Author: John Sarcone

Sup crutha

Passion Blog #1

My Original idea for this semester’s passion blog was to talk about new releases in New York Drill music. As much as I love music, I don’t feel like I am good at writing about it, so I am switching my blog to something I can easily right about, food. Instead, I am going to review my favorite foods. The first food I am going to review is a New York specialty, and one of my all time favorites, the classic bacon egg and cheese. The bacon egg and cheese is an absolute staple in New York, as you can’t get a good one anywhere else. My go to order is always a bacon egg and cheese, double everything, salt pepper ketchup on an egg everything bagel. You can’t beat it. Most people usually get a bacon egg and cheese on either a roll or a bagel, and they are great on both. New York is also has the best bagels in the country, so I figure I might as well get the best of both worlds. Sizzling savory bacon, hot melted cheese, a juicy egg, topped with salt pepper ketchup, all in a crispy and hot bagel. It does not get better than that. As amazing as this sandwich is, it is actually really simple to make (if you have the right ingredients). Although you can’t find a good bacon egg and cheese outside of New York, I am going to explain how to make the next best thing from your very own kitchen. For the ingredients, you need 1 bagel/roll, 3 tablespoons of butter, 2 slices of bacon. 2 eggs, 2 slices of American cheese, salt and pepper, and a bottle of ketchup/hot sauce. First off, slice the bagel in half and spread butter on both pieces. Second, preheat your pan or griddle over medium heat and toast both pieces of the bagel until they are golden brown. Add the remaining butter you have to the pan and then crack the eggs. As soon as the eggs settle, punch a hole in the yoke and softly spread it around the white. You should season the eggs with salt and pepper when you do this. Next, layer the cheese and bacon on top of one of the eggs, and put the other egg on top of all of it. It should almost be like a sandwich. Let it cook for a bit so that the cheese can melt, but only for maybe 10 seconds. Once the cheese is melted, move the ingredients onto one of the bagel halves. At this point, you can put more salt and pepper on and as much ketchup as you want. Finally, top it all off with the other half of the bagel, and your ready to eat your creation. In the end, every food establishment will have their own version of the bacon egg and cheese. While many people may say that they love the breakfast sandwiches at Starbucks and McDonalds, or their local deli, nothing will ever beat a classic New York Bacon Egg and Cheese.

Partially Completed TIB Speech Outline

This I believe Speech Outline

Throughout high school and my first semester of college I was negligent when it came to my school work and was absolutely terrible at managing my time, and this caused my grades to fall, along with my well being. School has been tough for me over the years. Being a three sport athlete all throughout high school, it was difficult to balance sports, school, my mental health, and my social life. Once I graduated high school I was really excited to move on to college as I thought a change of scenery would help me out. This was not the case. Living on my own at a big school only worsened my habits. I felt there was always something better to do than my school work, and fell behind in a lot of my classes. My sleep schedule was completely off and I stopped going to the majority of my classes. I believe that having a consistent daily routine is essential to a person’s mental health and well being. In this speech, I will talk about my setbacks in school, the realizations that I had, and what I did to fix my bad habits. 

 

This Outline is in progress and I am still thinking about how I want to go about this speech. I will post the full outline once it is complete.

Passion and Civics issues blogs

When it comes to the upcoming passion blogs I will be writing, I decided I will focus on the state of New York hip hop and rap. Music is a really important part of my life, and the majority of artists I listen too are from New York, so I think I would enjoy writing about new music releases from my favorite artists. New York really has its own sounds when it comes to the rap game, so it will be fairly different from other music blogs people write. I will update the readers on new releases in New York music, and I will review the songs and explain what I like/dislike about them. On the other hand, for the civic issues blog, I am going to focus on racial injustice in the criminal justice system. First off, this topic is very relevant to me right now because I am taking a criminal justice class, so I can talk about some of the things I learn in class. Secondly, I believe racial injustice in our criminal justice system is a very important topic in todays society, as many people are being discriminated against by the courts and are being treated unfairly by the government.

Ideas for upcoming blogs

Last semester, I solely wrote about sports for my passion blog. I wrote about anything that was relevant in the sports world when it came to football, baseball, basketball, or soccer. I mostly focused on the New York Yankees, Chicago Bears and Juventus because I can talk about them for a long time, as they are my favorite teams. This semester, I am thinking about focusing on either something about food or music. I am very passionate about both, as my hometown is know for amazing food and music is a major part of my life. My favorite genre of music is New York Drill. Most people I know are not knowledgeable at all when it comes to the New York drill community, so I think it could be a good topic to talk about. When it comes to civic issues, two topics I think I would like to talk about would be racial injustice in the criminal justice system and/or sexual discrimination in the courts specifically within custody battles between divorced couples. Both of these issues are very relevant within my prospective major/field and within society in general. Despite being relevant, they are often easily looked past when similar issues are brought up. Lastly, when it comes to my I believe speech, two topics I think I would like to talk about is the lack of faith in people today and how it is effecting our society and/or the need to improve our grade school curriculum. In the last couple of decades, many people have been moving away from God and have been losing belief in God. I believe that good faith and God is an important part of life, as it gives us guidance. On the other hand, I believe that our grade school systems do not set up students for success in the future, and that there is a need for change.

History of a Public Controversy Project

My group and I have briefly discussed ideas and topics for the upcoming History of a Public Controversy project, and we are open to a number of ideas. One of my group partners mentioned talking about the criminal justice system. Another one of my group members mentioned covering the case of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. There are several directions we could go with this case, as we can talk about ramifications of a public trial, intimate-partner violence, the social construct against male victims of DV, or exploring the laws that show bias towards female victims. There are so many public controversy’s to choose from, so whatever we choose, I know that there will be plenty of information to support our argument.

