October 22, 2009 • 2:54 am 1
Think about it. Do you want AT&T, Comcast and Verizon controlling your access to the net? Which websites you can visit? How quickly you download porn? That’s not the America I signed up for.
Do the right thing: support Net Neutrality. Sign the petition and leave a comment in favor of making Net Neutrality a law.
Filed under: Activism, Media, News , At&T, Comcast, justice, Media, Net Neutrality, Save the internet, verizon
October 21, 2009 • 10:41 pm 0
Hyperlocal. Citizen journalism. User generated content. All of these new buzzwords are being thrown around as possible solutions to the current journalism crisis. All around the country some really brilliant people are producing some really great projects in a collective effort to save the news business. Or at least to shape what comes after it’s demise.
We recently threw our hat into this idealistic ring with the hopes that we can better serve the Oakland public and turn some of those buzzwords into tangible next steps and a sustainable journalism model. This past Monday we launched Oakland Local, a new hyperlocal news site that incorporates traditional journalism with multimedia, user generated content and citizen journalism all in one place.
Filed under: Media, News, Oakland , journalism, Media, new media, Oakland, startups
October 1, 2007 • 7:59 pm 0
Clinton: Act Like Americans
From Novometro.com
Mayor Dellums officially endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton’s bid for president Monday afternoon and she returned the favor by naming Mr. Dellums Chair of her campaign’s National Urban Policy Committee.
The announcement was made at Laney College Student Center shortly after the two toured the campus together. Mr. Dellums said the decision to endorse Ms. Clinton was made “after an exhaustive review of everyone’s global agenda,” and that he was impressed by Ms. Clinton’s understanding of the problems facing the nation’s cities.
“Oakland is sitting on top of a 100-year-old collapsing infrastructure,” he told the crowd of hundreds of supporters and students, predicting that the public-private partnership he envisioned under Clinton’s presidency would be one of the “greatest public works projects in modern history.”
Click to read more.
Filed under: News, Oakland, Politics , Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Oakland, President, Ron Dellums
September 29, 2007 • 1:30 am 0
The Day the Music Died, Maybe
By Kwan Booth
July 15 could mark the end of the web as we hear it. That is the day new royalty rates take effect for Internet radio stations based in the United States. Opponents say the new fees, which will increase the yearly amount paid by Internet broadcasters by 300 to 1200 percent over the next five years, will effectively wipe out the industry.
On March 2, alarms sounded throughout the music community when the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) ruled that Internet radio stations will now be charged based on the number of listeners. The CRB is the government organization charged with overseeing sound recording royalties paid by Internet radio services. Previously, stations paid a percentage of their revenue. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Activism, Media, Music, News, Technology
• 12:46 am 1
Weekend Festivals Combine Hip Hop and Education
By Kwan Booth
All across the country, educators are seeing the benefits of using Hip Hop and youth culture as educational tools. While many older institutional figures continue to clamor about the music’s social significance and graphic sexual depictions, many young educators, many of whom have grown up in the culture and understand its potential, are adapting Hip Hop’s four core tenets –the “Four Pillars of Hip Hop,” for the classroom. The Bay Area, with its history of supporting alternative education, is a hotbed for these programs that wed youth interests and culture with traditional education. This Saturday, two events in Oakland will showcase the results of this marriage. Read the rest of this entry »
• 12:44 am 0
Happiness, Success, Hip Hop
By Kwan Booth (May 28, 2007-Oakland Post)
Last Tuesday in a scene that resembled a southern baptist revival, Russell Simmons, the hip hop entrepreneur behind Def Jam Records, Def Comedy Jam and Phat Farm Clothing, shared the secrets of his success with over 200 people as they skimmed copies of his new book “Do You! 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success.”
