My Daily Kona

Friday, September 22, 2023

Firearm Death by Statistic and Gangs.

I ran across this on Quora while taking a break at work, I am still running heavy in the overtime so blogging will still be hit or miss. The information presented was very informative and thorough. I figured any bloggers could use the information especially those still living in the blue cities.

Ray Erickson

Knows a thing or two about guns, gun laws, and gun culture.Jul 15

Is it true that most US homicides are gang-related? Does it mean ordinary citizens are usually safe from murderers?

It’s very likely that approximately 80–85% of homicides (and especially firearm homicides) in the United States are gang-related:

Fair warning: This is going to be a very long one, so if you’d prefer to skip the dry statistics backing up this answer, feel free to just quickly scroll through the maps and you’ll see, visually, just how heavily concentrated the majority of murders are within known gang territories in the United States.

All graphics are clickable to zoom, and are best viewed on desktop for fine detail.

Gun control advocates will sometimes point to this survey:

National Youth Gang Survey Analysis

The National Gang Center conducted an annual survey of law enforcement agencies to assess the extent of gang problems. Their findings are presented here.

https://nationalgangcenter.ojp.gov/survey-analysis

…which claims that:

The total number of gang homicides reported by respondents in the NYGS sample averaged nearly 2,000 annually from 2007 to 2012. During roughly the same time period (2007 to 2011), the FBI estimated, on average, more than 15,500 homicides across the United States (www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-1). These estimates suggest that gang-related homicides typically accounted for around 13 percent of all homicides annually.

The problem is that that number only reflects the fraction of homicides that local law enforcement was certain involved gang activity. Most are classified as “unknown.” Furthermore, many surveys estimating gang statistics relied on self-reporting by prison inmates, turning the survey into a very scholarly version of “so, what are you in for?” Surely, no methodological errors there!

So how can we arrive at more reliable figures?

Gang Triangulation | Estimating Gang Firearm Homicide Extent | Gun Facts

Data triangulation leads to an estimate that 85% of firearm homicides in the United States are gang related.

https://www.gunfacts.info/blog/gang-triangulation/

This article (hosted by GunFacts.info, the brainchild of Guy Smith) is a great place to start, but I’d like to expand upon the statistics to visually to get a sense of who it is that’s getting killed and where these homicides are occurring.

So, let’s start here:

This is the age bracket of the bodies that end up on the floor, for both all homicides and specifically firearm homicides.

This is the skin color of the bodies that end up on the floor due to firearm homicide.

The 2019 figures are even worse:

Put both of these data points together, and it’s clear that a disproportionate amount of firearm homicide victims (and offenders!) are black males in their teens to late twenties.

Why is this the case? Well, it’s not quite within the purview of this answer, but here you go:

Real Talk about Race and Murder Rates

It's not the guns, it's not the genetics, it's not the economics, it's the dads.

https://hwfo.substack.com/p/real-talk-about-race-and-murder-rates

And where are these homicides occurring?

Geographic Evidence that Gun Deaths are Cultural

This is the the data I’d like to dive into in much greater visual detail.

Let’s examine the Top 25 cities in the United States for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter:

List of United States cities by crime rate - Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The following table of United States cities by crime rate is based on Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) statistics from 2019 for the 100 most populous cities in America that have reported data to the FBI UCR system. [1] The population numbers are based on U.S. Census estimates for the year end. The number of murders includes nonnegligent manslaughter . This list is based on the reporting. In most cases, the city and the reporting agency are identical. However, in some cases such as Charlotte, Honolulu, and Las Vegas, the reporting agency has more than one municipality. Murder is the only statistic that all agencies are required to report. Consequently, some agencies do not report all the crimes. If components are missing the total is adjusted to 0. Note about population [ edit ] Often, one obtains very different results depending on whether crime rates are measured for the city jurisdiction or the metropolitan area. [2] Information is voluntarily submitted by each jurisdiction and some jurisdictions do not appear in the table because they either did not submit data or they did not meet deadlines. The FBI website has this disclaimer on population estimates: For the 2019 population estimates used in this table, the FBI computed individual rates of growth from one year to the next for every city/town and county using 2010 decennial population counts and 2011 through 2018 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Each agency’s rates of growth were averaged; that average was then applied and added to its 2018 Census population estimate to derive the agency’s 2019 population estimate. [3] It should also be mentioned that the FBI has recently switched its data reporting mechanism and currently some major metropolitan police departments (e.g. Baltimore) have not been included in the total. Crime rates [ edit ] State City Population Yearly Crime Rates per 100,000 people Total Violent crime Property crime Arson 2 Murder and Nonnegligent manslaughter Rape 1 Robbery Aggravated assault Total Burglary Larceny- theft Motor vehicle theft Total Alabama Mobile 3 248,431 6217.02 20.13 58.16 177.11 485.85 740.25 1,216.84 3,730.21 506.78 5,453.83 22.94 Alaska Anchorage 296,188 6640.04 9.12 132.01 262.67 799.49 1,203.29 748.17 3,619.66 1,047.98 5,415.82 20.93 Arizona Chandler 249,355 2589.08 2.01 52.13 56.95 148.68 259.47 314.41 1,866.01 149.18 2,329.61 Arizona Gilbert 242,090 1483.75 2.07 16.11 21.07 46.26 85.51 192.49 1,137.59 55.76 1,385.85 12.39 Arizona Glendale 249,273 5037.85 4.81 38.91 192.96 251.53 488.22 637.45 3,426.36 466.56 4,530.37 19.26 Arizona Mesa 492,268 2592.49 4.67 51.19 92.23 267.74 415.83 381.50 1,610.91 179.58 2,171.99 4.67 Arizona Phoenix 1,608,139 4443.2 9.55 69.46 200.28 481.64 760.93 778.57 2,426.69 465.46 3,670.71 11.56 Arizona Scottsdale 251,840 2338.38 1.99 40.90 39.71 74.65 157.24 348.63 1,725.70 97.68 2,172.01 9.13 Arizona Tucson 532,323 6082.78 8.64 93.55 268.82 430

