Rock Hackshaw has published a lament, a tale of failed promise. It’s about Charles Rangel, war hero, political leader. good guy. Rock’s essay, I suspect, is going to be reprinted often, and I excerpt it here with some reservation, because I urge readers – whatever district they live in – to read Rock’s entire piece, Oh Charlie! Charlie! So here are excerpts – but read the whole article on Rock Hackshaw’s Blog on Room Eight.
As personalities go, Charlie is as warm a politician as they come. I loved to hear and see him laugh -even when he was squirming. I loved to hear him tell his jokes. There was a time when I found him to be inspiring: so too his sidekicks David Dinkins, Basil Paterson and Percy Sutton. But you cannot analyze these guys, their accomplishments and contributions, without looking at where we are as a community (black) compared to when these guys came along and picked up the reins.
When only 1 in every 40 black males alive graduated from college last year; when one in four black male students graduated from high school in NYC last year; when joblessness in the black community was at record highs last year; when blacks made up nearly half of all murder victims nationwide last year; when black victims of gun violence runs way over the natural demographic; when blacks made up a little more than half of all those incarcerated nationwide last year; when black wealth diminished when compared to whites (since 1980 BTW); when last year it was commonplace to find everyday discrimination in banking, housing, employment, insurance, education, business opportunity, etcetera, etcetera; we as a race (negroes) must step back and evaluate the job being done for us in the legislative and administrative corridors of justice, government, business and power, by our so-called leaders and our elected officials. It is that simple. And it is not about blame: it is about the reality. We have to look at all three levels of government and all three branches too, and evaluate how well certain people are performing in our interest: especially the ones we elect to high positions.
Unfortunately in the politics of most black communities, we throw up personalities more so than true leaders. We create a political class which does quite well for certain individuals, their relatives, friends, cronies, backers and enablers; but not so well for the black masses at large: the people they purport to represent at the highest levels of power. What saves the day for all of us in US society, is that the black masses haven’t been recently mobilized, agitated, politically educated and organized for rebellion and social unrest.
A lot of these black politicians are now wealthy beyond their wildest beliefs (pre-election). Politics in the black community has evolved into a self-aggrandizement exercise. And as the power of the black voting base erodes it will be even harder to address the myriad issues facing our community as we elect less and less blacks to office in the future.
Disclosure: my I worked on Rock’s last campaign, and will do so again.
Brave New World Rep is the same Ditmas-Park based company that did a brilliant production To Kill A Mockingbird on local streets, front yards and balconies in 2005.
They’ve also announced performances of “Halloween One-Acts” for October (details to follow).
Sesn Casey Animal Rescue is holding a block party, summer celebration and adoption event this weekend:
Saturday July 18, 2009 ~ Noon–5:00 p.m. At Hamilton Dog House, 155 E 3rd St, Brooklyn, NY (between Caton Ave and Ft Hamilton Pkwy)
Food, drinks, music, prizes & goodies for our 4-legged friends! Come visit our cuddly adoption pets – maybe even take one home! For more information, contact Charles Henderson at (718) 436-5163 or charles.seancaseyanimalrescue@gmail.com, or click the event title for a mini PDF Poster with all the info! Feel free to print it out & spread the word!
The short version: new martial-arts school has opened in the neighborhood. Ages 4 and up. Looks pretty good, and if we were in the wagering trade, we’d bet that they give good classes, they’re going to do well, and in the course of that, make a good contribution to our community.
It’s been my experience, for the most part, that certain enterprises have to be a labor of love to sustain themselves, and sometimes profitability (or economic survival) pull against the core work. It’s true of dance companies, theater companies, dog breeders (doing better breeding require more exogamy, and higher costs). It’s often true of martial-arts schools, and many, perhaps most, but certainly not all, martial-arts schools’ quality goes down when the marketing intensity goes up.
