Random News Archives - Page 5 of 9

The Online Protest In Honor of Those Mistreated By Law Enforcers: #IfTheyGunnedMeDown

People have taken to social media, again, to talk about concerns revolving what’s happening in the news and on our timelines this week. Popular hash-tag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown brewed up controversy as folks participating in an online rally/protest against the media’s decision of choosing an image that negatively represents the characters of black people. It kick off with the misrepresentation of Michael Brown, a young black male who was fatally shot in St. Louis by police this week.

The story of Michael Brown is a very sad one. A young man, who did nothing wrong at the time of his attempted arrest, was slaughter in front of a community and left in the street for hours before officials decided to clear the scene. The police decision to leave Brown hours after the shooting nearly provoked a riot between people in the neighborhood and the law enforcers. As the week continues to play out, protests emerge as and all I have to say about this is why are blacks still having this battle to be treated fairly?! Why do we continue to be labeled as a group of people who don’t deserve the same level of respect as whites?! We’re all human.

Growing up being black, I can’t help but ask “why does the media choose to publicize our worse?” There is so much good that’s being done by black people. But we have to dig deep into the underground media to see those who are doing good deeds. We have to go out of our way to hear positive things because what’s flashing in front of us doesn’t tell the truth about what’s happening in our communities. As the world watches these videos of police brutality acts towards black people, blacks must remember that they aren’t what society portray them as. They have the potential to be great no matter how much the world tries to manipulate their thoughts into believing they can’t. It’s pure ignorance to allow the media to choose the worst in deciding what will represent us as a group of people. You see what they’ve done with Michael Brown!

This hash-tag is something everyone should take part in as were watching what’s happening in St. Louis. What will the media portray me as if I was shot?

I’m more than judgements. Everyone deserves to be heard. So if you’re more than what on the exterior and more than what people judge you as, post a picture using the hash-tag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown to show the media that they must stop making us look ignorant. Stop treating us like we’re derogatory creatures. We help build this country to be what it is today like everyone else who lives here. We shouldn’t have to remind the world about it.

Share some of your #IfTheyGunnedMeDown posts with us. Post them to our comments. Leave your mark as someone who deserves a chance.

Will we have a voice?! Read Will Blacks Have to Wait Another 100 Years? on Doc’s Castle Media.

When Did Endangering Ourselves for Facebook Likes Become Popular?

Petroleum jelly challenge, Pass out challenge, Fire challenge, cinnamon challenge, and any other challenge that requires people to endanger themselves to get likes and views are swarming everyone’s social media timelines causing a huge uproar of disgust and disappointment. It’s even reaching major media channels.

People are dying from such incidents but these kids continue to participate in these dangerous challenges for attention. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

Who’s going to accept the challenge to stand against the crowd and not do what’s popular? What’s going on is obviously a new form of peer pressure I’ve never seen before. These teenagers want to do what they think is cool, but forget to realize they’re not invincible. If there’s no one telling them the errors of their ways or pointing out how dangerous some of these challenges they choose to take on are, it’ll be a generation full of DUMB ASS PEOPLE.

There’s one person who’s taking on the fire challenge differently. No one takes on this challenge better than my friend Brian Sessions as he performs a spoken word about what he thinks of these fire challenges.

What will it take for these kids to stop doing these things? Do you think these challenges will let up soon? Leave your comments below.

Have you heard about Pizza King? Read Whole Time, The Pizza King Live in Baltimore on Doc’s Castle Media.

Whole Time, The Pizza King Lives in Baltimore!

I don’t know why this excites me. I guess, I’m weird like that. In an article found on Mental_floss, I learned about a Baltimorean who has dedicated 25 years of his life to eating pizza and nothing else!

Dan Janssen survived solely on pizza for almost half of his life without major complications. How is he able to do this? I really don’t know. I’d really be tired of eating the same thing everyday. More power to this guy for making such a dedication to one kind of food. People who live on strict diets meant to help them lose weight can’t even eat pizza everyday.

While I watched the short documentary of Janssen explaining to viewers about his eating lifestyle, I couldn’t help but notice a few sightings of Baltimore restaurants. Of course, my Baltimore pride out shined the fact that this man is pursuing an unhealthy way of living. But man, did I get hungry!? Ha-ha!

Shoutouts to Joe Squared and Vennaris Pizza! Both have awesome pizza!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os8V1EZNI8A]

Are you pro Pizza King’s decision to continue his pizza diet or are you against it? Leave your comments below.

I’m loving all the Bmore pride, lately. Make sure you read The Hashtag that Lasted All Week: #ImSoBaltimore on Doc’s Castle Media.

The HashTag That Lasted All Week: #ImSoBaltimore

Is it over yet?

For the past two days, I’ve watched my city shine with pride as people participating in a game online through their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts. My online friends shared memories of growing up in Baltimore by posting photos and statuses about moments they remember while living in Baltimore under the #hashtag #ImSoBaltimore.

