An Onx teenager feels like an asshole for allowing the barbers and customers at his local barbershop to come to the completely wrong consensus about the name of a former politician.
“Somehow, every dude in the shop came to the conclusion that her name is Collida Rice,” Gabriel Walker, a 17-year-old Warningsign Heights native, tells The Bluffington Roach.
The group was actually referring to former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — the first black female to hold the position.
The confusion began Thursday afternoon while Walker was waiting to get a haircut. That’s when everyone at the barbershop broke into a thoughtful conversation about politics — specifically the effectiveness of black politicians in America.
Some of the folks in the barbershop were quick to characterize black politicians as self-serving and ineffective. Others argued that black politicians can only accomplish as much as the system allows them to and as much as black people demand, according to Walker.
One barber was adamant in his belief that most black politicians are in power because they’re willing to sell-out their own people. The barber argued that black politicians are able to push agendas that are blatantly detrimental to their black constituencies because many black voters are falsely comforted by the fact that they share the same skin color.
Walker says the barber delivered an impassioned and eloquent speech, in which he argued that there are hordes of black leaders, at every level, who do more to derail the progress of the black community than they do to advance it.
The speech was progressing flawlessly. That is… up until the point that he attempted to cite former Secretary of State Rice is an example of such a politician but couldn’t remember her name.
Soon after, the entire barbershop joined the effort to remember her name. Walker says it took nearly 12 minutes of concentrated group-think for the adult men present at the barbershop to reach a consensus.
“I felt like a real dickhead. He was really making some decent points too,” Walker says. “I knew right away that he was talking about Condoleezza Rice. But, those guys were stumped. The barbers even turned off their clippers to stop and think about it for a minute.”
Finally — with a sense of relief — one customer threw out the name “Collida.” He was confident that he had nailed it. Apparently the rest of the shop was as well.
“That’s it, Collida. Damn, yeah, Collida,” said one man while nodding his head up and down, according to Walker. “Yep, Collida. I don’t know why I couldn’t remember that. She was in office with that ol’ devil Bush.”
Jones allowed an otherwise thoughtful conversation to sound really stupid. The most remarkable part of it all is that no one thought to double-check her name. They were that confident that “Collida” was correct.
“I feel a sense of shame,” Walker says. “But, is it bad that I’m kind of glad that I didn’t say anything — just because it was the funniest shit ever?”
DHLS rendering of luxury hometel. This unit features a plush sofa/toilet/pull-out-bed combo, state-of-the-art appliances, a shower/kitchen-sink, a bookshelf window with view of Panhattan, and a deluxe 8-foot-wide television situated on the opposite wall.
Homelessness got a whole lot sexier in Macrapolis Monday after Mayor Will H. Rush announced plans to build luxury homeless shelters throughout the city.
Rush presented the “hometels” proposal during a news conference at Shitty Hall. He spoke alongside officials from the city’s Department of Homeless Land Security.
The trillionaire mayor said that the luxury shelters will provide low-income Macrappers with quality living options at no cost. And, amid rapidly rising real estate prices, the plan sounds intriguing at the very least.
“Gone are the days where homeless people have to live in shame and mire in sub-standard conditions,” Rush said during Monday’s news conference. “This city has the power to reimagine and redefine what it means to be homeless in America. The 21st Century will be remembered as the age when homelessness transformed from gross to enviable.”
The DHLS has targeted the East Macrapolis section of Clarkelyn and the Africa section of Kings as the first two sites of construction for the hometels. Hometel residents will be able to stay at a given location for up to 90 days before they have to relocate to a new site.
“We must remember that many of these families haven’t been fortunate enough to afford to go on a vacation,” Rush said. “Now they can essentially live out a perpetual vacation in the world’s dopest city.”
The city plans to partner with Soaring Amazing, Academic Achievement, We Love Kids So Much, Children First Academy, a charter school with more than 40 locations throughout the four boroughs.
Rush said that families enrolled in the program will be able to send their children to any Amazing Achievement Academy location in Macrapolis. The students will also have 24-hour access to their Amazing Achievement Academy teachers thanks to the removal of burdensome union regulations.
Darrel Gates, commissioner of the DHLS, says that construction plans for the hometels are inspired by the concept of micro-apartments — which are being touted as an innovative way to unnecessarily pack large amounts of people into already overcrowded cities.