I spent the better part of two decades in a dojo in manhattan where the student population never hit 200. The school is gone, but the relationships still exist (and there’s some training, in Japan, in New York, the Caribbean, elsewhere) but not on six-day a week basis. Senseis ((Sensei – pronounced SENSE-say – is the japanese term for “teacher, ” and the same characters are used in several Chinese dialects. Here’s a better explanation excerpted from Wikipedia’s entry for “sensei:” “Japanesetitle used to refer to or address teachers, professors, professionals such as lawyers, CPA and doctors, politicians, clergymen, and other figures of authority.[1] The word is also used to show respect to someone who has achieved a certain level of mastery in an art form or some other skill: accomplished novelists, sweepstakers, musicians, and artists for example are addressed in this way. The Japanese expression of sensei shares the same characters as the Chinese word, pronounced xi?nsh?ng in Mandarin. Xiansheng is a courtesy title for a man of respected stature. It can also be attached to a man’s name to mean “gentleman” or, more commonly, “mister”. Prior to the development of the modern vernacular, xiansheng was used to address teachers of both genders; this has fallen out of usage in Standard Mandarin, though it is retained in some southern Chinese dialects such as Cantonese, Hokkien and Hakka where it still has the meaning “teacher” or “doctor”. In Japanese, sensei is still used to address people of both genders. It is likely both the current Southern Chinese and Japanese usages are more reflective of its Middle Chineseetymology.”)) Serge Sognonvi and Carmen Sognonvi, the husband and wife proprietors of Urban Martial Arts, which I think is probably an exception to the rule. They know how to use the Net, how to make people aware of their existence, and they’ve got an interesting blog as well. There are some thoughtful posts about bullying which might be of great use to parents, teachers -and great benefit to school-age children.
Their open demonstration/trial class is this Friday evening; here are the details:
FREE MMA Training Workshop Friday, July 16, 2010 from 7-8 pm Urban Martial Arts 965 Coney Island Ave (near Newkirk Ave) in Brooklyn, NY 11230
The Streb Laboratory is back home in is laboratory in Williamsburgh for a few weeks while they work on new material,and revise existing material with the same intensity, elan and infectious enthusiasm. But now mad scientist/super hero Elizabeth Streb has come up with a way to capture some of that infectious energy. Certain performances – dubbed “S.L.A.M. ((Streb Laboratory for Action Mechanics) Inclusive – are followed by an introductory PopAction class, and an introductory trapeze class. a discussion with Ms. Streb and her amazing cohort of catapulting co-conspirators. All this for an extra $10 over the bargain ticket price of $20.
Ms. Streb is fond of rearranging the artistic universe. With SLAM Inclusive, she’s rearranging the geography of the relationship between artist and audience. Rather than underscoring the difficulty, the inaccessibility of their work, Streb and the company share the pleasure of their craft, demystifying it and removing or at least rearranging the barriers between performer and audience. That may be even more radical than the work itself which, in seven years of watching the company, never fails to move me. I’ve taken classes at SLAM, and had occasion to move the odd chair, usher and sweep up, and there have been times when I’ve seen the same show as many as four times in a weekend. The last performance is always as exciting as the first.
If you’ve never been, go.
Scheduling and ticket information here. The current production, called “Run Up Walls,” will only be around through May 23rd. The company (in addition to SLAM Inclusive, which is new – adding a large class immediately after a performance) also regularly teaches children and adults.
In a disturbing – but, alas, unsurprising – report in the Times of February 6th, William K. Rashbaum reports that NYPD precincts, in order to revise downwards the value of items reported stolen (making, for instance, a grand larceny – a felony – into a petit or “petty” larceny – a misdemeanor) have resorted to on-line shopping:
More than a hundred retired New York Police Department captains and higher-ranking officers said in a survey that the intense pressure to produce annual crime reductions led some supervisors and precinct commanders to manipulate crime statistics, according to two criminologists studying the department.
The retired members of the force reported that they were aware over the years of instances of “ethically inappropriate” changes to complaints of crimes in the seven categories measured by the department’s signature CompStat program, according to a summary of the results of the survey and interviews with the researchers who conducted it.
The totals for those seven so-called major index crimes are provided to the F.B.I., whose reports on crime trends have been used by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his predecessor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to favorably compare New York to other cities and to portray it as a profoundly safer place, an assessment that the summary does not contradict.
In interviews with the criminologists, other retired senior officers cited examples of what the researchers believe was a periodic practice among some precinct commanders and supervisors: checking eBay, other Web sites, catalogs or other sources to find prices for items that had been reported stolen that were lower than the value provided by the crime victim. They would then use the lower values to reduce reported grand larcenies — felony thefts valued at more than $1,000, which are recorded as index crimes under CompStat — to misdemeanors, which are not, the researchers said.
