Still have all your old Dreamcast saves lying around somewhere? Wait, really? Well then, you’re in luck.
Turns out, the new anniversary edition of JRPG classic Grandia II—which launched today, August 24th 2015, Anno Domini—is compatible with saves from Sega’s dearly departed living room box. Yes, the one that got discontinued in 2001, the year that happened 14 years ago. To put it in perspective, Steam wasn’t even a thing until two years after that.
This isn’t actually as random as it sounds! A rep from GungHo Online Entertainment, the company that published Grandia II Anniversary Edition, explained it to me:
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“The VMS file format is the same file format used by the original Dreamcast console. Because the Anniversary Edition is based off the original Dreamcast code, we also write and read to the VMS save file format within the data/save file directory. This allows the player to import their own VMS save files that can be downloaded from any Dreamcast community websites like Blue Swirl.”
“Also, since Dreamcast emulators also use VMS save files, they can also bring any of their personal save files over from their emulator and continue on within the Anniversary Edition. Any Grandia II VMS save file will work. This allows the Grandia community to share VMS save files easily between their friends & fanbase regardless of platform.”
So basically, the game’s save file format is consistent regardless of whether you’re playing on Dreamcast, an emulator, or Steam. That allows longtime fans to do as they will with their precious saves, and keeping it that way—especially after all these years—is a pretty awesome gesture, if you ask me.
to be fair, the second truck didn't see the low clearance sign that the first truck knocked off
Two trucks have recently crashed into the infamous East Street Railroad Bridge in Westwood, MA, ignoring the “low clearance” signs warning of the potential hazard.
The East Street Bridge is well-known to people in the small town of Westwood, but apparently it’s not well known to truck drivers. That’s because trucks slam into the low-lying bridge frequently, and yet, it keeps happening.
'López-Alt reports that previously announced participants Jin, Ivan Ramen, Mu Ramen, and Yuji Ramen and sponsor Sun Noodle have all dropped out of the event as well.'
Basically, López-Alt was upset to discover that the event, which he and a group of colleagues had been planning as a Food Lab/Serious Eats presentation, had been re-branded as “Ramen Party: Hosted by The Fat Jew,” with their ...
An anonymous person complaining about "social justice bullies" at Mozilla will be fired if the person is discovered to be an employee, the company's CEO said today. Speaking at Mozilla's weekly public meeting, Mozilla CEO Chris Beard said Reddit user aioyama had "crossed the line" in a series of postings about women at the company, including recently departed community organizer Christie Koehler. In a series of tweets earlier this month, Koehler complained about Mozilla's lack of diversity in the workplace and its failure to address accessibility issues.
The Reddit user welcomed Koehler's exit. "Frankly everyone was glad to see the back of Christie Koehler. She was batshit insane and permanently offended at everything," the user wrote. "When she and the rest of her blue-haired nose-pierced asshole feminists are gone, the tech industry will breathe a sigh of relief." It was that remark that appeared to trigger Beard's warning today. "When I talk about crossing the line from criticism to hate speech, I'm talking about when you start saying 'someone's kind doesn't belong here, and we'll all be happy when they're gone.'"
Beard said the remarks indicated a discomfort with diversity that he would not tolerate. It's an issue that is particularly sensitive for Mozilla, whose previous CEO resigned last year amid outrage he had donated to groups that oppose gay marriage. "If that's not actually hate speech, it's pretty damn close," Beard said of the Reddit comments. "We are not going to walk that line as Mozilla. So if and when we identify who this person is, if they are an employee, they will be fired. And regardless, either way, they are not welcome to continue to participate in the Mozilla project. It is not who we are."
Terminator Genisys was a flop in the United States, making just $89 million here. But now Arnold Schwarzenegger’s return to the franchise has scored a monster opening day in China, which means it will probably wind up being considered a hit overall. And a sequel just got much more likely.
A group of writers is taking a new tack towards Amazon: that, even though Amazon’s activities tend to reduce book prices, which is considered good for consumers, they ultimately hurt consumers.
Nuts now has some company — or perhaps a host of potential running mates. Scanning FEC filings, Robert Maguire of the Center for Responsive Politics found several other ridiculous candidates, many of whom seem to have cropped up in Deez Nuts’ wake: Butt Stuff of Seattle, WA, Dat Ass of Syosset, NY, Tyrone Longdick of Elmwood Park, IL.
If there is one health myth that will not die, it is this: You should drink eight glasses of water a day. It’s just not true. There is no science behind it.
