View From Here: Obama talks like a Democrat, walks like a Republican

When we look at President Barack Obama, it is easy to forget that he does not share the psycho-social heritage of the descendents of chattel slavery and that he was raised by white folks.  And while there is nothing wrong with that, his mother was an extraordinary woman herself, it does mean that his psychological core and sensitivities, were not passed down from the Middle Passage or the centuries of enslavement, but rather from Kansas, his mother’s home state, dead center of the country and a Red state politically.
In a very deep way, the Republicans are more the president’s people than are the descendents of chattel slavery.  This is why he was agreeable to give so much before the debt-ceiling negotiations even began, he starts from middle America and will get pushed right or left from there.  And until now, it’s been the corporations and the Tea Party doing all the pushing.
Now with three wars being waged simultaneously and with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid being put at risk, the president needs a primary challenge with new ideas put forward by someone who wants to push back.
My recommendation would be to draft Congresswoman Donna Edwards from Maryland.  Congresswoman Edwards is a member of both the Black Caucus and the Progressive Caucus where she is vice chair, and is a forceful advocate for playing “hardball” with the Republicans.
Visit her Web site and view the video archives of her presentations in congress and determine for yourself if this person has the sensibilities you’d like to see in the Oval office.  The Progressive Caucus should call on Congresswoman Edwards to present a Primary challenge for the president.   And maybe after she wins the first debate and  threatens him in the primaries, Obama will be thanking Joe Biden for his years of service and under the bus he goes.
Regarding the flash mobs, first the disclaimer:  Looting, burning and destroying life and property are wrong.  Perpetrators should be punished.  Now, having said that, I cannot believe that anyone is surprised by this phenomenon.  We warned about it back in June.  These communities in England, Maryland, Philadelphia, Chicago are, like Brooklyn, communities where unemployment rates among the youth can be over 50% and relationships with the police fluctuate between tense and explosive.  These young people are living in a consumer society with stuff all around them and billions of dollars being spent telling them to buy and to have, and here they stand with some loose change and lint in their pockets and no prospects for sudden upturns in that condition.
Because they’re mis-educated and yet self-motivated, too many young people, and those old enough to know better, see thug life glamorized as an option and going to prison as a normal way of being.  All around them there is a different normal, an alternative reality where people are enjoyably comfortable and raising lovely families.  They are, by and large,  a very amiable group, as they crowd into restaurants and text, brunch and relax in the cafés.  My suggestion to these folks is to become viscerally concerned about jobs programs and youth employment.  Infrastructure building and repairs that involve long-term jobs and business opportunities, would go further to  preventing the collision of the two “normals” than all the beefed up precinct patrols or gang task forces the city can muster.

At Wit’s End: Looking Forward to the Barclays Arena

It may not be politically correct, but one of the best things to happen to Brooklyn in the past ten years is the Atlantic Yards project.
I mention this because last week I was at the Atlantic Terminal Mall, where from a lunch counter stool on the second floor, one looks out of a giant picture window at the ongoing construction of the arena.
Watching the steel structure rise and union workers on the job gave me the feel that this is New York City – the financial capital of the world and the city can still get projects done.
This thought is also the reason why I never bought into the propaganda-like opposition that stalled the project for seven years in court and nearly killed it.
The newly gentrified in the Prospect Heights area was the brunt of this opposition led by Daniel Goldstein, and his makeshift organization Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn.
Goldstein lived in the footprint of the project, having bought his condo in cash in 2003, the same year that developer Bruce Ratner announced the project. Either he or his wife were the only people that drew a salary from the organization, and after the court battles were over, he sold out to Ratner for a nifty $3 million.
Throughout, the ordeal Goldstein also had an old buddy film his fight, and he is now promoting that film, Battle for Brooklyn, in which he is portrayed as a David fighting a Goliath.
While almost all of the press jumped on Goldstein’s side throughout the ordeal and have given generally good reviews to the film, what was missing was the big picture.
In the last twenty years, America’s infrastructure has been crumbling and the most innovative architecture in the world has moved away from the United States and to the places like Dubai, China and the Pacific Rim.
Indeed, when developer Bruce Ratner first proposed the 22-acre project in 2003 or 2004, he had world-class architect Frank Gehry designing it and the proposal included thousands of units of affordable and market rate housing. It also included sorely needed subway and sewer infrastructure improvements.
Ratner’s company, Forest City Ratner also signed a community benefits agreement with eight or nine community based organizations – all led by people of color. While almost all these organizations also received funding from Ratner, it’s a lot more than Mayor Bloomberg has given to African-American non-profits in his tenure as mayor.
But between the opposition fighting the project in court and the downturn of the economy, Ratner had to can Gehry several years ago, and the project is a shadow of its former self.
That said, I’m betting the government will again try to jumpstart the economy, and the Atlantic Yards project is a good investment as building it out in entirety will create thousands of jobs and better living and working conditions for the borough.
In the meantime, the arena is taking shape and it will do much for the economy and spirit of the borough when it is completed and the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets start calling it home in about 15 months.
It will mean jobs and entrepreneur spin off opportunities. It will add excitement and spirit to a basketball-crazy borough. And when the team makes the playoffs, bars and restaurants will do more business.
Let the excitement begin.