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate

I’ll be using Wikipedia’s reported statistics for calculation purposes (the right column is per 100,000):

And the FBI’s UCR data on Expanded Homicide, to arrive at a total figure of 13,927 murder/MS victims in 2019.

I will be making use of two major tools on a city-by-city basis:

The first tool is a website devoted to street culture, and more specifically for our purposes, established gang territories. I’ve opted to drop their color code key showing which gangs are which for the sake of simplicity, but if you’re interested, you can load up the city of your choice and probably learn more about that city’s gangs than you wanted to know.

Street Maps Archives

https://www.kulturevulturez.com/page/streetz-culture/

The second tool is an interactive map showing where shootings have occurred within the United States down to the street level. Red dots are firearm fatalities, yellow dots are nonfatal injuries. The Atlas allows you to filter one or the other out, but I’ve opted to show the full data set for two main reasons: including the yellow nonfatal dots highlights those areas of gang activity in stark contrast, which in turn makes it much easier to quickly compare the smaller thumbnail graphics instead of forcing you to look at the fullscreen version for each map.

An Atlas of American Gun Violence

Nine years. 330,000 shootings. How has gun violence marked your corner of the U.S.?

https://www.thetrace.org/2018/12/gun-violence-interactive-shootings-map/

Nevertheless, the Atlas is freely available if you’d like to see just the fatal shootings for just 2019 for each city, since that’s the actual figures I’ll be working with at the end.

This is a map of all the fatal shootings GVA has on record for 2019. I’ve circled the top 25 cities (by rate) we’ll be looking at in greater detail.

The goal is showing, visually, just how much overlap there is with known gang neighborhoods.

All maps can be enlarged to show detail.

So with no further ado, let’s get started.

#1 on the list in 2019 was St. Louis, MO. In any given year the Top 5 shuffle around a bit, but St. Louis is always near the top.

#2 was Baltimore, MD, also a perennial contender for most murderous city in the US:

#3 was Detroit, MI. What I find particularly interesting is the obvious cutoff right at 8 Mile Road. Kulture Vulturez also does not list Inkster, Pontiac, Ypsilanti, or Boynton (River Rouge) as gang territories, so I’m not sure what’s going on with the clusters there. I’ve never been to Detroit, so maybe somebody with more experience than me can enlighten us all in the comments; it’d be a great confirmation of the theory if those are in fact gang territories that simply weren’t listed.

#4 was New Orleans, LA.

#5 was Baton Rouge, LA.

#6 was Kansas City, MO.

#7 was Cleveland, OH.

#8 was Memphis, TN.

#9 was Newark, NJ.

#10 was Cincinnatti, OH.

#11 was Mobile, AL.

#12 was Philadelphia, PA.

#13 was Milwaukee, WI.

#14 was Chicago, IL. Chicago leads the nation in absolute number of murders, in large part because it was a city of 2.75 million in 2019. It’s also enough of a challenge to

present graphically that I’ll do 2 sets of maps; one zoomed out to encompass the suburbs, and one zoomed in to see the density of the inner city.

#15 was Pittsburg, PA. The gang areas for McKeesport and Clairton (bottom center) and Aliquippa (top left) are small and easy to miss, but they’re there. I’d be interested to know if New Kensington (top right) has gangs that aren’t listed since it’s also a minor hotspot.

#16 was Indianapolis, IN.