The East Street Bridge in Westwood, MA is infamous for being unusually low, much to the detriment of oversize vehicles. Luckily no one was hurt, although the truck itself didn't fare quite as well.
Marianne Diaz and her fiance, Bryant Alequin, and children, Nayomi Matos, 7, and Brieanne Alequin, 1, and brother-in-law, Joshua Matos, left, in her bedroom, which was broken into and ransacked by a SWAT police team. T&G Staff/Steve Lanava
By Brad Petrishen Telegram & Gazette Staff
Posted Aug. 21, 2015 at 10:17 PM
Updated Aug 22, 2015 at 12:59 PM
Zoom
Marianne Diaz and her fiance, Bryant Alequin, and children, Nayomi Matos, 7, and Brieanne Alequin, 1, and brother-in-law, Joshua Matos, left, in her bedroom, which was broken into and ransacked by a SWAT police team. T&G Staff/Steve Lanava
By Brad Petrishen Telegram & Gazette Staff
Posted Aug. 21, 2015 at 10:17 PM
Updated Aug 22, 2015 at 12:59 PM
WORCESTER – When Marianne Diaz tucked her two young daughters into bed Tuesday and took off her clothes to combat the humid summer night, she assumed the next thing she heard would be the sound of her alarm clock.
She was wrong.
At about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday, the Hillside Street woman awoke to the sound of somebody busting down her apartment door. Moments later, the 23-year-old found herself kneeling, her frightened daughters huddling close to her, as police officers with helmets and shields pointed "big guns" in her direction.
“Stop (expletive) crying and take care of your (expletive) kids,” she quoted one officer as saying. It would be 10 minutes, she said, before officers allowed her to cover herself up.
“My (7-year-old) daughter was freaking out,” Ms. Diaz said Thursday as her other daughter, 18-month-old Brieanne, sat in her lap. “She was just shaking, and she couldn’t stop.”
The state police detectives and Worcester SWAT team who raided Ms. Diaz’ apartment Wednesday did so on a “no-knock” warrant procured in Central District Court.
Police seized nothing during the raid, documents show, arrested no one, and did not find the man the warrant authorized them to find or the two guns he allegedly possessed.
The reason, Ms. Diaz and her roommates say, is that the man no longer lives in that apartment, and they have never seen him.
“This botched gun raid, without any doubt, is about an innocent family with two children – one disabled - who were utterly terrorized and abused as a result of the grossly reckless conduct exhibited by (police),” charged lawyer Hector E. Pineiro. “There was virtually no due diligence and surveillance done to ensure that they got the right people.”
Mr. Pineiro, who Ms. Diaz and her two roommates contacted Thursday, has sent police and the city a letter demanding an investigation.
District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. said Friday that state police acted on the “best intelligence” they had at the time. Worcester Police, noting the warrant was a state police warrant, referred comment to that agency.
Court documents – and the search warrant itself – appear to raise questions about police research – questions Ms. Diaz and her two roommates want answered.
Ms. Diaz said she moved into the top-floor apartment of the three-decker at 17 Hillside St. in May with her fiancée, Bryant Alequin, and their mutual friend Joshua Matos.
When the trio moved in, their landlord told them the apartment had been raided in the past, Ms. Diaz said, and that he had remodeled it to take care of the damage.
On Wednesday morning, Mr. Matos, a 27-year-old employee of a Clinton powder coating company said, he was sleeping in the living room – just feet from the door – when police busted through one downstairs entrance and entered through another that was unlocked.
“They said, ‘Get your ass in your apartment,’” recalled Robert Sykes, who lives on the second floor of the home and said he went into the hallway when he heard the ruckus.
Once police stormed up to the third floor, they busted through the front and back doors to the apartment, the roommates said. Mr. Matos said he immediately dropped to the floor and tried to tell police swarming him to go easy because his wrist was already injured.
“I screamed and tried to explain my wrist was messed up,” he said. “They told me to shut the (expletive) up.”
In the bathroom, 23-year-old Mr. Alequin had been getting ready to go to his job at Rand-Whitney in Westboro when he heard the doors break.
He said that, before he knew it, the bathroom door came hurtling toward him, causing him to stumble back into the corner of the kitchen sink to avoid being struck.
“They twisted my arm and threw me to the ground,” Mr. Alequin said. He said he tried to ask what was going on.
“Shut the (expletive) up, we’ll tell you in a minute” he quoted police as saying.
