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 Repertory Theatre

This video of the Brave New World Repertory Theatre’s current season was enough to persuade me that I wanted to see their production of As You Like It at the Concert Grove in Prospect Park on July 29, and again on August5th and 12th (all Thursday evenings, from 5:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M).

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).

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!

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:” “Japanese title 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 Chinese etymology.”)) 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

More from their announcement:

In this lively, action-packed seminar, you’ll learn:

• Why you don’t have to be bigger or stronger than your opponent to defend yourself effectively
• How to render your attacker utterly defenseless with a deadly chokehold he won’t be able to escape
• How to leverage speed and technique to unleash maximum power in your strikes… no matter your size or skill level
• How to defend yourself against your opponent’s flurry of fast punches with a blindingly fast takedown (he won’t even see it coming!)

Reservations are required as space is limited, so click here to register online TODAY so you can reserve your spot!

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.

Streb Laboratory for Action Mechanics.

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.

Retired Officers Raise Questions on Crime Data in The New York Times

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 February 10th

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 at gmail dot com – or by telephone on (917)   364-6752 (mobile) or on   (718) 636-8976.

Via the “Lost” page of FIDO Brooklyn.

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 super-useful Notify NYC)

We’ve gotten reports of regular interference with wireless devices (portable phones, Wi-Fi, etc.). They’ve tended to be in fairly close proximity to the antenna mast, which is operated for the car service in the same building. Has anyone else nearby experienced what may be RF (Radio Frequency) interference? If so – the best time to ask for the antennae to be repaired/recalibrated may be now, while the tower is being fixed.

• 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 experienced people leading guided trips – and if that weren’t enough – they’ve got a reputation for food “gourmet backcountry meals” on the trail that you’d want to eat even without the preceding and intervening hikes.