THE HOOD SCHOLAR

2010-09-30T22:17:00.001-04:00

2010-09-30T22:06:00.000-04:00

2010-09-05T11:24:00.000-04:00

2010-09-05T10:57:00.001-04:00

2010-09-05T09:41:00.001-04:00

2010-09-04T21:28:00.001-04:00

2010-09-04T21:22:00.000-04:00

2010-08-24T02:25:00.001-04:00

2010-08-24T02:18:00.000-04:00

2010-08-24T01:55:00.000-04:00

2010-08-24T01:49:00.001-04:00

2010-08-24T01:41:00.000-04:00

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2010-05-07T13:23:00.000-04:00

Thought Control ...

2009-02-12T22:33:00.005-05:00

"Learning to see the structures within which we operate begins a process of freeing ourselves from previously unseen forces and ultimately mastering the ability to work with them and change them". -Peter Senge "The Fifth Discipline"

What do you want your future incorporate? Wealth, fame, fortune, poverty, destitution, squalor. Well, the way you think determines where you will be in the future hands down. Thought, whether it be conscious or subconscious, is the essential building block of all human action and activity. Genocide and reproduction, poverty and wealth, violence and peace - all start as thoughts in one's mind before they become realty. The use of one's thought can steer people into any future they see fit; however, people tend to ignore their thoughts. This allows entities external from one's self to steer one's mind, haphazardly. For instance, the use of propaganda in Germany during WWII provided the masses with just enough thought stimuli to place the in an acquiescent state of complacence; or more currently, the flow of commercials that program phone numbers in one's mind. "Can anyone tell me what number this is? 877-393-4448". One's thought can be controlled and directed just as a glass of soda can be replaced with water - using the flow of a different substance or a different flow of information.

Attainment of the control of one's own thoughts is not hard. Gaining control of one's thoughts requires a slight increase in one's use of self-discipline. Step one, figure out which thoughts to implant in one's own mind. Step two, eliminate all sources of negative thoughts (television, movies, et cetera). Step three, replace those influences with other sources of information that are conducive to your end result. This is something that should not be taken for granted, and should be incorporated into a plan of action towards a desired end result.

Your end game determines the thoughts you must implant. Your thoughts create your future; therefore, the future you want to create must create your thoughts from now on. You must refer to successful individuals that are doing something that may interest you ...

WHAT YOUR TWELVE YEARS OF HIGH SCHOOL REALLY WORTH ...

2009-02-05T15:54:00.002-05:00

Call me Mr. Gatto, please. Twenty-six years ago, having nothing better to do, I tried my hand at schoolteaching. My license certifies me as an instructor of English language and literature, but that isn't what I do at all. What I teach is school, and I win awards doing it.

Teaching means many different things, but six lessons are common to schoolteaching from Harlem to Hollywood. You pay for these lessons in more ways than you can imagine, so you might as well know what they are:

The first lesson I teach is: "Stay in the class where you belong." I don't know who decides that my kids belong there but that's not my business. The children are numbered so that if any get away they can be returned to the right class. Over the years the variety of ways children are numbered has increased dramatically, until it is hard to see the human being under the burden of the numbers each carries. Numbering children is a big and very profitable business, though what the business is designed to accomplish is elusive.

In any case, again, that's not my business. My job is to make the kids like it -- being locked in together, I mean -- or at the minimum, endure it. If things go well, the kids can't imagine themselves anywhere else; they envy and fear the better classes and have contempt for the dumber classes. So the class mostly keeps itself in good marching order. That's the real lesson of any rigged competition like school. You come to know your place.

Nevertheless, in spite of the overall blueprint, I make an effort to urge children to higher levels of test success, promising eventual transfer from the lower-level class as a reward. I insinuate that the day will come when an employer will hire them on the basis of test scores, even though my own experience is that employers are (rightly) indifferent to such things. I never lie outright, but I've come to see that truth and [school]teaching are incompatible.

The lesson of numbered classes is that there is no way out of your class except by magic. Until that happens you must stay where you are put.

The second lesson I teach kids is to turn on and off like a light switch. I demand that they become totally involved in my lessons, jumping up and down in their seats with anticipation, competing vigorously with each other for my favor. But when the bell rings I insist that they drop the work at once and proceed quickly to the next work station. Nothing important is ever finished in my class, nor in any other class I know of.

The lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything? Bells are the secret logic of schooltime; their argument is inexorable; bells destroy past and future, converting every interval into a sameness, as an abstract map makes every living mountain and river the same even though they are not. Bells inoculate each undertaking with indifference.

The third lesson I teach you is to surrender your will to a predestined chain of command. Rights may be granted or withheld, by authority, without appeal. As a schoolteacher I intervene in many personal decisions, issuing a Pass for those I deem legitimate, or initiating a disciplinary confrontation for behavior that threatens my control. My judgments come thick and fast, because individuality is trying constantly to assert itself in my classroom. Individuality is a curse to all systems of classification, a contradiction of class theory.

Here are some common ways it shows up: children sneak away for a private moment in the toilet on the pretext of moving their bowels; they trick me out of a private instant in the hallway on the grounds that they need water. Sometimes free will appears right in front of me in children angry, depressed or exhilarated by things outside my ken. Rights in such things cannot exist for schoolteachers; only privileges, which can be withdrawn, exist.

The fourth lesson I teach is that only I determine what curriculum you will study. (Rather, I enforce decisions transmitted by the people who pay me). This power lets me separate good kids from bad kids instantly. Good kids do the tasks I appoint with a minimum of conflict and a decent show of enthusiasm. Of the millions of things of value to learn, I decide what few we have time for. The choices are mine. Curiosity has no important place in my work, only conformity.

Bad kids fight against this, of course, trying openly or covertly to make decisions for themselves about what they will learn. How can we allow that and survive as schoolteachers? Fortunately there are procedures to break the will of those who resist.

This is another way I teach the lesson of dependency. Good people wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. This is the most important lesson of all, that we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives. It is no exaggeration to say that our entire economy depends upon this lesson being learned. Think of what would fall apart if kids weren't trained in the dependency lesson: The social-service businesses could hardly survive, including the fast-growing counseling industry; commercial entertainment of all sorts, along with television, would wither if people remembered how to make their own fun; the food services, restaurants and prepared-food warehouses would shrink if people returned to making their own meals rather than depending on strangers to cook for them. Much of modern law, medicine, and engineering would go too -- the clothing business as well -- unless a guaranteed supply of helpless people poured out of our schools each year. We've built a way of life that depends on people doing what they are told because they don't know any other way. For God's sake, let's not rock that boat!

In lesson five I teach that your self-respect should depend on an observer's measure of your worth. My kids are constantly evaluated and judged. A monthly report, impressive in its precision, is sent into students' homes to spread approval or to mark exactly -- down to a single percentage point -- how dissatisfied with their children parents should be. Although some people might be surprised how little time or reflection goes into making up these records, the cumulative weight of the objective- seeming documents establishes a profile of defect which compels a child to arrive at a certain decisions about himself and his future based on the casual judgment of strangers.

Self-evaluation -- the staple of every major philosophical system that ever appeared on the planet -- is never a factor in these things. The lesson of report cards, grades, and tests is that children should not trust themselves or their parents, but must rely on the evaluation of certified officials. People need to be told what they are worth.

In lesson six I teach children that they are being watched. I keep each student under constant surveillance and so do my colleagues. There are no private spaces for children; there is no private time. Class change lasts 300 seconds to keep promiscuous fraternization at low levels. Students are encouraged to tattle on each other, even to tattle on their parents. Of course I encourage parents to file their own child's waywardness, too.

I assign "homework" so that this surveillance extends into the household, where students might otherwise use the time to learn something unauthorized, perhaps from a father or mother, or by apprenticing to some wiser person in the neighborhood.

The lesson of constant surveillance is that no one can be trusted, that privacy is not legitimate. Surveillance is an ancient urgency among certain influential thinkers; it was a central prescription set down by Calvin in the Institutes, by Plato in the Republic, by Hobbes, by Comte, by Francis Bacon. All these childless men discovered the same thing: Children must be closely watched if you want to keep a society under central control.

It is the great triumph of schooling that among even the best of my fellow teachers, and among even the best parents, there is only a small number who can imagine a different way to do things. Yet only a very few lifetimes ago things were different in the United States: originality and variety were common currency; our freedom from regimentation made us the miracle of the world; social class boundaries were relatively easy to cross; our citizenry was marvelously confident, inventive, and able to do many things independently, to think for themselves. We were something, all by ourselves, as individuals.

It only takes about 50 contact hours to transmit basic literacy and math skills well enough that kids can be self-teachers from then on. The cry for "basic skills" practice is a smokescreen behind which schools pre-empt the time of children for twelve years and teach them the six lessons I've just taught you.