Inside her disheveled apartment Thursday – where numerous doors were busted and clothing was thrown all around – Ms. Diaz said she felt “violated” as police searched her room for 10 minutes before allowing her to cover her naked body.
Police radio transmissions show that shortly after 5:30 a.m., Worcester police at the scene requested a female officer come to 17 Hillside St.
Ms. Diaz said when the female officer arrived, she conducted a pat frisk of her nude body, including asking her to spread her legs.
“She questioned (the others) why she had to search me if I was naked,” Ms. Diaz said. “They were like, ‘Search her anyway.’”
Ms. Diaz said when the police discovered the target of the search warrant – 36-year-old Shane B. Jackson Jr. – was not in the apartment, they “started murmuring” to one another and sharing looks.
Mr. Alequin said he suffered a minor back injury, and Mr. Matos said doctors told him his wrist – which was fractured weeks ago but was healing – was re-fractured.
According to an affidavit in support of the search warrant filed by Trooper Nicholas E. Nason, the target of the raid, Mr. Jackson, “resides at” 17 Hillside St. Apt. 3.
In an affidavit, Trooper Nason wrote that a confidential informant told him Mr. Jackson had been staying in the apartment with an “unknown girl and a black male.”
He wrote that in September 2014, police had successfully raided the apartment and found drugs as well as the mother of Mr. Jackson’s child – a woman who admitted she sold small quantities of crack from the apartment.
Trooper Nason said he had spoken to his informant “within the last 72 hours” and been told there were firearms inside the apartment. He said he researched the apartment and determined that two people listed it as their address with the Registry of Motor Vehicles - Ms. Diaz and a person named Shamel Legree.
The latter person had a lengthy criminal record, Trooper Nason wrote, while Ms. Diaz, he wrote, “does not have a criminal record.”
Trooper Nason further wrote that a check of the electricity subscriber to the apartment showed that the account was in Ms. Diaz’ name.
“I’m really upset about that,” Ms. Diaz said. “If they knew I lived there and had no criminal record, and the electricity was under my name, then why (do this) and use excessive force?”
Nowhere in his affidavit does Trooper Nason state that he had firsthand knowledge that Mr. Jackson lived in the apartment or that he conducted any surveillance on the property. The affidavit also does not attempt to explain any relationship Ms. Diaz might have with Mr. Jackson or Shamel Legree.
Ms. Diaz says neither she nor her roommates have ever heard of either person.
“They should have come to ask me,” Ms. Diaz said. “I would have let them in my home, if they wanted to search.”
In a statement, DA Early asserts that Mr. Jackson had been in the building.
“The search warrant was executed based on the best intelligence at the time,” Mr. Early wrote. “(Mr. Jackson) had been in the dwelling days before … (and) was considered armed and dangerous.
“The search warrant was executed in the manner it was for the safety of all involved.”
Ms. Diaz – who said she’s had trouble sleeping and with the shakes the past few nights – disagreed, saying officers swore in front of her children over her complaints.
“Before they left, one (officer) said, “We treated you with respect,’” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “They didn’t even apologize.”
Multiple neighbors told the T&G Thursday that Mr. Jackson hadn’t lived in the apartment since at least February.
Ms. Diaz was disturbed when informed by a reporter that courthouse records show that Worcester police had arrested Mr. Jackson on a theft warrant two weeks ago.
In the police log entry for the arrest – which occurred on Southgate Street on Aug. 6 – officers list Mr. Jackson’s address as 71 Sylvan St.
That’s the same address listed for Mr. Jackson in multiple court cases open against him.
“Oh my God,” Ms. Diaz said after she learned of the arrest. “How can they say he lives in my apartment if he got arrested before they raided it?”
Mr. Pineiro said the questions surrounding the case demand immediate action, calling on the city manager to call a stop to SWAT raids immediately and order a “top to bottom audit” of police practices.
As for Ms. Diaz, she said she has two main hopes: that police “won’t do this to anyone else,” and that her 7-year-old Nayomi, who suffers from a disability, will not be scarred for life.
“I don’t want her to be afraid of the police,” she said, shaking her head as she described how the girl was afraid of a police officer she encountered in the hospital Thursday.
Reach Brad Petrishen at brad.petrishen@telegram.com or @BPetrishenTG.
'Ashley Madison's Chief Technology Officer Raja Bhatia apparently e-mailed Biderman in 2012 to tell him that he had discovered a security hole in a site called nerve.com, which operated a dating platform that was an Ashley Madison competitor at the time. A few months before, Nerve had approached Ashley Madison's parent company, Avid Life Media, with an offer to partner with the company. E-mails suggested that Bhatia offered at least $20 million for Nerve and another website called flirts.com, but Ashley Madison ended up declining to pursue the deal.
