Father's Day Salute 2012 6/17/2012

Attention all real fathers: Happy Father’s Day! The real fathers know who they are. The real fathers know that this message is just a compliment, right after it they will go back to work. If you've ever been arrested multiple times, you’re not a real father. Why? Real fathers know they have a daughter/son to take care of. A real father is someone who can turn the other cheek. Why? They have a son/daughter to take care of. A father is someone who is not quick to anger? Why? He knows he can whop your ass so why even bother. A father is someone who can listen to a male disrespect them and just walk away. Why? Well because if he talks back then it will just lead to an argument, which leads to murder, which leads to jail which means he cannot take care of his main priorities. A father is someone who loves Jesus. Why? Well first and foremost Jesus created him, therefore we thank him. Jesus died for us, therefore we thank him. Jesus did the impossible for us, therefore we thank him. Jesus know what’s best for us, therefore we thank him. A man, who lets go and let God, is a real father. Cudos to all the “Cowards” out there who expects money, (Kevin Hart’s Voice) you weak minded b*tch. It’s funny how I can say that because only the real men would read this. If they don’t have time to read it then their relaxing, If their cursing their girlfriend out then they will suffer in the future. If they think it’s cool to control a woman just because it’s father’s day, lol to them. If you live in your mom/grandma/cousins/property that you do not own yet house and you do not work, you do not give her half the money, you do not respect her every time, you accept living with her, then you’re not a father. If you think it’s cool to hit a defenseless woman you’re not a father. If you like hip hop today, you’re not a father. If you like R&B today you’re not a father. If you gave up, get your ass back up and work harder. If you do not follow the Ten Commandments, you may have made a baby but you’re not a father. Males are not fathers. As Mr. Rector once told me, “it’s easy to make a baby; can you take care of yours?” As Mr. Norwood once expressed to me, “Your perilous past will only make you stronger.” As Mr. Doherty once did, “Laugh at your problems and ask God to forgive you for laughing… you do not want to laugh at the “Males” who think their doing something. As Mr. Smart once expressed, “Material things do not matter, even though you know life for an African American is 10times harder and it seems impossible to be happy, it’s all good because God said they will go to heaven. Cudos to all my Asian fathers who work hard, that motivates me. Cudos to all my Latin fathers, who will do anything for their daughters/sons, they don’t care what they have to do they will do it. If you tell them to cut the grass, they will cut it even if their back hurts. They will cry, wipe their tears and be like “well my friend, back to work…. We have no fucking choice because if we don’t work they will kick us fucking out. I don’t care about my life, I care about my family. Cudos to the Indian fathers, they take a lot of bull. Cudos to white fathers, their too nice, even when you don’t want them to be sometimes. When I say too nice, I mean they’re too nice, like its annoying stop being so nice I have to focus on being tough mentally again. I say mentally again because it’s so easy to get buff, but when you get buff can you use your strength for men work? If you can’t read all this, or you do not have time to read it, I don’t blame you just take care of your kids. I promise you if I ever become successful in life I will laugh mentally in my head(Sorry Lord) at the “Males” “Cowards” “B*tches” who are not strong enough to control their man strength, when they rot in prison, Lord forgive them for what they’ve done.  Anyway, when I become successful, somehow and someway I will reward all the real “N*ggas” “Homies” “Dudes” “B*tches” “Christian Guys”… I can keep going but I gave myself a 30 min time limit… Just know I will work way harder than you guys and we will eat good and do men activities.

Thanks for the Motivation,

Happy Father’s Day… Rest Today…LOL

Marlon Douglas

May 17, 2012

Response to Article: Students Struggle as CSU Funding Depletes

            On May 14, 2012, I read a written article by Stefanie De Leon Tzic. According to De Leon Tzic, students struggle as CSU funding depletes trigger cut of $200 million looms if tax initiative fails. For those who don’t know what that is, it basically means we the students who attend California State University Northridge will suffer if tax initiative fails. Krystal Brooks, who should have graduated already wasn’t able to due to not being able to enroll in classes. This sucks tremendously because she been here for five years and still can’t graduate. When I see Brooks, I see myself. She’s a hard worker and I’m a hard worker. It’s sad that hard workers can’t ask achieve their goals due to this atrocious economy we live in.

            Tzic quotes, “Brown (California Governor) asked California voters in an open letter to temporarily increase tax revenues, otherwise, ‘we will have no other choice but to make deeper and more damaging cuts to school, universities, public safety and our courts.” I don’t know about you guys, but I am sick and mentally frustrated off the fact that they keep raising tuition.

            9 Percent tuition increased this fall. This carries the cost of attendance for CSUN to $7,002 for the 2012-2013 academic years, according to the CSUN website. A cap number of units students can take during a semester are announced through via email. All fall applicants will be warned that their admittance is dependent on whether the tax initiative passes or not, the article said. According to Rawitch, “spring of 2013 we are not admitting virtually no one.” That’s unfair to the incoming freshman who wants to attend our school. Rawitch also states “Both transfer students and incoming freshman will be competing for enrollment. It shouldn’t be that way.