We've had a society increasingly under central control in the United States since just before the Civil War: the lives we lead, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, and the green highway signs we drive by from coast to coast are the products of this central control. So, too, I think, are the epidemics of drugs, suicide, divorce, violence, cruelty, and the hardening of class into caste in the U.S., products of the dehumanization of our lives, the lessening of individual and family importance that central control imposes.

Without a fully active role in community life you cannot develop into a complete human being. Aristotle taught that. Surely he was right; look around you or look in the mirror: that is the demonstration.

"School" is an essential support system for a vision of social engineering that condemns most people to be subordinate stones in a pyramid that narrows to a control point as it ascends. "School" is an artifice which makes such a pyramidal social order seem inevitable (although such a premise is a fundamental betrayal of the American Revolution). In colonial days and through the period of the early Republic we had no schools to speak of. And yet the promise of democracy was beginning to be realized. We turned our backs on this promise by bringing to life the ancient dream of Egypt: compulsory training in subordination for everybody. Compulsory schooling was the secret Plato reluctantly transmitted in the Republic when he laid down the plans for total state control of human life.

The current debate about whether we should have a national curriculum is phony; we already have one, locked up in the six lessons I've told you about and a few more I've spared you. This curriculum produces moral and intellectual paralysis, and no curriculum of content will be sufficient to reverse its bad effects. What is under discussion is a great irrelevancy.

None of this is inevitable, you know. None of it is impregnable to change. We do have a choice in how we bring up young people; there is no right way. There is no "international competition" that compels our existence, difficult as it is to even think about in the face of a constant media barrage of myth to the contrary. In every important material respect our nation is self-sufficient. If we gained a non-material philosophy that found meaning where it is genuinely located -- in families, friends, the passage of seasons, in nature, in simple ceremonies and rituals, in curiosity, generosity, compassion, and service to others, in a decent independence and privacy -- then we would be truly self-sufficient.

How did these awful places, these "schools", come about? As we know them, they are a product of the two "Red Scares" of 1848 and 1919, when powerful interests feared a revolution among our industrial poor, and partly they are the result of the revulsion with which old-line families regarded the waves of Celtic, Slavic, and Latin immigration -- and the Catholic religion -- after 1845. And certainly a third contributing cause can be found in the revulsion with which these same families regarded the free movement of Africans through the society after the Civil War.

Look again at the six lessons of school. This is training for permanent underclasses, people who are to be deprived forever of finding the center of their own special genius. And it is training shaken loose from its original logic: to regulate the poor. Since the 1920s the growth of the well-articulated school bureaucracy, and the less visible growth of a horde of industries that profit from schooling exactly as it is, have enlarged schooling's original grasp to seize the sons and daughters of the middle class.

Is it any wonder Socrates was outraged at the accusation that he took money to teach? Even then, philosophers saw clearly the inevitable direction the professionalization of teaching would take, pre-empting the teaching function that belongs to all in a healthy community; belongs, indeed, most clearly to yourself, since nobody else cares as much about your destiny. Professional teaching tends to another serious error. It makes things that are inherently easy to learn, like reading, writing, and arithmetic, difficult -- by insisting they be taught by pedagogical procedures.

With lessons like the ones I teach day after day, is it any wonder we have the national crisis we face today? Young people indifferent to the adult world and to the future; indifferent to almost everything except the diversion of toys and violence? Rich or poor, schoolchildren cannot concentrate on anything for very long. They have a poor sense of time past and to come; they are mistrustful of intimacy (like the children of divorce they really are); they hate solitude, are cruel, materialistic, dependent, passive, violent, timid in the face of the unexpected, addicted to distraction.

All the peripheral tendencies of childhood are magnified to a grotesque extent by schooling, whose hidden curriculum prevents effective personality development. Indeed, without exploiting the fearfulness, selfishness, and inexperience of children our schools could not survive at all, nor could I as a certified schoolteacher.

"Critical thinking" is a term we hear frequently these days as a form of training which will herald a new day in mass schooling. It certainly will, if it ever happens. No common school that actually dared teach the use of dialectic, heuristic, and other tools of free minds could last a year without being torn to pieces.

Institutional schoolteachers are destructive to children's development. Nobody survives the Six-Lesson Curriculum unscathed, not even the instructors. The method is deeply and profoundly anti-educational. No tinkering will fix it. In one of the great ironies of human affairs, the massive rethinking that schools require would cost so much less than we are spending now that it is not likely to happen. First and foremost, the business I am in is a jobs project and a contract-letting agency. We cannot afford to save money, not even to help children.

At the pass we've come to historically, and after 26 years of teaching, I must conclude that one of the only alternatives on the horizon for most families is to teach their own children at home. Small, de- institutionalized schools are another. Some form of free-market system for public schooling is the likeliest place to look for answers. But the near impossibility of these things for the shattered families of the poor, and for too many on the fringes of the economic middle class, foretell that the disaster of Six-Lesson Schools is likely to continue.

After an adult lifetime spent in teaching school I believe the method of schooling is the only real content it has. Don't be fooled into thinking that good curricula or good equipment or good teachers are the critical determinants of your son and daughter's schooltime. All the pathologies we've considered come about in large measure because the lessons of school prevent children from keeping important appointments with themselves and their families, to learn lessons in self-motivation, perseverance, self-reliance, courage, dignity and love -- and, of course, lessons in service to others, which are among the key lessons of home life.

Thirty years ago these things could still be learned in the time left after school. But television has eaten most of that time, and a combination of television and the stresses peculiar to two-income or single-parent families have swallowed up most of what used to be family time. Our kids have no time left to grow up fully human, and only thin-soil wastelands to do it in.

A future is rushing down upon our culture which will insist that all of us learn the wisdom of non-material experience; this future will demand, as the price of survival, that we follow a pace of natural life economical in material cost. These lessons cannot be learned in schools as they are. School is like starting life with a 12-year jail sentence in which bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it. I should know.

50 Cent Interviewed by Master Pimp: Ken Ivy

2009-01-31T00:03:00.002-05:00

I recently became introduced to Pimpin' Ken Ivy on a hip-hop site (www.worldstarhiphop.com). Pimpin' Ken - in the below video - interviews 50 Cent. 50 Cent describes his transition from being a one-hit wonder, to being nowhere but back in the hood, to being in the upper echelons of society. I thought thi would be good for yall lil' nigguhz. Uno.

Sorry, We Can't Let You In The Club, Your Jeans Ain't Skinny.

2009-01-29T09:44:00.000-05:00

The world is fu*ked up. It's like I'm starting not to like the future. The hip-hop masses' personality, style, and overall level of attention deficit disorder is dictated and influenced by media. A long time ago, the fans of music had real people to model themselves after.
We had:

Frank Sinatra
"Alcohol is the enemy, but the bible says, 'Love your enemies'"

Johnny Cash
"Success is having to worry about every damn thing in the world, except money"

Miles Davis
"If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I'd spend it choking a white man. I'd do it nice and slow"

Mohammed Ali
"It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.

These are the options we had. Real swagger, before when clothes didn't make the man.

But now, we have:

Kanye West
"Gays really be knowing how to dress .. cause if people see you lookin' at 'em ... so I look at the quick then I gotta look away." - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W83hVi8jBNg

Little Wayne
"I kiss my daddy."

The effects on my hip-hop demographic, alone, has been devastating. We have men wearing women's jeans. We have women wearing men's jeans.

You have entertainers, admittedly, dressing like homosexuals (as seen in the link above), which starts to synthesize my favorite music genre (hip-hop) with homosexuality. So now, the dudes, dress and act, less 'man' like. The women notice this change, subconsciously. Hmmm. It may be a coincidence that women seems to be more bi-curious lately; or maybe because a lot the 'fly' dudes all dress like homosexuals.

I am telling you sh*t is ugly out here. You have people fighting against gay marriage. Why? Not because they are homophobic, but because once the state condones homosexuality. They become obligated to create "pro-tolerance" sex-ed programs in schools - to reduce hate crimes in the state (due to the increase in homosexual voter presence in that state) - which teach children, at a young age, that homosexuality is okay. Don't heterosexuals have rights nowadays?

I don't have an issue with the homosexuality; what people do in their private time is their business. I just see the entire country is becoming demoralized and blinded to this transformation. Perceptions and the mind have become hypermutable to the repetitious whims and desires of those who decide they want to impose their debased "auto-tuned" ideologies on the rest of society.

Why am I so livid?

I got turned down at a bar filled with beautiful women and cheap drinks for not wearing skinny jeans!