When Bhatia started probing Nerve's site for weaknesses, however, he found some interesting things. As he wrote to Biderman, “They did a very lousy job building their platform. I got their entire user base. Also, I can turn any non paying user into a paying user, vice versa, compose messages between users, check unread stats, etc.” '
Last week, a hacking ring calling itself "Impact Team" released a trove of information collected by Ashley Madison, a dating site that connected people looking to have extramarital affairs. Not only were details pertaining to more than 30 million Ashley Madison accounts leaked, but Impact Team also dropped a 30-gigabyte archive which it said encompassed e-mails from the company's CEO, Noel Biderman.
In one of the more salient exchanges, according to KrebsOnSecurity, Ashley Madison's Chief Technology Officer Raja Bhatia apparently e-mailed Biderman in 2012 to tell him that he had discovered a security hole in a site called nerve.com, which operated a dating platform that was an Ashley Madison competitor at the time. A few months before, Nerve had approached Ashley Madison's parent company, Avid Life Media, with an offer to partner with the company. E-mails suggested that Bhatia offered at least $20 million for Nerve and another website called flirts.com, but Ashley Madison ended up declining pursuit of the deal.
When Bhatia started probing Nerve's site for weaknesses, however, he found some interesting things. As he wrote to Biderman, “They did a very lousy job building their platform. I got their entire user base. Also, I can turn any non paying user into a paying user, vice versa, compose messages between users, check unread stats, etc.” Bhatia included a link to a sample of the database, apparently.
When I think something is funny, I laugh HARD, and friends of mine who are actors always love having me in the audience, because they can pick me out from the stage, and they know that my contagious laughter will inspire other audience members to show their appreciation. Apparently, not everyone values loud laughter the same way.
What’s troubling is that whether someone values it is often divided down racial or cultural lines. A couple of days ago, a California woman named Lisa Renee Johnson and a group of women with whom she’s in a book club (10 black, one white), took the Napa Valley Wine Train. They were drinking wine, chatting, laughing, and having a great time. That is, until this happened:
Facebook Family, we have a problem!We sipped wine, enjoyed each other’s company but our trip is being cut short…this…
Yup. The group got put off the train because their laughter was “annoying” and “this is not a bar.” Um…IT’S A WINE TRAIN. It’s a bar on wheels. That’s exactly what it is! The women were indeed escorted off the train and met by police when they got off the train. They were never held or charged with anything, and were eventually given a refund on their trip, but the simple act of having their entire group removed from the train for having too good of a time (while remaining in their seats and having no actual interaction with any other passengers and having paid for their train experience like everyone else) is humiliating and demeaning enough! Oh, and by the way, here’s one of the women in the group:
How can you kick her off the train for being too loud????
She looks like a real rabble-rouser, huh? In addition to the passenger, a maître d’ also asked said they were making too much noise, but when asked who complained, the maître d’ said that “people’s faces are uncomfortable.”
[Napa Valley Wine Train] need[s] to look at their own policies. I feel like we as a group were made to bear the consequences of their not having policy on seating their customers. They need to give sensitivity training to their staff immediately. We want a public apology for how they treated us and for the public humiliation, which is unacceptable for anybody.
Meanwhile, the Napa Valley Wine Train has a very different view of things. They posted the following statement about the incident, then promptly deleted it. Luckily, Johnson got a screencap before that happened:
I wasn’t there during that train ride so I don’t know exactly how it all went down. All I do know is that a customer complained that a group’s laughter was “annoying” because “this is not a bar.” I know that the person who complained was white. I know that the group that was escorted off the train was mostly black. I know that Johnson and her group were members of a book club, and that there was an elderly woman in their party. And I know that the Wine Train’s now-deleted accusation of “verbal and physical abuse,” by these women toward the staff and other passengers seems insane when I look at these women. But as I said, I wasn’t there.
Something that stands out to me whenever stuff like this happens is that we often talk about the organization (ie: the Napa Wine Train) or the police who get involved, but there’s a very important part of all of these stories that tends to get overshadowed in the ensuing discussion – the first phone call. There’s always that first call, or that first complaint, that sets everything in motion, and whether it’s a white woman on a train who finds a group of black women laughing distasteful, or a white person at a Wal-Mart who sees a young black man shopping and carrying an air rifle he’s going to purchase thinking the young black man looked “suspicious,” or a white person calling to report “prostitution” when they see a black actress making out with her white boyfriend in a car, it’s always a white person…nervous. But about what exactly?
