Chiraq: America’s Murder Capital

(From In Loco Politico)

It was briefly before the summer of 2012 when then 16 year-old rapper Chief Keef (birth name Keith Cozart) burst into the "drill" music scene. While being confined to his grandmother's house under house arrest for previous weapons charges, Sosa (as he's commonly referred as) release three songs onto his YouTube account: "Bang", "3hunna", and "Don't Like. "Don't Like" quickly became a hometown banger that attracted the likes of fellow Chicago rapper Kanye West. West, along with GOOD music members Pusha T, Big Sean, and 2 Chainz, made a remix to the hit and included it in the collective's debut album. Soon, Keef quickly burgeoned into the limelight. He had various record labels courting him as well as having many heavy hitters in the rap industry either be featured on his songs or feature him in theirs. Chief Sosa would eventually settle for a multi-million, three album deal with Interscope.  

Keef's raps deal with the dark and violent underbelly of mainstream American society. Gritty lyrics dealing with drugs, murder, and women coupled with beats with ear-numbing bass, makes Keef something record labels have never seen before. He is a metaphorical breath of fresh air in a market saturated with similar sounding rappers and beats.

A known Black Disciples gang affiliate, Keef and his friends are often seen toting around guns and smoking blunts and sipping lean in many of his music videos. Keef has been in trouble various times with the law for gun charges and has actually served time in prison for this. In a recent interview with Pitchfork magazine, Keef was seen shooting a gun at a firing range in New York, effectively violating his terms of 18-month probation which he received in 2011 for pointing a gun at an officer.

Chief Keef at the New York gun range.

While many might disagree, Chief Keef is truly a poet of the streets. He accurately portrays the struggle young impoverished minority males go through on the unforgiving streets of Chicago's South Side. He gives a brutally honest representation on the effects of poor socioeconomic status on a society. Keef is not a fabricated figure; everything he does is real and actually him. He is a physical manifestation of everything wrong with Chicago's South Side.

As ironic as it might seem, I enjoy Keef's music and anxiously await the release of his newest mixtape, Bang 3. I cannot quite place my finger on exactly why I like this genre of music as I don't indulge myself in the hedonistic and violent lifestyle described in the lyrics of these songs. Perhaps it is the hypnotizing thumping beats, or the catchy lyrics.

"Tryna get some money gotta take risks

Hit the highway up with like 8 bricks

Fuck the police, gotta take trips" lyrics from Fredo Santana's (a Chief Keef affiliate) "Take Risks".

Fredo Santana posing with a pistol in hand.

Keef's success is unorthodox and at first seemed extremely unlikely. In a neighborhood where many end up dead or in prison by the age of thirty, Keef has surpassed all expectations and has broken the mold. He has made more than most people have in a couple lifetimes, all before the age of 20.

Keef was born and raised in Englewood on the South Side of Chicago, where the median income is less than .$20,000 a year The poverty rate is at a staggering 44%, as opposed to Chicago's 20%, and it is often called the most violent neighborhood in one of the most dangerous area in the murder capital of the United States. In Englewood, police sirens and gunshots are an often, if not daily, occurrence. A 21-year old resident of the area was quoted as saying“Crazy! Blue lights – you hear the sirens don’t you. That’s what you have all day every day. It’s Englewood.” 

Englewood, Chicago.

Despite having some of the most stringent gun control laws in the entire country, shootings are still prevalent in Chicago. In 2012 alone, over 500 people were murdered, many of them victims of gang violence that has plagued Chicago. Surprisingly enough, these 500 homicides pale in comparison to the amount in 1991, when there was an astounding 922 homicides in the city. The murders in Englewood have caused a massive exodus from the city. The population drastically decreased from 97,000 residents in 1967 to about 30,000 in 2010, with 10,000 residents leaving the area from 2000-2010. Chicago, being essentially the birthplace of the American gangster, has had a long history of gang violence that has continued to this very day.

Between 2003-2011, there was more homicides in Chicago the combat deaths in Afghanistan. The number of combat deaths in Iraq only slightly edged out the number of homicides in Chicago.

The extensive number of murders have led many to dub Chicago as "Chiraq", a nomenclature that derives from the combination of Chicago and Iraq.

75 percent of those murdered were African-American--and 75 percent of the murderers were also African-American. The staggering amount of black-on-black violence has been mainly ignored by the mainstream media. While they're busy covering the tomfooleries of one particular Canadian pin head, the media only briefly covers the ever-growing violence not only in Chicago's South Side, but throughout various impoverished communities throughout America. While the African-American community went into an uproar when they heard about Trayvon Martin's shooting, not very many of them stirred at the hundreds, if not thousands of black-on-black murders. The violence is so bad that kids plan their own funerals in advanced just in case they get killed walking to or from school. It has become so bad that it forced Darnell D. Hamilton, a 4.0 GPA student at the prestigious charter school Urban Prep, to bring a loaded 9 millimeter handgun to school. After being repeatedly harassed by gang members, Darnell decided to arm himself in case they threatened his life. The gun was found on him at school and now faces two felonies: unlawful use of a weapon and possession of a firearm on school grounds. The judge set bail at $75,000.