            The reason why I use my free time to inform you the student is because shit is getting real. For those who don’t like to read and label yourself a college student, you need to step your game up. With these budget cuts and the economic crisis we face today, the administrative have no choice but to kick out the people who are bull-shitting. For the students who do want to be here, work hard and stay focus. I encourage you to seek for tutors if you need the help. It would be awesome if everybody could maintain at least a 2.5 GPA. This will put the board in a critical situation. They can’t kick out students if they’re working hard and reaching the academic standards. As Malcolm X once quoted, “Education is the key to success, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

Website Preface

          For Project Web, our group decided to focus on the Dodger Stadium and how the sacrifice of what used to be a small community, Chavez Ravine, turned out to be a beneficial choice. For those who are unaware, Chavez Ravine is basically the sacred city that was destroyed and replaced with our Dodger Stadium. In our website we compared and contrasted how although it was a tough decision to build the dodger stadium, it ended up being a productive one. We argue how the Dodger Stadium helps our community economically. It creates jobs, taxes, and expresses diversity. Our audience will be ancestors and family relatives of victims of the Chavez Ravine situation. We also target residents the people of Los Angeles. We inputted logos, ethos and pathos.  Logos are that sources that supports our thesis. Our sources consists of the history behind the Dodger’s Stadium, Dodger’s away and home games, and frequently asked questions about Chavez Ravines’ ancestors. Pathos is emphasized in the song I added on the page. Finally, ethos is conveyed by providing our audience with information about the people who are in charge of the Dodger’s Stadium.

            The website homepage consist of appropriate information such as our slogan, logo, and categories.  Our slogan is “Joining Cultures for 50 years.” This could set the standard for people to realize how long Chavez Ravine has been invisible underneath the well-respected Dodger Stadium. Our logo is the number 50 gold-colored tag. Beneath it lies the year the Dodger Stadium grand opening to our current time (1962-2012).

Logos is emphasized through the statistics and factual evidence that is lingering on our website. Links, video clips and images are all prime examples of logos. We found detailed sources that focus on logos. For instance, instead of choosing a video clip of just the arena being viewed from different angles, we choose a video that gives us a timeline of events that occurs in the dodger stadium that is important. Logos is also the video clip entitled “the making of the stadium”. We compare and contrast pictures of the Chavez Ravine to our Dodger Stadium today.

            Ethos can be placed on what we entitled “About us” hyperlink. This may perhaps include descriptive information such as the founder of the Dodger Stadium, the current owner of the team, and some victims who may have suffered during the eminent domain of Chavez Ravine. Credibility can be Magic Johnson, who recently bought the dodger stadium for two billion dollars. Although I’m unsure about focusing on how he was able to buy to team, we may have that idea inconsideration.

            Pathos does appeal to the audience emotions. We expect to heal those who families may have suffered through the eminent domain of Chavez Ravine, by arguing how it may have been a productive sacrifice. We’ve done so in a sympathetic tone. This wasn’t a difficult task for us to do because quite frankly, half of our team personally is against building the Dodger Stadium over Chavez Ravine. We decided it would be best to be professional about the situation and just go with what we have. I also wrote a song that somewhat focuses on how wrong it was for them to destroy Chavez Ravine. Although it counter argues our whole thesis, it was necessary for us to contribute that to our website to pay respect for those who may have suffered.

            As far as presentation, we astonished our audience with the thought and creativity we that was in us. Another reason why we choose to support Dodger Stadium being beneficial is because we felt we can have more fun doing that rather than building a depressing based webpage that argues why the Dodger stadium should have been placed somewhere else. Hopefully our audience not only enjoys our website, but also learns something.

http://group-4.webnode.com/videogallery/

Blog Post #2 (Marlon Douglas)

On April 23, 2012, our group met up to add the finishing touches on our webpage. I honestly gave it up to every one of us. Working with each individual compact schedules, we were able to meet up as a team. What’s crazy about the specific time we met up is that the rooms in the library were all full. We didn’t use that as an excuse. Without any exceptions, we all agreed to sit on the floor to get the job done. That proved everybody in our group were serious about this project. For a moment like this, I would have captured pictures of us all sitting on that uncomfortable floor for an hour, but we didn’t have time to waist. We all were throwing out ideas that can top our opponents (the other groups in our English class). Our group is unique. We are all creative people who took project web serious. I’ll admit, I had no choice but to take this project seriously because the outcome of my grade somewhat depends on it. Honestly, even if I was doing great in Professor Marca class, I still would have been dedicated to the project; just off the simple fact it’s fun.  One thing I must applaud, is our group communication. It’s crazy how I bring this up because right now it’s 10:26 P.M and were still communicating through Facebook. How ironic is that? The whole point of us doing this project is to inform ourselves that the network can be an essential tool. It’s up to us to use it.

