For those of you who don't know Lawrence Krishna Parker aka KRS-One, he is an old school rapper that some would refer to as a true MC and a pioneer for the hip hop culture. He grew up in New York but more specifically the Millbrook housing projects in the South Bronx. At the age of 13 he ran away from home and lived in homeless shelters. During this time he began to read books on religion and philosophy by day and would practice rapping at night. Despite his tough situation, he still managed to get his GED at age 17.
At one of the homeless shelters he stayed at he met Scott Sterling AKA DJ Scott La Rock and created Boogie Down Productions which launched his hip-hop career. Scott Sterling was killed in an attempt to break up a fight shortly after the company's debut LP release "Criminal Minded".
KRS-One still kept Boogie Down Productions after Scott's death, but the violence in the hip-hop community continued. In response to the murder of a fan during a Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions concert, KRS formed the Stop the Violence Movement which in 2008 re-released the song titled "Self-Construction" which included some famous artists like David Banner, The Game, Nelly, Ne-Yo, Talib Kweli, Method Man, Styles P, Busta Rhymes, Fat Joe, Cassidy, MC Lyte and 50 Cent.
He is currently working on a book called "The Power Of Future" and you could hear some of his songs on his Myspace page.
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
apple juice-how about some apple cake lodged in your throat???? (all the time)
I baked an apple coffee cake yesterday. It was a huge success! It was gone by the night and I had to make another today. If you are into baking, you should have most of the ingredients already. Also, if the butter is at room temperature, you really don't need to have a mixer. I would definitely recommend this. I got the recipe online, but made some changes according to what I did with the second one.
I made this on a spring form pan, but you can just make this on a regular rectangular baking pan.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
5/6 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
8 1/4 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 eggs beaten
3/4 cup whole milk
2 baking apples peeled and sliced
1/3 cup grounded walnuts
Steps
1. preheat oven to 375 degrees F
2. mix 1/3 cup sugar with 1 teaspoon cinnamon, set aside
3. sift flour, baking powder and salt
4. In a separate bowl, mix butter, 1/3 cup sugar and eggs into a batter
5. Mix in milk and flour mixture, alternating between the both
6. Spread half the batter into baking dish. Lay the apple slices on the batter. Sprinkle half the cinnamon/sugar mixture on top of the apples.
7. Pour the rest of the batter on top.
8. Sprinkle the remaining cinnamon sugar on top.
9. Sprinkle the walnuts.
10. Bake the cake for 30 minutes.
maybe I'll make some for our potluck in April!
Friday, March 13, 2009
Tim Burton Strikes Again! New Movie Masterpiece Or Epic Flop?
♠ ♣ ♥ ♦
"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?" - Alice from Alice in Wonderland (1951 film)
As a child, one of my all time favorite movies was Alice In Wonderland. Oh the joy of watching people eating magic mushrooms that make you grow, catterpillar's that smoke colored tabacco that can spell out letters, and of course the infamous Cheshire Cat that almost leaves Alice without a head.
So what do those things have to do with Tim Burton? Well, the fabulous director (that butchered Willy Wonka, but made up for it in Sweeney Todd) is now in post production for his newest film, yup, you guessed it, Alice In Wonderland.
I am of course excited and skeptical all at the same time, but still a little more excited than anything. Some of the cast includes Mia Wasikowska as Alice and Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter. So far so good, I say we have a mad mushroom party to celebrate when it comes out, just a thought.
Anyways, I hope you guys are as nervous/excited as I am. The release date is March 5th, 2010. I will be waiting Tim Burton, and you better deliver or it's off with your head, you sinister old fuck.
"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?" - Alice from Alice in Wonderland (1951 film)
As a child, one of my all time favorite movies was Alice In Wonderland. Oh the joy of watching people eating magic mushrooms that make you grow, catterpillar's that smoke colored tabacco that can spell out letters, and of course the infamous Cheshire Cat that almost leaves Alice without a head.
So what do those things have to do with Tim Burton? Well, the fabulous director (that butchered Willy Wonka, but made up for it in Sweeney Todd) is now in post production for his newest film, yup, you guessed it, Alice In Wonderland.
I am of course excited and skeptical all at the same time, but still a little more excited than anything. Some of the cast includes Mia Wasikowska as Alice and Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter. So far so good, I say we have a mad mushroom party to celebrate when it comes out, just a thought.
Anyways, I hope you guys are as nervous/excited as I am. The release date is March 5th, 2010. I will be waiting Tim Burton, and you better deliver or it's off with your head, you sinister old fuck.