#17 was Stockton, CA. Unfortunately, Kulture Vulturez did not have a premade map showing the gang areas of Stockton. The red pin is Stockton’s City Hall, indicating its “downtown” area where gang activity usually clusters.

#18 was Tulsa, OK.

#19 was Washington DC.

#20 was Atlanta, GA.

#21 was Nashville, TN.

#22 was Columbus, OH.

#23 was Oakland, CA. Kulture Vulturez has a page devoted to “Bay Area Hoods,” so again I’ll show the zoomed-out area map, then the zoomed-in Oakland map.

#24 was Louisville (Metro), KY

#25 was Greensboro, NC. Kulture Vulturez did not have an entry for this city either, so as before I pinned the government center to indicate “inner city Greensboro.”

Are your eyes crossing yet? Yeah, mine too. But not to worry!

So far we’ve only looked at 2 of the 10 “million plus” cities in the US (Chicago and Philadelphia), 2 below the 250,000 mark (Mobile and Baton Rouge), and the other 21 are all somewhere in between.

These Top 25 cities by rate only contained 4.72% of the population in 2019, but accounted for 28.3% of the nation’s murders!

Well, that wasn’t too bad.

How about we pick up the other 8 “million plus” cities for their absolute numbers and see where that puts us statistically?

#1: New York, NY (Pop. 8.8 million in 2019)

#2: Los Angeles, CA (Pop. 3.9 million) A city with so much gang activity, it has not one but two pages on Kulture Vulturez.

Los Angeles Hoods: Top 25 South Los Angeles Gangs

View South Los Angeles hoods with a List of Top 25 Los Angeles Gangs: 1. Rollin 60s 2. Hoovers 3. 83 Gangster Crips 4. Florencia 13 5.

https://www.kulturevulturez.com/top-los-angeles-hoods/

East L.A.: Breakdown of East Los Angeles Gangs

Deep embeded in the East Los Angeles ghetto is culture, a lifesyle, a background, and much more as East Los Angeles gangs have turn the area...

https://www.kulturevulturez.com/east-los-angeles-ghetto-story/

There’s almost no point in posting the gangland maps. East LA, South Central, Compton, Hollywood… The entire L.A. area is effectively all gang territory until you start moving into outlying cities like Torrence, Glendale, or Arcadia.

#3 was Chicago, IL (Pop. 2.74 million). Already covered at #14 by crime rate.

#4: Houston, TX (Pop. 2.3 million)

#5: Phoenix, AZ (Pop. 1.6 million)

#6 was Philadelphia, PA (Pop. 1.6 million). Already covered at #12 by rate.

#7: San Antonio, TX (Pop. 1.4 million) Kulture Vulturez mentions its gang activity, but does not include a map.

#8: San Diego, CA (Pop. 1.4 million)

#9: Dallas, TX (Pop. 1.3 million). The map also includes Fort Worth (Pop. 873k), at #17 by size. I won’t be including Fort Worth in the math for this answer, but it does help show the strong correlation between gang hotspots and where the bodies turn up.

#10: San Jose, CA (Pop. 1 million). It was actually at the south end of the overview “Bay Area Hoods” map for #23, but let’s get a closeup of San Jose specifically.

If we add in the figures for the other 8 megacities, we’re looking at a total of 11.4% of the country’s population but 38.2% of all murders for the entire country!

And keep in mind, that’s not counting all the (2019) red dots you’ve seen, that’s just the ones that fell within city limits of the places listed!

The other places (like Fort Worth in #9 of the “million plus” cities list) were part of the other 3,060 cities in the US with a population of 10,000 people or more, making up the other 61.8% of murders in 2019. 52% of counties in the country had zero murders.

So now that you’ve seen the maps, you tell me; what percentage of dots fall within those established gang territories?

And like everyone else, gangbangers don’t just stay at home; they travel to other parts of the city. A substantial number of dots outside the defined boxes are also gang-related murders, as they encounter each other at the local Shake Shack or whatever.

So to answer the original question, you’re probably very safe from being murdered as long as you stay out of the inner city areas that tend to be gang violence breeding grounds.

But now I’d like to veer off the original question a bit and address how we can best reduce the murder/manslaughter rates.

