Thuggin in Miami

Friday, August 29, 2008

I have always liked the idea of living in Miami, Florida. The main reason I am attracted to Miami, Florida is because it is like summer year round, from January to December. I do not like the cold at all; I can’t even stand forty degree weather. Miami and South Florida has a tropical climate, meaning that it is hot and humid most of the year. There are other places in the U.S. that have tropical climates like Hawaii, but it is too far off from the mainland for my taste. Another reason for me wanting to move to Miami is because it is also a large metropolitan area; larger than Orlando or Tampa, which are other hotspots I would consider. But Miami has its problems that make me wary of moving down there.

The first problem is that crime is high. South Florida as a whole is ranked high in the incidents of crime per capita for metropolitan areas, and very high for incidents of violent crimes like murder, rape, and armed robbery. All metros have good areas and bad areas, but Miami has a larger proportion of bad areas than most metros. Miami I say has to be forty-five percent bad neighborhoods, and fifty-five percent good neighborhoods. Around 28% of the people who live in Miami-Dade County live below the poverty line, many of these children. There are many poor people trying to make a dollar. Drug dealing is pretty rampant, lower level and higher level. This feeds into the many murders and shootings on the streets, where people are competing for drug turf. Burglaries and armed robberies are sky high because people are trying to pay rent, and there are many other social problems that I could not explain in 500 words. Moving on…

Second is that it is an expensive place in terms of housing. For a place to have such high crime it is still expensive. Usually when there is a bad neighborhood, people usually move out of the neighborhood and not many people move in. But Miami has a steady flow of immigrants who come in to these neighborhoods, many from nations with way more severe crime problems than Miami, like Jamaica or Haiti. So due to the demand for housing and the shortage of housing, in a bad area of Miami you will spot a not so good looking house that can go for $200,000+, or a sucky rental apartment that can cost up to $800/month or more. That is in the bad areas! I would like to own a house in a good area someday, but Miami is putting the pressure on me.

Third is that South Florida has high corruption. There is always a report in South Florida newspapers about government foul play, and those are just the incidences where people in government get caught. There has to be way more corruption than what is being uncovered. Most of the incidences are of many forms of money laundering, racketeering, fraud, and bribery. There are corrupt governments everywhere, but constantly foul play is getting uncovered. I would have no trust in the local government in Miami.

The question to ask myself now is if getting robbed by someone on the street and in your local government worth the sunshine? Is it worth paying a lot of money for rent or mortgage just to live in a tropical climate? Miami and South Florida is not unique in its problems, and I think it is a vibrant place full of diversity, entertainment & nightlife, and everything else a large metro has to offer. I just will have to move down there and see.

The significant difference in the P.O.V.'s of the two news sites

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

I would have to say there is a significant difference in these news sites. The main issue is that Donald Trump wants this golf resort built in an area where environmentalists and local residents of Aberdeen, Scotland do not want touched. The Guardian is more anti-Trump, because it is clearly against Donald Trump’s ambitious endeavor. They seem to be trying to make Trump look as bad as possible in the situation. They make him out as one of the many self-interested, greedy rich people who only care about their next dollar, and don’t care anything about how what they are doing is affecting the world in a bad way. The Guardian discusses anything that they think would make the reader loathe Trump’s plan. They take the statements that he has made about the landscape being magnificent, and show them in contradiction with his words about wanting to build over the magnificent landscape. The Guardian makes Donald out as being uncaring for the natural beauty of Ireland when he states that he knows more about the environment than the environmentalist. They tell how Trump is facing opposition everywhere on his real estate development endeavors, which would tell a reader that maybe Trump isn’t someone to trust when he comes throwing around ideas about development. They ultimately make Trump out to be a person that cares nothing about the environment of Scotland, or the natural beauty of the dunes; he is seen as unsympathetic and disrespectful to the Balmedie sand dunes.

ABC News is more on Trump’s side. First off, they don’t state the bad effect that Trump’s development would have on the environment, or the importance of preserving the natural beauty of the Balmedie sand dunes. All focus is put on “The Donald,” as an individual. Whereas The Guardian is thinking about the environment and preservation of Scotland, ABC News is thinking about the troubles of Trump. I guess The Donald’s biggest problem is that he cannot become richer. There is a difference in what the two news sites think of as worthy news. The environment and preservation is less important than reporting on a multibillionaire to ABC. I guess since ABC is American news, the main audience (Americans) would not care much about the effects of the Donald’s development on Scotland. American news tends to focus on America, and The Donald is an American, so he is more important. By reporting about Trump and not the bad apples Scotland could get handed, ABC gets more people to read it, gets more ratings on its website, gets more sponsors (which means more money), and their mission is accomplished.