The AFC bEAST

The AFC East has long been ruled by one team, the New England Patriots. Last year we thought we had a changing of the guard, with the Buffalo Bills rising to power and blowing the Patriots out of the water in the AFC wild card. This year, however, there is a tight race between all 4 teams: The Buffalo Bills, New England Patriots, Miami Dolphins, and the New York Jets. All 4 teams are within one game of each other through 9 weeks of the NFL season. The Super Bowl favorite Bills were expected to run away with the division coming into the season. With arguably the most complete team in the NFL, the Bills were a sexy pre-season championship pick. During the season however, they would fall to their rivals down south, the Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins were going all in as well, trading for superstar wide receiver Tyreek Hill to pair with second year standout Jaylen Waddle. Hill had chosen to go to the Dolphins over another contender in the division, that team being the New York Jets. The Jets had looked to be in the midst of a promising rebuild. However, they have come out firing on all cylinders. The Jets look to have one of the top defenses in the National Football League, starting the year 6-3 with a victory over both the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins. The Jets are currently 2-1 in the division, with that one loss coming against one of the greatest coaches of all time, Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots. Though they are currently last in the division, you can never truly count out New England. Sitting at 5-4, the Patriots have always been a second half team and are looking to make a push for a playoff spot down the stretch. Although I am not a Jets fan, I grew up in New York, so I am pulling for them to win their pivotal matchup against the Patriots this coming Sunday. If the Jets win, they lead the division with a 7-3 record along with the number 2 seed in the AFC playoff race. If they lose, however, the Jets fall to the 6 seed in the AFC playoff race and are at the bottom of the division. This is sure to be a tight race in the AFC East throughout the remaining weeks in the season. As everything is in the NFL, it will be full of twists and turns, and will surely be exciting down to the last game. If the NFL has taught me anything this year, it is to expect the unexpected.

Juventus

How long does somebody have to suck at their job before they get fired? This question is the story of Juventus’s season thus far. For those who are not familiar with Italian football, Juventus Football Club is a professional football club based in Turin Italy. They compete in the top Italian football league, Serie A. Juventus are an Italian football giant with very high expectations every year, but the 2022-2023 season is not going as planned. The biggest part of the problem is easily our manager, Max Allegri.

Allegri used to be known as a great manager, as he lead Juventus to a league title every year from 2014-2019, but ever since he returned to the team in 2021, he has been a very suspect manager. Juventus had a frustrating 2022 season, but ended on a high note, so expectations were high coming into the year. In the present, Juventus was just embarrassingly eliminated from the Champions League (Europe’s most prestigious club football tournament) and are sitting at 7th place in the Italian league. 7th place is horrendous for a team like Juventus. Max Allegri puts together a horrible game plan every game, and sets up horrible offensive and defensive alignments. His time has been up for quite some time, and fans have been calling for him to get sacked. The management is refusing to make a coaching change and it is really frustrating because a new coach would greatly help this Juventus squad.

Although Allegri is a big part of the problem, injuries have played a big part in our downfall. The best Italian football player, Federico Chiesa, has missed the whole season because of a torn ACL in 2021. Luckily, he is making his way back and might return in a couple of weeks. On top of this, top players Angel Di Maria, Paul Pogba, Mattia de Sciglio, and Weston Mckennie have all missed significant time. It is hard to win games when you are missing so many important players. All seems lost at this point, but one could ask, where does Juventus go from here? The answer is up, because this team can’t go any lower than they are now. Juve needs to put their champions league elimination behind them, and grind away in Serie A. We can’t keep taking worse opponents lightly, and we have to treat every game like it is our last. If Juventus can somehow pull away and become the champions of Italy, everyone will put the early season failures behind them.

 

Yankees Offseason Plan

The New York Yankee’s worst nightmare occurred this past week, as they got swept by the Houston Astros in the American League Championship Series. Ever since 2017, the Houston Astros have absolutely owned the New York Yankees, eliminating us from the playoffs three separate times. It seems that it is the same story year after year. We can not beat the Houston Astros. In order to become American League champions in the future, the Yankees need to have an amazing offseason.

Even though it will never happen, many Yankee fans have come to a realization that it is time for Hal Steinbrenner to sell the New York Yankees. The original owner was Hal’s father, George Steinbrenner, and he was the greatest owner the Yankees have ever had. It is clear that Hal is not as passionate about the Yankees as George was, so it is time for a new, energetic owner. Moving down in the ranks, next up is the general manager and the manager. The Achilles heel of this team is Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone, and they have completely failed to do their jobs in the past few years. There is absolutely no chance either of them will be fired, but it would definitely be the right thing to do. Now, lets move onto the roster.

We need players that will bump the baseball with their bat! First order of business, hand Aaron Judge a blank check. Aaron Judge is the best player in the world and should be the captain of the New York Yankees, whatever he wants to be paid, you give it to him. Second, there are a few players that have to leave, meaning Gleyber Torres, Josh Donaldson, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Gleyber Torres, has been declining for years, Donaldson was a liability at the plate all year, and IKF did not bring over the stellar defense we were promised. What does all of this mean? We now need a shortstop, and the perfect player is on the market. Trea Turner. Turner has been one of the premier shortstops in baseball for years, and he is exactly the guy the Yankees need in this lineup. He hits for a high average, plays elite defense, and is a class act. Although he will be very expensive, it will be worth it in the end. Third, we need to bring back Anthony Rizzo and Andrew Benintendi. They were both key pieces to the team this season and all Yankee fans would welcome them back with open arms. Overall, the Yankees have the pieces and money to win a world series next year, but it won’t happen without a successful offseason.