Just as murders are not spread out evenly across the country, neither are they evenly distributed amongst the violent criminal population. Like many other things in life, murder follows the Pareto Principle, AKA the 80/20 Rule:

Pareto principle - Wikipedia

Statistical principle about ratio of effects to causes The Pareto principle may apply to fundraising, i.e. 20% of the donors contributing towards 80% of the total The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the "vital few"). [1] Other names for this principle are the 80/20 rule , the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity. [2] [3] Management consultant Joseph M. Juran developed the concept in the context of quality control and improvement after reading the works of Italian sociologist and economist Vilfredo Pareto , who wrote about the 80/20 connection while teaching at the University of Lausanne . [4] In his first work, Cours d'économie politique , Pareto showed that approximately 80% of the land in the Kingdom of Italy was owned by 20% of the population. The Pareto principle is only tangentially related to the Pareto efficiency . Mathematically, the 80/20 rule is roughly described by a power law distribution (also known as a Pareto distribution ) for a particular set of parameters. Many natural phenomena distribute according to power law statistics. [5] It is an adage of business management that "80% of sales come from 20% of clients." [6] History [ edit ] In 1941, Joseph M. Juran, a Romanian-born American engineer, came across the work of Italian polymath Vilfredo Pareto . Pareto noted that approximately 80% of Italy's land was owned by 20% of the population. [7] [5] Juran applied the observation that 80% of an issue is caused by 20% of the causes to quality issues. Later during his career, Juran preferred to describe this as "the vital few and the useful many" to highlight that the contribution of the remaining 80% should not be discarded entirely. [8] In economics [ edit ] Pareto's observation was in connection with population and wealth. Pareto noticed that approximately 80% of Italy's land was owned by 20% of the population. [7] He then carried out surveys on a variety of other countries and found to his surprise that a similar distribution applied [ citation needed ] (see concentration of land ownership ). A chart that gave the effect a very visible and comprehensible form, [ clarification needed ] the so-called "champagne glass" effect, [9] [ better source needed ] was contained in the 1992 United Nations Development Program Report, which showed that the distribution of global income is very uneven, with the richest 20% of the world's population receiving 82.7% of the world's income. [10] However, among nations, the Gini index shows that wealth distributions vary substantially around this norm. [11] Distribution of world GDP, 1989 [12] Quintile of population Income Richest 20% 82.70% Second 20% 11.75% Third 20% 2.30% Fourth 20% 1.85% Poorest 20% 1.40% The principle also holds within the tails of the distribution. The physicist Victor Yakovenko of the University of Maryland, College Park and AC Silva analyzed income data from the US Internal Revenue Service fr

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

What this means in the context of gang murder is that (very approximately) 80% of the country’s murders are committed by (very approximately) 20% of the population. But this distribution is repeatable! 80% of the murders of that gang subset (or 64% of total murders) are committed by only 20% of that subset of criminals, or a mere 4% of the people. Reiterate again, and 51% of the entire country’s murders are committed by only 0.8% of the population. That’s the most violent, recidivistic 2.6 million people in a country of 328 million (using 2019 population statistics).

For reference, that is just slightly less than the total population of Chicago.

If District Attorneys actually enforced the “violent felon in possession of a firearm” statutes that are already part of Federal law, carrying mandatory minimums of 5 years or more in prison, we’d see a dramatic reduction in the overall US homicide rate, without negatively affecting peaceable citizens at all.

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

The USMC Found the Strayed F35B

While the aircraft was missing, the blogosphere was aflame with rumors that Xiden had "sold" another secret to the Red Chinese, it was "Deja Vous" with the notorious balloon incident all over again. I personally didn't buy it(Get the pun), but it wouldn't surprise me if the CCP activated assets to try to find the plane before the Americans did to pilfer its "black boxes" and other secrets before it was found by us and scarfed up and sent to a military base.

I got this article from a 3rd party that I got in my work email and the following article came off my blog.

Credit: U.S. Marine Corps

A frantic search for a missing F-35B whose pilot safely ejected ended late on Sept. 18 after U.S. military officials discovered a debris field in a remote area of South Carolina.

The roughly 28-hr. search for the Lockheed Martin-made stealth fighter included an unusual request to the public for any tips on the F-35B’ss whereabouts and prompted the U.S. Marine Corps to announce a two-day aviation standdown to review safety procedures.

The pilot was found on South Kenwood Avenue on the afternoon of Sept. 17 after ejecting less than a mile from the runway at Charleston International Airport, local news reports say. The pilot was transferred to a local hospital in stable condition, according to a statement by Joint Base Charleston.

But the aircraft continued flying in a northeasterly direction until finally crashing about “two hours northeast of Joint Base Charleston” in Williamsburg County, South Carolina, the Marine Corps said in a statement. If the hourly measurement referred to a driving distance, that would have put the debris field in the far northeastern corner of Williamsburg County.

Until the crash location was discovered, however, military officials faced the unlikely security threat of a missing advanced weapon system with several classified technologies onboard. In a sign of the military’s desperation for clues, Joint Base Charleston published a public plea for tips within an hour of the pilot’s ejection.

“If you have any information on the whereabouts of the F-35 that would help the recovery team, please call the JB Charleston Base Defense Operations Center,” the base said on a social media channels.

