New Jersey votes today on bill to legalize medical marijuana

I DIDN'T WRITE THIS. just so you know.

TRENTON - The state Senate is scheduled to vote today on a bill that would decriminalize marijuana use for some medical purposes in New Jersey, and one of the bill's sponsors said he was taken aback by residents' reactions to the proposal. "I've been pleasantly surprised that the overwhelming response has been positive," said state Sen. Jim Whelan

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The art of enclosure: Surviving a bid

These walls work in my favor forging me as steele as I push for freedom.
I got knocked on the humble for smoking an el out front SPA one night- summer of 98 or so. I was twist and happy. Things is good, I’m celebrating. Life got purpose. I’m making more than decent chedar. Honey’s is checking for me, I’m swaggering. Blah blah blah go the talk between me and my mans and them out front SPA, el ash on the ground. Then up jump detects right when I’m bout to verbally punctuate my next move in life. Badge in my face, mouth full of smoke, the realization, the loss of control.

Now jail is about the realist place on earth. In terms of realty defined as basic human process. It’s a place where you come face to face with yourself. We’re all journeying towards the true us.

That right there was the foundation of my high. I mean I had smoked some serious chron.

So I’m like “Fuck all you detec mother fuckers. I ain’t do shit!” all loud and shit. The type loud where the spit come out with the capital ‘F’ and all that up in my head where they couldn’t hear me. You see I been here before and I know I gotta do this calm.

When you’ve lost control, one night can feel like 15 years.

African-American males in prisons and jails in the U.S. outnumber the amount of African-American males enrolled in higher education in the U.S., 583,000 to 537,000.

9.7% of black non-Hispanic males age 25 to 29 were in prison in 2000, compared to 2.9% of Hispanic males and about 1.1% of white males in the same age group.All I could think about was finding some sort of control in the absence of it.

I sat easy in the back of the van with the cuffs on, tight. “Don’t move around too much cause them handcuffs’ll squeeze on you”, officer such n such said. In my head again I’m like “fuck you” real loud. “take that with you. Hope it make you feel bad”. But I weigh that against how bad this is making me feel. Don’t want them cuffs cutting in my wrists, my body expand when my anger get up. Now things in my head change. I wanna say “these cuffs fucking hurt!” But I know they’ll act like they don’t hear me.
1.46 million black men out of a total voting population of 10.4 million have lost their right to vote due to felony convictions.Now young next to me, sitting up against the doors, looking straight up at the ceiling, shook, sweating, scared. this his first time. He mumbling mad words up under his breath,
“ah fuck man … I can’t belieeeeeve this shit, oh my Goddddd! I ain’t even do nothing. Them cracks wasn’t even mine!”

In captivity you begin to fashion your mind to things like GOD and delusions.

Then young lost it. He lost his cool and kick his foot against the side of the van with a BIG F word. He said some nasty real foul shit, offend everybody: me, the detecs and the other two in the back of the van with us, slumped and complacent.
The MAN say,
“I told you about making all that noise back there”.
I makes sure he know I ain’t had nothing to do with the thud young made with his foot and the foulness he saying. I’m starting to loose the feeling in my thumb and every play I make is about me getting these cuffs off as soon as possible.
African-Americans constitute 36.8% of those arrested for drug violations, over 42% of those in federal prisons for drug violations and almost 58% of those in state prisons for drug felonies.Young finally calmed from his tirade. There’s desperate beaded sweat on his forehead and his eyes is red. One of his over worn Nike airs is half off. His white tee is dingy and there’s a huge Cubic zirconia stud in his ear. He got the evil nigga look on now. He give it to each next nigga that come up in the van.
African-Americans are incarcerated more than six times that of whites -- 1,947 per 100,000, compared to 306 per 100,000.

The U.S. rate of incarceration has increased by 22 percent since 1989, and is about 5-8 times the rate of most industrialized nations. Property crimes and assaultive offenses don’t account for the increase nor do the violent crimes that rate higher in the U.S. than anywhere else, but the “war on drugs” and “three strikes” crimes have accounted for 46 percent of new court commitments since 1980.My high came down right as I was getting my desk warrant at the station. I talked my way out of having to spend the weekend in the tombs. As I was leaving, I heard young mouthing off again. He ain’t gonna see day for a minute and I’m on my way the spot to get me a nick b4 I head home.

GoRealer

Two Real Mavericks

February 12, 2009 will mark the 200th birthday for Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. These two great mens names are rarely mentioned in the same sentence but one of the few comparisons between the two other than their shared birthday is that both Lincoln and Darwin opposed slavery at a time when slavery was a popular occurrence.    

Lincoln is quoted as saying, "Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally". He then, on January 1, 1863, issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared freedom to slaves within the Confederacy.

For Charles Darwin- in the book "Darwin's Sacred Cause"- the case is made  that it was his strong opposition to slavery the helped form his theories on human evolution. He believed in a connection between all living things. He concluded that all life might share a common ancestry. He then went on to write "On the Origin of Species: by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" which became the most widely accepted scientific model of evolutionary biology.

One demanded that man be equal and fought a war within his own country based on that very ideal. The other proved that all men are equal and that the only difference between us and the fish in the sea is degree not type. Neither of these men were afraid to stand up for what they believed in even though there ideas weren't popular. We now look back and realize that it was fear that fueled ideas such as, "...the freedom of the white man is insecure unless the negro is reduced to a state of abject slavery..." and the non-belief of what we can now deem as scientific fact. 

The historical presidential run of Barack Obama drew many comparisons to Lincoln as well as John F. Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King. President Obama being a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln took his oath on the very bible that belonged to Abraham Lincoln. 

A friend of mine who worked on the campaign for Barack Obama knocked on many doors in Pennsylvania registering people to vote. He recounted for me of one such time when someone opened their door, saw all his Obama buttons and said profoundly, "It's okay, I'm voting for the nigger". 

Evolution? uh... yeah.

It's only been 146 years since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. With that said there are much older countries than ours who still view women as second class citizens. And Stem Cell research is going through the same hurdles that Darwin went through in concluding that organisms were infinitely variable.  

Yet it is hard to see the accomplishments of these two notable men in history and not question whether we've outlived the greatness of human thought. Will there ever again be those whose ideas and strength of character advance our collective intellect? Might we again begin to champion the importance education and intellect? 

wait... excuse me, The Hills is on.

GoRealer

No Man of Steele

Former lieutenant governor of Maryland Michael Steele has become the first African American head of the Republican National committee.
Really? What a year for the brothers huh?!
I got used to seeing and hating Michael Steele tow the republican party line in TV punditry land. He would repeat all the republican talking points during the campaign season: the Bill Ayers, the The Rev. Wright (who gives Steele a run for his money in the black benedict arnold category) and the 3 am wake up call thing. He played is position well: the oppositions black guy.
What's funny about it is when he ran for the senate in 2006 he tried to pretend he wasn't a republican.
Now as the RNC party leader he says, "This is the dawn of a new party" and vows to take the fight right to Barack Obama. Does he really believe he is anything more than token? When it was clear that Hillary wasn't going to get the nomination the RNC chooses Sarah Palin to try and get the female voters that were upset over Hillary's loss. Now that Barack has won they choose Steele to run their party. do they really think the American people are that dumb not to see this as anything other than a blatantly obvious ploy? Does the RNC really think that the American people will overlook such comments like where he compared stem cell research to Nazi concentration camp experiments on Jewish prisoners? I guess they do.
I agree with SNL's Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers when he said this past week "it doesn't work with just any black guy".

GoRealer