I recall there being other hashtags, like #ImSoDC and #ImSoHarlem. But because majority of my time lines are recipients of Baltimore City, I rarely saw those posts. So like a throwback Thursday turned into an entire week of nostalgia, I was swimming in Baltimore pride all week.

Just the other day, we complained about how we hated where we were from. Two weeks ago, we screamed of how no one will ever make it out of this city with the lack of support from other people who live here. But what I see, with the addition of support from people who attended Artscape, we’ve gain quite a supportive presence by showing our pride in where we come while simply posting statuses about things done in and only in our city.

I spent most of my Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday liking other people’s posts, thinking to myself: I remember doing that or saying I wish that place never went out of business. We aren’t just the home of the Wire. We’re more. We just needed to let others know for a sec.

I miss Baltimore the way everyone remembered it. We talked about it like we don’t do these memorable activities anymore. It opened up my eyes into looking for new memories to capture while I continue to live here. Although, I already have started picking up the habit of doing things that can only be experienced here, I hope that others developed that sense to do the same. We can create more of these Baltimore memories.

Check out some of the things people said while participating in this week’s popular #hashtag. (All these status updates were taken from my Facebook time line. These were not submitted to me. I simply stumbled across them.)

We had a few downers who complained about this online burst of Baltimore pride, of course. It never fail to have someone representing that “crab-in-a-barrel” mentality. I’m glad someone chose to speak up about it, though.

IKR! Just log out because it’s not over yet. Baltimore for life! We’re SO BALTIMORE!

What are some of your memories about Baltimore? Share some in the comments below.

Did you participate in the #TwitterPurge? Read WTF #TwitterPurge on Doc’s Castle Media.

Happy Batman Day!!

I like comics on the low. Though, I don’t actually read comic books because I prefer to read a novel, I do continue to keep up with comic book characters and their storylines through different comic universes. In my house, there’s a library of Marvel and DC encyclopedias. I like to read about each character’s story and lifestyle. It’s cool.

Batman is one of the characters that I know a little something about. He gets a special place on Doc’s Castle Media because DC comics declared today as the official Batman day! It’s Batman’s 75th anniversary celebration and they’re giving away a free special edition of DETECTIVE COMIC #27 at participating book retailers to batman fans.

Since the 1940s, Batman has fought crime in Gotham City. All I can say about all those long drawn out years of being Gotham’s vigilante is “I never want to move there, ever!” Check out some of my favorites from Batman over the years.

Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight was the best played Batman.

He seemed the most realistic.

My Favorite villan from Batman The Animated Series The Joker.

I loved that purple suite. He was funny, too.

Of all the different theme songs that have come from this long Batman reign, my favorite is the Batman Beyond theme song!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Y5SLcBJks]

This is my sister’s ringtone.

And lastly, my favorite relationship was of Batman and Wonder Woman in Justice League Unlimited.

They’re the cute power couple in the group.

What would you say are your favorites from Batman? Share some in the comments below.

Have you read about the TwitterPurge yet? Read WTF #TwitterPurge on Doc’s Castle Media.

#TakeAStand Baltimore

“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.” – Willie Nelson

It’s important to stay positive at all times. It helps fuel the drive you have to progress to a better you. It pushes you towards a new level of living that could create a better lifestyle and it makes you feel great by improving your self-confidence. Being positive can take you places you’ve never thought you’d have the ability to reach.

Recently, there has been plenty acts of kindness I’ve seen towards homeless people on my Facebook time line. It’s nice seeing some of my friends stepping up to show that they care about other people’s circumstances.

One of those thoughtful Facebook friends of mine is Derrick Craddock. I’ve known Derrick for a while now. I use to be a contributing writer for his former entertainment blog The Dope Delivery. So I’ve always known about his dedication and drive to becoming something more. He’s definitely someone I know who has gone through something traumatic but is strong enough to come out on top. That’s why I needed to share this video with everyone. Derrick is doing something that’s definitely worth some rewarding attention that this city should be proud of.

Derrick spent his birthday making others happy. What people usually expect for someone to do on their birthday is spend time participating in an activity for their personal gain and happiness. In this video, he’s proven the truth behind happiness; happiness is making others happy.

This video has such a positive message. I’m glad Derrick did this and shared it on YouTube. It means we can all share this positivity and maybe encourage someone new to show how they care for someone else. What can you do to receive happiness and share positivity?

I want to do a good deed by sharing positivity through this blog post. I want share my positive words. So here it goes…Stay positive when times are tough. Ignore all negativity. It may seem like you are at your lowest but you have to remember that there are people who are worse off than you. You’re even blessed when you don’t realize it. I believe in good karma and the people who put in the efforts to do good for others will have good things happen for them. Derrick will receive his good karma soon. You can, too.