More than an hour after releasing the initial statement, the base released a quick update that narrowed the search for the F-35B to a remote, boggy area north of Charleston.

The F-35B belonged to the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing’s Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501, which is based at Marine Corps Base Beaufort, South Carolina.

In a statement, the wing said the incident was under investigation and since it is ongoing, additional details would not be releasable “to preserve the integrity of the investigatory process.”

Following the incident, Marine Corps Acting Commandant Gen. Eric Smith ordered the two-day pause in operations. During the stand down, aviation commanders are directed to discuss safe flight operations, ground safety, maintenance and flight procedures with their Marines.

The stand down comes less than a month after Smith ordered a review of safety policies and procedures after an MV-22 Osprey crashed during a training exercise in Australia, killing five Marines.

The wing suffered another F-35B crash in 2018 due to a manufacturing flaw in a fuel tube, but the pilot safely ejected.

If an aircraft is equipped with an ejection seat, the location of the crash site is normally proximate to where the ejected pilot lands. But there have been cases where an aircraft continued flying for hundreds of miles after the pilot ejected.

In 1989, for example, a Soviet Air Force Mikoyan MiG-23 crashed in Belgium, but that was 600 mi. from where the pilot ejected over Poland. The pilot ejected after the afterburner failed and the aircraft began descending, but after his ejection the engine kept running and the aircraft continued flying on autopilot.

Here is the article about the Mig 23 the article was referring to, I had blogged about it back in 2017

I remember this incident once I read of it, I was stationed in Stuttgart and we heard of this on AFN and the Stars&Stripes newspapers had stories about it. I remembered commenting back then if this caused concerns on the regimental net for the 11th ACR that had people always patrolling the 1KM zone between East and West Germany. I went and looked up some stories about it Here, Here,and Here.

July. 4 1989, Independence day for the Americans, was not an especially exciting day for the 32^nd TFS (Tactical Fighter Squadron) also known as ‘Wolfhounds’ then based in Soesterberg, Netherlands.
When two very competitive pilots J.D Martin and Bill Murphy were scrambled, they were not expecting that their independence day flights would be to intercept and possibly engage a very strange Soviet MiG.
On the same day, Soviet Pilot Nikolai Skurigin prepared his MiG-23M for a routine training flight. When Skurigin’s MiG took off from Kolobzreg, Poland, the pilot had no clue what was about to happen to his aircraft.
Soon after taking off Skurigin realized that MiG’s engine had a major failure and that aircraft was going to crash in few seconds, so he did what every pilot is trained to do in such situations, he abandoned the aircraft and ejected.

An air-to-air right side view of a Soviet MiG-23 Flogger aircraft. Exact Date Shot Unknown — A MiG 23, in flight with pilot

While descending in his parachute, Skurigin realized that something peculiar had taken place; his MiG was actually gaining height instead of loosing it and worse, it was heading straight towards NATO airspace.

On the other side, JD and Murphy after being sent to intercept a Russian plane that had invaded their air space, had problems of their own; they were having some major communication issues with Ground Control Intercept
Despite these difficulties, the two pilots got closer to the ‘rogue’ aircraft and discovered that not only the MiG was unarmed it was also unmanned. This posed another challenge to the pilots and ground control since the aircraft was now considered not an immediate threat.
US Air Force pilots in their F-15s escorted the Soviet MiG until it reached the 39,000ft mark, after that aircraft started descending possibly due to low fuel levels.

9143119_orig — The crash site as seen from above

When the aircraft started descending, pilots with the help from the ground predicted that it would land somewhere near Lille, on the border of Belgium and France. Later on, the calculation showed that it would rather crash in an empty field inside Belgium, and was coded as ‘non risky’.
But the calculations could not predict what actually happened when Soviet MiG crashed in a farm killing an 18-year-old boy.

scannen00059dw — What was left of the MIG

Clearly an avoidable causality on the part of both Soviets and Americans, both nations showed genuine regret on the outcome of the incident. When Colonel Skurigin discovered about the death of the Belgian boy by his MiG, he publicly showed regret for his decision to eject out of the aircraft.
The Belgian government made a formal protest to the Soviet Union regarding the lack of notification as to the danger the aircraft posed to the civilian population. Belgian Foreign Minister Mark Eyskens expressed concern that “from the time the MiG-23 was first picked up on NATO radar to the time it crashed more than an hour later, no word of warning came from the Soviet side,” and that “there was also a ‘notable slowness’ on the part of the Soviets in disclosing whether the jet was carrying nuclear or toxic weapons.”
The USSR paid $685,000 in compensation to Belgium.