Others also said that precinct commanders or aides they dispatched sometimes went to crime scenes to persuade victims not to file complaints or to urge them to change their accounts in ways that could result in the downgrading of offenses to lesser crimes, the researchers said.
Added to an institutional culture which specifically rewards certain behaviors (arrests made towards the end of a shift, or on days which will require court appearances on scheduled days off tend to generate more overtime payments than other arrests) – it’s not a good recipe for effective law enforcement.
Chunky, missing as of last night from 226 Sixth Avenue, Brooklyn – or more precisely, the back yards on the block bounded by Fifth and Sixth Avenues, and Carroll and President Streets. Kathryn Drummer, with whom he normally resides, is very eager to have him back. Please report finding or sighting to her at kadrummer [...]
From the Ditmas Park Blog, this report, Church Ave. Closed for “Unstable Antenna” The City’s Office of Emergency Management emails: Emergency personnel are on the scene of an unstable antenna near Church Avenue and East 10th Street in Brooklyn. Church Avenue is closed to traffic between East 10th Street and Stratford Road. (courtesy of the [...]
Kevin Rosenberg’s new venture, Gear to Go Outfitters, offers high-quality outdoor gear (clothing for men, women and children; – for sale or rental. And if you’re local – free delivery: Backpacks Camp kitchen equipment Clothing (for men, women, and children) Food Hydration gear Tents, shelter and sleeping bags That’s not all – they’ve also got [...]
Opening on January 9 at the SideShow Gallery in Williamsburgh, From the announcement of It’s A Wonderful Tenth: “It’s a Wonderful Life” is “It’s a Wonderful 10th.” this year, as Rich Timperio, drag racer become art impresario, celebrates the tenth anniversary of his New Year’s Extravaganza at Sideshow Gallery, the spiritual nexus of the New [...]
Here’s our list of the Best of the City 2009: Hardware Stores and Appliances. Not all of have websites – so they’re linked when available, but that’s not a sign of anything. These establishments were selected on the basis of repeated dealings with them, the criteria being honesty, reliability expertise and pricing – not necessarily [...]
From The Daily News, Thugs slay Brooklyn social worker Douglas Smith in fight over exercise equipment: A Brooklyn social worker described as “the picture of health” was slain at his neighborhood gym in a feud over exercise equipment. Douglas Smith, 50, was knifed and clobbered with a hammer by a pair of muscleheads who attacked [...]
Twice in the last two months, Mike’s Tech Shop has brought back to life comatose or apparently dead Macs for our household and for our dear friend and neighbor, the film editor David Lee. My wife’s Mac – written off as dead by another well-known and reputable (and usually pretty good) Apple repair place – [...]
Not local, but he’s from Cleveland Heights, which is a neighborhood like ours, except it’s in Ohio.This is a working LEGO brick, with a removable threaded eye hook for the keychain. Bram Lambrecht’s LEGO keychain – and some other cool stuff – can be seen at BLDesign.org
I wrote this letter to Mayor Bloomberg on August 12th. As of this writing (October 19, 2009) there’s been no response. August 12, 2009 Hon. Michael Bloomberg City Hall New York, NY 10007 Dear Mayor Bloomberg, A child living on my block, the block of Stratford Road, Brooklyn between Caton and Church Avenues – lost [...]
As public radio goes through its intermittent hat-in-hand cycle, we thought it worth remembering that in some places possession of a radio device – even just a receiver – is criminal. Please consider donating to your local public radio station. Ours is WNYC.
It’s hard to write headlines without fawning. But here’s a blog written by and about a very cool couple in San Francisco – Lifetinker. Thoughtful, funny, out-of- the-box posts; from which I’ve tentatively concocted the following hypotheses: We’ve already determined that we need high-speed rail and pneumatic tube package and mail delivery across the country, [...]
For those unfamiliar with Manhattan geography, Manhattan is much longer on its roughly North-South axis than it is on its East-West axis, although the island is narrower at its southern edge. (And it turns out to be harder to quickly locate a map showing the entire island than one would think). The current (and possibly [...]
The Disaster Accountability Project needs your votes – which in this case means just following the link below and then adding a comment (any comment will do – and if you’re so inclined, you can use the mark #poplog so we can see how many Popular Logistics readers participated).Here’s the rest of the information you [...]