Getting the Energy Up for Another School Year

Getting the Energy Up for Another School Year
If you’re a parent of a New York City School student and recognize the danger our children are in locked into a system where they’re required by law to attend schools whose failure is not based on test results but the growing threat on principals and teachers to focus on tests instead of developing the critical thinking skills the children need to succeed in life.    You must realize that some alternative approaches must be found to rescue the children from the expanding take over by corporate interests.  The Atlanta, Ga. Scandal of Cheating among school officials is not an isolated case.  We must see the danger of measuring our children’s intelligence and progress by standardized tests alone. We can no longer allow our children’s future to be determined by a corrupt system.
This press release caught my attention.  This organization’s target population is young adults/parents and while they cover other topics, their September session focuses on education.  In speaking to the organizers, I gathered that they hold a vision and are not merely waging an anti- campaign.
Good Brother Productions starts a new season of Nights at the Round Table.  Partnering with The Global Block Foundation, Good Brother Productions present a monthly panel discussion and networking mixer in Brooklyn called “Nights at the Round Table”.  Each Month we pick a different lounge or tavern in the neighborhood, and we put together unique panels for discussion on various topics pertinent to the lifestyles and social experiences of our community.
Our discussion in September deals with a very important topic, education. The discussion September 1st is entitled: “School Matters: A panel discussion about the education of our children.” We will discuss the state of the school system in general, and specifically in our communities. We will also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Charter Schools, as well as their similarities, differences, and the issues that they share with Public Schools. We will discuss the things that parents can do at home to help in their children’s education, as well as some of the issues and struggles that educators face on a day-to-day basis.
On the panel will be: Fabayo Macintosh – Principal of Brighter Choice Community School, Shahara C. Jackson – Principal of Summit Academy School, Ana El Alston – Principal at Glen Cove City School District, and Jitu Weusi – lifelong Activist and Educator. The discussion is moderated by Marlon Rice, an author and activist from Clinton Hill.  The panel discussion will take place at For My Sweet located at 1103 Fulton Street between Classon Avenue and Claver Place, on Thursday September 1, 2011. The discussion starts at 7pm. The discussion will run an hour and a half, with a half hour Q &A followed by a mixer with live music, various vendors, and food and drink for sale. For further information: mrice@nysec.org, jaymash@gmail.com
Parents must reclaim family as the foundation and bridge to the future.
The Parent’s Notebook would love to share innovative actions being taken by parents and community taking responsibility for unleashing the innate intelligence of our children.  Send to parentsnotebook@yahoo.com

PN Alert!!!!
****from the desk of Assemblywoman Letitia James
All children 0 to 5 years who live within the five boroughs of NYC eligible for free books.

NYC Imagination Library is an initiative of the NYC Dept. of Education. The goal is to promote the development of emergent literacy and language skills by encouraging all NYC parents to read aloud to their children from birth until age five.