WTF.

~~~~~~~

Don Duval Patterson
Series 2009 D

Don P.'s New Morning Creed.

2009-01-28T14:59:00.002-05:00

Hey. I know yall may thing I am a little crazy for this one; but every morning, I watch Mike Tyson knockouts before I prepare my day. I have a creed taped to my mirror, I read every morning and night as a result of this. I thought I'd share it with you. As many of you may or may not know, I am in a preparation phase right now. I want to be intellectually on the level to not just graduate an Ivy League, but dominate it. Slowly and quietly while lames criticize just like in LaGuardia CC.

Anyways, here it is.

I'm the best ever. I'm the most brutal, most vicious, and most ruthless student there's ever been. There's no one can stop me. Other students, conquor? No, Im Alexander. They're no Alexander. Im the best ever. There's never been anyone as ruthless. I'm Sonny Liston. I'm Jack Dempsey. There's no one like me. I'm from Marcy. There's no one that can match me. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I'm just furious. I want the professor's heart. I want to eat their children. Praise be to Allah.

The Art of Chess by James Mason (Excerpts & Comments).

2009-01-27T14:51:00.002-05:00

"When we go to decide upon a subject without really troubling to examine what it is, then at best we only inform ourselves of what is said about it; and our judgment of it will be founded on nothing more than a sort of pretense or imagination not reflected by the facts. If there is error in the reports we rely upon, then that error becomes our own; and this again in its turn confirms error in others. The mistake of one becomes a public mistake, and then it is consecrated; so that he must be a bold man who would question it, or even refuse it subscription"(Mason 5).

A lot of people live life as everlasting tyro. Never questioning the established doctrines, uniform schedules, and 'natural' order of things. The study of chess and application of that study to the approach of one's life, I believe, can change how one thinks and looks at life. When I say study, I do not mean play as an amateur. I mean, to really study the game as all the constants are exactly the same in human life - limited resources (pieces or people), limited space (corporate building, target market, or chess board), limited force (range of available motion between two bodies), limited time (amount of moves available before successful or failed completion of a desired goal, or amount of moves available before checkmate or before being checkmated).

The study of chess allows people to see the world with more foresight than the average acquiescent individual.

FREE DOPE ASS MOVIE ...

2009-01-25T19:15:00.001-05:00

This movie is crack. Definitely.

JAY-Z, bill o'reilly, young jeezy, and EDUCATION.

2009-01-22T04:02:00.002-05:00

Ok. It's 4:04AM. I am reading the new posts of blogs and websites I follow. I come across a clip from Bill O'Reilly. His opinions of Jay-Z's statements at a public venue were justified. Jay-Z and Young Jeezy made some of the most racist and inarticulate comments at possibly the worst time in history. I don't judge Jay-Z or Jeezy. However, to be so economically savvy. They played checkers during this chess game of life.

Using the word 'black' to describe people of dark skin - the educated, the ignorant, the rural, the urban, the African-American, the African-Caribbean, the African, the African - "filling the blank" - will and is going to create a major problem. Yes, we do have a black president. However, he is from Hawaii, raised by a white family, Ivy-League educated, married, married to an Ivy-League educated black woman, fathering two children.

If blindfolded and asked to picture a successful black man in your mind: Would he look like Obama? Be named Obama? Is he more likely to be an entertainer?

I think I will conduct a survey during the summer.

Anyways, peep the clip. It is really crazy.

Andressa Soares <3 Don P.

2009-01-21T14:14:00.003-05:00

I am definitely going to Brazil this year

I am definitely going to Brazil this year.

The Regulation of Time (How to Manipulate using Time)

2009-01-20T02:48:00.002-05:00

No political structure of any size can dispense with order, and one of the fundamental applications of order is to time, for no communal human activity can take place with out it. Indeed one might say that the regulation of time is the primary attribute of all government. A new power which wants to assert itself must also enforce a new chronology; it must make it seem as though time had begun with it. Even more important to such a power is that it should endure. Its own estimate of its greatness can be deduced from the stretch of future time it lays claim to: Hitler’s Reich was to last 1,000 years. The Julian calendar endured longer than this and, even today, the month called after Julius Caesar is known by his name [July]. Of historical figures only Augustus succeeded in attaching his name uninterruptedly to a month. Others tried it, but their names have crumbled with their effigies.

The most impressive mark on the reckoning of time is that made by Christ. Here he supposed even God himself, from whose creation of the world Jewish chronology began. The Romans counted from the foundation of their city, a method which they took over from the Etruscans and which certainly played a not inconsiderable part in the world’s picture of Rome’s mighty destiny. Some conquerors content themselves with inserting their names somewhere in the calendar: Napoleon is said to have had hopes of August 15th. There is an irresistible attraction in the idea of linking one’s name with a regularly recurring date. That the vast majority of people are ignorant of the origins of such designations seems to have not the slightest effect on the desire of rulers to immortalize themselves in this way. No one man has succeeded in attaching his name to a season, although, there are whole centuries which are known by the name of dynasty. Chinese history, indeed, is reckoned in dynasties; one speaks of the Han or the Tang period. Even short-lived and inglorious dynasties, which would be better forgotten, got the benefits of this. Among the Chinese is has become the usual method of reckoning large stretches of time, but it is families rather than individuals which it immortalizes.

A ruler’s relationship with time, however, is not exhausted by the vanity of his name. He is concerned with the regulation of time and not only giving his name to existing units. Chinese history begins in this way. The prestige of the Chinese legendary rulers derives in great part from the effective regulation of time which is ascribed to them. Special officials were appointed to watch over this and were punished if the neglected their duties. It was when they achieved a uniform calendar that the Chinese first became a nation.

Civilizations are perhaps best distinguished by their arrangement of time. They prove themselves by their continued capacity to organize their traditions and they disintegrate when they cease to do this. A civilization comes to an end when a people no longer take it chronology seriously. At this point an analogy with the life of an individual is permissible. A man who no longer knows or cares how old he is has finished with life; he might as well be dead, when he cannot know. For a civilization, as for an individual, periods when the awareness of time is lost are periods of shame, which are forgotten as soon as possible.

There are obvious practical reasons for the overwhelming importance which the regulation of time has acquired. It binds together large groups of men who may live far apart and not be able to meet face to face. In a small group of perhaps fifty people everyone knows what everyone else is doing it is easy for them to join in common activity. The rhythm of their lives is beaten out within the pack. They dance the continuity of the group, as they dance so many other things. The time gap between one pack activity and another does not matter, for since people live in close proximity they can always alert each other when they need to. Every expansion of the physical milieu makes it more important to do something about time. Drum and smoke signals, which bridge distance, serve this purpose.

A different kind of unity was given to large groups of people by the lives of single individuals: Kings embodied the whole period of their reign. Their death, whether it came with the decline of their strength or, as later, coincided with their natural span of life, indicated a break in time. They were time. Between one king and the next, time stood still. There was a gap in it – and interregnum – which people sought to keep as short as possible (Canetti).

For Kesha ...

2009-01-18T19:38:00.002-05:00

This is why we must compete for labor. Understand money and you will understand why I am the 'way' I am.

-DON P

2Pac Poem.

2009-01-18T02:47:00.004-05:00

I read this poem and Ioved its content. Its length is short; however, I believe you will like it.

Yea, you.

Ambition Over Adversity

Take one's adversity
Learn from their misfortune
Learn from their pain
Believe in something
Believe in yourself
Turn adversity into ambition
Now blossom into wealth

I love 2Pac for his force of spirit. His spirit was like a rubber band pulled to the point of breaking. Yet,it never broke. It just sprung him into a level of unparalleled success. Although he didn't have the educational background in business to harness that force in terms of monetary accumulation. He was able to create music that articulated reasons why a hood dude could be proud to be from the hood.

With no long term childhood friends acknowledged -beside Jada Pinkett Smith- as he moved from town to town; as all he had was his crack addicted mother. He had no choice but to become what he was to become. An dark immortalized poet. That was definitely commercialized way too much. However, still immortalized.

RIP 2Pac "The Hood Scholar"

FAME

2009-01-14T17:17:00.003-05:00

"Opinions are like assholes ... everyone has one. No matter how clean they appear to be ... they don't realize how full of sh*t they really are". - Don P.

Now, fame is an effect of the repetition of one's name being uttered. It doesn't matter who, so long as it is done. I have experimented with manipulation of faceless shadows. My first experiment was during a student government election. My campaign flyer was just a bright red paper that read, "Vote Don P.". At this point, not one person knew me; but I understood that people (sheep, cattle, et cetera) would constantly repeat the name. The repetition of the name being said, carried with it a reputation, which was created by others. Most of the networking which must be done for success is done by others using this method.