Blog Post #1 (Marlon Douglas)

If I had to choose one word to describe our work efforts for the first day, that word would be “preparation”. As a team, we brainstormed ideas that would make our webpage a good one. The thing I enjoyed about this group is how we all respected each other’s suggestion. Even if we may have disagreed with something, we were all mature about the situation. Bear in mind that I personally am not a team person. I’m not trying to seem like a person who preference is to be isolated, I just work better alone. The thing I enjoy about the experience of creating a webpage as a team is how we are force to work together. Although sometimes I don’t necessarily abide by the saying “Two heads are better than one” It’s a great saying to live by. Jonathan, Angel, Jocelyn and I are all unique in our own way. That’s why our group is a productive group. If one were to study our work habits, they would have no choice but to compliment how dedicated we were constructing the website. Our body language was on point; meaning you can tell everyone was engaged in making our webpage the best webpage it could be. The challenge for this project was playing the role of supporting the Dodger Stadium and how it was worth building over Chavez Ravine. Personally, I am not for a corporation destroying a village to benefit themselves. I am aware that it does benefit somewhat benefit the city, but how much do they really give back to our community. Fortunately, we were able to find enough sources to support how beneficial sacrificing Chavez Ravine for the Dodger Stadium was.

Current Issue Today: Marlon Douglas Response to the “Trayvon Martin Story”

First off I would like to get straight to the point- Joe Oliver is an "ignorant man". It’s obvious that the voice heard in the background is the voice of an African American child, not a 28 year old. Giving that I am a young producer and I listen to audio attentively, I can confidently say that’s an African American boy in the 911 tapes screaming for his life. George Zimmerman is 11 years older than this "Minor". Keep in mind that this age difference is simultaneously similar to an infant vs. a 6^th grader. How does one considers a grown man killing a “Minor” self-defense? Evidence shows that the weather consisted of rain. That’s why people wear hoodies, because it’s cold. I wear hoddies all the time in scorching weather because I find it to be comfortable. That being said, the part about Zimmerman fearing that he felt he was in danger based off Martin’s appearance shouldn’t even be in the picture. Geraldo Rivera is wrong for blaming Trayvon Martin and his parents for wearing hoodie.  Also, smoking marijuana doesn’t make you a thug!  I dislike the fact that Craig Sonner stereotypically attempts to subliminally argue that smoking marijuana makes one a perilous person.  Wiz Khalifa, Big Sean, Bob Marley, and Hannah Montana smokes weed. Are they considered dangerous? I hope justice is served for Trayvon Martin. The police department needs to stop defending this killer and give him the death penalty.

Ethnography

On March 7, 2012, I went to Taft High School city championship game. I was assign to defamiliarize the setting. The location of the game took place at Taft High school, which is located near Northridge. One thing I noticed was astonishing was the simple fact that their known at “Toreadors” and my school which is Northridge are the “Matadors”. Culturally, I would agree that my generation is enthusiastic amongst basketball games.

In order to get into the game, I had to pay ten dollars for a ticket. Ten dollars to me is a lot of money to see a high school game. They were overpricing candy, drinks and chips. My assumption would be that all that money is being used to pay their credible coach.

Their coach is a known NBA player. He goes by the name of Jason Hart. This man is a good defender. He defended against star players such as Kobe Bryant, and Paul Pierce. Basically what I am trying to prove is that Taft Basketball has a popular head coach. Dorsey coach on the other hand was just an ordinary P.E. teacher.  Please note that before this championship game, they won the year of 2011. This is where I realized that Taft has favoritism. First of all, the championship game took place that their hometown. That’s a sign of favoritism.

Another thing I annotated was their shoes. Taft basketball team is sponsored by Under Armor. Some players for Dorsey basketball team had worn-out shoes. I feel that since Taft is in the valley, they get better things. Dorsey is located in a perilous neighborhood. Is it fair that both of these schools are administered by the same district but one gets special treatment than the other? Can location be the reason why it happens that way?

Another thing that I found amusing was how my school and Taft have the same school colors. The atmosphere was hectic. People everywhere were going crazy for their team. KTLA Sports came just for this event. It was Taft High School vs. Dorsey High School. My cousin played for Taft.  My whole family came to support his championship game. We even customized T-shirts that had his jersey number on it. The back of shirt was entitled “Eastside”. Other fans were asking for shirt.

On the left side of the court, fans had on green colors to support Dorsey. On the right side where I was sitting, the crowd had on red and white. These schools are rivals and have been for a long time. Throughout the whole game my cousin dominated the game. He’s only a sophomore but his role consists of him starting. Taft basically dominated the whole game. Taft had about 13 dunks, while Dorsey had none. Every time my cousin would score, the crowd would celebrate. I can tell by looking at the Dorsey fans body language that they were disappointed that their team was getting blown out. It must have been dreadful for them to watch Taft fans have a blast and celebrate for the entire game.

The culture of the game at a level like this is usually competitive. Every team wants to be known as the champs. Championship equals more recruitment from good colleges. My cousin wants to go to Syracuse which is the number one NCAA basketball teams. I was surprised at how much people came to see the game. The bleachers are usually empty during the regular season.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/25/sports/la-sp-0226-prep-playoffs-20120226