There are many other good deeds being done by others around Baltimore. If you know of any deeds worth sharing about, leave them in the comments below.

No one should ever have to experience domestic abuse. Read What’s Love Got To Do With It on Doc’s Castle Media.

WTF?!?! #TwitterPurge (Rant)

So on July 19, 2014, I was surfing my Twitter timeline, as always, and I couldn’t help but notice an excessive amount of naked women on it! There’s always people reposting pictures exposing women on my timeline. (I don’t know what’s wrong with these horny people.) But last night was just ridic.

Who decided to start the hashtag #twitterpurge? It’s just really inappropriate and embarrassing to watch people take part in such nonsense. If you’ve missed it, #TwitterPurge is when people post nude photos of people they may or may not know, exposing them entirely to the public. That’s pretty much it. There were even memes that emerged from people’s participation in last night’s popular hashtag fiasco.

I was embarrassed more for the people who chose to uncover what should have been sacred for many of those people who were exposed. I’m sure the people who were in those photographs trusted the person responsible for posting their naked selfies at some point of their lives. There has to be over a thousand folks “beafing” with each other after last night. That could have been easily avoided. Now I suspect there’s more tension in the atmosphere that doesn’t need to be there.

What the hell does this #twitterpurge have to do with the film that was released this past Friday in theaters? There’s no relation at all. I wonder what producers are thinking after witnessing a popular hashtag take complete control over the idea of what the purge is because I know it has nothing to do with people sending photos of other folks. Are the producers scrambling to save their box office sales because of a group of teens unknowingly sabotaging their general idea, or will there be an increase in box office sales today? Will producers have to hear the mouths of thousands of angry parents? Sheesh, I would hate to work on their PR team now.

The purge is said to have started by a group of teens in Santa Clarita Valley in Los Angeles under a page named “SCV Purge.” The page encouraged teens to send nude photos to the account. After the account attracted 3,000 followers, it must have started a chain reaction because there was another Twitter account created that also accepted nudes. This #twitterpurge can be compared to the thousands of Instagram and Facebook pages made to do the exact same thing, tarnish the reputation of it’s teenage victims. All I do is shake my head at it’s disgrace.

This is the first time I’m choosing to address this “social media pornography” but I see it happens often. Sooner or later, we’ll be desensitized from it and learn to accept these pop-up pages. It’s like the children of our future show no remorse for others. Their ruining other people’s lives for laughs and giggles and I’m sitting in awe. I wonder how society will try to intervene in trying to take control of an issue like this.

What do you think? In what ways do you believe society will grab a handle of this type of indecent exposure? Leave your comments below.

For those people who are convinced that The Purge Anarchy is about naked people, here’s the trailer to fix those assumptions. We can’t have you judging whether to see a movie based of your experiences on Twitter.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzFCDqKE4yA]

Sign The Petition Against WERQ-FM’s Local Artist Airplay Time Slots

I know many may say they don’t listen to the radio anymore. But when you do want to listen to something new, what do you prefer? Do you listen to the local DJs on your cities radio station or do you listen to Spotify and Pandora? In the case of Baltimore, do you listen to 92Q or WMSK Online Radio?

I still listen to the radio. But it’s not my primary choice for new music. Whenever I feel the urge to listen to something new, I find myself running to soundcloud or YouTube rather the radio because the radio plays the same songs too often. When will the music gods ever change that? Honestly, does this city care enough to want to change how we hear new music?

We moan and groan about why our local radio stations refuse to play local artists music for our community to hear and support, but won’t make a difference about it. What’s going on here? Nothing is adding up. Someone’s making an effort, for sure. We’re just so blind to what’s happening in our community that we’ve overlook it. I’ve come across a petition,which entire purpose is to stop WERQ from playing only industry crap during the hours of 6am to 12am, and mix up the music selection with more local/independent artists during those time slots.

The Petition was created by Catherine Moran, and this woman makes a very good point for why we, as music lovers, should sign in agreement for changing when WERQ should play independent music.

Allot 1/3 of their playlist to local Baltimore artist between the hours of 8 a.m. & 6pm daily. Songs should be chosen by the people NOT the PDs, Asst PD, or DJs. There needs to be a voting poll via 3rd party site example “Polldaddy.com” where the results can be viewed by the public with real-time updates, to insure radio staff are not fooling people.

For too long our radio station has put on this front calling themselves the “People’s Station” when in fact they are not helping our “People (local talent)” at all. Every time you turn around they are creating more and more ridiculous policies to discourage artist from trying to get on radio, and justify shutting them out. This needs to end today.

VIEW THE CATHERINE’S WORLDSTARHIPHOP VIDEO & SIGN THE PETITION HERE

I already signed the petition. I want local artist to have more opportunities to shine. I want the city to be behind this because many of Baltimore residents claim there is never a time where we have a voice. If we could rally up more people to sign this petition, we face a chance in being recognized as another city full of very talented people with the potential to go as far as anyone who may come from New York, Atlanta, or Los Angeles. We can make this happen!