It’s always “uncomfortable” white people making these phone calls about things that aren’t actual wrong-doing, but that nonetheless inspire an irrational fear in them so intense that they feel the need to get police involved. Systemic racism goes beyond police departments and beyond businesses like the Wine Train. It’s individual white people watching individual people of color standing around existing and feeling threatened by that.
When I was in college, I went to a Broadway play with a friend of mine who’s half Jamaican. The play was a comedy, so when there were jokes, we laughed. And, being us, we laughed LOUDLY. We were paying attention to the play and laughing at punchlines – you know, the way you’re supposed to. So, imagine our surprise when, at intermission, the older white woman in front of us turned around annoyed and asked us to “stop laughing so loud.” We were stunned into silence, because we didn’t even know how to respond to that. What else are we supposed to do when we think something in a play we’re watching is hilarious? Stifle it? Was it our fault that she 1) didn’t get the jokes, or 2) was raised to believe she had to repress her enjoyment?
Perhaps if more white people associated with people outside their own cultures and experiences, the simple act of laughing wouldn’t seem so shocking.
The Galaxy Note 5 has a novel new S-Pen slot design. The Pen inserts flush into the body, and a spring-loaded mechanism ejects it. As Android Police discovered (and we just had to try, too), the new design isn't that robust—gently inserting the S-Pen backwards into the slot can irreparably damage the Note 5.
The right way to dock the S-Pen into the device is to slide the pointy end in first, but if you slide the blunt end in first, the S-Pen will get jammed in the device. The spring mechanism that holds the pen in will clamp down on the wrong end of the S-Pen and won't let go. It is possible to wiggle the pen free from the spring's hold, but when we tried it, the S-Pen detection features stopped working.
Normally on the Note 5, removing the S-Pen when the screen is off will launch a quick note taking app, and removing it when the screen is on will launch the radial S-Pen menu. After putting the S-Pen in backwards and wiggling it out, all of these features stopped working.
Now here's some sweet justice—a stinging indictment of the court practices in Ferguson, where a new municipal judge has ordered a complete overhaul of the system (via Reuters):
Municipal Court Judge Donald McCullin, appointed in June, ordered that all arrest warrants issued in the city before Dec. 31, 2014 be withdrawn.
Defendants will receive new court dates along with options for disposing of their cases, such as payment plans or community service. Fines may be commuted for indigent people.
The changes come five months after the U.S. Department of Justice strongly criticized city leaders in its report, saying the police force and court worked together to exploit people in order to raise revenue.
The Department of Justice inquiry found a calculated pattern of abuse had arisen in Ferguson where minor municipal violations like traffic stops were continually ratcheted up until they resulted in arrests, jail time, and fines that far exceeded that of the original violation.
Judge McCullin also said that many people who have had their driver's licenses suspended—a common practice in Ferguson—will be able to get their licenses back and drive legally again.
McCullin succeeded municipal judge Ronald Brockemeyer, who was roundly criticized in the DOJ report.
By the time the first lady of Ruthless Records was in second grade, she realized her family was poor. But as a woman she struggled for more than a decade to stop blaming herself for the physical abuse she said she experienced in her relationship with Dr. Dre.
Singer Michel’le Toussaint (her first name is pronounced MEESH-uh-lay) was instrumental in Dre’s early success as a producer. She’s also the mother of his son, Marcel Young, who was born in 1991. She is absolutely part of the story of Ruthless and N.W.A. But she wasn’t part of “Straight Outta Compton,” the biopic that purports to tell the group’s story.
When she spoke to The Post Wednesday morning, Toussaint said she still hadn’t seen the film but that she’d read the first-person piece journalist Dee Barnes wrote for Gawker, which enumerated all the ways the film and its director F. Gary Gray erased the women, including Toussaint, who laid the foundation for the success of Ruthless and N.W.A. Barnes wrote that she was a “casualty of ‘Straight Outta Compton’s’ revisionist history.” Barnes sued Dre, now 50, after he assaulted her in a Los Angeles nightclub in 1991. Barnes wrote that, at the time, she thought Dre was going to kill her. He pleaded no contest to the charge, and they settled a civil suit outside of court.
