play this activity called tell us something we don’t know about you. I was really excited to tell everyone that I was half Irish, so I jolted towards the front of the classroom so that I could be the first one to tell everyone something they did not know about me. When I was up in front of the class I immediately said that I was half Irish. Once I uttered those words out my month, my teacher said you must be mistaken you can’t be half Irish your skin is dark not light.

After school that day I told my mom and that teacher got fired later that day. For a teacher say that to a child, is just ridiculous. I don’t get how anyone could look like a certain race. To this day, it bothers that people don’t believe I have Irish blood in me just because I am not what they view as an Irish person. In this day of age, stereotypes like that should not be tolerated. I don’t know how as humans we have made plethora amount of changes, but still act so dumb and blindly towards race and color. I can’t change the world, but I can at least say this. I am an Afro-Euro-American male, and I am proud of it.