Do you think this petition can be the starting point for big change in the music industry? Leave you comments below.

Have you read Doc’s opinion for why she thinks Baltimore isn’t supportive their artists? Read Baltimore Is Too “Cliqued” Up To Have Supporters on Doc’s Castle Media.

Doc Attends The Real News Network Grand Opening

Now let’s learn to be more politically correct here. Knowing that the majority of my audience are 20-something-years-olds, a lot of the people I carry a conversation with lack awareness for what’s really happening in the media. Just the other day, I asked one of my friends were they going to vote and they didn’t realize there was an election going on. Now that’s a problem. That exact incident weighed heavy on my mind at last night event as I attended The Real News Network’s studio grand opening.

It was such a nice little shindig. Multiple people took part in the celebration and opening of the year old independent online news site in downtown Baltimore, MD. From rappers, noteworthy guest speakers, poets and even a special appearance from actor/film director Danny Glover, we all came together on one night to recognize what’s really important while streaming our concerns to the rest of the world from the Real News Network website. We’re came together to show that we care about our community’s well being. Along with the extravagance of being blessed with the presence of some very important faces, we still participated in celebrating something that I love so much, hip-hop. It was a very good night.

I saw some familiar faces, too…

As I attended the grand opening, I wrangled up a few important messages that caught my ear. The messages constantly being pushed at last night function by the keynote speakers were

“we should participate in what’s happening in our communities,”
“we should become the government that we want instead of bashing what we have,”
“we should always love who we are,” and
“we should work hard to become who we are and not let anyone stop us from doing what we love.”

With every speaker and performance, there was a sense of power that came with their presence; the kind of power that makes you want to leave from the event and create a masterpiece of your own. You can’t tell me I wasn’t ready to go write an opinion essay after I left out of there. My notebook gained 4 more pages worth of “scrap literature.” Praise be to the motivation!

I look forward to learning more about The Real News Network. It’s still pretty fresh to me. But when something is unfamiliar, I don’t hesitate to learn more about it. I’m thinking of a way to somehow volunteer my services for them. They’ve also mentioned the need for a lot of help from people in the community so you should find your place in getting involved with The Real News Network, as well.

Take a stand! The Real News Network will also be having their part 2 to their grand opening tonight. If you’re seeking to get involved sooner opposed to later, go check ‘em out! RSVP at the Real News Network’s event page on Facebook and follow the address below:

235 Holliday Street

Baltimore, MD 21202

Have you attended any of the Beet Trip events? Read Beet Trip is the New Wave on Doc’s Castle Media.

Bucket Listing It Up

I can’t sit still for anything. Maybe that’s a good thing. But I always have to do something to occupy my time. It’s how I started writing blogs. It’s how I found all the internship experience in branding and marketing. It’s how I’ve decided how I want to complete certain things in life. While accomplishing all these opportunities while I’m young, I’ll be able to have lots of stories to share when I’m older. It’s what’s considered living!

Last week, I got some thinking done and I randomly thought about creating a bucket list for myself to keep my mind occupied from being idle. I did some research before making my list when searching the web. The Internet makes it seem like it wasn’t a bad idea.

What is a bucket list?

For the many people who are unsure of what a bucket list is, I want to address the basics to you. It’s a list of goals you’d like to complete in your lifetime. A list of things that you’ve always thought were possible for you to do before you die. When I watch television shows or movies, whatever I’m watching usually gives off the intent of a person making a bucket list when they’re close to death. Well, I’m not close to death. Why wait until then? I already know a lot of what I want to accomplish now.

I do not have any serious sickness. I just wish to live a more fulfilling life while I can.

Doc’s Bucket List

First, my plan to make a bucket list was about trying to do things before 2014 comes to an end. I don’t believe I can do that with my list. It’s a bit much. It is a list that needs to be done before I die, most definitely. I have a list for starters that I may eventually add more to. Currently, there’s only one thing I’ve scratched off of my list. Take a look…

~~Make a Rap Song~~ (Listen to my rap song.)
Be in a music video
Write/Produce a music video
Go to 4 different states in one year
Go to a Rave (similar to those that I see in movies)
~~Be in a fashion show~~ (See the recap of the fashion show.)
Go on a Cruise with friends
Hot Air Balloon
Snow Tubing
Go to Mardi Gras
Swim with some exotic animal
~~Put out a mixtape~~ (Listen to Songs From Da Dugout)

I’ll get all of these things done! Eventually, I want to do everything, preferably before I have children and get married. Ha-ha! I can make it happen. As I complete whatever is on my bucket list, I want to keep my readers up to date on what’s being completed. So stay tuned to my post about my bucket list as time progresses.