Enroll your preschool child (age 0 to 5 yrs) in the NYC Imagination Library and a new, carefully selected, age-appropriate book will be mailed each month in your child’s name directly to your home. Books will begin arriving at your home six to eight weeks after your registration form has been received, and will continue each month until your child turns five.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/downloads/pdf/NYC_Imagination_Library_application.pdf

<

https://owa2003.nycboe.net/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/downloads/pdf/NYC_Imagination_Library_application.pdf

>

At Wit’s End: It takes a perp to walk and a rich man to cry foul

 As a reporter who’s covered my share of perp walks, I kind of enjoyed watching 62-year-old Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn shackled and haggard-looking being led away to the hoosegow.

   DSK, as he has been labeled, got his moment in the American justice system sun, where in the public eye, he was guilty-looking enough to hang for allegedly raping an immigrant chamber maid in his plush hotel room.
    

The man, though, is no dumb alleged criminal. He hired the best attorneys and private investigators that money can buy, who seemingly scraped even the dirt from beneath the maid’s fingernails to prove she’s not a credible victim.

For instance, they found she lied to immigration authorities to stay in this country. She told them she needed asylum because she was raped and sexually molested in her native Guinea. They dug up phone calls she made to alleged drug dealers and alleged she spoke to others on how she planned on having a big payday in suing DSK.
 

Now there is lying and there is lying. In my book, lying to immigration authorities is practically a “rite of passage” to stay here in this country. I suspect even my beloved great-grandparents may have told a stretcher or two when they arrived from Poland in 1906.
As for trying to make a few dollars off DSK who allegedly raped her – hey, this is America. If you’re a rich criminal, you may not do much time, but you sure as hell have to pay the victim a fine.

But DSK is no ordinary Frenchman. He’s the former head of the IMF and was being touted as the next French president. As such, he counted Rupert Murdoch and Mayor Bloombucks among his friends.

So there was the New York Post declaring in headlines (and not even allegedly) that the victim was a prostitute.
   Then there was Bloomberg declaring (for the first time) his opposition to perp walks. City Councilman David Greenfield followed this with introducing a law against perp walks.

Yet, nobody gave this cry when Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Kharey Wise – then between the ages of 14-16 – did their perp walk on the Post’s front page for “wilding” and raping a woman in Central Park. All did hard time for the crime they didn’t commit, and were exonerated in 2002 when DNA evidence turned up that  they were innocent.
Where was the cry against perp walks then? But I digress.

It seemed about a week ago that DSK had it all worked out. It appeared he was on the verge of having the Manhattan District Attorney drop the charges after the maid and alleged victim was all but painted into the perpetrator.

But the maid pulled an “end around” and hired her own slick attorney, Ken Thompson, who is suing the Post for slander and demanding the DA take the case or hand it off to a special prosecutor.

“Justice requires no less,” he told reporters.  “The truth is she was sexually assaulted in that room, and the truth matters.”

As for Murdoch and Bloomberg, I am reminded of the nursery rhyme:
All the king’s horses
 and all the king’s men,
Couldn’t put Humpty-Dumpty
back togther again.

     So grab a ringside seat to the media circus and let the criminal trial begin!

At Wit’s End: A Jackie Robinson statue for the Barclays Center

Like any other resident, I love New York and consider it the center of the world, but I never could get its hoity-toity attitude towards its sports legends.
  Go to Detroit and they have two great statues of homegrown boxing legend Joe Louis.   

Go to Chicago and there is a first-rate statue of Michael Jordan in midair, and there’s an Ernie Banks in front of Wrigley Field.   Atlanta has honored Hank Aaron with a statue.
 There’s a Babe Ruth statue, but it’s not here where the Sultan of Swat made baseball America’s pastime. 

 It’s in Baltimore, where he was born.
Ditto for Willie Mays, one of the city’s most beloved sports heroes. There’s a statue of him all right. Next time I’m in San Francisco, I plan on going to see it.
 But in New York, a pigeon can barely find a sports legend’s statue on which to rest its weary wings.