“I cried, and that’s all I want to say. That’s all. I’ll leave it like that,” Toussaint said of her reaction to the piece. “I have no comments because I haven’t collected my feelings on anything.”
In an interview with Vlad TV, Toussaint noted that she was glad she wasn’t in the movie. “Why would Dre put me in it?” she asked. “If they start from where they start from, I was just a quiet girlfriend who got beat up and told to sit down and shut up.”
One of the points Barnes illustrates in her piece is how the violence that Dre allegedly committed against her, Toussaint and their Ruthless label mate Tairrie B. is an extension and a direct result of the state violence that was being visited upon black men. However, she took care to emphasize that a connection was not the same as an excuse. Wrote Barnes:
Accurately articulating the frustrations of young black men being constantly harassed by the cops is at “Straight Outta Compton’s” activistic core. There is a direct connection between the oppression of black men and the violence perpetrated by black men against black women. It is a cycle of victimization and reenactment of violence that is rooted in racism and perpetuated by patriarchy. If the breadth of N.W.A.’s lyrical subject matter was guided by a certain logic, though, it was clearly a caustic logic.
But Toussaint’s story isn’t just a rags-to-riches narrative that went awry romantically. It’s a glimpse into how the social forces of the 1970s and ’80s influenced her life, and how those influences were shaped not just by Toussaint’s race, but by her gender. It was so clear to Toussaint growing up in a household that lived paycheck to paycheck that she had to leave South Central. Being bused to a school 30 miles away in the comparatively well-to-do neighborhood of Woodland Hills played a pivotal role in that realization. The integration of the Los Angeles Unified School District had significant, lasting implications in Toussaint’s life, ones that would ultimately span across generations.
Dre, as we see in “Straight Outta Compton,” was also swept into L.A. Unified’s integration efforts. But all the desegregation and busing in the world wasn’t going to stop the police harassment that plagued places like Compton and South Central, that rendered black parents helpless as their children were routinely stopped and frisked in street, or worse, physically assaulted by officers. These things were happening concurrently.
“I was very grateful to get that education and go over there and be part of that world,” Toussaint said. “We didn’t have 7-Elevens in the hood at that time, okay? I would go to 7-Eleven just to be part of their hood [in Woodland Hills]. … It expanded my world and let me know there was something else across the mountain. It probably broadened my horizons and made me who I am today because I knew that there was a bigger world, which is why I take my children outside of where they are. I travel with them.”
As much as school integration helped Toussaint see that there was a world beyond South Central, it took far longer for her to realize that domestic violence wasn’t normal and that she’d done nothing to deserve it. She never called the police on Dre.
“I never went to the police because –” Toussaint paused to collect herself before continuing. “Because I didn’t know any different and I thought it was a form of love and I didn’t know any better. Can I just leave it right there?”
Toussaint, now 44, is perhaps best known for her 1989 self-titled double-platinum album. To her, becoming a professional singer like Anita Baker and appearing on “The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson” seemed like the stuff of an alternate universe.
“I wore the same jeans three times a week,” Toussaint told The Post. “I knew my mother had too many kids. It was hard. We moved in with my grandma. She said we would be there for six months. We hadn’t left after a year. I knew. I just knew.”
When she was 16 in 1986, Toussaint recorded “Turn Off the Lights” for World Class Wreckin’ Cru, Dr. Dre’s R&B group with DJ Yella which preceded N.W.A. She knew club owner and DJ Alonzo Williams, and he called her on a whim to record the song because the group’s lead female vocalist, Mona Lisa, wasn’t available. Dre produced the record.
“They were a local group at that time and when I did ‘Turn Off the Lights,’ everybody knew who they were.” Toussaint said. It received extensive radio play but at the time, Toussaint was still riding three buses to get to work. She was smart, but she possessed no knowledge of the inner workings of the music industry and she never received a penny from the song’s royalties.
Months after “Turn Off the Lights,” Toussaint and Dre began dating, but she never saw herself as much of anything besides Dre’s girlfriend until Eazy-E approached her about signing with Ruthless Records, the label he started with Jerry Heller. Dre produced her debut album, which included the single “No More Lies,” which was ostensibly about him. Their relationship wasn’t just physically abusive; Dre was a habitual cheater.
In a March interview with New York radio station Power 105, Toussaint disclosed that Dre punched her with a closed fist repeatedly, and that he had given her black eyes on at least five occasions. She said he broke her nose and left her with a cracked rib.