When people figure out how this works, they appear cocky, celebrity-like, and if applied with the right amount of focus, they usually become celebrities. They understand that the hardest part of success - "It's not what you know, it's who you know" - is done by those whose entire life follows the modus operandi of the sheep (i.e. shortcut). Those in the lower echelons of society. The commoner.

Negative side effects result from this. Celebrities have to deal with people speculating about their every move. Depending on how strong minded the celebrity is, they can gain control of this force and harness it in a direction of their choosing, if they are inclined to do so. But most celebs don't ... they don't study the nature of society.

College is the perfect place to test Machiavellian theories such as this.

Blue appears black from a distance. You can believe that from a distance, black is black. Unless you are right up on that which you are looking at, you can not determine its color. In humans, the only way you can tell how dishevelled a person is mentally is by playing the person in a game of chess.

Anyways, be a person of influence or at least try not to be a victim of it, by trying to gain understanding of that which happens around you. Go out and study before you turn 25; because once you are 25, you are pretty much stuck in your ways. I have ensured that my use first quarter of century is to study and test theory. Which have been exposed to me, for success in this globalist, capitalist, society. If you don't have one of the four people described below in your cadre or your not working on being one of the four below ... Get to work.

There are four types of men who control the sheep.

"The Rich Man" - trades and store things of value (usually money) for the purpose of having an expansive purchasing power. GATES, ROCKEFELLER, BUFFETT

"The Ruler" - gains the loyalty of men and only cares about having men to die for his cause. OBAMA, BUSH, KIm JONG-IL, JIMMY IOVINE

"The Celebrity" - only cares about having people repeat his name, then trades that influence for things of value. JAY-Z, Frank Sinatra,

"The Immortal" - similar to the famous person, except the person's art form is usually in literary form, or their actions have been recorded in literary form. -SOCRATES, CEASAR, NAPOLEON

From Brooklyn with Love.

Signed,
ME

RECOLLECTION

2009-01-13T16:47:00.004-05:00

I was thinking about the first time I went to central bookings last night for some reason. For those who don't know, central booking is a place where people whom are arrested are taken and processed. Upon leaving, they will either be 'Release on Recognizance' (ROR) or the judge will force a person to pay bail; if they can't pay it within an hour they will be sent to Riker's Island. Then the process of posting bail takes much longer.

Anyways, I was about 16. I got locked up for some random crime. They handcuffed me to the wall like a child until they realized I was 16 years old. At the age of 16, you are tried as an adult in NYC. Anyways, upon being put in the cell, soaking wet from being being mased and having it flushed out of my eyes. I remember the stares at such a young face being incarcerated. A room filled with 20 - 60 year old murderers, weed smokers, crack heads, and drug dealers. I remembered last night because I thought about the acquiescence in their eyes. Like as if though they looked at me like I had so much potential but they couldn't do anything about it. Not to mention the incessant waiting to be moved from one room to the next. It was horrible.

This was an even in my life that made me realize the importance of freedom. Being in a cage, being told what to do, when to do it, how to do it, has not been for me. I realized this a long time ago. In high school, in central bookings, and even in college. Life should not be this recurring episode of people saying, "Do this, do that, or else".

I don't know.

The Fear Of The Black Man's ...

2009-01-12T23:27:00.003-05:00

Anyways, it has been a while since I have written on the blog. I feel it is time for people to know where my mind is. I haven't posted anything on the blog because I was extremely sick, last week, for some time; but I feel better now.

Current issues: My scholarship has made me feel like my freedom is restricted by some other person's agenda. My race and socio-economic background make people worried for me. As if though a person, with no father, from the projects, has no future, automatically, if that person is not involved with some corporate interventionist's program / grant that can help him (as a minority) prosper.

Columbia.

Howard.

CUNY.

Who cares? Does any of this help you go further?

F*ck it.

I don't care because no one's approval of me will allow me to win, no matter what.

My New Year's Resolution ...

2009-01-02T01:03:00.004-05:00

Firstly, this year's number is amazing. Year 2009. This year will be great. I will find out what college I will be attending; Also, I will be finding out how much money I will be making.

The anatomy of 50 Cent's character ...

2008-12-21T23:22:00.000-05:00

Alright Degenerates.

For some time, I have been intrigued by hip-hop impresarios ability to amass large revenues in the corporate world; however, I have seen many character flaws revealed when an artist many be in different company. We will look at 50 Cent's character when in different company - rather when his audience is white, and when his audience is black. You will notice that his vocabulary changes; his speech changes; his level of confidence also changes. Start the video below.

This first video is taken from a 'hood' distributed DVD entitled, "Cocaine City". There are many important messages presented in this DVD. He describes why he doesn't believe 'beef' with other rappers is a problem and how he would use a 'hungry' rap artist to murder someone he had problems with. In addition, he describes his annoyance with people who have no money and his issue with old time drug dealers in different 'hood' magazines. He also elusively describes his method of becoming successful; which is just chilling with successful people and avoiding lames, squares, and broke 'hood' nigguhz.

During this six minute clip, he manages to speak in a way that allows him to be fully confident. In an air of superiority amongst those who are of lower incomes. He uses 'big' words with emphasis to emphasize his point. He also manages to say the word nigger about 41 times, f*ck about 16 times, and 'nah mean' like statements about 8 times. This is how he carries himself amongst his people, rather the faceless fans whom fuel his success by the repetition of his name. It is amazing to watch the change as his audience is different. The below video is a copy of the Forbes interview.

Before a Forbes interviewer, 50 Cent seems to be less confident, more articulate, more humble about the Vitamin Water deal. The words - nigguh, f*ck, and 'nahmean' - change to - ums, uhs, like, ya knows. It is really amazing. 50 Cent discusses the differences between other hip-hop impresarios and himself. He describes the importance of diversification revenue streams to Forbes; which really has the feel of him trying to impress the interviewer. He describes other things, as well, but one statement I felt helps me articulate my reasoning for pursuing my education. He says, "a lot more wealthier". Its hilarious really.

Anyways, get an education before you get the dollars. There is nothing like actually understanding and knowing your first language.

Easy.

The Birthday Of My Little Brother ...

2008-12-20T02:49:00.002-05:00

So, I am sitting her right now, with my lil' brother and my boy Cali, laying in my bed. It is amazing, how twisted my brother got. He fell out in front of a train station police precinct. Complete insanity. I am so glad this night happened. It made me realize how alone my brother and I, are.

F*ck everyone else.

Cali - you will be a millionaire, word to me.

THE N I H I L I S T I C ME...

2008-12-18T02:09:00.002-05:00

My environment is a reflection of what my soul has become; tarnished, tainted, worn down, needing maintenance. Apathetic as I may be towards my inner emotions and feelings about my current circumstances, the conflicting situations currently before me are creating distrust in my self. Like. Iight.

The opportunity to chill with people who are doing something similar to what I would want to do - own a potential million dollar company, and do business / chill with celebrities and CEOs.

VS.

Getting a 'free education' at the cost of freedom of choice and the balls needed to take risks (i.e. loss of balls).

The choice is simple, when simplified. However, the human part is killing me internally. A lot of people pushed for me to get that 'free education. At the same time, they didn't know the costs I would have to pay.

Anyways, die to live, or live to die.

Un.

WAR STRATEGY+ BUSINESS

2008-12-11T01:15:00.002-05:00

So, I'm reading this Napoleonic war strategy book called, "On War" by Carl Von Clausewitz. Within it I saw this dope ass quote, and felt, good.

In economics, trade off occurs, so basically one person can not do better without one being worse off.

Napoleon says:

It is not enough that I succeed — everyone else must fail.

Thoughts?

Picture yourself owning a business and having to protect profits and employees; would you attack the profits of another business to protect your own?

"Just What Is The Mind" - Thoughts?

2008-12-10T05:17:00.005-05:00

Now I wanted to post these quotes so one could get an idea of what "THE TAKE OVER BOOK CLUB" 'book of the moment' is about:

But you may say, what do you mean by "The Master Mind?" What is the difference between a Master Mind and any other form of Mind? Simply this, good readers, that the Master Mind is consciously, deliberately, and voluntarily built up, cultivated, developed, and used; whereas the ordinary mind is usually unconsciously built up, cultivated, and developed, without voluntary effort on its own part, but solely by the force and power of impressions from the outside world, and is usually employed and used with the little or no conscious direction by its own will.

There is a reason some people come off ruthless and excel. They belong to an upper class of people, that control their selves, in certain ways, and completely concentrate on that which is important to them. Completely. It transcends money.

