Bill Taylor

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Bill Taylor just passed way.

Here he is in one of his favorite settings,

The trio.

Rest in peace.

Video:

http://www.jazzonthetube.com/page/815.html

- Lester Perkins

Jazz on the Tube

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We lost some beautiful people this year...

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We lost some beautiful people this year...

Musical treasures they left us.

Video:

http://www.jazzonthetube.com/page/812.html

- Lester Perkins

Jazz on the Tube

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The Summer 2011 White House Internship

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The Summer 2011 White House Internship application is now posted online. The deadline is January 9 , 2011.

 

Please send to everyone and anyone you know that you feel can benefit from this internship and/or deserves this opportunity. The internship is unpaid , but note that the Summer internship is the shortest (10 weeks compared to Fall/Spring which are 15+ weeks).

 http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/internships/apply

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Billy Taylor, Jazz Pianist, Dies at 89

By PETER KEEPNEWS

Billy Taylor, a pianist and composer who was also an eloquent spokesman and advocate for jazz as well as a familiar presence for many years on television and radio, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 89 and lived in the Riverdale area of the Bronx.

The cause was heart failure, said his daughter, Kim Taylor-Thompson.

Dr. Taylor, as he preferred to be called (he earned a doctorate in music education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1975), was a living refutation of the stereotype of jazz musicians as unschooled, unsophisticated and inarticulate, an image that was prevalent when he began his career in the 1940s, and that he did as much as any other musician to erase.

Dr. Taylor probably had a higher profile on television than any other jazz musician of his generation. He had a long stint as a cultural correspondent on the CBS News program "Sunday Morning" and was the musical director of David Frost's syndicated nighttime talk show from 1969 to 1972.

Well educated and well spoken, he came across, Ben

Read more at www.nytimes.com

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Celebrate the 52nd Anniversary of the Tirumph of the Cuban Revolution

NYC: New Year's Eve - Celebrate the 52nd Anniversary of the Tirumph of the Cuban Revolution

image001.jpg

Date and time information: 

Dec 31 2010 8:00pm - Jan 1 2011 2:00am

Location details: Name of place or institution: 

The Crystal Room at Taino Towers

Street address: 

240 E. 123rd St (between 2nd and 3rd Ave)

City: 

New York City

State or Province: 

New York

Main contact person: 

TBA

Contact phone number: 

212-348-5547

Contact email address: 

Franklin.Flores41@yahoo.com

Event description: 

Casa de las Americas and the July 26th Coalition invite you to a celebration of the 52nd Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution -

$25 Donation includes food.

Proceeds for the running of the Wilfredo Lam Gallery at Casa de las Americas

Featuring: 

- Full Bar

- Speaker guest speaker: Cuban Ambassador to the UN

- DJ Carlito Rovira

- Very exclusive raffle

Endorsing Organizations: 1199 SEIU East-Latin American Solidarity Committee; ANSWER; Committees of Correspondence For Democracy and Socialism; Cuba Solidarity New York; Freedom Socialist Party; December 12 Movement; Fuerza de la Revolucion; Harlem Tenants Council; IFCO/Pastors for Peace; Iglesia San Romero de las Americas - UCC; International Action Center; Jericho Movement; Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico; New York Committee to Free the Cuban Five; Party for Socialism & Liberation; People’s Organization For Progress; Popular Education Project to Free the Cuban Five; Pro-Libertad; Radical Women; Socialist Workers Party; Venceremos Brigade; Workers World Party; Young Socialists

Arizona Bans Ethnic Studies and, Along With it, Reason and Justice

FLAVOR00-NONE-0000-0000-000000000000 0.000000 ; Arizona Bans Ethnic Studies and, Along With it, Reason and Justice
Randall Amster J.D., Ph.D., Truthout: "While much condemnation has rightly been expressed toward Arizona's anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, a less-reported and potentially more sinister measure is set to take effect on January 1, 2011. This new law, which was passed by the conservative state legislature at the behest of then-School Superintendent (and now Attorney General-elect) Tom Horne, is designated HB 2281 and is colloquially referred to as a measure to ban ethnic studies programs in the state. As with SB 1070, the implications of this law are problematic, wide-ranging and decidedly hate filled."
Read the Article

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Female inmates at Bedford Hills prison to staff DMV call center

 

Female inmates at Bedford Hills prison to staff DMV call center

 

 

 

 

ALBANY – Female prisooners at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County are staffing a Department of Motor Vehicles call center. The facility employs 39 inmates, including 31 full-time and part-time customer service agents, six team leaders and two trainers.

 

 

 

 

The program has been going on for years at the Bayview Women’s Prison in Manhattan, but that has been converted to a re-entry facility for short-timers being released into the community and Bedford Hills has a larger inmate population with longer sentences.