I think this is how reading too much news makes you think you know shit about something you really know nothing about...
The National Review is a publication that I reflexively dismiss because most of what it publishes is agenda-driven rationalization of right wing policy. But I read it because I think its very important to take seriously and understand viewpoints that I reject, so that I have good reasons for rejecting them.
Mark-to-market accounting practices are a great example of a policy towards which I have been mostly a committed partisan. In a nutshell, these are accounting practices that require businesses to value their assets at prices determined by the market, rather than pegging them at some arbitrary "real value," which could be used to make balance sheets appear more healthy than they actually are. A big cause of the solvency crisis in finance right now was supposedly over-leveraging of assets to absurdly risky proportions. Suspending mark-to-market accounting practices would allow businesses to spruce up their balance sheets, but at the expense of having those balance sheets mean anything.
But, here comes a National Review article with a surprisingly substantive argument. When articles are credited "to the editors" this is rare.
"The problem is this: Under mark-to-market rules, a bank must readjust the value of the assets it is holding to reflect current market prices. For some kinds of assets — especially mortgage-backed securities and other real-estate products — those market prices have declined well past the point at which the banks would agree to sell them. We are reflexively skeptical of any argument that there is a “real price” that is different from the market price, but in this case the distinction is plausible."
This argument acknowledges the weakness of the notion of a "real price" to which assets can be pegged. But it disputes that the market should determine the value of assets because the market is acting in a misleading way. But this claim hinges on a further justification.
"These assets generate income, and that income makes them worth more to the banks than buyers on the market would currently be willing to pay. Under the current rules, that doesn’t matter, and the assets’ value has to be adjusted to account for what the rules describe as a “hypothetical transaction at the measurement date.”"
That is, that there is a tangible value to the asset in that they "generate income" that is greater than the market price. This seems to be a pretty flimsy assertion. How many of the assets that are likely to be re-valued under a suspension of mark to market would meet this condition- that they generate more income than the price at which the market values them? And how can this price be determined without allowing banks deceptive leeway in doctoring their balance sheets?
BUT moreover, there is a second, justification for suspending mark to market: that these accounting practices are bad for business in the midst of a recession. The NR again:
"...banks have to treat losses on paper as though they were real economic losses, accepting fire-sale valuations of securities that they may not intend to sell. The second is that, because mark-to-market rules are used in assessing banks’ capital requirements, those paper losses can quickly become real losses when banks are forced to sell assets, often at an enormous loss, to raise enough capital to keep the regulators satisfied. Those pressured sales, in addition to locking in losses, tend to drive down the prices of similar assets, creating a vicious cycle of wealth destruction. The market becomes a snake swallowing its own tail."
So, interesting questions are raised. Like, if suspending mark to market would really help a bank lurch towards solvency, wouldn't this be an alternative to endless bailouts in helping revive the financial sector? I have nowhere near enough knowledge to know whether or not this might be true, but I think the questions that must be raised against the National Review article are pretty crucial. Like, yes, less regulation does foster a more hospitable business climate. We could decrease capital requirements for banks too. But these sorts of practices are the sorts of things that got us here. Mark to market may just be another practice that needs to stay to damper down the propensity of a "profit at all costs" structure to gleefully escalate its risk to terrifying proportions.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzY1ZmQwNWJkN2Q0NzEzOTdiNjdlZjE5NzU1MjI1Y2U=
Mark-to-market accounting practices are a great example of a policy towards which I have been mostly a committed partisan. In a nutshell, these are accounting practices that require businesses to value their assets at prices determined by the market, rather than pegging them at some arbitrary "real value," which could be used to make balance sheets appear more healthy than they actually are. A big cause of the solvency crisis in finance right now was supposedly over-leveraging of assets to absurdly risky proportions. Suspending mark-to-market accounting practices would allow businesses to spruce up their balance sheets, but at the expense of having those balance sheets mean anything.
But, here comes a National Review article with a surprisingly substantive argument. When articles are credited "to the editors" this is rare.
"The problem is this: Under mark-to-market rules, a bank must readjust the value of the assets it is holding to reflect current market prices. For some kinds of assets — especially mortgage-backed securities and other real-estate products — those market prices have declined well past the point at which the banks would agree to sell them. We are reflexively skeptical of any argument that there is a “real price” that is different from the market price, but in this case the distinction is plausible."
This argument acknowledges the weakness of the notion of a "real price" to which assets can be pegged. But it disputes that the market should determine the value of assets because the market is acting in a misleading way. But this claim hinges on a further justification.