The three conditions of the human mentality, viz.: (1) Mental Slavery, in which the mind is the slave and servant of outside forces and influences; (2) Partial Freedom, in which the mind is largely controlled by outside influences, while at the same time a limited amount of voluntary control and direction has been acquired; and (3) Mental Mastery, in which the mental faculties, and emotional organism, have brought under the control of the will and judgement, and the individual is a master of, and not a slave to, environment and circumstances. The great masses of persons are in the first or above named classes; a comparatively small number have passed into the second class; while a still smaller number have passed into the third class and have become the Master Minds of their time and place.

The above link takes you to the book club. The book is free and its key points are given to you.

Holla Black.

Ten Roc-A-Fella Commandments ... Thoughts?

2008-12-07T22:37:00.001-05:00

I Believe
I believe in the supreme worth of the individual and in his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

I believe that the law was made for man and not man for the law; that government is the servant of the people and not their master.

I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.

I believe that thrift is essential to well ordered living and that economy is a prime requisite of a sound financial structure, whether in government, business or personal affairs.

I believe that truth and justice are fundamental to an enduring social order.

I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man’s word should be as good as his bond; that character — not wealth or power or position — is of supreme worth.

I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.

I believe in an all-wise and all-loving God, named by whatever name, and that the individual’s highest fulfillment, greatest happiness, and widest usefulness are to be found in living in harmony with His will.

I believe that love is the greatest thing in the world; that it alone can overcome hate; that right can and will triumph over might.

Thoughts?

"EITHER EAT WELL OR SLEEP SOUNDLY"

2008-12-04T23:42:00.007-05:00

Take a deep look at the above pictures. The exterior of a $21 million dollar penthouse looks appealing, but the bum in the church has no chance - in his current state - of obtaining it. Relying on something outside of you, to help you, won't work or do anything. Now, I know that may seem harsh, but so is life. Take a look deeper look at what it takes to be wealthy; or rather, what it takes for one - a person, a people, a country - to rise from poverty.

To achieve monetary strength (get money), you must do something of 'worth' for someone else to pay you. Right? Bill Gates and Mircosoft, John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil, Henry Ford and Ford Motor Co., are prime examples of humans doing something of worth of benefit to society. Their companies allowed every human being to progress; which in turn, allowed their pockets to be filled with filthy lucre. John D. Rockefeller especially understood this idea of being valuable.

How much are you currently worth? What can you do for society? Or the corporation? Or the organization? How much are they willing to pay? If you work for $10 an hour, understand that you have set your price for the services you can provide. This j.o.b. (just.over.broke) mindset keeps 95% of the world's money in the hands of 5%. ; but it can be broken. The idea of most people is that education - the act of obtaining a knowledge-less piece of paper - will allow you to make money. The higher the degree, the more money you make. This is flawed as what you learn in school is what is important. The amount of knowledge you gain and apply, not what you demonstrate to others through frivolous speech, is important.

How do you get to the, "Yo, I'm signing the contract for a $21 million penthouse" level? You develop yourself. You study those who were able to attribute certain characteristics to their time period, to achieve, to transcend the expectation of a person of their time. As John D. Rockefeller came from nothing, then ended up a billionaire, so can you. You must become an exponentially multiplied version of who you are today. Look at your thoughts, in depth, and expand the actions (the result of your thought). For instance, homelessness may concerns you passionately; so you give the homeless spare change. This does nothing, in the long term however. What would the exponentially multiplied version of you do about homelessness do? Decipher the ingredients of homelessness and work against them; and create programs to combat the lack of education, shelter, and worthiness within these individuals.

To create wealth, one must be worthy. To be worthy, one must contribute to society with their actions. To create unprecedented wealth, one must contribute to society's development; and leave one's fingerprint on the blueprint of society. One's actions must have an effect on thousands, millions, or billions, of people. As Standard Oil did; as Microsoft did; as Ford did. Look at how the oil industry is run today. It is not much different from Standard Oil's original blueprint. Oil companies made billions of dollars yearly, because people can not function with out it.

This is what you must look to do in order to create value in self.

1)Study those that did it.
2)Remodel one's self in that image.
3)Figure out emerging industries.
4)Work to capture the complete force of the growth of that industry.
5)Holla Black.

If you don't believe what I am saying. Kick rocks and be broke. Uno.

BEING SECOND PLACE ... MEANS YOUR THE FIRST LOSER ...

2008-12-03T20:05:00.002-05:00

Anyways, this is where my mind is at in regards to my life. This is how I get down, watching the losers scramble lower on the totem pole. However, it is a time for change.

Screaming In Silence ...

2008-12-01T22:41:00.003-05:00

My semester is interesting thus far. The prospect of actually wifin' a beautiful woman - a dedicated school teacher. Lookin' at more success, more credentials, more money, more classes, less friends, more associates, more strategic study, more preparation, in the 09.

Christmas with no gifts, arm with no chick, hop with no hip, is my future. I must get control of my primitive desires. These chicks aren't worth my lungs expelling air or my teeth grinding gum. Well, some are, but I'm not in that tax bracket, yet.

A Storm Is Coming ...

2008-11-28T16:05:00.003-05:00

People sleep on the work that goes into the creation of I. Describe my successes as luck, and my failures as expected because of where I am from, or the color of my skin, or my lack of Jordans, lol. Fools. If they would only look at the character of men who succeed they'd know what I am doing.

Distant strangers say: Well, what are you doing?

I'd say: Redefining what it means to be from where I am from; raising the expectations I have for dudes from where I am from.

The books above are part of my next book list, for a new reformation of my mental state. As my uncle said, "Reinvention is the key". This year will be dedicated creating - within myself - a man of discipline, strategy, and powerful decision making skills, that transcends what others think they can do.

Well said.

Shout out to Anthony (future hood scholar).

Pledging Allegiance To A Flag In Distress

2008-11-27T01:12:00.004-05:00

For my lil' brother:

Let every chump, sucker, bird, freak, or enemy know, whether they wishes me well or ill, that I will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of my family.

Strategic Intuition ...

2008-11-26T00:56:00.003-05:00

Ladies and Gentleman,

I want to give you guys a sneak peak into the mind of me; and introduce you to all the elements which allow me to make snap decisions. So I'm reading this book entitled, "Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement"; it is written by a professor of the Columbia Business School - William Duggan. Now, William Duggan, wrote an article right before I enrolled into LaGuardia Community College. The book is much better, however, I read this article, every day, for 21 days before I got to LaGuardia. The track record in the post before this shows that the article works. Enjoy!

June 27, 2006
Strategic intuition: The key to innovation
Combining ideas from military history, cognitive psychology and modern neuroscience, strategic intuition offers a four-step method for identifying and capturing opportunity.
Topics:

* Leadership
* Strategy

Several years ago, Professor William Duggan was intrigued to learn that while most common English words date back to at least the 15th or 16th century, the word strategy entered the language only in 1810. He set out to discover why. It turned out that in 1810 Napoleon Bonaparte was at the height of his power, and in that year Carl von Clausewitz began his classic treatise On War, which attempts to explain Napoleon’s military success. “Von Clausewitz describes something as the essence of strategy that he calls coup d’oeil, which in French means ‘glance,’” Duggan says. “And it occurred to me that it seemed an awful lot like modern research on expert intuition.”

That connection led Duggan to a concept he calls strategic intuition — a framework for understanding how great strategists set and achieve goals. He articulated the idea in two books, Napoleon’s Glance and The Art of What Works, both published in 2003. So when the U.S. Army asked him to explore the implications of strategic intuition for Army planning procedures, the idea came full circle — back to its military origins.

In On War, finally published in 1832, von Clausewitz points out that instead of pursuing territorial objectives, Napoleon looked for opportunities to win battles. A profound student of military history, Napoleon sought to apply the successful tactics of past generals to new situations. Von Clausewitz describes four elements of Napoleon’s approach to strategy: (1) examples from history, (2) presence of mind, (3) a coup d’oeil or flash of insight, and (4) the resolution to move forward and overcome all obstacles.

Research on expert intuition supports the notion that in urgent situations, people make decisions by combining analysis of past experience with a flash of insight. In the 1990s psychologist Gary Klein studied the decision-making processes of emergency room nurses, firefighters and soldiers in battle. While these experts initially attributed their choices to intuition, further probing revealed that they were actually making rapid connections between the situation at hand and similar situations stored in their memories.

Recent brain research provides further evidence that people make decisions through a combination of analysis and intuition. In 2000 a group of neuroscientists won the Nobel Prize for a new model of the brain called intelligent memory, which overturned the previous left-brain/right-brain model. “Basically as you go through life, you’re putting things on the shelves of your brain,” says Duggan. “The scientists call it parsing; it’s technically analysis. Your brain is constantly comparing what it’s taking in to what’s already there, and when it finds a combination — a synthesis — you have an insight.”