Songs of Peace, Love, and Global Warming. The debut album from our friend, XB Cold Fingers - available on CDBaby.com and coming soon to iTunes and Amazon.
Dear Editors: The constitution of this country reserves a special place for newspapers in this unfinished democracy: a special place which comes with specific responsibilities to the polity. Newspapers are expected to inform and edify the masses beyond the mundane day to day events of life in this city, state and nation. Its columnists, free-lance journalist […]
In New York City, political activists know that September is primary month; and soon enough Democrat State Senator Kevin Parker faces an old nemesis (Wellington Sharpe) in a primary for Brooklyn’s 21st senatorial district. It will be an intriguing contest: so fasten your seat belts all you political junkies. The relationship between these two individuals has […]
Of all the well known black leaders in this country, Al Sharpton has been one of the most enigmatic. Who else could have worn an FBI wire and still maintain a certain level of credibility in black nationalistic circles? Who else could be so flawed in character -over his years of activism- and still have candidates such as Hilary Clinton (and now Andrew Cuomo […]
Sustainable Flatbush has posted a rehash of the Neighborhood Energy Forum held in March. You can see the highlights and download the presentations here. […]
New York City has over 960,000 buildings. Only 9,000 of them (less than 1%) use the dirtiest heating oil (grades #4 and #6). But those 9,000 buildings are responsible for over 86% of the soot and ozone pollution in the air. These particulates contribute to the failure of New York City’s air to meet the National Ambient Air […]
Catherine Mohr in her TED talk explains how to get down to brass tacks in deciding how to build your house. The basis of her decisions is how much energy is embodied in the extraction, manufacture, transportation and installation of all the elements that go into a new building. She’s right but I wish she talked more […]
At this year’s Friends of Greenwood Playground Spring Flea Market, the Toeprint Project will kick off our Green Brooklyn Energy Audit Campaign to make the buildings in our neighboring communities of Kensington, Windsor Terrace, Flatbush, Ditmas Park Sunset Park and Park Slope more energy efficient! Come see us at our vendor table. If you own a 1-4 […]
Thanks to 3Rblog for this. If you are like me and can’t remember which plastics go where, Real Simple published an easy-to- read guide about how to recycle everything. Many of these links are national and concern specific products. If you live in NYC, check the Don’t Throw It Away page from the Department of Sanitation. For books, […]
Healthy indoor air is arguably the most important benefit from green building. I lived in an apartment for 4 years that had mold hiding somewhere. Turns out I’m allergic to mold. I coughed basically the entire time I lived there. It was miserable but I know from where I speak! When I give a talk about the […]
I was sad when my favorite eco-friendly store 3R Living closed in Park Slope due to the recent economic downturn (downturn? it feels more like a relentless chokehold…but I digress). The Owners, husband and wife team Samantha Delman-Caserta and Mark Caserta and Samantha’s sister Tracy Ferdinand set up a lovely little shop in Montclair, NJ. I guess […]
We weatherized our house last year. You can read all about it here. So far, in the 11 months since we completed the work, we have saved approximately $900 on our annual heating bill. Assuming energy prices remain constant (which they won’t – all projections indicate rising energy prices), we will payback the insulation and air […]
We have some exciting news! Ellen Honigstock Architect has teamed up with The Chartier Group to provide energy audits for existing buildings large and small! Is your building overheated in the winter? Does the air feel too dry? Is there a lot of dust on the surfaces of your living space? These could be signs […]
Sports Medicine at Chelsea
Voice: 212-366-5100
Fax: 212-366-6275
Sports Medicine at Chelsea
22 West 21st Street Suite 400
New York, NY 10010
(Between Fifth and Sixth Avenues)
And speaking of Rosh Hashannah, at the other end of the sectarian spectrum, the venerable local reform temple, Beth Emeth, has a great deal for first-time attendees: $18 per ticket. The Thursday morning service next week begins at 10:00 a.m, with a children’s service at 12:45 p.m., followed by Tashlich services at Propect Park. […]
Folks from Congregation Prospect Park Ohel Yitzchok (1419 Dorchester Road at Marlborough Road) email that it is offering free seats for area residents: An orthodox synagogue, where everyone is welcome, air conditioned with a comfortable womens’ balcony. This year we will also be providing Artscroll Rosh Hashona Machzorim to all. The synagogue has morning ser […]
