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Showing posts from June, 2017

Never Let Me Down Again: Vince Staples and Depeche Mode pulsate the protest

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Vince Staples has been on fire NBA JAM style with a trio of songs that have him vying with Kendrick Lamar for the California rap crown. Staples, who slightly resembles thunderous Oklahoma City point guard Russell Westbrook (Staples did once poke fun at Russ' fashionista looks ) is just as relentless with his barbs as the triple-double machine going full steam to the rim. Released in the thaws of February, "Bag Bak" is a 2-minute-and-40-second sprint, as Staples rips up the ghetto-tech beat like a machine-gunning Usain Bolt recast as Schwarzenegger in a Commando prequel. "Bag Bak" is the soundtrack of the bad-ass on COPS that fled in a hot pursuit and got away, it's Death Certificate -era Ice Cube with All Eyez on Me overalls swagger as Staples spits: "Clap your hands if the police ever profiled... Tell the one percent to suck a dick, because we on now" Staples delivers razor sharp diatribes that whisks the old-school ethos of a Too $hort

Ford needs to transform Dearborn into the Mid-West's Silicon Valley.

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Ford Motor Company has shaken things up recently by naming a new CEO in Jim Hackett and planning to trim its salaried workforce by 10%  -- ousted CEO Mark Fields will be doing just fine with a golden parachute worth over $50 million. Why did Ford let Fields go? There are several reasons but stock price and Silicon Valley are the two most compelling. During the bulk of Field's tenure, Ford's common stock has been trading on the NYSE for roughly the price of a combo meal at Chipotle, the latest quote at $11.12 -- meanwhile I haven't stepped inside a Chipotle in the years since they were giving out sides of E. coli with their burritos -- yet their share price still hovers around the $500 mark -- with those comparisons you'd think the Ford Fusion would spontaneously start accelerating (oh wait, that's another car company - Toyota trades at a robust $107 per share). Of course, Wall Street is irrational and trades on speculation and obviously there are many factors t