Monday, September 18, 2023

Monday Music "Informer" By Snow

I heard this song way back in the 1990's and forgot about it until I happen to hear it on the Sirius/XM channel "90's on 9" and I recalled it and it was an intriguing song and I thought it was pretty neat song and it reminded me of some of the stuff I was doing in the early 90's because I associate music where I am and what I am doing.

"Informer" is a song by Canadian reggae musician Snow, released in August 1992 as the first single from his debut album, 12 Inches of Snow (1993). The song is well known for the line "a licky boom boom down"^[ and for Snow's fast toasting and often unintelligible lyrics.

Produced by MC Shan, who also contributed a rap verse, "Informer" was a chart-topping hit, spending seven consecutive weeks at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. It was his biggest hit in the United Kingdom, where it reached number two. Its music video was directed by George Seminara. In 2007, "Informer" was ranked number 84 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 90s". Conversely, the song was included in Pitchfork's 2010 list of "The Seven Worst U.S. Number One Singles of the 90s".^[

In 2019, Puerto Rican singer, songwriter and rapper Daddy Yankee released a new version of "Informer" as "Con Calma" together with Snow, who recorded new parts. The Spanish-language remake topped the charts of 20 countries and reached the top 10 of 10 others.

Snow grew up as Darrin O'Brien in Toronto, Canada. He was raised on classic rock, but after Jamaicans moved into his neighborhood, due to then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's revised immigration policies, reggae became a huge part of his life.

In 1992, while on vacation with DJ Marvin Prince in Queens, New York, Prince introduced Snow to American rapper and record producer MC Shan, and they produced a four-song demo. MC Shan then introduced Snow to producer–managers Steve Salem and David Eng, who signed him to their Motor Jam Records company, and licensed the music to East West Records.^[4] Shortly thereafter, Snow began serving an eight-month sentence in Toronto for assault. "Informer" began getting radio and MuchMusic airplay while he was incarcerated.

The song is based on a separate 1989 incident when Snow was charged with two counts of attempted murder. At the time, he was detained for a year in Toronto before the charges were reduced to aggravated assault, and he was eventually acquitted and freed. In a 1999 interview, he referred to his criminal history as "a couple of bar fights."

AllMusic editor Ron Wynn called the song "patois-laced", noting further that it "shattered the myth that pop audiences wouldn't embrace any tune whose lyrics weren't in pristine English; when his video was released, it included a rolling translation at the bottom." M.R. Martinez from Cashbox felt it demonstrate Snow's "unique delivery which sounds less imitative than some dancehallers or rappers from the bonafide hood." Havelock Nelson from Entertainment Weekly declared the song as "slippery and tuneful". Swedish Expressen described it as "hard-boiled Jamaican crime fiction". Katrine Ring from Danish Gaffa viewed it as an "excellent pop-number". Dennis Hunt from Los Angeles Times felt "he adds a nifty dimension to dancehall by smoothly integrating pop textures."^[ In his weekly UK chart commentary, James Masterton concluded that it "must surely be a contender for No.1 within a week or two."

Alan Jones from Music Week complimented "this infectious, instantly appealing dancehall" song for achieving "the right mix between reggae and hip-hop." He added that it "should make quite a splash here." Cermak and Ross from The Network Forty commented, "You'd swear you were listening to a Jamaican straight out of Kingston, but this 22-year-old white male hails from Toronto's ghetto. Along with mixer DJ Prince and record producer and rapper MC Shan, Snow creates a hooky low-groover with infectious dancehall toasting."^[ Jan DeKnock from Orlando Sentinel labeled it as "dancable". A reviewer from People Magazine felt that Snow's "incarcerations flavor the pumped up, hip-hop-infused single "Informer"."^[ James Hamilton from the RM Dance Update called it both "excellent" and "jaunty". Parry Gettelman from The Sentinel named "Informer" one of two "best tracks" of the album, remarking that it "pair powerful rhythms with killer choruses - hear "Informer" once and just try to get it out of your head."

"Informer" peaked at number one on the singles chart in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, as well as on the Eurochart Hot 100. It entered the top 10 in Austria, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. In the latter country, the single peaked at number two during its third week at the UK Singles Chart, on March 21, 1993. Outside Europe, it reached number one in Australia, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, and on the US Billboard Hot 100. In Snow's native Canada, "Informer" topped The Record's singles chart and was a top-10 radio hit, peaking at number nine on the RPM 100 Hit Tracks chart. "Informer" was awarded with a gold record in Austria and the Netherlands, a silver record in the UK, and a platinum record in Germany, New Zealand and the US. In Australia, it received a double-platinum record.