What is the root of Chicago's violence problem? Some would say the problem stems from Jim Crow laws of the late 19th century. Others would blame the lack of funding for public schools and other public works programs. For many young black teenagers, the only way to become successful and respected is to join a gang and sell and/or produce drugs, or in a more colloquial term, live that "trap life". The violence in Chicago is not caused by Chief Keef's music. Rather, Chief Keef is a result of the violence in the unforgiving South Side of Chicago.

Tale of Two Cities Lecture Notes

• Third city is Manchester.
• Dicken's wrote The Frozen Deep with a few colleagues.
• It was partially inspired by Sir John Franklin's "lost "Arctic expedition.
• Similar plot line to that of A Tale of Two Cities.
• Both the play and the novel have a love triangle.
• The two cities are London and Paris.
• Deals with a lot of sacrifice.
• Draws parallels from Dicken's own divorce.
• Huge dichotomy between Paris and London.
• Takes place about 100 years prior to when it's published; mist of the French revolution.
• Dicken's feared the revolution might spread to England; revolution and change are central themes in the novel.
• A Tale of Two Cities was written in installments; Dicken's wrote as he went and based his writings on his reader's responses. 

Lit Terms IV: A New Hope

interior monologue: Internal speech. Essentially a character's thinking in words to themselves. Thought bubbles.

inversion: The reversal of the normal order of words and phrases in a sentence, typically used for the sake of maintaining a rhyming scheme and emphasis. Yoda speak.

juxtaposition: Placing two different things together side-by-side for contrasting effect.

lyric: set of words that make up a song or poem.

magic(al) realism: Mixing magical elements with a boring mundane environment. 

metaphor (extended, controlling, & mixed): a figure of speech making a comparison between one thing and something that is otherwise unrelated.

metonymy: a figure of speech attributing a part to describe the whole such as All Hands on Deck!

monologue: A single character mental thoughts out loud, not necessarily directed towards someone. To Be or Not to Be.

mood: General feeling or atmosphere that a piece of creates within a reader.

motif: A reoccurring element in literature that is often representative of something deeper. 
myth: A traditional story concerning the origins of humanity or the world/nature, often involving supernatural events/beings
narrative: A narrated account; a story.
narrator: The one who tells the story. 
naturalism: Realistic and factual representation of the world. Objective view of life.

novelette/novella: Fictional prose longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. Orwell's Animal Farm, Burgess's A Clockwork Orange.

omniscient point of view: The narrator is all knowing and all seeing. 

onomatopoeia: Words the imitate the sound that they are associated with such as bees buzzing, cats meowing, SPLAT, BAM, POW, etc. 

 
oxymoron: Figure of speech juxtaposing two contradicting elements. IE jumbo shrimp, cold as hell, the word oxymoron itself (oxy being sharp and moron being dull)
parable: A story which conveys an instructive lesson or principle. 

paradox: DOES NOT COMPUTE. A statement that contradicts itself but might be true. IE This statement is false. 

Lit Terms (III): Revenge of the Terms

exposition: The part of the Novel/play/movie/etc that gives important background information. Pretty much sets the tone for the story. Usually found towards the beginning.

expressionism: Modernist movement which presents the world in a totally subjective perspcetive and distorts it according to emotion.

fable: story that features animals, talking inanimate objects, and/or mythical creatures. Usually conveys a moral lesson with the animals/objects/creatures representing a deeper meaning.

 
fallacy: an argument that uses poor reasoning to back it up. IE Why is a firetruck red? Cause there's four wheels on them and eight people, and four plus eight is twelve, and twelve is a foot and a foot is a ruler, and Queen Elizabeth was a ruler, and Queen Elizabeth was also a ship, and the ship sails the sea and in the sea is fish and fish have fins, and the Finns fought the Russians and the Russians were red and that's why firetrucks are red.

falling action: What happens after the climax; where all the loose ends are tied up and everything is resolved.

farce: Slapstick comedy. A comical dramatic work that uses highly improvable scenarios and exaggerated characters. 

figurative language: Similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia, personification, oxymoron, etc. Comparing two things or describing something in an unorthodox fashion.

flashback: A scene that takes the story back in time.

foil: (a+b)(c+d)=ac+ad+bc+bd.
        No but seriously... A character who contrasts another character, usually to highlight a particular aspect of said character.