The discussion and book signing, which took place in the tent behind Scott’s Restaurant in Jack London Square, drew a wide range of attendees, from mothers and community activists to rappers and moguls in training, eager to soak up the experience Simmons has gained from his more than 25 years in the entertainment industry. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Books, News , "Do you", "Russell Simmons"
• 12:42 am 0
Power Moves: Combining Hip Hop Chess and Martial Arts
By Kwan Booth
Staff Writer
Ever since the 1993 album “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)” brought kung fu samples and chess metaphors into hip hop’s vocabulary, the culture has harbored a deep fascination for both martial arts and The Game of Kings.
“There are so many rappers who play chess, its mind blowing,” says Adisa Banjoko, a journalist, martial artist and co-founder of the Hip Hop Chess Federation. Last Saturday, the federation sponsored “Hip-Hop, Chess & Life Strategies II” an exhibition which brought youth together with martial artists, athletes and hip hop heavyweights such as RZA from Wu-Tang Clan and 8-time national chess champion Josh Waitzkin. Read the rest of this entry »
• 12:39 am 0
Nathaniel Mackey wins National Book Award
By Kwan Booth (November 22, 2006-Oakland Post)
Staff Writer
In a turn of poetic justice, African American poet Nathaniel Mackey has been awarded the 2006 National Book Award for his latest poetry collection, “Splay Anthem.” With the distinction, Mackey joins a short list of black writers including poets Ai and Lucille Clifton and novelists Charles Johnson and Alice Walker.
Splay Anthem was selected from 13,000 works submitted by publishers from around the country. Mackey, known as a poet, critic, fiction writer and professor, has written 14 books during his 27 year career, while teaching literature at UC Santa Cruz and serving as editor for the influential multicultural journal “Hambone.” Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Books, News , "Nathaniel Mackey", "National Book Award", "Splay Anthem"
• 12:37 am 2
Katrina Survivors: “We Want our money”
Artists and organizers raise funds for victims
By Kwan Booth
Staff Writer
By all estimates the Bay Area houses as many as 2000 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina. They are living in hotels, donated houses, apartments and with relatives from San Francisco to Pleasanton. And many are ready to go home. “I like Pleasanton, it’s pleasant” one woman recently noted, “but it doesn’t have any culture.”
Aid from the local and national government has been promised to varying degrees, but bureaucracy and mismanagement have resulted in little being dispersed. Seeing this, individuals donors, artists and grassroots groups have been stepping in and offering support directly to those in need. Last Saturday, artists including Talib Kweli and Dwayne Wiggins, joined the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund, Survivors for Survivors and several local and international activist groups in Oakland to raise funds and update the community on progress in the south. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Activism, Art, Music, News , , "Malcolm X Grassroots Movement", "Moses Music", "Talib Kweli", Katrina
• 12:34 am 0
Si, Se Puede!
By Kwan Booth (May 7, 2007-Oakland Post)
On Monday, more than a million protesters across the country took to the streets chanting “Si, Se Puede!” (Yes we can!), banging on pots and waving flags from the United States, Mexico, and various South American countries, to demand reform of U.S. immigration laws.
Local demonstrations, the largest of which took place in San Francisco, Oakland and Richmond, were heavily attended by the Bay’s large Hispanic population, with estimates of around 60,000, although people of all races were present for what is being compared to African Americans’ struggle for Civil Rights in the 1960s. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Activism, News , "si se puede", Immigration, San Francisco
A left coast, black futurist take on art, life, culture, and randomness.
Heavy on the randomness.
My name is Kwan and I write things.
Features, news and essays, fiction, poems and collateral, marketing strategies and bits of conversations, genius words of inspiration and dada nonsense couplets.
It's a bit of an addiction.
But it helps to put things in perspective
And so far it pays the bills.
But you're not here to pay the bills are you? If you were, you'd be over here. Where I write for the big bucks.
You're here to get some of those not so random words aren't you?
I can see it in your eyes-the deep longing, the searching, the need.
It's okay, really. That's why I'm here too:
-to toss sentences into the air and see what soars
-to chase ideas with butterfly nets
-to figure out the what's and why's
-to find out the who's and when's
-to grab all the little slices
-and wrap arms around the big questions.
I think you'll dig it
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KwanDammit
Boothism
Boothism