Directed by George Seminara, the accompanying music video for the song shows Snow entering a jail cell. His producer and friend, MC Shan, is also featured in the video; he explains how he got into prison by not turning informer. DJ Marvin Prince is seen enjoying a sauna with a couple of women. There are bikini clad women throughout and Snow is accompanied by female dancers glossed in black and white. When first shown, the video had no subtitles, but they were added because few people could comprehend what Snow was saying.

Saturday, September 16, 2023

Finally found the meme I was looking for.

I remember badgering "Irish" a while back since he is the "meme Master" and he has a collection of meme that put mine to shame, and I have an extensive collection and I ain't bragging. I was looking for a specific meme that had Mel Gibson from the Movie "The Patriot".

I was looking for this because I always commented that the modern left uses violence like a volume knob, they crank it up or down depending on the situation and the people in the government usually their fellow travelers will give them cover.

We on the right have a different philosophy on violence, I don't want to flip that switch because it will literally mean the death of everything I hold dear from my past life, and unlike the left, once we start, we have to go all in until we win, no half measures because the people we are fighting will go after our family and friends. We have to go until it is done. Wade in the blood of our enemies go scorched earth, I am talking about "Salting the Earth" and I don't want to do that. I want to fix things peacefully, but I am afraid that we are almost past that, the powers that be will not leave us alone, they have devalued our currency to it being almost worthless, they are passing policies that are harmful to the average Americans and they don't care. They are encouraging unfettered immigration from the south by illegals that will not assimilate to our culture but expect us to accept them and the resulting crime and disease and disruption of our society and our "betters" don't care. We are sending more money and treasures to that suck called the Ukraine and they are bleeding us dry much to the amusement of China that views us as the main adversary and will probably move against Taiwan in the next year or two because of that meat puppet in the white house is bought and paid for and will not do anything about it and we will be further lessened in the world stage. The same China is trying to have the Dollar removed as the reserve currency of choice of the world and replaced by the yuan which would cripple our economy. We were trying to move production and processes back to the states during the Trump administration because they realized that China was a threat but Xiden and his administration who are bought and paid for by the Chinese stopped that for "Environmental Reasons". The same environmentalist that want us to "eat bugs" and go back to a medieval lifestyle to save Gaia kinda crap. but somehow China and the other 3rd world will get a pass because to make them is all racist and stuff. Yeah I'm kinds grumpy.

Well anyway this is the meme I was looking for a while back and found it on Quara, I was taking a break at work and stumbled across it.

"The most terrifying force of death comes from the hands of men who wanted to be left alone. They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love. They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it. They know that the moment they fight back their lives as they have lived them are over.

“The moment the men who wanted to be left alone are forced to fight back, it is a form of suicide. They are literally killing off who they used to be. Which is why, when forced to take up violence, these men who wanted to be left alone, fight with unholy vengeance against those who murdered their former lives. They fight with raw hate, and a drive that cannot be fathomed by those who are merely play-acting at politics and terror, true terror will arrive at these people's door, and they will cry, scream, and beg for mercy... but it will fall upon the deaf ears of the men who just wanted to be left alone." - Author Unknown (erroneously attributed to Solzhenitsyn.)

Thursday, September 14, 2023

Chivalry And Civility in the Modern Age

An oldie I had posted a while back and seeing the petulant behavior from the manchilds now, makes me wonder if we as a society will survive.

I was looking through older blogpost doing research for another blogpost Well I ran across this post I wrote 6 years ago(Wow been that long...Dang.) and it is still true. I still see more of the same behavior that I noticed and finally wrote about 6 years ago. I had commented that I have been told that I am a throwback to a forgotten age where Civility was the norm, rather than the exception, and it says so on the header of my blog.
I decided to do a post on chivalry, what meant and the lack of it now. This post has been eating at me for a long time and I finally decided to roll with it.

     I have been told that I am a throwback to a bygone age,my mannerism and vocabulary are archiac from what I was told. I am a firm believer in manners, I like to quote "Lazarus Long" a character that Robert Heinlein created. Basically Lazarus Long was an immortal and he would keep notes of his experiences and observations.
  "Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,” or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them. No matter how “pure” their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best."