To refer back to the youtube video, Donald Trump is coming off as greed driven. It seems that he is saying some bullshit that he doesn’t mean in order to get his way. I don’t think he cares about the environment; he just cares about his monetary prosperity. Greed is definitely good to him, I would have to say. But that’s my opinion.

News sites that I find objective, honest, and worth reading.

Monday, August 25, 2008

http://www.economist.com/

For a year I have been reading this magazine titled The Economist. It covers world news from every continent, and I feel that it is pretty fair in all its coverage and opinions on world issues. Its coverage of news is based mostly on facts and not opinions, and I think that is what makes any news source objective, honest, and worth reading. The articles can be really long because they like to give a lot of background information on a subject; but that is a good thing because it’s important to know how an event developed, because most events in the world do not just happen. The magazine allows one to form their own opinion on a news story instead of someone else’s.

http://www.africasia.com/newafrican/

This news magazine that I read is called New African. The reason I read it is because I believe it gives the best objective news and opinion about the continent of Africa, and Africa’s relevance to world affairs. Of the American media sources that I absorb, I think they tend to be indifferent in their coverage of Africa. The indifference mostly leads to news that I see as unworthy. So for the best news on Africa, that is what I suggest.

http://www.c-span.org/

The best thing about going to c-span for news is that they are in no competition for ratings. C-span is funded by the cable companies as a public service to viewers. That means they don’t have to report about Britney Spears’ latest child abuse antics in order to get people watching so they can get their ratings up. They don’t have to make these wild assumptions about how Lima Beans are the new anti-Christ for people to tune in, or report on some guy in Florida that got his toes bit off by an alligator. C-span is going to be on even if there are only 100 people watching. C-span has no “booty”, or news that shouldn’t be news. C-span is good old straight forward and boring, because the news that should be talked about is boring to most (except me). I think C-span is worth reading because it is a public enterprise.

The difference between mainstream American media outlets and mainstream International media outlets.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

One of the main differences I tend to see when reading American media outlets and International media outlets is in their opinions relevant to world affairs. American media outlets really reflect the biases of America, while International media outlets will give you another side. An example I will use is Fidel Castro.

Because of the mainstream American media outlets, growing up I saw Fidel Castro as this tyrant, literally. The American media made Castro out to be this ruthless dictator that took over Cuba, made every Cuban’s life a living hell, and then he tried to blow up the United States during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Since Castro’s Cuban Revolution brought about communism, that fueled the press attacks against Castro, because communism was already considered a dirty word in the United States by 1959. The American media did its best to make Fidel Castro out as a malicious man, and it worked. Anything bad that they could print about Castro, whether fact or not, they printed. American media outlets never printed any of the good that Castro did, and believe me when I say that the good COMPLETELY outweighs the bad. The main reason that the American media was so bias against Castro is because Castro messed with America’s money. There were a lot of American businesses in Cuba that Castro kicked out or took over when he and his partners brought about the Cuban Revolution. I learned through looking at history that if you mess with an American’s money you got hell to pay; there will be gunplay (e.g., the bay of pigs).

It was through International media that I saw the true Castro, thank god. The international media showed the good side of Castro, and he really didn’t have a bad side. Before the Cuban Revolution Cuba was a corrupt place. Cuba was pretty much run by a corrupt government set up by the United States. The United States kept dictators in office that helped them to exploit Cuba for its own good. There was also widespread racism of the Afro-Cubans, and the only Cubans that were living the good life were the ones who worked for U.S. companies, or the ones who worked for the corrupt government. Everyone else pretty much got raped politically and economically. Castro saw what was happening to his country and he decided to change that. Since the early 1950s Castro had been organizing rebel forces to take over the government of Cuba, and in 1959 he succeeded. Castro threw out all the employees of the corrupt government, and took over all private businesses and made them public. The Cuban people who fled to Miami in the early 1960s were the employees of the corrupt government and American businesses. The American media interviewed these Cubans so they could tell of the “tyranny” of Castro. But of course these Cubans would be on the American media’s side, because these thousands of Cubans lost out during the revolution. The American media did not care to ask the millions of other Cubans who were living under oppression what they felt about the Revolution that just freed them from political and economic distress.

