America's Heroes: My Experience With Police Brutality

Houston, we have a problem.
Well, not just Houston. More like America.
*ahem*
America, we have a problem.
As is with any position of higher responsibility and power, corruption is bound to happen. And it is becoming increasingly prevalent in our local police departments at what seems to be an exponential rate.  While this apparent explosion in these events may be contributed to the rise of the Internet, social media, and 24 hour news cycles, what it doesn't change is that it is an epidemic that is plaguing everyday citizens, such as you and I.  With the rise in reports of what seem to be attacks on good, everyday citizens by our own police force, it is getting harder and harder to believe that there is such a thing as a, "good cop." Which is a shame, because I do know some police officers who do an outstanding job at keeping their communities and countries safe from crime. Horror stories coming out of places like New York City, where the "stop and frisk" laws lead to hundreds of unnecessary arrests a year, primarily of people of color.  One story of such injustice comes from Miami, Florida, where a convenience store owner has been stopped and frisked by his local police 258 times, while working in his own store. Another scene growing more common is the shooting deaths of animals by police. One recent story recalls a man, who upon walking his dog, passed the scene of a police response to a robbery.  The man was playing loud music from his car, as well as recording the police intervention in the robbery with his cell phone. The police went to apprehend the man, so he put his dog in his car so as to not cause trouble. The dog grew excited, and exited the car from an open window, and was then shot four times, left to bleed to death on the sidewalk.  This leads me into my own personal account of unnecessary force in the hands of a police officer.
Throughout my fourth and fifth grade years, my new neighbors, whose daughter had just graduated, took quite a few vacations with their newfound freedom from full-time parenting.  While they were gone, they asked me to walk their dog, a young male St. Bernard named Bailey, feed it, and make sure it didn't destroy their house.  One thing that must be understood is that St. Bernards, especially younger ones, are very playful animals, who love to play around with children.  It is also necessary to mention that, at the time, the dog and I were of almost identical dimensions(standing on it's hind legs, the dog was just over five feet tall, and weighed about 130-140 pounds, as did I). One day, while taking care of Bailey, I decided to take him on a walk to my neighborhood park. There were many children outside with their parents with it being such a lovely day. Upon walking into the park, I ran into a neighbor and his two kids. This neighbor was, and to my knowledge still is, a Troy police officer. As I walked into the park, Bailey got excited by seeing his kids and started to pull at the leash. I was unable to keep control of Bailey, and he escaped to go play with the kids.  However, the kids did not know that Bailey's intentions were playful, and started to get a bit scared. This is when the officer, off-duty, started screaming, swearing, threatening, and attacking the dog. He screamed, in a park full of children, obscenities that make modern-day me cringe, and kicked the dog in the throat, shouting, "I'm going to shoot this f***ing dog in the head."  I eventually got control of Bailey, and I was then told to, "Get the hell out of the park." I did so, blinded by tears. I later learned that an old man, at the park with his grandkids, confronted the officer after I left, telling him what he did was unnecessary and crude, and that he should have thought of the kids at the park when choosing his words and actions.  The officer responded with a threat to start a physical altercation with this older man, directly in front of his grandkids.  Because of this incident, I have had an irrational fear of all arms of the law ever since.  I get very anxious and nervous around any police officer, on or off duty, whether I am doing anything remotely illegal or not.  Cases like the ones mentioned before and my own are only the tip of an iceberg which is looming over the American legal system. I can only hope we can steer the ship out of i

UPDATE

The White House has responded to it's We The People petition to secure Net Neutrality in America. Here is that response: "Reaffirming the White House’s Commitment to Net Neutrality

By Gene Sperling, Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and Todd Park, the United States Chief Technology Officer and Assistant to the President.

Thank you to everyone who has signed on to this petition in support of a free and open Internet. Since his days as a United States Senator, President Obama has embraced the principle of net neutrality. As the President recently noted, his campaign for the White House was empowered by an open Internet; it allowed millions of supporters to interact with the President and each other in unprecedented fashion. That experience helped give rise to the creation of this very platform -- the We The People website -- where Americans can express their opinions on any topic and receive a response from the White House. Rights of free speech, and the free flow of information, are central to our society and economy -- and the principle of net neutrality gives every American an equal and meaningful opportunity to participate in both. Indeed, an open Internet is an engine for freedom around the world.