After making the connection between von Clausewitz and modern science, Duggan defined the common idea as strategic intuition: “the selective projection of past elements into the future in a new combination as a course of action that might or might not fit your previous goals, and the personal commitment to work out the details along the way.”

Last year Duggan reviewed the core procedures in the Army’s standard planning manual to see how well they fit with strategic intuition. In the resulting publication, Coup d’Oeil: Strategic Intuition in Army Planning, he notes that the manual reflects an outdated view of the human mind — the idea that analysis and intuition take place in separate parts of the brain and are appropriate for different situations. In reality, as the new brain research shows, analysis and intuition are closely intertwined in all situations.

Strategic intuition describes how breakthrough ideas happen in all realms of human endeavor, from business to politics to art. “This might sound like the opposite of an innovation, but in a practical sense this is how innovation actually happens,” says Duggan. “And even in business this is an old idea — the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter basically said this in the 1940s. So it’s something that we rediscover again and again and again. I trace its earliest origins to the Tao Te Ching in ancient China, 450 BC.”

In a course that Duggan teaches in Columbia’s MBA, Executive MBA and Executive Education programs, he introduces strategic intuition with a famous quote from Thomas Edison: “Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” Duggan adds, “What we’re talking about here is the one percent. It’s only one small piece of the puzzle. But if you don’t have inspiration, your perspiration is a waste of time.”

Once you understand how strategic intuition works, you can identify opportunities that you might otherwise have missed by following these four steps:

1. Examples from history

If the shelves of your brain are well stocked, you are more likely to make an important connection. Napoleon and Patton, two of the most successful generals who ever lived, both had an encyclopedic knowledge of military history. “They were famous for not choosing a strategic objective, like a city or a bridge or a fort, but rather putting their armies in motion,” says Duggan. “When they recognized a strategic situation from past battles, they would replicate that battle or pieces of that battle to defeat the enemy. They fought battles; they didn’t conquer territory. But in doing so they defeated the enemy.”

2. Presence of mind

The key to presence of mind is expecting the unexpected. In order to open your mind to a coup d’oeil, you must abandon your preconceived notions of what the solution might be — or sometimes even what the problem is. “Sometimes people don’t see what to do, and that’s OK,” Duggan says. “They should keep searching and keep looking for opportunity. And if they’re prepared and aware and have great presence of mind, they will see the opportunity that indeed might take them in a different direction than if they had first tried to plan without an idea of how actually to fulfill the plan.”

3. A flash of insight

A coup d’oeil is not a totally new idea but rather a new way of combining past ideas from different sources. For example, Ransom Olds was the first carmaker to build a mass-produced car using a stationary assembly line, and Henry Ford copied that car quite closely in both its design and its manufacturing process. Then on a visit to the Chicago stockyards, where carcasses were hung on a rail and moved from station to station, Ford got a flash of inspiration — and the moving assembly line was born.

A coup d’oeil can show you how to reach a goal, but it can also change your goal — an idea that many people find difficult to accept. “Most strategic planning typically says, first, ‘What’s your goal?’” says Duggan, “and then it helps you plan. It doesn’t really care what the goal is. Whereas strategic intuition offers a way to answer the question ‘What’s a good goal?’ And a good goal is one that you see some way to reach, based on some combination of things you can put together from the past.”

4. Resolution

Resolution in this context is more than simply the determination to achieve your goal. It includes an element of flexibility — the willingness to move forward without a detailed plan and also the willingness to change course if a better opportunity presents itself. In Napoleon’s first campaign, his men were vastly outnumbered by Italian and Austrian troops. But because the situation resembled several campaigns of Frederick the Great some 50 years earlier, Napoleon had an idea: he would move his army between the Italian and Austrian armies and fight first one enemy and then the other.

“His goal came out of some historical sense of what would work, and he projected that into this situation, which was not identical,” says Duggan. “He had a general goal rather than a detailed plan, and he put his army in motion and indeed he defeated each enemy army in turn, in a series of battles. He had no idea beforehand where the battles were going to be, but as they emerged he saw the opportunity there. So strategic intuition is not against goal setting. It just asks the question ‘Where does your goal come from?’ And then it says your goal is as detailed as you see — not more so — and that you fill the details in as you can.”

In Duggan’s strategy course, participants create a map of all the goals that might make them happy and all the opportunities they currently see that might get them to one goal or another. “The idea of having multiple possible directions is much more realistic in life and gives you many more options,” says Duggan. “But if you already have a five-year goal and know exactly what you’re going to do and really are trying to get there, that’s fine. Just remember that some opportunity may arise that will take you somewhere better.”

... Just a Glimpse of My Mind Overlooking Central Park from A Corporate High Rise Building ... Literally ...

2008-11-24T20:36:00.006-05:00

It's about 8 (and some change) o'clock; I sit here, at the Kaplan corporate headquarters, alone, wondering what is my life's purpose? Is it goals? Is it money? Women? Fun? Family? What? I think for now, I will focus on family and scholarship; but while we are on the subject of friends.

I put all my chips down for friends, fake or real, because I don't have the time to differentiate the two. A couple mentors, a few friends, hundreds of associates belonging to; a couple of friends, I know that would do anything for me (countable on one hand); a couple of friends, I can't really tell what they would (or wouldn't do) for me. I will be placing a stonger emphasis on creating mentor / mentoree relationships. All I want to do is learn the game. What ever that game (or goal) may be at the time.

New goals must been established, in order to regain a purpose to that which I do. Attainment of the Rhodes Scholarship would be a lofty enough goal (allowing me to pursue graduate study at Oxford University). I have plenty of time to prepare myself for task, to study recipients, and competitors. I have many intangibly internal values to instill in myself which will be of use.

I would love for you all to see what is to come next; that which is seen right now, is a minuscule in comparison to what is to come next. I'm in transition mode again, reminiscent of when I changed from the 'hood' kid to the HOOD SCHOLAR you see before you.

EDUCATION:
Columbia University
- Intercollegiate Partnership Grant Recipient

LaGuardia Community College
Associate Degree In Lib Arts: Math and Science
- Scholar, Kaplan Leadership Program
- Governor of Public Relations, Student Government Association
- Student Member, Board of Trustees
- Liaison to the Student Advisory Council; Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society
- Executive Student Senator, Curriculum Senate
- Alternate Senator, University Student Senate
- Student Leadership Award Recipient, City University of New York

Wake Up. From now on ... nothing but Rhodes Scholarship on the brain. I will taste Rhodes Scholarship, I will breath Rhodes Scholarship. I will desire the capabilities necessary to get the Rhodes scholarship.

Life, Changes.

2008-11-23T11:37:00.004-05:00

Sitting in my apartment at 2:00am, writing a letter to my uncle in prison, I receive a phone call from his son (my lil brotha'). Which is weird because I haven't touched base with him for a few months, and I haven't written my uncle for a few months. Both of these happening at the same time, in the middle of the night, is a weird coincidence.

Anyways, I stop writing the letter to speak with my lil' brotha'. My lil brotha' (Robert P.) tells me that my uncle and I were right (about school). He now wants to come to school, and he wants to get on the ball; but I know he has some unseen obstacles. One, the neighborhood he is in; two, his mother's, at times, shaky support. I know that I will need to be his rock in his educational transition. Getting him in a GED program in LaGuardia is my next goal, but he has to be on the ball and do all the hard work himself. I will give him what he needs to accomplish it, as far as the financial support.

However, I am in the middle of my transfer process at Kaplan. They want me to ultimately go out of state for college, and I predict they will keep telling me, "You need to take care of yourself before you take care of anybody else". However, behind decisions are consequences, and taking care of self would not have me in college in the first place. The only Patterson males living are my uncle (serving time), my lil'brotha (mentioned above), myself, and my six year old nephew; my being a high school dropout (in college) makes me the most likely to succeed in the cold cruel world.

WTF.

Preview of Don Duval's Project Rooftop Photo Shoot

2008-11-17T23:50:00.005-05:00

Imagine, a world filled with educated men, whom grew up with rusted spoons in their mouths. A world, where the problems of those belonging to the bottom, are actually addressed. I am scared for the future; a future of intellectual wars, fought between the educated descendants of victims of subjugation, and the well-informed descendants of oppressors.

Anyways, the photo shoot was one of many for a book I will be getting published in the near future, when I figure out what that future is.

Peace.

"The Hood Gives Back: Vol. 1"

2008-11-14T18:17:00.008-05:00

What's Poppin', Future Leaders of the Free World!