folk tale: A story originating from pop culture, typically passed down from generation to generation. (Pictured is the Mexican "La Llorona")

foreshadowing: To hint or warn of what is going to happen later on in the novel/movie/game/play/etc in a subtle manner. 

free verse: Form of poetry with no consistent meter patterns or rhymes.

genre: any category of literature, film, etc.

gothic tale: Genre that combines fiction, horror, and naturalism. 

hyperbole: Using exaggeration to show emphasis. IE I'm so hungry I can eat a horse.

imagery: Use of vivid or figurative language to describe something.

implication: Conclusion drawn from something, but not explicitly stated.
incongruity: The state of being out of harmony, not flowing. Being out of place. 

inference: Deriving a conclusion based on something assumed to be true.

irony: the use of words/actions that signify exactly the opposite of what they should. 

Crisis In Ukraine

Via In Loco Politico.

It all began on the night of November 21st. When news hit that Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych decided to reject a free trade deal with the European Union that would have brought the Ukraine one step closer to European integration, spontaneous protests erupted in the capital city of Kiev. The rejection of the free trade deal coupled with the crippling unemployment and government corruption led the protests to burgeon soon as university students joined in. In the weeks following the initial protests of about 2,000 people, between 400,000 to 800,000 protesters flooded the Maidan Nezalezhnost (Independence Square). Since then, many smaller protests have sprouted in cities throughout the country.

In the early morning of November 30, the protests turned violent when special police units began a crackdown on the otherwise peaceful protesters. Armed with batons, tear gas, and stun grenades, the special police descended upon Independence Square and dispersed the protesters and suppressed any mobile phone communications in the area.

A few days following the brutal crackdown, Kiev's District Administrative Court banned any protests in downtown Kiev until January 7, 2014. In response to the crackdown the day prior, between 400,000 to 800,000 protesters descended upon St. Michael's Square and soon began marching towards Independence Square with the goal of retaking it from riot police. The situation quickly deteriorated into an all-out riot when a small group of protesters stole a city bulldozer in an attempt to destroy a barricade that surrounded the protesters. At that moment, riot police began shooting tear gas and stun grenades at the protesters, which in turn responded with their own barrage of Molotov cocktails and rocks. The protesters soon took the Kiev city hall and still control it as of this writing. 

 

The following day was followed by peaceful protests. At this point, the protesters have set up an impressive barricade around the perimeter of the demonstrations and formed somewhat of a tent city. 

On the third consecutive Sunday of protests, protesters fought off riot police and toppled a statue of the leader of the October Revolution Vladimir Lenin . The protesters were found chanting "Yanukovych, you'll be next!" as they chipped away at the fallen monument. 

The vast majority (roughly 80 percent) of the protesters wanted the government and president to resign and to host snap elections. The following weeks were filled with meetings between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. In one such meeting, they signed the 2013 Ukrainian-Russian Action Plan, which settled restrictions in bilateral trade between the two nations and brought them closer together. The opposition quickly denounced the plan and blocked access to Parliament to prevent them from ratifying it.

Two weeks into 2014, parliament passed so-called "dictatorial" anti-demonstration laws, which the following infographic (courtesy of Citizen Journal) illustrates nicely. 

After tapering off during the New Year and Orthodox Christmas, it seems as if protests have flared back up again in response to the passing of the repressive, undemocratic rules. 

The protests can be streamed live here.

AP LITERARY TERMS (RMX) (Feat. Usher)

circumlocution: Talking a lot without saying much. Done in an attempt to be vague and avoid directly answering a question. 

classicism: music, literature, or art that incorporated ideas of ancient Greece and Rome in them.

cliche: something so overused, its not even funny. 

climax: 

No, not the Usher song.
 the most exciting part of any novel/play/movie/comic book/video game, etc. Essentially the "bass drop". 

colloquialism: slang. Pretty much the way a certain group of people speak (ie blondes saying "like" in between every other word).

Excuse the language. 

Interesting study performed by a North Carolina State University doctoral student based on questions by Cambridge Professor Dr. Vert Vaux. Highlights how different areas in the country use different words/phrases/pronunciations to describe the same thing.

The Separation of Church and State

As 2013 began to draw to a close, the New York-based Satanic Temple had one New Year's resolution: to erect a statue of Satan in front of the Oklahoma state capitol building. The statue depicts Satan as Baphomet, the goat-headed, winged pagan idol sitting on a throne inscribed with an inverted pentagram.

The group argued that the new statue would "complement and contrast" the already existing statue depicting the Christian Ten Commandments, which was donated by Republican Representative Mike Ritze in 2012. 