Preserving an open Internet is vital not to just to the free flow of information, but also to promoting innovation and economic productivity. Because of its openness, the Internet has allowed entrepreneurs -- with just a small amount of seed money or a modest grant -- to take their innovative ideas from the garage or the dorm room to every corner of the Earth, building companies, creating jobs, improving vital services, and fostering even more innovation along the way.

Absent net neutrality, the Internet could turn into a high-priced private toll road that would be inaccessible to the next generation of visionaries. The resulting decline in the development of advanced online apps and services would dampen demand for broadband and ultimately discourage investment in broadband infrastructure. An open Internet removes barriers to investment worldwide.

A wide spectrum of stakeholders and policymakers recognize the importance of these principles. In the wake of last month's court decision, it was encouraging to hear major broadband providers assert their commitment to an open Internet.

It was also encouraging to see Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, whom the President appointed to that post last year, reaffirm his commitment to a free and open Internet and pledge to use the authority granted by Congress to maintain a free and open Internet. The White House strongly supports the FCC and Chairman Wheeler in this effort.

The petition asked that the President direct the FCC to reclassify Internet service providers as "common carriers" which, if upheld, would give the FCC a distinct set of regulatory tools to promote net neutrality. The FCC is an independent agency. Chairman Wheeler has publicly pledged to use the full authority granted by Congress to maintain a robust, free and open Internet -- a principle that this White House vigorously supports.

Todd Park is the United States Chief Technology Officer. Gene Sperling is Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy."

How Alcohol Sale Laws are Ruining the Future of Music

For nearly all music venues, the majority of profits do not come from ticket sales, or food, or crappy pizza or water or merchandise. No, it comes from beer. Liquor. Booze. Alcohol.  And I'm not here to say that this is wrong. You do you, business-owners. What I am here to say is that it is absolutely absurd that the sale of alcohol, as well as the laws surrounding it, would restrict younger, prospective show-goers from seeing their favorite performing artists.  One of the best ways to be inspired to create, to try and get into a community with other artists is to watch them in their most primal state, on stage, guitar/microphone/drum sticks in hand. Meeting one's heroes inspires awe and passion in people that simply can't be recreated at a computer desk, or with an iPod.  But these laws, which were created with good intentions, are only doing one thing, and that's destroying existing music communities, as well as ruining any chance of these communities to sprout and grow.  Dare I say, that they are ruining small, independent, do-it-yourself venues themselves.  But why were these laws created?
To answer this question, we first must state something which is obscenely obvious: People like to drink alcohol. Not just those who are of the legal drinking age requirements, but those under it too.  One can argue the effects of alcohol on developing brains and social habits all day, but at the end of the day, it's not going to stop high school and college students alike from getting their hands on some booze for their weekend outings.  It's a fact of life.  As a reaction to this, however, lawmakers across America have crafted legislation that limits how businesses which sell alcoholic beverages can conduct business in the presence of those under the legal drinking age.  No one under 21 past certain hours, no one under 21 allowed period, no one under 18(AKA no one who can't be held responsible for their own actions in a court of law) allowed.  And it's these young concertgoers that are the meat and potatoes of thriving music communities.
Let's compare three cities and their music scenes, three cities which most Troy citizens can relate to. These three cities are Cincinnati, Columbus, and Dayton. Let's break it down one by one.
Cincinnati has a very large number of independent venues, clubs, bars, and other performance spaces.  Of the numerous variety of performance areas in Cincinnati, you would truly be hard pressed to find one which restricts it's customers based on age. And how is business in Cincinnati? To describe it as booming or thriving would be quite the understatement. Bands from Cincinnati are exploding into popularity, because anyone can go to any of the shows they put on in any venue in the city. This gives the DIY venues more revenue, which gives the artists more money and incentive to perform, and it gives the kids something to aspire to.
Next, let us take a peek at Columbus.  Columbus' music venues are less expansive, boasting a handful of venues run by the music promotion company PromoWest, and several small bars located here, there, and everywhere. The scene? Thriving, but lacking when it comes to new kids on the block.  I only just recently was able to meet and befriend the artists whom I've admired for years in Columbus, such as my local favorites Sleep Fleet, Van Dale, and This Is My Suitcase(RIP).  Without the ferocious velocity that comes with the youth audience, the scene will grow stagnate with time, as artists either get a break or give up.
Finally, let us look at Dayton, our closest big city. Dayton has almost no performance spaces, with almost all of it's DIY spaces drying up and dying in the late 2000's.  The only music venues available on a regular basis are bars and clubs, which, by law, must restrict it's audience on certain days of the week/certain hours.While some bands exist in Dayton, the only way I've ever been able to hear about them is either A) browsing the internet for hours, scouring for one connected to Dayton or B) a Dayton band playing on the bill of a familiar Columbus or Cincinnati band.
It is of my belief that, in order for music to thrive in cities like these and many others, that these alcohol sale laws must be banished, if not revised.  If not, I fear that the future might not be too bright for the hub of cultural creativity that is local music communities/scenes.

