Hilltop.. of Tacoma

In My perspective On Service class we have had a few field trips and a variety of guest speakers. Yesterday we had a guest speaker named Jean and she talked about the change that resulted in her area. The area was was a drug selling place. There were 33 houses and 3 of them were drug houses that ruined the whole appeal of the neighborhood. A nice Victorian house whose value is half a million dollars was selling for 33,000. Now that is very very bad. The neighborhood was filled with shootings all the time... but no one actually got shot... LOL.. cause the gangsters didnt know how to shoot...

When she moved into that neighborhood for financial and housing reasons.. No one was standing up for the neighborhood.. to the druggies that meant that no one cared... Neighbors didn't know their neighbors... so how could they stand up... Some of the druggies lived with their parents and those either denied that their children were doing drugs or ignored it because of fear...

Jean coming from a small city in Montana decided to bake bread and get to know her neighbors... They probably thought she was wacky... but that's not the point.. LOl... The point is that she got to know her neighbors and they helped her and she helped them.

Getting rid of drug dealers is not easy...Especially the Crips.The Crips are one of the largest and most violent associations of street gangs in the United states. They believed that they have power because they had oozies- M16 or AK47. Calling the cops did not help much either cause at that time they had guns that were small and uneffective. There were 32 gangsters and 2 cops would show up.. not a fair fight.

The thing that causes neighboor hoods to be run over with drug users- in this case crack users, a different form of cockaine is that the neighborhood was run down and in some ways neglected. There were abondoned houses that the drug dealers could use.Hilltop was a center for lawlessness thanks in no small part to absentee landlords who had neglected their properties. But all that started to change.Business leaders, residents and the city organized and launched a project to buy property, renovate rundown homes and build new ones, selling them to low-income people interested in becoming first-time homeowners.

This created change that propelled more change and finally kicked out most of the druggies.
The reason why this was effective is kind of explained by the " broken window theory-if the first broken window in a building is not repaired, then people who like breaking windows will assume that no one cares about the building and more windows will be broken. Soon the building will have no windows...."

The moral of this story is take care of your neighborhood. When everything will be in its proper place drug addicts will have no place there. Community is also very important. Know your neighbors. Become a mentor to a child. =)

Did You Know? Bagels

The bagel is the only bread product that is boiled before it is baked. That's what gives the bagel its unique texture and the crust its characteristic shine.

Legend has it that in 1683 in Vienna, Austria, a local Jewish baker wanted to thank the king of Poland for protecting his countrymen from Turkish invaders. He made a special hard roll in the shape of a riding stirrup-Bugel in German - commemorating the king's favorite pastime and giving the bagel its distinct shape.

As bagels gained popularity in Poland, they were officially sanctioned as gifts for women in childbirth and mentioned in community registers. Mothers used them as nutritious teething rings that their infants could easily grasp - a practice still popular today.

Bagels eventually made their way to Russia, where they were called bubliki and were sold on strings. Like other ring-shaped objects, they were said to bring good luck and possess magical powers. It is even said that songs were sung about bagels! ( The Kitchen Project)

Commerce on the Net

The World that we live in is constantly evolving. In many ways it is better in some ways it is worse. Our generation has materialistic wealth, it has the opportunity for a better education, we live in a democratic country. Medicine has gotten way better ( Polio has been eradicated in many countries, malaria also) and we can treat many forms of cancer. It is worse because ice in the north pole is melting, HIV and AIDS are still spreading, more wars are being started everyday. Whatever you desire is yours for the getting... all you need is money.

When the internet began it was hard to get people to buy things online because of security issues. Not only that, there was very little available for sale online. Then encryption came along and people began buying. You can buy books, toys, candy, clothes, electronics and many other things. But the question for this blog is: what do you feel comfortable buying online? Yes, buying online is convenient in many ways but the system is not 100% error free.

What I feel comfortable buying online might not be what you will buy online. Being a student means I don't have lots of money to waste... it also means I have to buy books. That is one thing I love and it is something that I buy quite often. Used books save lots of money.. Books are something to be cherished and it seems cool to me to be able to read a book that someone read. To me books are vintage. I think that books are cooler when they have been read, written in by someone else... Not that I don't like freshly printed ones.. Lol... Those are awesome too... Because you can create your own vintage and then pass it on to someone else.. Buying books is something pretty simple and most of the time it comes like the way it says it would.

I don't feel comfortable buying clothes online. I like shopping for clothes in person. Every person has a different body shape and different things look different on different people. So that is why I don't buy clothes online. Shoes are different. Sometimes I will buy them online because they will not be available in a store. On the subject of Electronics I am not decided yet. I think that it is nice that electronics are available online ... and for a much less price then in stores but you have to know which seller is trustworthy.

So overall I buy tangible things online. Brands that I truly trust. I believe the internet is an issue of trust and its not something to be taken lightly because you are putting up your information out there. It is something that you are responsible for and it is something that people don't really care much about- unless its their own information. Besides the fact that commerce on the Net is a trust issue I think that people should not buy objects that they don't need that clutter up their house or garage. Just buy the objects that you truly need. When we do this we save the world. There will be less garbage in the dumpsters and landfills.There will be less resources wasted. It is our world... and it is our responsibility to keep it beautiful for future generations... not only does money run out many other things do too.

A comic that i think is funny =)

Apple computers

Apple has lowered the cost of its least expensive MacBook by $100.But despite the price drop Apple' s shares have dropped $6.18, or 5.6 percent, to close at $104.08. More at Seattle Times.com-Technology.

Authorities Shut Down Spam Ring

Continuing on our email theme authorities have shut down a major spam ring which used names like HerbalKings and Click Fusion...This network was made up of 35,000 computers and was capable of sending 10 billion e-mail messages a day.F.T.C. investigators also said they monitored the group’s finances closely and that it cleared $400,000 in Visa charges in one month alone.
More on Ny times at

Newspapers... The drama unfolds.

Continuing our conversation on newspapers, today in the NY Times there was a piece on newspapers loss of revenue from the web. NY Times revenue grew 12.3 percent due to traffic generated by the economic meltdown but many other newspapers had losses in advertising- online and in print.

To read the full story go to< _r="1&8dpc&oref=">