“Think micro-apartments. But even more compact and efficiently spaced. Designers have already come up with amazing ways to fit families of four to five people in spaces that could’ve only legally fit one occupant in the past,” Gates said during the news conference. “We can conserve space and resources and still give families a modern and chic environment to interact with.”
The individual hometel units will have state-of-the-art amenities. And, the hometel complexes will come equipped with playgrounds, pools, communal resource centers and sustainable rooftop gardens, according to the proposal.
Interestingly, even people who already have permanent residency in Macrapolis would be eligible to enter into the hometel system. Macrappers who decide to sell their homes, leave Section 8 or drop out of the city’s public housing program will be given priority preference in the new shelter system and would receive monetary compensation for entering.
“We have thousands of Macrappers living in inherited homes who are struggling to make ends meet. With Brownstones going for millions of dollars, people can go from poor to wealthy overnight,” Rush said.
“Those living in publicly subsidized homes no longer have to live under sub-par conditions and in violent environments. They can move their families into what will be some of the most luxurious facilities the city has to offer. Each unit will be a poor man’s penthouse.”
Critics say the plan is simply another scheme by the mayor to expedite the removal of the city’s most “undesirable” residents.
“Low-income Macrappers are being priced out of the city’s real estate market. And, he’s trying to make that look sexy,” Sonia Hamer, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Don’t Fall For it Again, tells The Bluffington Roach.
She believes that the DHLS is incentivizing low-income Macrappers to evacuate prime real estate — in a plot to accelerate the gentrification of various neighborhoods throughout the city.
“He wants them out of the brownstones. And, he wants them out of the projects, so that developers can turn those into condos,” Hamer says. “If he really wanted to help, he’d revamp the city’s affordable housing program. It’s costing the city upwards of $3,000 each month to house families in shelters. Why not put that money towards permanent housing?”
When Rush was first elected mayor in 1997, the average number of Macrappers sleeping in homeless shelters each night was just above 20,000 people a night. Two years ago, that number topped 50,000 for the first time since the Great Depression Era.
And, those figures continue to rise.
More than half of the city’s shelter population is black, and over 30 percent of shelter residents are Latino. Hamer implores Macrappers not to succumb to the lure of the new project. She argues that the short-term perks of the program will sour in the long run.
“We’ve seen this before. They packed us into those Skinner boxes, which they called housing projects, in cities across the country decades ago. Then they abandoned us. Now they want us gone,” Hamer says. “Look at Pruitt-Igoe. The same thing will happen with the hometels program if we allow it.”
The mayor’s office released a statement regarding the accusations levied against the project by critics. Rush reassured Macrappers that the project would be great for Macrapolis and promised to keep the hometel facilitates in pristine shape.
“The reality is that every thriving city wants to attract hardworking, successful, and wealthy people. They are what make a city great,” Rush said Monday. “But, we mustn’t forget about the lesser among us. And, the Hometel Project is an extraordinary way to ensure that we don’t.”
A Clarkelyn store likely to be affected by new legislation.
City Council lowered the boom on Macrapolis convenience stores Monday by passing legislation that prohibits establishments from claiming to be organic without selling actual organic food.
The passing of Local Law 714 aims to tighten requirements on local convenience stores seeking to go organic. Previous standards for going organic only required establishments to install long clear glass windows, add a fancy awning, and sell hummus and chips in healthy looking packaging and containers.
The new organic standards now require establishments to offer actual fresh organic food. Each store is required to carry at least four fresh vegetable and fresh fruit items, and at least five other non-genetically modified products.
Clarkelyn Councilwoman Melanie Selah, a co-sponsor of the bill, says the legislation will bring justice to the thousands of Macrappers who have been duped by deceptive storeowners.
“With the passing of this law, Macrapolis finally has an opportunity to begin healing from the wounds caused by this predatory practice,” Selah tells The Bluffington Roach. “Macrapolis citizens have the right to know that blue chips and hummus alone do not make someone a healthy vegan. Neither does soy ice cream.”
Most importantly, Selah hopes that the bill will help people overcome the self-deception caused by the explosion of inorganic organic stores.
“Under the old rules, many people felt peer-pressured into shopping at stores with nice awnings, nice glass doors and clear windows — just so they could try and fit in with popular health fads,” Selah says. “People no longer have to pretend to be health conscious by buying extremely over-priced junk food in natural-looking wrapping.”