"These assets generate income, and that income makes them worth more to the banks than buyers on the market would currently be willing to pay. Under the current rules, that doesn’t matter, and the assets’ value has to be adjusted to account for what the rules describe as a “hypothetical transaction at the measurement date.”"
That is, that there is a tangible value to the asset in that they "generate income" that is greater than the market price. This seems to be a pretty flimsy assertion. How many of the assets that are likely to be re-valued under a suspension of mark to market would meet this condition- that they generate more income than the price at which the market values them? And how can this price be determined without allowing banks deceptive leeway in doctoring their balance sheets?
BUT moreover, there is a second, justification for suspending mark to market: that these accounting practices are bad for business in the midst of a recession. The NR again:
"...banks have to treat losses on paper as though they were real economic losses, accepting fire-sale valuations of securities that they may not intend to sell. The second is that, because mark-to-market rules are used in assessing banks’ capital requirements, those paper losses can quickly become real losses when banks are forced to sell assets, often at an enormous loss, to raise enough capital to keep the regulators satisfied. Those pressured sales, in addition to locking in losses, tend to drive down the prices of similar assets, creating a vicious cycle of wealth destruction. The market becomes a snake swallowing its own tail."
So, interesting questions are raised. Like, if suspending mark to market would really help a bank lurch towards solvency, wouldn't this be an alternative to endless bailouts in helping revive the financial sector? I have nowhere near enough knowledge to know whether or not this might be true, but I think the questions that must be raised against the National Review article are pretty crucial. Like, yes, less regulation does foster a more hospitable business climate. We could decrease capital requirements for banks too. But these sorts of practices are the sorts of things that got us here. Mark to market may just be another practice that needs to stay to damper down the propensity of a "profit at all costs" structure to gleefully escalate its risk to terrifying proportions.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzY1ZmQwNWJkN2Q0NzEzOTdiNjdlZjE5NzU1MjI1Y2U=
Monday, March 9, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Teacher Insights...
I wonder....
From time to time I sit in my classroom while the kids are running around and shouting and generally acting like first graders and I wonder...
How much jail time would I get for just throwing one out of a window?
I mean, I'm on the first floor of the building so there wouldn't be that much damage. Also, I feel like their heads are still a bit soft, so they'd bounce instead of cracking. Sure, I would never be able to teach in the United States again but that's what countries like Russia are for. And then I would be able to get me one of those hot Siberian biddies. You know, the ones from the mail order catalogs. Her name would be Natasha and we would have children with Vodka for blood. We'd grow old together and harvest ice while it is still around and then sell it at a 5000% profit to zoos and museums in the future. Eventually, she would introduce me to her father that is actually the head of the Russian mob for that area of the country. He would take an instant liking to me because he loves whiskey and I can get it to him straight from the USA. The good stuff too, no use being stingy with the Russian mob. I would climb within the organization by completing transactions involving sketchy customs agents and price gouging in the polar bear trade. However, I will be seen as a threat because I am not Russian and not allowed to move any farther up the ladder. Eventually, I will be assassinated because I will cheat on my lovely Natasha in a drunken lustful haze with a comely bath house attendant. No one will come to my funeral, because I left the USA without a word to anyone and all of my contacts in Russia now despise me. So it goes.
Moral of the story: I don't like teaching first grade.
From time to time I sit in my classroom while the kids are running around and shouting and generally acting like first graders and I wonder...
How much jail time would I get for just throwing one out of a window?
I mean, I'm on the first floor of the building so there wouldn't be that much damage. Also, I feel like their heads are still a bit soft, so they'd bounce instead of cracking. Sure, I would never be able to teach in the United States again but that's what countries like Russia are for. And then I would be able to get me one of those hot Siberian biddies. You know, the ones from the mail order catalogs. Her name would be Natasha and we would have children with Vodka for blood. We'd grow old together and harvest ice while it is still around and then sell it at a 5000% profit to zoos and museums in the future. Eventually, she would introduce me to her father that is actually the head of the Russian mob for that area of the country. He would take an instant liking to me because he loves whiskey and I can get it to him straight from the USA. The good stuff too, no use being stingy with the Russian mob. I would climb within the organization by completing transactions involving sketchy customs agents and price gouging in the polar bear trade. However, I will be seen as a threat because I am not Russian and not allowed to move any farther up the ladder. Eventually, I will be assassinated because I will cheat on my lovely Natasha in a drunken lustful haze with a comely bath house attendant. No one will come to my funeral, because I left the USA without a word to anyone and all of my contacts in Russia now despise me. So it goes.
Moral of the story: I don't like teaching first grade.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
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