“I do remember when he first hit me, when he gave me my very first black eye, we laid in the bed and he cried,” Toussaint said. “He was crying, I was crying ’cause I was in shock and hurt and in pain. I don’t know why he was crying. But he said, ‘I’m really sorry’ — I think that’s the only time he said he was sorry — and he said, ‘I’ll never hit you in that eye again, okay?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, okay.’ and we fell asleep.
“So years later, I was talking to my friend and I joked and I said ‘yeah, he said he wasn’t going to hit me in this eye ever again.'” Toussaint pointed to her left eye.
“But he started hitting me in that one.” Toussaint pointed to her right eye.
The Washington Post e-mailed inquiries seeking comment to Dr. Dre’s representatives. They have not responded.
As the nascent success of Ruthless and N.W.A began to bloom into something much larger, Heller and Dre doted on Toussaint, celebrating their good fortune. Heller, who also managed Toussaint and the other Ruthless artists, would take her shopping. He even taught her how to eat a steak.
“He took a black girl out of the ghetto,” Toussaint said. “He taught me — just me, I’m not speaking for other people — he taught me what it was like to live in a world I had never seen, where a pool was in your backyard — oh my gosh!”
There were moments when her life was like something out of a dream: Dre surprised her with a house he’d bought for them both in Calabasas, Calif.
“He closed my eyes and brought me to the house,” Toussaint said. “It was really cute, the way he did it.”
The reality of their newfound success was still so foreign, even when they were driving around in sports cars that cost north of $70,000, that when Dre revealed their new home, Toussaint couldn’t stop herself from wondering who in the world was going to keep up the house? Who was going to clean all those toilets?
Michel’le at the 2015 Annual Essence Black Woman In Music concert in Los Angeles. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
“When he closed my eyes and showed me this house, I just screamed,” Toussaint said. “It was beautiful. He picked it. The first thing that came on my mind was, I said, ‘Wow. A man didn’t even let the woman pick?’ Show me the house first, you know? Maybe I don’t like this house!” Toussaint started laughing. “Maybe I don’t like this troubadour house! We had a troubadour. We had a troubadour. And I was like, maybe I don’t like troubadours. But he did, and it was fine with me.”
In retrospect, it offered a small glimpse into the more controlling aspects of Dre’s personality that, along with jealousy, usually serve as warning signs of an abusive relationship. Toussaint revealed that Dre, like many other men who commit acts of intimate partner violence, isolated her from her friends, especially if they were men.
“I think the generosity and the protectiveness was always there, but then I’ve learned that that was controlling, but I didn’t see it that way,” Toussaint told Power 105.
For Toussaint, the production and release of “Straight Outta Compton” resulted in some of the most painful memories of her life resurfacing. She was cheerful while talking about the early days of Ruthless Records, but her voice became soft and she struggled to get words out as she spoke of the uglier aspects of her relationship with the superstar music mogul.
She told The Post she finally learned she wasn’t responsible for the abuse she suffered with the help of therapy and the feedback of viewers who saw her on “R&B Divas: Los Angeles.”
“I was talking about it, and people were responding, my Twitter fans,” Toussaint said, her voice breaking audibly. “My fans started responding, and I stopped blaming myself.”
that old Lisa Wade image beat still plays off, at least regarding the oft-repeated claim that "The empty buses in flood water, buses that could have been filled with evacuees prior to the storm"
Pruden's claim that the city possessed 2,000 school buses that could have been used for a pre-storm evacuation appears to be an exaggeration of a September 1 Associated Press photograph of school buses parked in a flooded lot in New Orleans. The photograph was widely reported on conservative websites, including the Media Research Center's NewsBusters weblog, the Instapundit weblog, and Michelle Malkin's weblog. A September 6 MSNBC.com article that described the scene in the AP photograph noted, "Some 200 New Orleans school buses sit underwater in a parking lot, unused. That's enough to have evacuated at least 13,000 people."
Apparently, those school buses constituted the majority of New Orleans' school bus fleet. According to a September 5, 2003, article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, "The [Orleans Parish school] district owns 324 buses but 70 are broken down." A 2003 document posted on the Louisiana Department of Education's website confirms that Orleans Parish used 324 "board owned" school buses and no "contractor owned" school buses.
On the September 7 edition of Hannity & Colmes, Gingrich echoed Pruden's inaccurate claim, falsely asserting that the city possessed "more than enough buses to, in a methodical, orderly way, help every poor person leave the city."
