Friday, August 25, 2006

Stop snitching? How about "Grow up"!

Every time I hear about these idiot rappers and others going around talking about "stop snitching," I just want to wring somebody's neck. People have a right to be able to go about their lives confident in the fact that, if they are done wrong, somebody who saw something till speak up on behalf of the person who was hurt. Instead, you have these fools talking about some "code of the street."

When I was much younger, I understood that there were certain things that distinguished "grown-ups" from kids. One of them was that grown-ups had to go to work, while kids didn't (and usually couldn't). More importantly, I know that when you passed a certain point in your life, you were expected to take responsibility for your actions. If an eight-year-old breaks a neighbor's window, his (or her) parents have to pay for it. But if a working teenager or adult does the same thing, he or she is responsible for it. To run away from responsibility was to avoid "being a responsible person," that is, an adult.

Which means that these idiots pressuring people to "stop snitching" are basically overgrown boys and girls trying to pass themselves off as men and women. Do you hear me, Tony Yayo? You "had something to do" with a shooting that escalated from your G-Unit crew's stupid tactic of starting beef with any- and everybody just to get headlines, and it ended up with a man being killed in cold blood. Until this matter is settled (and if you did the shooting, that means you behind bars), YOU CANNOT CALL YOURSELF A MAN. Grow up, and take whatever the law has coming to you like a man.

But wait, there's more...

The New York State Metropolitan Transit Authority has a slogan, "If you see something, say something," to prevent would-be terrorists from disrupting services or taking lives. The saying also applies to those "stop snitching" idiots. If you see a crime being committed, especially against someone who did nothing to merit being wronged, you have a responsibility (there's that word again) to speak up. To do otherwise, again, is avoiding being a responsible person, an adult.

Did you hear that, Busta Rhymes? Until you do right by the family of your slain bodyguard, YOU CANNOT CALL YOURSELF A MAN. "Doing right" by them doesn't mean only paying for the funeral arrangements and whatever else you might have done to ease a guilty conscience. It means speaking up so that the triggerman, be it Tony Yayo or whoever, will go to jail and pay for what he did. As for you, Busta, you don't have to prove anything to people who don't want to grow up, unless you yourself don't want to grow up either. Until this thing happened I had always thought you were a stand-up guy, as they say. I guess I was wrong...

Being responsible also means not blaming others for your own stupidity or lapses of judgment. You hear, Lil Kim? You refused to testify against people who cooperated with the police. What in God's name was the poInt of that? Don't you know that anytime you even refuse to answer a cop's question on the street, they can get you for obstruction of justice? Even if you harbor a fugitive that you know is innocent, you are still guilty of obstruction even after the person's innocence is proved. That charge doesn't mean allowing someone to get away with something, it means not cooperating. You chose not to cooperate, so you went to jail. Case closed. Yet you run around, yapping to anyone who will listen that your former friends "snitched" on you. But they didn't make you decide not to cooperate, that was your choice. Until you can own up to that (and shut up and move on) , YOU CANNOT CALL YOURSELF A WOMAN.

I could go on and on -- the hip-hop world, in particular, excels in providing examples of this kind of stupidity -- but I've made my point. Once you pass a certain age, you take responsibility for your actions. That is what "responsible adult" means. If you won't do that, YOU ARE NOT AN ADULT. Period.

And just for the record, I am not some old, conservative, Frank Sinatra contemporary who just "doesn't get the younger generation." Nor am I Stanley the Grouch, um, I mean Stanley Crouch writing incognito. I'm 41 years old; I grew up with rap but I remember when there were no rap records. I remember when there weren't so many thirtysometings walking around acting and talking like teenagers to appeal to an audience who will forget all about them in six months.

Monday, August 21, 2006

I'm boss, Hil tells Bill (updated)

Originally posted 3/21/06 -- update at the end

It will be interesting to see just how this works out. Hillary Clinton, the wife if I understand correctly, wants to OK all public statemens by Bill Clinton, her husband, before he makes them, in order to make sure he doesn't say or do anything to hurt her chances of getting the Democratic Party's endorsement for President in the 2008 election.

I'm boss, Hil tells Bill

The thing is, I don't see a whole lot of conflict in some of what the press is portraying as conflicting statements made by the two in recent weeks. For instance, Hillary Clinton made it clear that she voted in favor of the resolution to remove Saddam Hussein from power, seeing it as a move to stabilize the Middle East. Bill later went on record as saying that the Bush administration made errors in judgment in determining just how long it would take to remove Saddam and his supporters and oversee the transition to a democratic government.

Where's the conflict? Did Hillary say that she thinks the President and the military are doing exactly what needs to be done? I don't recall reading or hearing that. Nor do I recall Bill Clinton saying that Saddam should have been allowed to stay in power. The conflict, if there is any, is just the press making a mountain out of a molehill in order to sell newspapers and attract TV news viewers. After all, the NY Daily News article this post links to is advertised with a cartoon of Hillary Clinton pulling the strings of a zipper-mouthed Bill.

UPDATE: Suddenly I'm picturing Hillary Clinton dancing around the house in Chappaqua, singing along to Kelis' "Bossy."

Monday, August 14, 2006

Google Ice Cream

I've been saying for years that I live on the wrong coast. I should be out on the West Coast, preferably California, where (if I find the right place) I can throw out my winter clothes, and maybe even my allergy medicine. But now I find that even if I did move to the West Coast I'd probably be working for the wrong company. Google has specially-made ice-cream sandwiches that are only served in their company cafeteria.



*sigh*

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Rude Cell Phone Callers

Interesting article here about rude cell-phone use. This one starts off with something I wish I'd see more often -- a rude cell phone user who insists on finishing her conversation when the counterperson in Starbucks it ready to wait on her gets tossed out of line when the clerk calls for the next customer. Rude talker stomps off, still talking. Probably doesn't think she did anything wrong, the twit.

Wired News

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

OK, so these things happen (re: Abreu on the Yankees, Nady gone, Sanchez on the DL, etc.)

All right, I guess nobody on the Mets front office staff is a fortune teller. They had no way of knowing that the Yankees would make a move to get Bobby Abreu before the Mets could get him. They had no way of knowing that some wild driver in Miami would sideswipe the taxicab carrying pitcher Duaner Sanchez, separating his shoulder and ending his season, making it necessary to trade right fielder Xavier Nady, the man whose presence in the Met outfield made a trade for Abreu unnecessary. They also had no way of knowing that the day Abreu first suited up in a Yankee uniform for a game, the Yankees would move back into first place, stealing some of the Mets' thunder. They couldn't have known any of that in advance.

But now I find myself thinking about how the Mets season might wind up with their most dependable reliever (Sanchez) out of the game and a popular and steady outfielder (Nady) now playing for another team. And about the popular and steady outfielder (Abreu) that could have been a Met but is now a Yankee...

Roberto Hernandez should be able to pick up the slack, I guess. I mean, even at 40 years old, he was the highlight of the Mets bullpen last year, and by all accounts was headed to a similar record this season. He's even on the top-ten list for career saves, which came as a surprise to me, since I had never heard of him before the Mets got him last year.

I just don't want to watch somebody else's team in the playoffs again this year. I want to see the Mets there, and I want to see them there because they won their way there, not because they slid in through the backdoor via the wild card.