Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

The first parent-student teams to register in the Word Power League at Magnolia Tree Earth  Center put their heads together and  raced the clock competing in warm-up word games that led to the main event –  a battle at the SCRABBLE Board.
Once the games began, the communication was mostly between parent and child as they consulted to strategize moves. Although this first game wasn’t to be included in the team stats, you would not have known.  Questions to clarify rules were asked, words were challenged, the dictionary consulted, phoney words uncovered and new words learned.  The teams were obviously having a good time, such a good time that they managed to extend the game 15 minutes.
Parents with two or more children said they appreciated the opportunity to spend time alone with their child in a productive activity.  Asha, a second grader boasted that she enjoyed being on the same team with her mother.   Kayla, a third grader, said “I liked when people who won felt good about themselves”.  Kayla’s mom, Rosalyn, said, “It was so much fun.  I’m going to make it a family affair.”  Noni, 7th grader, stopped on her way out and simply said “Thank you for inviting us.”
Combining team-building skills with competitive spirit and promoting the concept of parent and child as team, the Word Power League’s vision is aimed at transforming  parent-child relationships while enhancing academic skills.   The next sessions will be held Saturday, March 19th and April 2nd and there are still a few spaces available for teams to register by calling 718-783-4432 or 718-387-2116.

Freestyle Kids clothing company was established in by Mimi Humphrey in 2005 to meet the fashion needs of parents looking for a return to a more traditional style of dress for children from newborn through size 10.  As a parent, Mimi was often challenged to find appropriate clothing for both everyday and special occasion wear, particularly in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights.   She found that in exploring the need for a children’s store, the number one need as expressed by survey participants was for clothing that did not encourage brand-name addiction in young children.  Parents were interested in developing their children’s intellect and social skills without having to worry about what they were wearing to school.  Many of those surveyed also reflected on the difficulty in finding appropriate special occasion clothing.  
Ms. Humphrey believes that her target market is saturated with clothing that speaks to a “hip-hop” look that is fashionably inappropriate for young children and a lifestyle that is often in conflict with the values being stressed at home.  “Freestyle Kids will address this shortcoming in the Central Brooklyn market by opening a retail establishment that is a throwback to a time where children were free to explore and exercise their natural curiosities while looking great and remaining free of negative pressure as it relates to dress.”
Mimi Humphrey is the founder and chief designer of Kendiwear Clothing, established in 1996 specializing in tailored yet affordable clothing for children.  She sold Kendiwear’s products at street fairs and special events for 2 years before the company transitioned to a retail space in downtown Brooklyn where it operated for 6 years before closing.
Freestyle Kids will open its retail space in an attractive corner location at 373 Lewis Avenue at Macon Street.  Since 2000, Lewis Avenue has become a shopping destination for Bedford-Stuyvesant residents.  The strip boasts Akwaaba Restaurant, Bread Stuy Coffee Shop, Brownstone Books and the Parlor Floor Antiques, each a destination in their own right.  Freestyle Kids will open one block down from these establishments across the street from the Macon Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library and next to The House of Brown wellness shop.  Freestyle Kids certainly expects to benefit from its proximity to these locations.  By Public transit: B15 and B25 bus routes and the A and C train to Utica Avenue.

By Errol T. Louis
Big Box Battle
Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, recently threw in the towel and announced an end to its efforts to secure a site in Rego Park, Queens, that would have been the company’s first location in New York City. Ironically, what doomed Wal-Mart’s chances was a vote to block a completely different megastore, BJ’s Wholesale Club, from opening a location in the Bronx.
BJ’s was targeted by a collection of unions and community groups that believes the benefits of access to cheap goods is outweighed by the harm caused by companies that provide low salaries and scant benefits.
“We saw BJ’s, a company modeled after the Wal-Mart example, as a test case for developing a coalition to oppose the world’s largest – and nonunion – retailer,” said Richard Lipsky, a lobbyist for the anti-Wal-Mart groups.
Council members have only one real tool to block a big-box store: holding up zoning approvals on the grounds that a facility will cause or contribute to traffic or environmental problems. So politicians raise these issues even if the real reason for opposition has nothing to do with traffic or environmental concerns.
The Council’s Land Use Committee voted down the proposed BJ’s on the grounds that the store would bring extra traffic to the area. But the proposed site was under a cloverleaf that joins the Hutchinson River Parkway and the Cross Bronx, Bruckner and Throgs Neck expressways. It could almost certainly handle additional cars traveling to the store.
Democratic Councilwoman Madeline Provenzano of the Bronx, who wanted the BJ’s built in her district, explained this to her fellow Council members. “It’s the perfect location. There are no homes nearby, there’s no elementary schools, no churches, no playgrounds, no hospitals,” she said at the hearing. “All of this stuff is just a great big smoke screen because we all know that the bottom line is the union.”
To be more precise, the bottom line is BJ’s and Wal-Mart’s labor practices. Both companies work actively to keep unions out, and both have been sued for allegedly cheating workers out of overtime pay.
Under an agreement with the government, BJ’s recently paid $320,000 in back wages to 233 employees. Wal-Mart has been charged with underpaying more than 1 million female employees in what is the largest job-discrimination suit in American history.
These and other practices need to be aired fully before the next big-box store application arrives. That way, Council members can quit pretending to talk about traffic and smog and get to the real issue, workers’ rights.
Lieutenant Governor’s Race Begins
With Democrats hell-bent on trying to capture control of the state Senate, the stakes for the normally irrelevant job of lieutenant governor may actually be rising, thanks to a provision of New York’s Constitution that gives the lieutenant governor the seldom-used power to break tie votes in the Senate.

Several Democratic hopefuls, some of them first-time candidates with great promise, are jockeying for a shot at running on a ticket in 2006 with the party’s most likely picks for governor, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi.