But Gingrich's claim has no basis in fact. While estimates of the number of residents stranded in New Orleans following the storm vary, New Orleans officials have suggested that 80 percent of the city's residents evacuated before the hurricane hit. That leaves roughly 97,000 residents who remained in New Orleans.
New Orleans' combined fleet of public transit and school buses would not have had nearly enough capacity to evacuate all of those who remained in the city. A July 8 Times-Picayune article, titled "RTA buses would be used for evacuation; But plan still falls far short of needs," pointed out that the RTA owned 364 public buses. "Even if the entire fleet was used," the Times-Picayune noted, "the buses would carry only about 22,000 people out of the city -- far short of the 134,000 people estimated to be without cars in a recent University of New Orleans study." Even the addition of the full school bus fleet would have been far from sufficient to transport the remaining residents.
Moreover, The New York Times noted that a number of New Orleans buses were in use as the hurricane approached: "But Chester Wilmot, an L.S.U. [Louisiana State University] civil engineering professor who studies evacuation plans, said the city successfully improvised. He said witnesses described seeing city buses shuttle residents to the Superdome before Hurricane Katrina struck."
'Whether this photograph truly represents a lost opportunity to have evacuated a substantial number of New Orleans residents ahead of Hurricane Katrina is difficult to assess. Such a claim presumes an availability of resources (e.g., experienced drivers, fuel) and workable logistics (e.g., sufficient means of notifying and getting residents to departure points, sufficiently clear roads for multiple trips out of town and back, adequate facilities within a reasonable driving distance capable of providing shelter, food, and water to a large number of people for an indeterminate period of time on short notice) that may or may not have been present. (There's no guarantee that all the buses shown in this picture were even in working condition.) And, given the particular geography of New Orleans, any such evacuation would have had to have begun well in advance of Hurricane Katrina to avoid exposing residents to the potential danger of being stuck in buses on traffic-clogged roads in the path of an approaching hurricane. Moreover, any type of evacuation effort would have incurred a substantial outlay of funds from local and/or state governments — while everyone agrees with the advantage of hindsight that would have been money well spent, many taxpayers might not have been left feeling so enthusiastic about footing the bill for an unnecessary evacuation had Hurricane Katrina not proved so damaging.
Opportunities like the one posited here may or may not have been missed in New Orleans, but coping with the uncertainty and confusion of natural disasters as they unfold is rarely as simple as it might seem in retrospect.'
This is what it looks like when government fails to protect its citizens:
New Orleans, LA 9/4/05 — School buses have been swamped by the floodwaters following hurricane Katrina. Photo by: Liz Roll
When Hurricane Katrina hit, more than a quarter of people living in New Orleans in August of 2005 lived below the poverty line. Many of the poor in stayed at home to weather the storm. Why?
27% of New Orleanians didn’t own a car, making evacuation even more difficult and expensive than it would otherwise be.
People without the means to leave are also the most likely to rely on the television, as opposed to the radio or internet, for news. TV news began warning people how bad the storm would be only 48 hours before it hit; some people, then, had only 48 hours to process this information and make plans.
Poor people are more likely than middle and upper class people to never leave where they grew up. This means that they were much less likely to have a network of people outside of New Orleans with whom they could stay, at the same time that they were least able to afford a motel room.
For those who were on government assistance, living check-to-check, it was the end of the month. Their checks were due to arrive three days after the hurricane. It was also back-to-school time and many were extra cash poor because they had extra expenses for their children.
A study of New Orleanians rescued and evacuated to Houston, described here, found that:
…14% were physically disabled, 23% stayed in New Orleans to care for a physically disabled person, and 25% were suffering from a chronic disease… Also,
• 55% did not have a car or a way to evacuate
• 68% had neither money in the bank nor a useable credit card
• 57% had total household incomes of less than $20,000 in the prior year
• 76% had children under 18 with them in the shelter
• 77% had a high school education or less
• 93% were black
• 67% were employed full or part-time before the hurricane
The city failed to get information to their most vulnerable residents in time and they failed to facilitate their evacuation. The empty buses in flood water, buses that could have been filled with evacuees prior to the storm, is a testament to this failure.
Marianne Diaz and her fiance, Bryant Alequin, and children, Nayomi Matos, 7, and Brieanne Alequin, 1, and brother-in-law, Joshua Matos, left, in her bedroom, which was broken into and ransacked by a SWAT police team. T&G Staff/Steve Lanava
Now here's some sweet justice—a stinging indictment of the court practices in Ferguson, where a new municipal judge has ordered a complete overhaul of the system (via Reuters):