 Which brings me to Jackie Robinson, who I would argue was not only a great baseball player, but was right up there with Rosa Parks as a seminal figure in the early civil rights movement.
 

Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and had to endure years of taunts from other players and fans in silence while earning Most Valuable Player honors in a Hall of Fame career.
 

To be sure, there is a plaque on the corner of Montague and Court Streets commemorating the building where Jackie signed his contract to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers, but for many years there was no statue of him.
 

There is one statue of Jackie in front of the Brooklyn Cyclone Stadium in Coney Island and I covered its unveiling a few years ago. But when the drop cloth came off, the statue included former Brooklyn Dodger shortstop Pee Wee Reese with his arm around him.
 

Now I have no disrespect for Reese. He was a great friend to Jackie, but it didn’t seem right to me.
 It would be like having a statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. with the Jewish people who supported (and died as well) for the civil right movement. No disrespect to these Jews, but Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the greatest leaders in our nation’s history.

 I feel the same way about Jackie Robinson. The man deserves his own statue here in Brooklyn. 
 And it should be at the entrance to the Barclays Arena near the Flatbush and Atlantic Avenue intersection.

 While some may say Robinson was a baseball player and this is a basketball arena, I would argue it doesn’t matter.
 

People from all over the world will come to see NBA games in Brooklyn. They should learn what Jackie Robinson meant to the borough, the city and the country.
  Brooklynites, too, should pass the statue and let their children see it and learn about Jackie Robinson.
   

I called officials from the Nets about the idea and didn’t hear back from them at press time.  Perhaps some local politicians feel as I do and can pressure the “powers that be”.
   It’s time to further honor Jackie Robinson!

At Wit’s End: A tale of three budgets

Watching the yearly New York City budget process unfold under the Bloomberg Administration is a lot like watching a soap opera that somehow always has a happy ending.
Such is the case of last week’s $66 billion spending plan that Bloomberg and the City Council hammered out last week.
Leading up to the agreement, Bloomberg threatened to lay off some 6,500 teachers, along with other workers, close firehouses, take away some 11,500 day care slots from the working class and working poor, close day care and senior centers, and slash funding, hours and employees from libraries, parks and other services that make the city both safer and a more enjoyable place to live.
The City Council responded with rallies bigger than Christian tent revivals.
Then, usually in the last 10 days or so before the June 30 budget deadline, miracles that would make Moses blush start happening. Both Bloomberg and the City Council finds extra money, and almost none of the cuts happen and everybody claims victory.
Locally,  I give points to City Council members Letitia James and Charles Barron, who both have repeatedly suggested using several billion dollars from a “rainy day” fund to make up for any budget shortfall. They rightfully have said that with the economy in the doldrums the rainy day is now upon us.
Kudos also goes to Councilman Al Vann, who has kept his eyes on the daycare cuts and remains vigilant that Central Brooklyn does not have to absorb more cuts than the rest of the city.
Of the losers in the city budget is the DC 37 union, which will take the bulk of the 1,000 or so city layoffs. It is unfortunate that this union did not follow suit of the teachers union and negotiate a little more with the Bloomberg Administration  in  regards to concessions.
One thing the city can’t do is raise taxes on the rich or anyone else as this must be done on the state and federal level.
For this, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and lawmakers in Albany deserve a failing grade. While many are cheering same-sex marriage and rent control legislation, it behooves the state to raise taxes on the wealthy – those individuals or families making over $250,000 or even $500,000 a year.
This is not to make class warfare an issue, but logic dictates that in tough economic times everybody must contribute a little more.
Which brings up the last budget fiasco.
The Obama Administration in Washington is currently locked in a battle with Republican lawmakers to raise the federal debt ceiling, which is currently at $14.3 trillion (and you thought you had cash flow issues).
What raises the stakes in this budget poker game is if Washington defaults on their debts it could spell even more problems for the world economy.
The crux of this problem is Republicans won’t sign off on raising the debt ceiling  if only there is reductions in spending – mainly on social entitlement programs.
President Obama is willing to wilt to some reductions, but would also like to repeal some of the tax breaks for wealthy corporations, such as oil companies, as well as individuals and families earning more than $500,000 a year.
On this issue, I hope Obama stands his ground.
In tough times, everybody must pull together.

