Brandon+H.Zero

Song: Hypnotoize
Musician: Biggie Smalls Audio:media type="file" key="Biggie Smalls - Hypnotize.mp3" width="240" height="20" THe song is biggie small's "hypnotize" that was made in 1997. I like this song because biggie talks about situations in the hood. Many things happened in 1997 such as the death of biggie smalls. On March 9, 1997 biggie smalls was shot in Los Angeles due to gang and drug related activities causing the media to go wild over the famous rapper. His music music still has affects on people.

on Aug 2 1997 the New York times published a article about the people of South Africa receiving electricity for their coal stoves. The electricity company had been working on giving all the people of South Africa power. They had already given 2 million people power, and had been generous enough to hand out hot plates, iron’s and electric kettles with lessons on how to use them. The people of south Africa wanted to keep with what they know. This article was written by SUZANNE DALEY and is under this summary.

Published: August 2, 1997
Hidden in the pollution are millions of new pylons carrying electricity to even the most rundown shacks, the result of a massive electrification project that is one of the Government's few economic success stories. While President Nelson Mandela's promises of new housing, new jobs and better schools remain far behind schedule, the Government-owned power company has brought electricity to more than two million new households. Now half the households in South Africa are wired for electricity, up from about a third six years ago. But access to electric power does not mean that people are trading in their coal stoves for electric heaters and ranges. Far from it. Even though the power company arranged for lessons in how to use appliances and gave away irons, hot plates and electric kettles in some areas, a year later many are gathering dust. With all the promise of a better life that electrification brings, in South Africa electricity has arrived in villages and squatter camps long before paychecks and worldly ways. Power-company executives say they have come to realize that without improvements in other areas, the impact of electricity is limited. The power company has learned some hard lessons in the last few years. More than six years into the electrification project, company executives say they are hemorrhaging money and electricity use remains far below the levels they had counted on. On average they are subsidizing the new hookups to the tune of $84 per household per year. Some of the problem is simply poverty. Buying appliances has proved far beyond the reach of many South Africans. But experts say that the company, Eskom, which generates 97 percent of the country's energy and half the energy used elsewhere on the African continent, also failed to calculate the pull of habit and the choices people would make when they finally were able to flip that switch. What we have seen is that electricity does not improve people's lives all alone, said Thula Bopela, Eskom's National Electrification Planning Manager. It has to be linked to roads, water, jobs and development in general. Some Eskom executives believe now that only the next generation will really embrace plug-in conveniences. Even the Eskom executive in charge of electrification in the huge black township of Soweto, Silos Zimu, said he has not been able to get his parents to abandon coal. They think it heats better, Mr. Zimu said. You cannot convince them otherwise. Televisions, not household appliances, are often people's first major purchase when electricity arrives. Unfortunately for the power company's balance sheet, television sets are expensive, so it takes people a long time to save enough money to buy one in a country where the average household income is below $3,000 a year. And they do not draw much more power than a light bulb. Often, too, people have been more interested in refrigeration during the hot months than in changing their heating and cooking techniques. In urban squatter camps and some other areas, people had often used car batteries or other means to obtain some electricity, so wiring their homes has not necessarily made a major change in their life styles. In rural areas, electricity must compete against other fuels, including wood and cow dung, which cost nothing but the effort of gathering them. In some areas, too, a coal stove is still a status symbol while electric appliances are considered extravagances. Another problem is that when appliances break, there is nowhere to get them repaired. In the end, many households have been using electricity for lighting only. Even in Soweto, this country's biggest, most sophisticated township, where a few houses sport satellite dishes and two-car garages, the coal carts still ply the streets at their laconic pace. Like summertime ice cream trucks, they blow whistles or toot horns to signal their In winter, Government pollution monitors say, the air quality here is among the worst in the world. It is not just coal -- there is industry upwind, people burn garbage openly and the cars kick up showers of dust on unpaved roads. But coal is a major factor. And the much-improved delivery of electricity has made hardly a dent. The coal stove is a social gathering place -- you cannot sit around a radiator, said Jabu Sithole, a longtime Soweto resident and chairman of the local branch of the National Association for Clean Air. Some people also have a very deep belief that food cooked on coal tastes better. Eskom still aims to provide electricity to 300,000 new homes a year until 1999. At that point, about 72 percent of the country's 8.8 million dwellings should have electricity. But the company has had to drastically revise its estimates of when it would begin making money on its new customers. It had estimated that at the end of 10 years, the average connected household would be using a relatively modest 350 kilowatt-hours per month. Right now, the average stands at 86. The company has been revising its strategies for who will get electricity and when. In the past, decisions about who got electricity first were based on the cost of the hookup. If it was cheap to wire a township or a squatter camp because it was a high density area near the main power lines, it was done. Now, the agency is becoming more open to capital outlays if there is a good chance that the households at the end of the line will be large users of electricity. We got wise, Mr. Bopela, the Eskom planning manager, said, when we saw ourselves bleeding to death financially. Mr. Bopela said Eskom is also considering a pilot program to deliver very low-amperage electricity to areas where the people are so poor that they will undoubtedly use the electricity only for lighting. This could save as much as $250 per hookup. Upgrading later would be possible and not terribly expensive, Mr. Bopela said. Until now, all of Eskom's new connections have delivered enough electricity to power households outfitted with dozens of appliances, from air-conditioners to microwaves. With low average household incomes and millions of people living in one-room shacks, the decision to provide hookups with such power capacity seems in retrospect like overkill. We have learned a lot, Mr. Bopela said. If we see that people are still going to use coal or paraffin and only want us for lights, then that is what we should give and nothing more. The fact that people are not using the electricity much does not mean there has been no enthusiasm for it. Even in the poorest areas, residents have pushed hard to be hooked up. But in the end, many people stick with the familiar old ways. Electricity may not be more expensive than some of the other fuels, but a family can watch a monthly ration of coal being used up and calculate what it can afford. The cost of using electricity, on the other hand, often remains invisible until a family's income is spent. And recipes learned on a coal stove or open fire have to be retuned for a hot plate. Riverose Mcathi, who lives in the White City section of Soweto, was out on the street recently signaling the coal man to fill a tin bin by her front door. Her house, one of the thousands of identical dwellings built for blacks by the former Government decades ago, has had electricity since 1984. But she has not given up her coal stove. With the coal stove you heat the house and you can put the pots on it, Mrs. Mcathi said. It is true that you can feel it in the air in the winter when people are using it a lot, but it is only for a few months and it is cheaper. Photo: Coal contributes to smog that blankets many South African townships. In Evaton, south of Johannesburg, women carry water down a hazy street. (Joao Silva/Sygma, for The Drawing (Igor Kopelnitsky)
 * **SOWETO, South Africa—** On cold days, the air in many of South Africa's black townships is so dense with smoke that you can hear the clip-clop of the donkeys pulling the coal carts long before you can see them.