   I will use other quotes from Lazarus here and there to make a point, Robert Heinlein besides being a prolific writer was prescient also, but I digress. The point I was making and he was with that quote is basically manners are the social lubricant for interactions with other people. I have told my son more than once, to be nice to people and remember your manners, you get more accomplished with a kind word than being a jerk.
   The Act of Chivalry as practiced long ago is no longer there, It used to be stressed as part of our culture, the culture of the West. But it is no longer practiced because people out there believe that all cultures are equal and if you display chivalrous manners, you are denigrating other cultures.....Are you kidding? The same people that denigrate Western Civilization, are the cultural marxist and their fellow travelers that use what is called "Constructive criticism" to challenge the beliefs of a culture. This is from the Frankfurt School of Neo Marxist social theory. Once you have forced a society to question it's long held belief system, you can then replace it with one that is more conducive to the goals of the marxist. The Marxist believe in social and economic equality...the end results...Having one culture being superior to the other cultures kinda upsets the social applecart. The lack of manners that is being displayed today is a result of this. Remember back in the Victorian era, the manners were expected of all , even the "low class people" and if somebody gave you an affront, you were expected to deal with it yourself. Usually with a duel or fisticuffs I believe it was called. Even when I was in school, if somebody was bullying you , you either sucked it up or you beat the bully. Now they want you to go tell an authority figure instead...People are afraid to do anything unless they have the power of the state behind them. People are afraid to stand on their own two feet. That is what the social reconstruction has wrought.
   This ties in with the decline of Western civilization.

     "The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of “loyalty” and “duty.” Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute--get out of there fast. You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed. "

Another quote from Lazarus, Remember that the idea of duty and loyalty are denigrated in today's society as being "outmoded" and old fashioned. " Duty is very hard to describe, Robert E. Lee had commented that " Duty is sublime and the harshest of mistresses". Duty is difficult to describe, but duty is basically your obligation that you place on yourself as what you owe to society by your standards. Duty is part of a person's personal code of honor and integrity. Words that you don't see much of anymore. People do " what feels good", not thinking that they are doing is contributing to the decline of Western Civilization. Loyalty is another word that is not used anymore except to yourself. People nowadays are taught by the decline of societal norms that it is OK to "let it all hang out" where in the past such behavior is frowned upon. If you did something that was frowned upon by society, you got the message pretty fast, this contributed to a code of conduct or behavior that was expected of all gentlemen. Now it is OK to be a thug. Again this is by design, if a society cannot remember its past or the moral upbringing, than they will accept anything that the statist put out there.

"All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplus age, excrescence, adornment, luxury or folly which can--and must--be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a “perfect society” on any foundation other than “women and children first!” is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly--and no doubt will keep on trying"

   Another quote from Lazarus, It does harken back to the Victorian age of "Women and Children First". Because in that time, they knew that it was the job of all men of virtue to ensure that the women and children survived, it was a way to guarantee their culture. It also taught a person to put the needs of the society above his needs. I always liked the phrase that the veteran at one time handed the government a blank check that would include payment including life if necessary. people that are willing to out the needs of the country above their own are a rare breed,
   I remembered when I was in North Georgia College, the Military college along with VMI, the Citadel, and Norwich. There was a painting on the wall that discussed the rules of Gentlemen.

1. Be gentle to the fairer sex, it's in the name.
2. Dress well no matter the occasion.
3. Pride is dangerous, be careful.
4. Be humble, be grateful
5. Opening the door or giving up a seat for a lady isn't up
for discussion.
6. Work hard, that is if you want to own anything worth having
7. Starting / instigating a fight is for school boys, but men obtain the power to end one.
8. Ignorance isn't bliss, knowledge is power.
9. Suit up (make sure they're tailored to fit)
10. Confidence is a gentleman's trademark.
11. Comfort zones are for the weak, men aren't weak.
12. Foul language is for the less educated.

13. Make Eye contact and mean business.

14. Lower your standards for no one.

15. Being romantic doesn't make you a woman.
16. Stay groomed.
17. Admit when you're wrong
18. Always make the first move, you're the MAN
19. Handwritten "Thank you" cards aren't outdated. Use them.
20. Chivalry is not dead, there are just too many boys.
21. It is said you can tell a lot about a man through his handshake, so make it strong and firm.
22. Leave her breathless
23. Judge no one, just improve yourself.
24. Speak your mind, don't hesitate.
25. Offer your arm to a lady while walking, they'll feel secure.
26. You're the man, you pay.
27. Women love compliments, gentlemen provide them.
28. Never wear your hat indoors, it's disrespectful.
29. Make sure everyone has their plate before you start eating.
30. We don't always have to be the center of attention, but we are always noticed. It is our signature as gentlemen to come, make a statement, leave, and be remembered.
31. Never discuss the virtues of your women with other gentleman, it is crass and beneath you.

A gentleman is a successor of the knights that were sworn to defend the weak against injustice , this was a noble endeavor, it showed what it took to be the best of us, what made us more than mammals interested in the here and now. A Knight was supposed to represent the best of their society by words and deeds.

I don't know what will it take to bring back the old norms, it will take generations to undue the damage done to Western civilization by the Marxist and their fellow travelers. I don't know if we as a society have the mental fortitude to make the proper call. I almost think of the 40 years in the desert like the Israelite did after leaving Egypt until all that remembered the bondage was no longer there and the ones that were there grew up in freedom and adversity.

Webster