View From Here

When I was a child watching movies, it was the Mau Mau who were the villains and the white colonialists who were portrayed as the good guys.  It wasn’t until much later that I realized that the Mau Mau were freedom fighters and it was the opposite that was true.

Now we have President Barack Obama, enamored with the national security and military options available to him, starting a third war, this one on the African continent.  He has his justifications, but perhaps it is the opposite that is true.

Putting aside the agendas of the U.S. regarding the war in Libya and the effort to kill Muammar Gaddafi, the question is what is best for the African Diaspora?

NATO is a European animal that won’t stop feasting on Africa.  Here, they saw a coming  regime challenge as an opportunity to attack and they attempted to get ahead of the ball and shape the game in their direction.

That Western powers are so concerned about controlling the regime change in Libya is an indication of the importance they place on its resources.  If those resources were directed toward first the citizens, in a  healing  and constructive way, and then as a contributor to the healing and rebuilding of Africa through the African Union and perhaps on to a United States of Africa, with the Diaspora having a voice, then it is apparent that this war against Libya is against the reemergence of the continent of Africa as a leader on the world stage.

Whatever the political motives and corporate interests that are driving the United States’ actions, the creation of a strong and united Africa is not among them.
By not following the procedures in the War Powers Act, Obama has declared that the president acting alone can take the nation to war.  He’s going to find a lot of folks do not agree with him.   If American participation in this invasion does not end soon, there will come a time when the president will have to make somebody unhappy: either his NATO allies or the American people.  He can’t serve two masters.

In an interview in The Voice of Russia, Evgenia Voiko, a leading expert at the Russian Center of Political Processes, was asked how long he thought the NATO military operation may last in Libya. He answered, “I cannot predict the exact date, but I think that the whole summer will be devoted to this operation, because Gaddafi has to fight to show his power, to show his moral qualities, so I think that the summer will be not enough to fight him.”
If this is true, and the US doesn’t get a lucky strike, then a “slow news summer” will only have one thing on its mind, barring natural disasters and flash mobs in the cities, war.

The president may want to consider allowing himself to be “forced” to ask for congressional approval and make as graceful an exit as possible from this NATO operation.  Because if he’s fighting Gaddafi  in September, then the tar baby will have him but good.   He will have killed the visceral progressive and proud spirits that carried him into office.  The slogan, “Their bad qualities are worse than mine” is not the fuel for a grassroots effort.  But, of course, the president knows this.  That is why the Obama campaign goal is to raise a billion dollars for the media effort he’s going to need to sell his presidency.

His major chance for reelection will be if the Republicans have a Palinesque figure for president or vice president.  And even then, it will be close.   And if the U.S. is on its fifteenth drone strike at “suspected Gaddafi headquarters” and the administration has lawyers arguing why they should continue, it won’t be close at all.

Civil Rights Profiteers
Marc Morial at the National Urban League and Reverend Al  Sharpton with the National Action Network are an embarrassment to the Civil Rights Movement.  These two organizations have written letters of support for the merger of ATT and T-Mobile, ostensibly because of “diversity” , “minority hiring” and other such stuff as though any other corporation would not follow the equal employment laws.   They say everything but what truly matters to them, that is continued “Platinum Level” support for the next gala and corporate tables at some chromed palace.    The hundreds of millions of dollars this will cost their constituents in higher rates means nothing next to the creature comforts of the NUL and NAN corporate alliance.  One would have thought the founding mission of these organizations was to free Black people, not help corporate America pick our pockets.  There is nothing wrong with having corporate friends, (we all do), but as one of Sharpton’s mentors, the Rev. William Augustus Jones of Bethany Baptist Church used  to say regularly, “You eat the king’s meat, you do the king’s bidding.”  Here, that bidding involves using the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement as a protector of profits and corporate giants, using the rationale that what is good for NUL and NAN is good for African-Americans.  That may be true some of the time, but not here.

