We here at Bossip loooove 90′s Rap and feel the whole rap game has died down. We’ve compiled a list of reasons “Hip Hop Has Changed And Is Not As Potent As It Used To Be.” #10:The internet. The internet is making bubble gum geeks into stars. I.E. Kreayshawn and others in her ilk. The internet lets anybody who wants to put out music… put it out at their own discretion which has lead to too much music being out there and folks having to have some kind of gimmick in order to make it. The gay rapper, the white girl rapper, the rapper that got his chain snatched on camera, that rapper that beat up somebody on camera, etc… etc. Also, people feel “why buy music?”
Looks like another point for the “Legalize It” movement… Smoking a joint once a week or a bit more apparently doesn’t harm the lungs, suggests a 20-year study that bolsters evidence that marijuana doesn’t do the kind of damage tobacco does. The study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham was released Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association. Unlike cigarette smokers, marijuana users tend to breathe in deeply when they inhale a joint, which some researchers think might strengthen lung tissue. But the common lung function tests used in the study require the same kind of deep breathing that marijuana smokers are used to, so their good test results might partly reflect lots of practice, said Kertesz, a drug abuse researcher and preventive medicine specialist at the Alabama university. On average, cigarette users smoked about 9 cigarettes daily, while average marijuana use was only a joint or two a few times a month – typical for U.S. marijuana users, Kertesz said. The analyses showed pot didn’t appear to harm lung function, but cigarettes did. Cigarette smokers’ test scores worsened steadily during the study. Smoking marijuana as often as one joint daily for seven years, or one joint weekly for 20 years was not linked with worse scores. Very few study participants smoked more often than that. Cigarettes are bad and marijuana…. not so much? Why does this seem like common sense to us? What do you think? Is this a step towards legalizing the herb or just comparing 2 of the same evils? Source
This is a tough one to gauge… From a distance, it seemed like common sense: an ordinance meant to keep children away from an open-air night-life zone with more than 350 places to buy booze, an abundance of strip joints and a 300-year-old reputation for iniquity. But last week, as the New Orleans City Council approved a strict curfew for youths 16 and younger in the French Quarter, it sparked an incendiary debate that laid bare some of the tensions over race and police priorities that the Louisiana city — which suffers from the nation’s highest per capita murder rate — is struggling to resolve as it navigates its post-Hurricane Katrina future. The ordinance, which was unanimously approved Thursday, revises a long-standing 11 p.m. curfew on Friday and Saturday nights to 8 p.m. for the French Quarter and part of the nearby Faubourg Marigny neighborhood. In the rest of the city, an 11 p.m. curfew remains on weekends, with an 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. curfew on weekdays, depending on the season. Councilwoman Kristen Gisleson Palmer, whose district includes the French Quarter, wrote the ordinance. The goal, she said, was to protect children from violent incidents like the headline-grabbing shootings last Halloween night, in which two people were killed and a dozen injured by gunfire on or around the packed Bourbon Street party strip. “If we can, in any way, protect children from that, I think it’s very reasonable,” Palmer said. But in a pair of emotional public meetings, a number of residents, most of them African Americans, criticized the idea. Some alleged that the lawmakers were trying to keep low-income blacks out of the sightlines of tourists. “There is this desire not to have these black males in the French Quarter,” said Tracie L. Washington, an attorney who heads the Louisiana Justice Institute, a nonprofit civil rights group. Palmer, who is white, dismissed the allegations. At the council meeting Thursday, critics said the curfew would result in racial profiling of young blacks. One man called it “the equivalent of a black code.” Another African American speaker said that instead of “sugar-coating” the issue, the council should “just tell us straight up — you don’t want us.” Some worried that police would harass black kids going to and from restaurant jobs, or when they were busking or tap-dancing for tips from tourists. Palmer, the councilwoman, said those kids would be left alone because the ordinance exempts, among others, people at work or headed to and from work. Many critics argued that the new curfew hours would seem more fair if they were enforced citywide. Palmer said her staff was working on a new ordinance to do just that. Ronal Serpas, the city’s police superintendent, said he had asked his officers to be more diligent about enforcing the existing citywide curfew since he took charge of the police department in May 2010. Some French Quarter residents have applauded the new curfew, but other New Orleanians wonder whether police, in enforcing the rules, will be distracted from more crucial duties. In many cases, youths breaking the curfew will be told to go home, but in some instances police might take them into custody. Do you think the curfew is racially motivated ? Source More On Bossip! True Or False??? Serena Williams’ Heartbroken Twitter Rant The Result Of Drizzy Wifing Dollicia Bryan For The Fellas: 5 Things You Need To Know About Your “Package” Hi Hater: “Messy” Erica Mena And Her Floozy Friend Throw Shade Towards The BMF Wives ON Twitter!! Question Of The Day: What Exactly Was Yeezy Trying To Tell Us With His Three Hours’ Worth Of Tweets?
Iran isn’t a nation known for its liberal outlook on…. anything. So maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the country may soon pull out of the Internet and launch its own national network instead. Iran is clamping down heavily on web users before parliamentary elections in March with draconian rules on cybercafes and preparations to launch a national internet. Tests for a countrywide network aimed at substituting services run through the world wide web have been carried out by Iran’s ministry of information and communication technology, according to a newspaper report. The move has prompted fears among its online community that Iran intends to withdraw from the global internet. The police this week imposed tighter regulations on internet cafes. Cafe owners have been given a two-week ultimatum to adopt rules requiring them to check the identity cards of their customers before providing services. “Internet cafes are required to write down the forename, surname, name of the father, national identification number, postcode and telephone number of each customer,” said an Iranian police statement, according to the news website Tabnak. Not only are they considering pulling the plug on the entire internet but they want to start their own national service to censor and monitor its on citizens. What type of oppressive mess is that?? They are regulating something serious over there SMH SOURCE
Nothing is worse than the bus. Except the holiday bus. And after stopping to kick a man off for smoking cigarettes in the bathroom, we were boarded in Philly by two drunks, who, after the incident, were revealed as NYPD!
The news of Michael Taylor’s untimely death yesterday has gotten a few people thinking and talking. Among them is cultural and political commentator Dr. Marc Lamont Hill who tweeted a very interesting point this morning. Did the idea that his uncle’s actions and our laughter could have pushed Michael right into the life his family wanted him to avoid even cross your mind when you first saw that video? And with all of the hazing cases being reported these past couple of weeks, do you think we “romanticize” and accept the type of violence that “toughens us up” a little too much??