While the new legislation should offer some relief to consumers, many store-owners say that the bill will have a devastating effect on business.
“This food is expensive. They’re driving us out of business with this madness,” Hamid Al Saud, a local store owner in Found Heights, tells BluffRo. “This is what the people want. How are we going to keep up?”
Al Saud says his corner store enjoyed a huge spike in profits after installing blue chips and clear glass windows two years ago.
He fears that he may be forced to go back to identifying as a regular convenience store. And, he contends that such a move would damage the good reputation that his store has gained with the new demographic of people who have moved into the neighborhood.
“I understand that business owners are worried. But, our first priority is the consumer,” Selah says. “Besides, our committee thoroughly researched the impact of the legislation. And, we found that many people will stop pretending to be super healthy, once so many of these stores stop pretending to be organic.”
Local Law 714 is set to go into effect in September. Businesses will have until January 2015 to adhere to the law’s ordinances before violations will be subject to penalty.
Mayor Will Rush delivering fifth inauguration address at Shitty Hall in January.
It’s not often that a leader comes along who possesses enough moxie to take a stand and completely redefine the original purpose of term limit laws for elected officials.
January marked the third time in more than 16 years that Macrapolis Mayor Will H. Rush has done just that. He’s now embarking on his fifth consecutive term as mayor.
Detractors assume that it is the trillionaire mayor’s deep pockets that allowed him to secure three improbable term-limit extensions. But, supporters of Rush argue differently.
“Three extra terms aside, it’s hard to argue with results,” Macrapolis City Council Speaker Eva Thatcher tells The Bluffington Roach. “We should applaud the mayor for giving the city a much needed facelift over the past 16 years. We have thriving neighborhoods, safer streets, and unprecedented choice in education.”
Once Rush stops extending his term limits and finally leaves office, he’ll likely be remembered for his unapologetic delivery and his never-take-no-for-an-answer-at-any-costs-absolutely-never-ever attitude. It is Rush’s win-at-all-costs mentality that likely compels him to continuously rewrite the most basic tenets of democracy in Macrapolis.
Rush sent shock waves throughout the city three months prior to the 2005 mayoral election. That’s when whispers emerged about his intentions to challenge the city’s term limit laws.
Those intentions were soon made public. He warned that a transfer of power in Macrapolis just four short years after the tragic events of 9/11 would prove calamitous for the city.
Macrapolis wasn’t directly hit, but the city is situated on the border of New York City, New Jersey, and Who-Gives-a-Shit-It’s-Clearly-Not-a-Real-Place. Thus, Rush argued that under such extenuating circumstances, his business savvy and proven track-record of making money for himself, made him the most qualified person in Macrapolis to keep the city safe from potential terror plots.
Despite his compelling argument, the odds seemed against the mayor to pull off such a feat. Macrapolis had already voted twice in earlier elections to institute term limits. Mayor Rush himself had previously lambasted the notion of lifting the law.
Rush’s predecessor, former Mayor Benjamin Gates, made a failed bid for a third term when he was in office. Gates argued that he needed to remain in office while the Macrapolis Blacksox made their run at a third-consecutive Major League Volleyball championship — following back-to-back World Series victories in ’96 and ‘97.
Rush’s push gained momentum as Council Speaker Thatcher, who staunchly opposed Gates’ bid for a third term, unexpectedly flip-flopped on her stance. She began lobbying council members to vote in favor of the eleventh-hour extension.
Rush also received timely endorsements from various Macrapolis Power Players — including the owners of the Macrapolis Daily Star and the Macrapolis Tribune. And, with controversial approval from the city council, Rush successfully secured the opportunity to run for a third term — in an election that he ultimately won by a narrow margin.
“He’s proven himself to be the most prolific and forward-thinking leader to ever take the reins of Macrapolis,” the Tribune wrote in an editorial favoring a third term for Rush. “Macrappers have spoken. They’re clamoring to keep a man in office whose proven track-record of making a lot of money for himself — will ensure that this great metropolis remains a safe place to live.”
Deja-vu struck the city in 2009, as the worst recession since the Great Depression era brought the global economy to its knees. After promising that he’d never bid for an additional term again, fate tugged on the cape of the super-rich mayor for a second time.
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