We will not be beaten
Technology has empowered the rulers, but it has also empowered the masses of people in a profound new way.  The only concern, as it is with rulers around the world, is how much pain they are willing to cause to maintain control.

As the recent reports and images coming out of places like Yemen, Syria and Libya of the extreme measures rulers are willing to take to ensure that the status quo is maintained, were intermingled with  images of the 60’s  around the death of Gil Scott-Heron, African-American men and women wearing Afrocentric clothes with “Buy Black” and community control of education as mantras, it was apparent why the security apparatus of the United States, used the Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) domestically to gather intelligence, entrap and assassinate, and the Central Intelligence Agency internationally to enable hundreds of tons of cocaine to be brought into African-American communities across the country.  By using this chemical warfare, they were able to short-circuit the arc of African-American self-empowerment and cripple it for generations to come.

But here is the thing the oligarch should learn, we will not be beaten.  There are too many community-based ogranizations and individuals, unions and bookstores, Churches and Mosques, study groups and others who are working through the neighborhoods, helping, mentoring and reaching back.  Transferring knowledge and encouragement spirit to spirit.   We do not know the names of the vast majority of these workers, but we know they will not be beaten.

At Wit’s End: Speaking with a black jew about Black-Jewish relations

As the 20th Anniversary of the Crown Heights riots between blacks and Jews comes this summer, it is worth noting that since biblical times mainstream Judaism has had a strong contingent of black folk among them.
  

They are the Ethiopian Jews that trace their roots to the days when Moses led a band of Hebrews out of Egypt. Roughly 14,000 were airlifted to Israel in the 1980s. Others made it overland on their own having survived Sudanese refugee camps. Still others remain in Ethiopia and other places in Africa. 
 

One such person is Ahuva Adanaani, whose mother and father were in the airlift and who was born, along with her eight siblings, in Israel.

I met Ahuva, who now lives in Brooklyn, on the subway one day and have remained friends with her since. As such, she straddles the two worlds of being black and Jewish with an equal pride and I asked for some of her perspectives.

“The black people here are very surprised when they learn I’m Israeli and I think it’s very important they know there are a lot of black Jews in Israel,” said Ahuva. “They ask me a lot of questions about Israel and how I’m treated. For them it’s very special, especially for Christian blacks. They are very surprised because for them it’s very unique that there are African Jews. To me they miss something.”

Ahuva believes that even many white Jews have trouble understanding that among the ancient Hebrews that wandered the desert for 40 years with Moses many were black.
And although Ahuva said she hasn’t experienced prejudice in Israel, other Ethiopian Jews do hear derogatory names about their color, and do face prejudice.
It should also be noted that many of the Ethiopian Jews live below the poverty line in Israel.

This is not  to say though, that Ethiopian Jews are any less mainstream to the religion and for their love of Israel. Ahuva, for example, keeps Kosher, attends synagogue, believes strongly in God and follows all the main Jewish holidays.

“I love my country. I think it’s very special and beautiful, even if it’s a small country. It’s very unique and blessed,” she said.

Ahuva now calls Brooklyn home. It’s a place she loves and where she dreams of becoming a successful make up artist one day. It’s a world in which she feels equally at ease on both the black side and the Jewish side of Eastern Parkway.

As such, she believes the Jews could learn a little from blacks about their sense of tolerance and compassion for others; and blacks could learn a little more about love and respect of self.

Here’s my disclaimer, which I’ve mentioned before, but it’s worth mentioning again. 
I’m not a particularly pious man, but I am a Jew, estranged from my black Christian wife, with four biracial children.

My only agenda is to advance stronger bonds than the already strong bonds between blacks and Jews. We should continue to learn and love from each other.