Senate Republicans currently hold an eight-seat majority, and Democrats have vowed to use the 2006 and 2008 elections to try to win the four seats that would close the gap – meaning the next lieutenant governor could end up holding the vote that swings the house Democratic.
Political insiders know this full well, and the lieutenant governor buzz has already begun. Sis. Leecia Eve, who currently works in Washington as counsel to Sen. Hillary Clinton, has told friends she is forming a campaign committee.
Eve hails from a politically wired family: her father, Arthur Eve, served in the state Assembly for more than three decades, and a brother, Eric Eve, was the New York director of Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign.
Bea Gonzalez, president of the Syracuse Common Council (the equivalent of our City Council), is also having what she calls “very, very preliminary” conversations about running. As in Eve’s case, Gonzalez, a Latina from upstate, would bring ethnic and geographic balance to a Spitzer or Suozzi ticket.

It was a cold sunny morning and the streets were filled as Councilman Al Vann and Assemblywoman Annette Robinson unveiled the new street signage with Fulton Street co-named Harriet Ross Tubman Avenue. 
speaking of the example Ms. Tubman set in risking unspeakable dangers to keep going back into slaveholding states and bringing African-Americans out of slavery, Vann  admonished the assembled to, “Go back for those locked in poverty, go back for those political prisoners.  Harriet Ross Tubman went back and we must learn from  her example.”
Councilman Charles Barron, saying it was time for a Harriet Tubman jobs program and a Harriet Tubman free health care system, noted we still have a long road ahead to freedom. 
Councilwoman Letitia James, who may be headed to Congress in 2008,  told the crowd that in many ways we are still  “captives of poverty” and called for the “Harriet Tubmans of today” to come forward and “work to maintain control of our communities.”
State Senator Velmanette Montgomery insisted that  “It’s Harriet Tubman Avenue, period.”  And that Tubman “gave her life for her people,” and that leaders today should follow her example. 
Assemblyman Roger Green said that Harriet Tubman “understood the difference between liberation and freedom.”   Citing the numbers of African-American in prison, Assemblyman Green called it evidence that  “We still struggle for liberation.”
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz called Brooklyn the “African American capital of the United States.  You are the power.”
Noting that  Brooklyn has always been the trailblazer for African American freedom, he warned the crowd to “Turn off the television.  Don’t let the children worship the false gods of TV.”

By Aminisha Black
Stretching Dollars and Making Cents
In this culture, the term resource is synonymous with money or materials that can be converted to money.  We are conditioned to think that the sole solution to obtaining resources is to acquire more money rather than create ways to lessen the amount of money needed.   That makes sense given that this capitalist economy is fed by selling more and more stuff for the highest profit.    
In a recent workshop I was reminded of what valuable resources people are as two parents shared their dollar saving techniques.  The significance of the high value Africans placed on relationship became clearer.  Relationship is key in order to maximize human resources.   
Councilman Charles Barron recently told a group, “We expect folk to become activists but they’re dealing with survival issues.  Brother Barron, as a council member, will negotiate (through relationship) with other council members to increase housing, employment and affordable health care for his constituents. The family’s role in moving beyond survival is key.  Family is where children as well as adults learn how to relate and it can provide a model for empowering small units to access resources in order to move beyond survival.  While city and state officials control government budgets, parents can wield their influence by getting the most out of their available dollars at home. 
   Michelle Ballard, mother of four tells her children that she’s always on a budget.   She says that she wants them to learn budgeting at an early age.   “I only buy things on sale and during off-season”.  Michelle makes the rounds of supermarkets on Sundays and collect their circulars for the week.  She then makes the rounds only getting the items on sale from each store.  She also looks for Manager’s Specials, items nearing the “Sell By’ deadline.   Michelle says those items are marked as much as 75% off the original price.
Kweli Pierre, mother of two, also shops sales. She purchases large quantities of items that her family uses frequently, enough to last until she catches it on sale again, freezing perishable items.   She’s a member of Costco’s which similar to BJ’s and Sam’s, sell memberships and offer savings available with bulk buying. By sharing the membership with family members, their membership returns two percent of total purchases at the end of the year.    Like Michelle, she shops off-season for adult and children’s clothes when prices are reduced 85% and more and she is among the thrifty shoppers that include The Salvation Army on their circuit.   Kweli also has a family membership at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum that admits two adults and all children of a household to BCM and all the Science Tech Centers throughout the country.  The pass allows unlimited visits during the year at the price she’d pay for three visits as a non-member.
With four daughters, Rosalyn Inman has mastered stretching the clothing dollar by recycling. Articles of clothing purchased for the oldest is saved for the next and on down the line.  She stresses the importance of networking because a group of mothers expand the recycling circle, resulting in an overflow.  However, she excludes recycling shoes, sandals and sneakers because they are shaped by the wearer and might affect the other’s walk.  Rosalyn says she deals with the needs of her family, not the advertised trends.  With cheap and quality as operative words, she has compiled a list of stores.  An advocate of school uniforms, she says the advantages include neat appearance, reduction of rivalry and the extra time they allow her to purchase other items. 
These savvy consumers recognize the hype to buy a lot and pay top price for “stuff”.   Kevin Anderson shares that when his son wants to purchase an expensive item, he negotiates with him by selling him on the extras he could have if he chose the less expensive one.    Bottom line it could be said that the flow of resources is determined to a large degree by relationship and choice.  And the more we choose to stretch the dollar, the more we’ll have available for the extras.
What can you add to our Stretching Dollars and Making Cents collection?  Send your tips to parentsnotebook@yahoo.com or mail to P.O. Box 755, Brooklyn, NY 11238.