I'm creating this mini-series to shine some light on the philanthropic efforts of rappers and the music industry at large. Jay-Z was one of Obama's super delegates for some time but has not been acknowledged for it. He led numerous 'free of charge' concerts at various college campuses across America to promote for Obama. Other rappers and music executives also campaigned for Obama. However, being as I am from Marcy Projects, we will focus on Yung Hov.

Below are videos, which I felt, demonstrate the force that was behind Obama. He had an advantage people didn't realize. In low income neighborhoods, there is always a very low 'age of first birth' - meaning lots of babies always being born; this has been happening since forever. So, Obama getting the youth vote in the hood -the hood being a socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhood - ensured his victory. The proof, Jay-Z's main customer base is white America. Boom!

Marcy Projects, Let's Go!!!!!!!

The Anatomy of 50 Cent's Character ...

2008-11-14T01:53:00.005-05:00

Welcome to the Mind of Don Duval Patterson ...

2008-11-01T21:06:00.000-04:00

In hazy reflection, I live life in the world of fly girls, diamond-cut ropes, peddlers of dope: All things known to the world as ghetto. Let me explain; my name alone is the reflection of an era - 1970s - when heroin was distributed through my neighborhood by Italians on Myrtle Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant. This is where I am from, a place where children live in squalor and degradation and intellectual insecurity. The convicted felons, the police, the drug addicts - all serve their purpose in the cyclical devolution of the ghetto. To break the cycle, one has to make choices; to chill with people you have known all your life or chill with people you do not know well, to break the negative cycle of one's family by not dealing with one's family or to continue trying to save a dead family tree, merged with a chain link fence, you hope to God can be revived from a branch or two. Every accomplishment - scholarship, ivy-league acceptance, networking connection - does not satisfy my thirst for more. This is dangerous, but it is real.

I thrive off the sleepless nights, the four-hour commutes, the daily hundred page readings. Not because I want to, but because I am addicted to the game. This game of life.

WINNER

2008-11-01T20:48:00.000-04:00

Andrea !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How do you want your tickets delivered?

... Coming Soon ... A Detailed Character Analysis Of 50 Cent ... Hood Scholar ...

2008-10-28T20:58:00.000-04:00

It appears to me that rappers change their speech and demeanor when around different people. I will attempt in the next post to provide evidential proof of this, using video, and transcription of speech. Using this to compare the word counts of each video versus key points made; thus illustrating character traits, which may or may not, be deemed unreal.

Holla Black.

The Cost of Not Managing Time.

2008-10-27T00:15:00.000-04:00

This entry was written while listening to the Massive Attack song posted on the side. If you want the full experience, of the following thought process, click PLAY.

Okay, so everyone knows that I am extremely busy, all the time. This is true, however, it is not because I have endless amounts of things to do. It is because my time is not managed as well as it could be. For instance, the things I have to do versus the things I want to do, have become this formless stew of ideas, one being no different from the other.

For instance, getting a degree - a piece of paper which makes me more employable - is what I need to do. However, getting a degree for the purpose of actually learning something I can actually apply, is something I want to do. Most people I encounter look at post-secondary education, as a way of gaining employment, as most companies will not hire anyone without the attainment of post-secondary education; but what are the assumptions behind a person having attain post-secondary education from the business owner's perspective, or human resources employer's perspective?

Are college graduates exactly the same (mentally) as a person with a high school diploma (which many college graduates are)? Are college graduates more knowledgeable, if so, about what? Or, are they only more able to maintain a schedule, better than a high school graduate?

What does having a degree say about a person? Why are a lot of college graduates broke, with no job? Is it because they actually looked at college as a way of getting a job, and not as a means of becoming more knowledgeable?

Who knows?

However, to get back on the topic of managing time. My time is wasted actually learning, I came to college to learn,to evolve my process of thought - which as a result - should make me more employable. I read as much personal literature, as I do for my Columbia University course; which is because I refuse to sacrifice learning for education (if that flew over your head, step your learning game up).

Holla Front.

2008-10-26T14:55:00.000-04:00

(Parental Advisory: Explicit Material Below)

2008-10-26T03:42:00.000-04:00

For Andrea:

If you are unsure of what a Socratic dialogue is go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method.

A 'Hood' Socratic Dialogue

Description of Characters:

Stuart Phillips a.k.a. ‘Bloody Gusto’; Age: 38, Five Star* General of a Blood set called A.B.G.
Has been to jail more than 5 times for years at a time.
Has kids from the age of 12 to adults about 25 in the street under his command.
He commands about 65 people within’ a two block radius.
Don Duval Patterson a.k.a. ‘P.’; Age:19, Blood Gang Member with two stars*.
Has been arrested numerous times but never to jail.
The head of household and lineage and pays rent and utilities.

*The stars indicate the level of respect (status) of a member in the gang. The most any member could get is five.

Description of Surroundings:

Wikipedia says, “The Marcy Houses is a low income public housing project in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn in New York City. The project consists of 27 six-story buildings on 28.49 acres, with 1,705 apartments housing some 4,286 residents. Completed on January 19, 1949, it is bordered by Flushing, Marcy, Nostrand and Myrtle Avenues. The area is considered one of the rougher parts of New York City.”

Infoshare (a census reporting site) says the number of black persons in the zipcode of 11206 (Bedford Styvesant) with graduate degrees is 356. Of which, 263 with graduate degrees are female. The total black population is 24,203.

Setting:

Stuart Phillips a.k.a. Bloody Gusto must remain in control of his cadre at all costs, as he makes his living through the people that work for him. Everyone within these two blocks knows each other. Word got back to him that ‘P.” wasn’t around, which increased pressures of Gusto labeling Don P. as ‘renagade blood’, the worst label to have on you with your family around. Three weeks pass and he decided to make a phone call.

Don Duval Patterson aka. P has been avoiding fellow gang members in his neighborhood after experiencing a slight emotional breakdown due to the realization of being the eldest male in his family, burdened with the responsibility of reformation of his family structure. He started feeling disgusted with himself and his surroundings because of the nihilistic demeanor he demonstrated and learned from those in his environment.

Ring. Ring.

Gusto:
What’s buzzin (What’s Up), P? You’ve been missing in action since you’ve sold your last bundle (drugs) out of town. What’s really hood with you?

‘P.’:
Chillin, just been doin’ me.

Gusto:
What you mean, you, just been doin’ you (doing things that are within’ your rational self-interest)! You ain’t been pushin’ no weight (selling drugs). You ain’t been f*ck’n wit’ no broads (courting women). You’ve been in the house all day for the past three weeks. F*ck you been doin’?

P:
On some real shit, I been doing some think’n about the shit (stuff) I’ve been seeing around me. The things I’ve been doin’, and looking back on it all, I’m not feelin’ it.

Gusto:
Feel’n what P, getting money (illegally), lookin’ fly (buying fancy clothes), getting p*ssy (self-explanatory). Okay, f*ck the females, you know we M.O.B. (money over B*tches); but what about providing for your family and your brothers that have done the same for you. Ain’t that important to you?

P:
You know how much work (illegal activity) I put in for my family and my Bloods since I was a young buck for that ‘baby love’ (money). Shit, the first time I caught a jooks (robbery) was age twelve. I’m nineteen now. I’ve done things sober most people couldn’t do high. N’ now my Uncle Snuffy has been convicted and sentenced to life with no parole for doin’ the same shit I’m doin right now.

Gusto:
So are you saying that you’re scared of getting knocked (arrested/convicted)? It’s a risk of the way we have to live. The way the system has made things for us. You can’t be weak and being scared is a sign of weakness.

P:
I ain’t scared of sh*t. To be honest with you, I didn’t think I’d make it this long. You know what Jay-Z (hood philosopher) said about our hood.

Gusto and P:
::recites quote in unison:: “Life expectancy so low we makin’ out wills at 18.”

P:
I’m nineteen, Gusto. The head of household and family as my Uncle got knocked. The only members of my family with my last name currently free and alive are my nephew (Age 5), my cousin (Age 16), and myself. No, disrespect but do you think that doing the things I have been doing like making money on the backs of people is helping my family?

Gusto:
P, you know what is out there and what is not. There are no jobs out there, everyone around us is on welfare, and everyone is a high school dropout. If you get a GED, you can work at McDonalds, if you go to college you will be broke for four plus years; only to be able to be a manager at a McDonalds. There ain’t no other options for us.

P:
Again, I mean no disrespect, my G. I know the conditions of the ‘P’s (projects) and I know things look bad, but you didn’t answer my question (extremely disrespectful to say as you must always respect the word of your O.G.). I’ve seen family members overdose on the same sh*t we sell. Being around the conditions of our environment caused the addiction. You said I was supposed to provide for my family and my brothers right?

Gusto:
Yea, getting money for your family and holding down your people going through the struggle with you is ultimately important.

P:
You also said that you can’t be weak and being scared is a sign of weakness. Yet, in the words of Jay-Z, we make out our wills at age eighteen, right?

Gusto:
Yea, I did say that.

P:
Then is not being able to provide for your family because of your choice to do things illegally, which would result in your incarceration or murder, a sign of weakness in our culture?

Gusto:
Yes, it does show weakness in our culture, but in our culture where 50% of us don’t have jobs because ‘the white man’ keeps us down as a people; do you think we chose to live in hell (the projects)? Do you think we wanted to sell crack and heroin to our people? No. We don’t own boats to bring in cocaine and heroin here; do you know any black men with a boat? No. This is the hand we’ve been dealt. We have no choice but to play. Don’t you agree?

P:
I do agree that ‘the white man’ has kept us down in the past, but it’s now 2005, I don’t see men wearing white bed sheets riding around the projects at night. I don’t see picket lines in front of the schools keeping us from entering. I do feel that we chose to live in hell and that we chose to stay oppressed.

Gusto:
No, that’s where your wrong young blood. We have no choice but to be oppressed. We don’t own anything, because we have no jobs, we have no jobs because ‘the white man’ won’t hire us. He won’t hire us because we have inferior education. We have inferior education because our schools are sh*t.

P:
So are you saying that we have no choice but to be oppressed by this ‘white man? I saw a white man move in across the street, in the lofts, the other f*ck’n day. If we kill this white man, will we be free?

Gusto:
I wouldn’t say that that particular man, but there are a lot of people that don’t want us to succeed.

P:
Are these people succeeding at keeping us from succeeding?

Gusto:
You tell me?

P:
Well from I learned from you today, I’d say yes.

Gusto:
Then you would agree we have no choice?

P:
I didn’t say that.

Gusto:
Then what exactly are you saying, P.

P:
I am just saying what I am hearing you say to gain clarity about… :: Gusto Interrupts ::

Gusto:
What do you need me to clarify; the fact that you are renegade blood (you are a ‘double agent’, not to be trusted, and eliminated) or the fact that you have turned your back on your brethren by hiding in the house?

P:
Well for one thing, what makes me a renegade blood, turning my back on my brethren or doing things that appear weak like hiding in the house?

Gusto:
Both.

P:
Would you say being a slave is being weak?

Gusto:
Well, slaves would have to be strong in order to do the work they are told to do.

P:
Let me rephrase, would you say, a slave is weaker than his master, if his master got him to be and remain a slave?

Gusto:
Yea he’s weaker, otherwise he wouldn’t be a slave.

P:
Let me get this straight, just to make sure I am following you correctly. Your saying, to not be a renegade, I have to be my ‘brothers keeper’ by allowing my brother to risk his freedom for me, and put himself in harm’s way; because ‘the white man’ we don’t see, is oppressing us, we have to kill each other either through physical violence and drug trafficking, only to go to jail because we have no choice but to be oppresed, which you said made someone weaker. If we have no choice but to live as we do, which makes us as weak as slaves; if we put each other in harm’s way, if we don’t encourage each other to become stronger than the oppressor, we never see, clearly conflictin’ with being our ‘brother’s keeper’. Isn’t every Blood in New York renegade?

Gusto:
This is not the point, you can play little word tricks. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t change the fact that you have not checked in, you have disobeyed protocol by not asking permission to make a move like you did. You are acting like you are not down for us anymore.

P:
Gusto, Word to Everything I Love, I love everything you’ve done for me but … :: gusto angrily interrupts ::

Gusto:
But what, how you gonna say, “You ain’t down.” As if, I personally haven’t bust someone’s head wide open (severely injured) that was frontin’ on you (insult your ego). Let me ask you a question, what the fuck was you doin’ in the crib (house) for three weeks? You lookin’ kinda pale (haven’t received sunlight), blood.

P:
To keep it straight real with you, as you have always kept it with me; I was studyin’ to get my GED, I signed up for classes. I was going to ask you but I’ve been so stressed out about my family, I feel I had no choice.

Gusto:
::laughing:: Young blood, Young blood; I respect that ‘n all that, but you know these could be classified as renegad’ish actions. Do you think that it was worth it to take a risk like that knowing the consequences of your actions?

P:
I didn’t mean to be disrespectful but as you agreed that I need to provide for my family. By going to get my GED, I wanted to have a safety net for doing that. My incarcerated family members are unable to that. My dead family members are unable to do that. ::Gusto irately interrupts::

Gusto:
In GED school, you will be unable to do that. It’s 2005, young blood. You ain’t going nowhere with a GED. You didn’t even make it past the eighth grade and you have two felonies on your rap sheet. Where do you really think your going, taking a risk like that?

P:
:: insecurely mumbles:: College. ::silence::

Gusto:
::bursts out laughing:: You are fukkin’ crazy! I know that all the work (illegal activities) you put in was just work. Everyone else perceived it as crazy. I didn’t; but now, I know that you are fukkin’ crazy. N*gguh, can you even fukkin’ read? I’ve never even seen you read a magazine. You can’t even speak proper English, them white motha’ fukkers gonna rip you to shreds in any college you go to. If you can even get into a college with a GED, you won’t make it. You couldn’t make it through high school. You came to me during high school, talkin bout’ you would do whateva to get down ‘cause you didn’t have no money. We as your brothers fed you, taught you how to hustle, taught you how to fight and shoot. Now you want to turn around on us and leave us out to dry to chase a dream?

P:
::silence:: What is a dream, Gusto? Is wanting to be around, to take care of my family, longer than the average n*gguh from around here, a dream? Is wanting to be a father that actually sees his sons grow up, a dream? I’ve seen people die at the hands of people that I shake hands with on the regular. I’ve seen more walking deceased (drug addicts) than teenage girls watching a zombie movie. Shit, my father was addicted to heroin. He let himself die before I reached the age of eight. We are living a nightmare that … :: gusto interrupts::

Gusto:
That’s right, lil nigguh. We live a nightmare. We live in hell. Do you want to live in hell, endure the torment, while going to college? We don’t have much, but living the way we do, we eat a lot more than most people, because we stick together. That is what keeps our gang alive. No matter what laws are made, no matter who goes renegade on us. Why would you want to break that with no guarantee of success, with no proof of progress, no nothing?

P:
Respectfully my G, if I severely have violated your set by wanting an education and must die, I will do so with no problem. I really have nothing to lose. There are only a few members of my family left. If I don’t try something different, they will die off. The cycle of fatherlessness (we do make up words) will continue, leaving a slim chance of survival. As my brother, I’d hope you could understand.

Gusto:
::hangs up phone::

Only dial tone remains.

End.

Major: Life, Minor: Business

2008-10-25T16:54:00.000-04:00

I have come to a conclusion about my desired major, which will create a synthesis between History (World), Economics (Flow of Money), and Philosophy (How People Think). This will be of ultimate importance in the world of business in the world. Doing business with a person - on the global level - from a different region of the world, would require a deep understanding of a person's history and way of thinking, this may have a strong effect on how receptive, sceptical, or susceptible that person may be when doing business with me, as a brown skinned person or as an American native.

To leave a well-known college with a Bachelors degree in 'The World', 'How People Think', and 'How Value Flows from Person to Person', is important to me. Being able to 'connect the dots' of knowledge, will prepare me to do a dual business / law graduate program. I feel without this well rounded education, a business degree or law degree will be lacking in value, especially considering how many people only view education as a method of getting a job, not as a way of making one's mind stronger, in this now, knowledge-based economy.

My belief in education as a way of enriching every application of knowledge, I have actioned, and will action. Let me provide you with a case study. At a conference I went to, I was able to valuate a commodity, based on understanding the age, the musical choices (culture), and history of conference participants. This combination of knowledge and commonality allowed my friends and I, to create an environment within our hotel room, that was conducive of other conference participates tastes. Allowing my friends and I, the ability to network with other students more effectively. As environment, in business, is used as a way of creating certain thoughts, in certain people, when certain decisions need to be influenced.

Ah, the benefits of education.

Another Day ... Another Dollar ... That I Don't Have ...

2008-10-13T18:02:00.000-04:00

Hey Degenerates,

Just got back from Amherst, MA from my first real college tour. When I first left for this tour, my mind was set on Columbia. Columbia University's name alone opens doors, but I really do not want to spend the next two years completely miserable in the process. Amherst University seems to have a similar academic reputation, however, the campus is beautiful. The students seem to have that academic assertiveness, which I crave. However, I heard the stipend I receive from my scholar program is lighter than usual upon move to the next school.

So what to do for money? Should I be looking to get a job? Just to stack up chips.

I guess it wouldn't hurt to start the job hunt for when the semester ends. Let us get these grades up until then.

The First Blog Post ...

2008-10-08T21:31:00.000-04:00

First and Foremost, I would like to thank the first members of my blog for taking an interest in it. By reading this particular blog you will be gaining a bird's eye view into the life of a hood scholar.

So what is a 'Hood' Scholar?

A 'Hood' Scholar is one who studies that which is vital to his/her survival; whether it be James Allen, Jay-Z, Ayn Rand, Frank White (a fictional drug-dealer philanthropist), or 2Pac. Hood Scholars are - in their complete form - usually found in prisons across our nation (USA). I am a 'hood' scholar.

And your welcome, your all welcome ... Enjoy.