View From Here

The world we are leaving for our children and grandchildren is competitive in ways not seen before.   President Barack Obama reiterated the national effort to ease the path to citizenship for “the best and the brightest” from around the world.  And with the globalization of information transfer, they don’t even have to come stateside to compete for jobs that used to be here.   New York is becoming a city of front-end companies, with the office “back end” being handled out of India and on server farms around the world.
For those who do come, they become the local competition in New York.   And it isn’t only “the best and the brightest” we are in competition with, it is also the “highly motivated” from impoverished and war-torn countries who have the determination and work ethic to achieve and who also enjoy the cultural cohesiveness and mutual support from having a native language.
African-American communities are magnets for these newcomers.  These folks are able to profit from both the result of centuries of intergenerational trauma from the terrorism of enslavement, as well as the ongoing economic disenfranchisement of African-Americans.   A quick example is banking.  Whereas banks in the U.S. need laws to compel them to service the Black community, the New York State Banking Department says there are 84 foreign branches of banks in New York servicing some part of their national and expatriates’ interests.  And the Flushing location of the Chinese United Commercial Bank suggests that the clientele are not just corporate titans, but also small business owners looking for someone who speaks their language and through whom they can send and receive dollars back home.
The Hasidic community has just opened a large and festive ice cream store on Bedford Avenue between Willoughby and Myrtle.  One morning there were Hasidic-owned school buses of Hasidic school children lined up outside to tour the facility.  They sell Klein’s ice cream, dairy and nondairy, with whatever toppings you’d like.   Walk into a corner store in their community to pick up a breath mint and they sell you a Glick’s.    This is how you fight unemployment, crime and despair.  This is how you build a strong community and a strong people.
Walk down any street in Fort Greene or Bedford-Stuyvesant and you know that the generalized dread you’ve been feeling in your bones is real and African-Americans had better work on plans of action to reverse the ongoing dissolution or we’ll be on the same track as the indigenous people, but we won’t have the benefit of any casinos or treaties.  And instead of reservations, we’ll have public housing that is vertically-patrolled and horizontally-ringed by police towers and cars with flashing lights.

RATS!
Shouldn’t something be done about the rats?  They’ve really gotten out of hand.  Every night we see them, and it doesn’t matter which route we take.  There are rats everywhere.   This cannot be a good thing.   We have tourists to consider and it’s embarrassing to have them think this is how we live in New York.  We just hope the problem is cleaned up before we are called to show the world how well New Yorkers handle the threat of bubonic plague.

At Wit’s End: An existential question for the “day of reckoning”

 

If it is Sunday  morning and you’re reading this column over a coffee instead of going to church I have great news for you.
You’re alive!
That’s right. The predicted “day of reckoning” and doomsday of May 21st has come and gone and those that predicted our demise, with or without redemption, were wrong.
For readers born under a rock, the most recent Judgment Day prediction came from Harold Camping, president of the Oakland-based Family Radio Worldwide.
Bible-thumping Camping came up with the date by crunching numbers in the holy book. He said it unequivocally adds up to 6 pm, May 21st  being the kickoff to the “days of rapture” starting with a major earthquake.
This, in turn, would start the clock ticking to where only the righteous would be saved. Others would have to endure months of torturous devastation until Oct. 21st when the earth would end.
Call it a real Super Bowl moment and I’m surprised Fox Television didn’t sell a couple of billion dollars worth of advertising for it. They could have really done well with light beer commercials in particular because I, for one, wouldn’t want to meet my maker sober.   It’s just too sobering of a thought.
But getting back to Camping, it should be noted that he predicted a similar event in September 1994 that bombed. When asked about it, Camping told reporters it was a miscalculation and the May 21st date was the real thing.

of going to church I have great news for you.
You’re alive!
That’s right. The predicted “day of reckoning” and doomsday of May 21st has come and gone and those that predicted our demise, with or without redemption, were wrong.
For readers born under a rock, the most recent Judgment Day prediction came from Harold Camping, president of the Oakland-based Family Radio Worldwide.
Bible-thumping Camping came up with the date by crunching numbers in the holy book. He said it unequivocally adds up to 6 pm, May 21st  being the kickoff to the “days of rapture” starting with a major earthquake.
This, in turn, would start the clock ticking to where only the righteous would be saved. Others would have to endure months of torturous devastation until Oct. 21st when the earth would end.

Next Page »