Contrary to popular belief (thanks to the American media), half of the people in Cuba do not want to “escape” from Cuba and head to Miami. Many people of Cuba support the revolution for the good it has done. Before the revolution Afro-Cubans were treated much like African-Americans pre-1960s. Now Afro-Cubans have political and economic equality. Communism has made everyone in Cuba equal, in which people were unequal before with Cuba’s system of capitalism. Thanks to Fidel Castro all Cubans have free health care, a chance to get a free education, and food and shelter all supplied by the state. For the people that left Cuba during the Mariel Boatlift and after, it was not explicitly because of Castro. Most of them just didn’t like the system of Communism. After the revolution there was a lot of work to be done to get the government running smoothly, and Castro went straight to work. Castro was not sitting up in some air-conditioned office smoking a Cuban cigar and having sex with his secretaries after he took over the government. He was out in the streets talking to the people about their needs and wants, figuring out ways that he can make Cuba better off. All the United States was doing was figuring out ways to kill Castro without leaving any evidence. Castro has always been about people fighting against their oppressors and making society better. What many people do not know is that Castro in 1975 sent Cuban soldiers over to Angola to fight to keep out apartheid South Africa and others from coming in and spreading its corrupt policies in this newly freed colony. Thanks to the efforts of Cuba, apartheid South Africa did not take control of Angola. Not only did Cuba provide soldiers, but they also provided construction workers to build schools, houses, bridges, and other buildings. Cuba brought in teachers and doctors to assist Angolans, a lot of it free services. Yes, Fidel is a true tyrant.

It is best for people to absorb both international and domestic media outlets because American media can be extremely bias and can give Americans a totally wrong perspective on an issue. I know they did it to me.

Should China Be Hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics?

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

You ask me if China should be hosting the 2008 Olympics based on China’s issues with human rights, pollution, and bad press. To keep it real, I don’t think this is a good question to ask; to want me to give you a yes or no answer. I don’t think that the China issue has to do with all this hoopla in the news about whether China is morally or environmentally fit to host the Olympics. I believe that the powerful nations of today (which are nations that are majority white) are just jealous of this new non-white superpower that is emerging. It seems to me that the numerously powerful, white majority nations of today are finding reasons to bad mouth China to take away from their accomplishments. China is a growing nation, and just like growing nations they have their problems.

As I recall the United States hosted the Olympic Games in 1904 in St.Louis, and the nation had its own issues of human rights, pollution, and restrictions on the media. While our great nation was hosting the Olympics, my great-great grandparents, Nathaniel and Alvenia Tillman, were living in utter poverty and facing racial hatred as African Americans in the Deep South. Human rights issues were rampant then in the United States. Just as the 1904 games were going on, black people around the nation were being lynched, jim crowed, mentally abused, and being exploited by this system called sharecropping, which is a system that the last three generations of my family have been a part of. Also, we can mention the imperialistic acts that the nations of Europe and the United States were involved in during that time. To mention a few we have the United States occupation of Cuba and the Phillipines. England was causing many problems in India, and all of Europe was raping Africa of its resources. But the majority of the host cities of the olympics were in these powerful nations.

China has just started seeing significant economic growth, particularly in manufacturing. Though economic growth is good we know that there are side effects: pollution. How do we know? Because during the Industrial Revolution pollution was a problem as well to the nations of Europe, The United States and Canada, and Japan. It didn’t take these nations a few years to fix their pollution problems, and these nations still today have pollution problems. Some people criticize China like they have been involved in massive industrialization for hundreds of years. Critics should give China time to fix the problem. It’s like getting mad at a person for double dribbling, and they just learned the game of basketball. That is not constructive criticism, that is player hating; and that is what these powerful nations are doing.

As for China’s restrictions on its media/press, I don’t know too much about that to talk about it. I do know that the powerful nations have had restrictions on its media/press. The United States has not always kept its promise of the first amendment, and I could guess that it wasn’t wise for a person to speak negatively about the imperialistic ways of European nations during the latter half the 19^th century and the early half of the 20^th century, especially in Nazi Germany.

To answer your question whether China should host the Olympics, I say yes. The reason why is because I think they deserve it for their accomplishments. The economy is growing 8-10% a year compared to other developed nation’s 2-4%. That is great, and for the Olympics committee to consider having their games hosted in your country is an honor. It reflects on how well China has done. They deserve it. Other nations do not have the moral high ground to criticize China, because those same criticizing governments had or still have the same problems as China. As stated before it looks like an attack upon an emerging non-white nation to me; but that’s my opinion.