On Net Neutrality: The Future of a Free America

With the exponential growth of the world wide web over the past decade, the industries of the olden-days have taken their time to keep up with the latest technological trends, always assuming "this one's just a phase." Well, the internet sure as hell isn't going anywhere just quite yet. But in the corporate world's recent game of catch-up with the web, the idea has slipped into their heads that instead of not only paying for access to the web, one should also pay for access to the sites that they regular.  Imagine paying four or five dollars a month just to log onto Facebook and update your status, or upload the family pictures.  Imagine having to pay eight dollars a month just to watch cat videos on YouTube. It's mind-boggling to think that a price can be put on our daily entertainment and livelihood brought about by the web, yet there has been a recent push to begin the process of doing just that.  In this development, however, a backlash has began to take shape.  Internet activist groups like the infamous 4Chan basement dwellers Anonymous and other rights-based groups have created a firestorm of disgust and repulsion to the idea of a non-free web, a, "non-neutral web."  With recent legislature coming to votes in our national congress such as the infamous SOPA and PIPA, people have gone in an outrage, myself included, trying to rail against this blatant attack at our personal freedom.  The FCC's Open Net Order was recently knocked down by a circuit court of appeals, threatening the very nature of our internet freedom, by making it legal for internet service providers(herein referred to as ISP's) to tamper with broadband allocation and data transmission at their own will.  Luckily, however, Democrats in the House and Senate have recently began promoting legislation to constitutionally protect net neutrality, which is chugging it's way through subcommittee's and the standard legislative process as I type/you read.

A common response to the idea of net neutrality is that, in the interest of our lovely capitalism and the spirit of free enterprise, that to block an ISP or third-party companies control of the Internet is unconstitutional, out of the bounds of not only Congress or Executive action, but rather any lawmaking body in existence.  This is what I call, "a stupid opinion that merits no points given in the game of life." Net neutrality is not a matter of free-enterprise, but rather of the rights of the voice of the American citizen.  A struggling American may already have trouble paying for Internet access alone, and then on top of that add a bill to go onto Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube, etc.? It is a literal wall put up by ISP's in order to maintain peace in the terrifying world of copyright infringement, government upheaval, and general law and order. Is is analogous to passing a law that would require anyone wishing to speak their opinion anywhere, not just in public, to pay five dollars for a month's worth of talking.  But, even then, you still have a limit on the amount of information you can release and consume, or else that's another fee.  The attack on net-neutrality is not some heroic battle-cry from the conservative base of Americans in defense of our freedom, but rather, a full-fledged attack on the very foundations of not only our inalienable rights as American citizens, but our rights granted to us as citizens of the world.  And that is a breach of constitutionality on the most fundamental level.

Here lies a link to a petition on the whitehouse.gov website to protect net neutrality. While I know that the responses warranted by these petitions has never been desirable, I believe it is in our best interest to let the government know that this is a big. "NO!" https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/restore-net-neutrality-directing-fcc-classify-internet-providers-common-carriers/5CWS1M4P