Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Troy Davis: The Death of My Brother


We have all witnessed a great injustice tonight.

Did you know that on his death certificate, Troy Davis' cause of death will be listed as a homicide? A HOMICIDE. They are killing a man, whether innocent or not, to justify the death of another. How can anyone just ignore such an egregious situation? And yet as I continued to read all the tweets regarding Davis, I also noted that #youknowyoughetto was also trending (in the Philadelphia region at least) and X-Factor was also popular. Once again human life is carelessly thrown away. Troy Davis, the 52nd person to be executed in the prisons of Georgia. But we know that he is only one of the many strange fruit whose life has been taken needlessly.


As I look at this photo and listen to the @democracynow live stream the tears leak down my face. I am weeping. I have never been so hurt over a stranger. No he is no stranger. He is my brother. Troy Davis is my brother.

He is being executed right now, sitting on a gurney waiting as the cocktails of drugs take his very breath away. 7 of the 9 witnesses recanted their statements. There was no other evidence that put Davis as the murderer other than the 2 last witnesses. If that isn't reasonable doubt, I just don't know what is. If this isn't a misuse of justice. Just sickening.

I never supported the death penalty and I never will. An eye for an eye does indeed make the whole world blind. And right now too many of us have turned a blind eye to a system of justice that continues to instill injustice. 

I'm sorry if I'm not making much sense everyone. I am just so distraught that I just don't know how I can look at the government and continue to take it seriously.

Troy Davis said: They may take my body, but they can never take my spirit. Because my spirit belongs to God. 

God be with you Troy Davis. God be with his family. God be with the family of Officer MacPhail. God be with all of us. Because strange fruit continue to hang from the Poplar trees. 




The Fiore Scott Files: Retro Video Games (Part 1)

I was talking to my father about how my 14 year old brother hadn't been able to play his video games since he began high school just two weeks ago, when it hit me, I've been playing video games since my motorskills where advance enough to do so. Now I'm only 23, so I've never even seen an Atari up close, but I'm been appreciating the gamer side of myself since my father
bought us our first system, the Sega Genesis.
I can only remember good times with this system. I would sit next to my brothers for hours just playing Terminator, Sonic the Hedgehog, Madden '93, and my favorite Decap Attack. And yes I did just spend 30 minutes searching the internet trying to figure out the name of my favorite game. I enjoyed it that much.


Sega Megadrive Collection Trailer Decap Attack by objectifsega

My older and I also realized that we only ever where able to complete Decap Attack, while the upper levels of Sonic 1 and 2 and Terminator always alluded us. But at that time, for most of us "gamers", a term that I didn't even recognize I fell under until a few years ago, winning and progressing through all the levels of a game was never the main goal. It was about having fun. My brothers and I never had a problem being stuck on the casino level in Sonic or getting killed on the 2nd level in Terminator. We just started over.

Those wonderful days lasted for many years until the advent of the CD and the creation of the Playstation.  Man how we loved our playstation. Of course my father bought it for my brothers, seeing as I was a girl and didn't do such things, but I considered it mine because I enjoyed playing it as much as they did.

And we definitely played the hell out of system. Especially when we saw just how awesome and upgraded the games where compared to our Genesis after playing the demo disk. I just know you remember those. Those disks contained my first taste of playing a first player snowboarding game, Crash Bandicoot: Warped, Spyro, and Gran Turismo 2 (that wasn't in an arcade). It was also our first time experiencing such gorey video graphics with Mortal Kombat Trilogy.


Now if those aren't some beautiful but crazy graphics, I don't know what is. Seriously people, who thought that up?

The number of games we had drastically went up from the 5 or so Genesis games we had to at least 30 Playstation CDs. I could never get into the Final Fantasy franchise but I also wanted PaRappa theRapper. I would let me brothers spend hours playing Madden or Tekken and wait for them to allow me to get on so I could play my Crash Bandicoot. And God forbid if I ever won against my brothers in Mortal Kombat. It was on then.

But I can't forget about my favorite excuse to leave the table at Denny's, Arcade games. Whenever I got a chance, at it was rare, to go to an arcade the one game that I always made sure to save quarters for was the Simpsons game.


I was usually either Bart (everyone wanted to be Bart!) or Marge with her vacuum. This is the only arcade game I was able to beat, I'm pretty proud to say. And it took many tries and many quarters, but I was always entertained.

And then there was the fighting arcade games: Marvel vs. Campcom and X-Men.


I would jostle with the boys to get a joystick so that I could play. I was usually a female character in both games (I'm looking at you Chun-Li and Storm) and was able to hold my own against anyone who played. Yeah I mostly button-mashed, but it did its job.

I've been gaming since I was 7 and at 23, I'm still plugging away on both consoles and computers.Clearly, my gaming started early and it still has shown no signs of stopping. But that's a story for Part 2.  

What were your favorite old school Genesis, Playstation 1, and Arcade games? 

 

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

.....wassup...



So, you know, I haven't been around. Made big promises and what not and did not follow through. Shit.. I"m on my grind. I'm trying to be a medical anthropologist and what not...
On the real I'm sorry and it will happen again.

On the bright side, here are some soon-to-be posts to look forward to:
1. Oh, word? [About my...interesting...date]
2. How to Cook For One [one of my delicious and healthy dinner/lunch recipes]
3. How to Tell If He's Gay
4. Girl, Should I [dudes to say yes to...dudes to just run from]

Excited? Me too.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Yo, What's the Name of that Song Again?!

Picture this. It is a Friday night and you're with your girlfriends and you all are getting down, releasing all of the energy built up from the many stresses of daily life. The DJ is doing their thing and everybody in the room is dancing their behind off, grooving to good music, young and old. But then that song comes on. You know, that song. You have heard it many times before and probably know most of the words. You love this song!

But what's the name of it? You want to add it to your iTunes library but can't do it without know either the name of the song or who sings it. So here is my Top 10 list of obscure jams that I have had to research in the past.


10. Freak Like Me by Adina Howard



9. I'll Do Anything For You by Denroy Morgan


8. Rock Creek Park by Donald Byrd and the Blackbirds


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