"[T]he Ten Commandments are an important component of the foundation of the laws and legal system of the United States of America and of the state of Oklahoma," stated the legislature approving the statue.

The Satanist temple has raised more than the $20,000 needed to build the statue. The "impact" that Lucien Greaves (spokesman for the temple) hopes to accomplish is to "send a clear and distinct message to the world that pluralism is alive and well in the United States."

The statue is facing heavy opposition from the state that is known as the "buckle" of what is often called the Bible Belt. Rep. Bob Cleveland defended his opposition by stating "Any monument displayed on state property should reflect the values of Oklahoma or memorialize those who built or defended our freedom. In my opinion, this Satanist monument does not meet with the values of Oklahomans."

This isn't the first time the statue of the Ten Commandments has been protested. In August of last year, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit on behalf of several Oklahomans, including a Baptist minister. The suit argues that the constitution prohibits the use of state property to support a specific religious group or sect.

American Atheists, a New Jersey-based atheist organization, also filed suit to have the 2,000 pound statue removed from capitol building grounds. The suit argues that the monument violates the first amendment's establishment clause and the fourteenth amendment's due process and equal protection clause.

Since the request from the Temple of Satan was made public, the state has been flooded by requests from other religious groups, such as Hindus and Pastafarians, members of the satire church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

While it is unlikely that the Oklahoma state capitol will become somewhat of a museum of religious statues, one can only hope.

Speaking of Pastafarians...

Christopher Schaeffer became the first open Pastafarian sworn into office when he became the newest addition to the Pomfret Town Council. He took oath while wearing a colander on his head to symbolize his religion.

AP PREP POST 1: SIDDHARTHA

A) 1. A symbol is an object, action, or event that represents something or that creates a range of associations beyond itself. In literary works a symbol can express an idea, clarify meaning, or enlarge literal meaning. Select a novel or play and, focusing on one symbol, write an essay analyzing how that symbol functions in the work and what it reveals about the characters or themes of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot. (Here).

They say the pen is mightier than the sword, and for many writers, the symbol is the sharpest blade available. Poets, playwrights, and novelists alike often use a variety of symbols to communicate their insights and themes with elegance. Although these symbols can prove frustrating for some readers (why can’t they just say what they mean!?), many others, this reader included, find the device to be integral to creating an intriguing and memorable work of literature. Herman Hesse, author of Siddhartha, certainly seems to subscribe to this latter mindset; in Siddhartha, one of his most famous and tightly crafted novellas, Hesse utilizes the symbol of the river to represent the work’s themes regarding the timelessness of existence and the unity of all beings.

2. Does love – familial, romantic, platonic, etc. – : bring us closer to enlightenment by moving us 

closer to a greater understanding of humanity, or does it move us away by forcing us to desire something 

which must perish? Prove your conclusion with evidence from the text; this will require an examination of the 

effects love has on Siddhartha throughout the novel. 

3. Siddhartha offers commentary on a number of issues: relationships, desire, wisdom (and 

teaching), the path to enlightenment, etc. Identify a subject that Hesse chose to study and respond to it – 

either affirming or rejecting Hesse’s argument through analysis and specific evidence. (For example, 

Siddhartha claims that wisdom cannot be taught; either agree or disagree with this, and prove why your view 

is correct using evidence from Siddhartha.)

4. There is a theme of circularity in : Siddhartha, with the novel incorporating cycles into its 

symbolism, plot development, and characterization. What sort of impact do cycles have on Siddhartha’s life? 

Remember to consider how “enlightenment” frees one from a cycle of suffering, and the idea of reincarnation 

in general. Give examples of these cycles, and examine their importance to the story.

(Questions 3-4 can be found here).
5. I lost the link to my last one as my computer turned off in the process:(. Will update asap.
C) Most of the essay topics dealt with enlightenment so a knowledge of his progression from disparity and disillusionment to understanding is essentially. It is Aldo essential to know how me made that transition and what helped him become one with himself. drawing from personal experience can definitely help; the age-old question of "Why am I here?"

Hacking My Education

 In general, I was want to learn more about everything. But more importantly, I want to know more about my future field of study (and career). I want to learn how to be a better journalist (for In Loco Politico). I want to further develope my knowledge of all things politics and current events. As hard as it may seem, I want to be more informed. I also want to dive a little more into philosophy. I want to be able to show off my writing skills, both online and on essays. I also want to be able to demonstrate my understanding on the aforementioned topics and not just on a superficial level. I want to see In Loco Politico burgeon as a result of this, and slowly become the vision that I have in mind. I really want more of Righetti and just the entire youth populous to become involved in ILP, expressing their views mainly in form of discussion and articles they write. I want to get in contact with professional journalists, political analyzers, and politicians so I can get a better grasp of it and learn how to do what I do better.