 

 

 

 

The men’s Arthur Kill Correctional Facility on Staten Island also operates a DMV call center, between the two, one million calls are expected yearly with a savings to taxpayers of $3.5 million annually.

 

 

 

 

In addition to saving money, officials said it will provide job skills for participating inmates, said prisons spokesman Erik Kriss.

 

 

 

 

“They do earn a small stipend  for doing this work and that helps them to afford items in the commissary and so forth and it gives them motivation,” he said. “Everyone needs motivation, whether you are outside prison or inside prison.”

 

 

 

 

The inmates who participate do not have access to DMV computers and are not able to access any customer data. Inmates convicted of a telephone related crime or credit card or computer fraud are not eligible to work at the center. Calls are monitored at random.

 

 

 

 

Each call center agent is supplied with a profile book containing all the information necessary to answer general assistance questions such as office hours and locations, identification requirements, the emissions program, and what customers will need and what they should expect before visiting a DMV office.

 

 

 

 

Anyone who calls in with a question pertaining to customer information is transferred to a civilian DMV employee.

Bernie Wilson, baritone member of the rhythm and blues group that produced the 1972 hit "If You Don't Know Me by Now," has died.

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Baritone from Harold Melvin & Blue Notes dies

The Associated Press

Bernie Wilson, baritone member of the rhythm and blues group that produced the 1972 hit "If You Don't Know Me by Now," has died.

Wilson, 64, died early Sunday at Kresson View Center in Voorhees, N.J., following a stroke and a heart attack, his cousin, Faith Peace-Mazzccua, said Monday.

Philadelphia International Records, the former record company for Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, said Wilson's death leaves Lloyd Parks as the sole surviving member of the group. The lineup also featured Teddy Pendergrass and Lawrence Brown.

The group produced a string of R&B hits in the '70s and helped define the Sound of Philadelphia.

"If You Don't Know Me by Now" topped the R&B charts and made the top five on the pop charts. The hits that followed included "I Miss You," "Bad Luck," "Wake up Everybody," and the dance track "The Love I Lost," which has been credited as one of the first disco records, according to an All Music Guide biography on the Billboard website.

"He left home at 16 as a pauper and came back home a millionaire," Peace-Mazzccua told The Associated Press.

She said her cousin kept performing until a few years ago and hoped to return and sing gospel music.

"Bernard was a very funny person. He should have been a comedian," she said. "He didn't take no stuff and he loved people."

Funeral arrangements were pending Monday.

December 27, 2010

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Bernie Wilson, baritone member of the rhythm and blues group that produced the 1972 hit "If You Don't Know Me by Now," has died.

Baritone from Harold Melvin & Blue Notes dies

TEXT SIZE

The Associated Press

Bernie Wilson, baritone member of the rhythm and blues group that produced the 1972 hit "If You Don't Know Me by Now," has died.

Wilson, 64, died early Sunday at Kresson View Center in Voorhees, N.J., following a stroke and a heart attack, his cousin, Faith Peace-Mazzccua, said Monday.

Philadelphia International Records, the former record company for Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, said Wilson's death leaves Lloyd Parks as the sole surviving member of the group. The lineup also featured Teddy Pendergrass and Lawrence Brown.

The group produced a string of R&B hits in the '70s and helped define the Sound of Philadelphia.

"If You Don't Know Me by Now" topped the R&B charts and made the top five on the pop charts. The hits that followed included "I Miss You," "Bad Luck," "Wake up Everybody," and the dance track "The Love I Lost," which has been credited as one of the first disco records, according to an All Music Guide biography on the Billboard website.

"He left home at 16 as a pauper and came back home a millionaire," Peace-Mazzccua told The Associated Press.

She said her cousin kept performing until a few years ago and hoped to return and sing gospel music.

"Bernard was a very funny person. He should have been a comedian," she said. "He didn't take no stuff and he loved people."

Funeral arrangements were pending Monday.

African-American News - December 26, 2010

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African-American News - December 26, 2010

The Mankato area by the numbers: a preliminary estimate (The Mankato Free Press)

Household income in the region varies widely based on race, marital status and gender.

Meeks: There should be one black mayoral candidate (WETM-TV Elmira)

Senator James Meeks attends the Projectnext Golf Classic hosted by the Chicago Urban League at Flossmoor Country Club on July 27, 2009 in Chicago, Illinois.

New Census Data: Blacks Leaving Large Cities (eurweb)

*More and more it seems that the big city is just not making it anymore as far as African Americans are concerned and are either moving out or not moving in. This could affect African-American political power according to data from the first results of the U.S. Census Bureau's population census.

Black Harvard Doctor Pens Memoir Of Jim Crow South (WDBZ-AM Cincinnati)

A black Harvard surgeon who grew up in segregated Memphis during Jim Crow is set to release a book about his life and his call to end health care disparities.

How Do You Deal With Racist Relatives Over The Holidays? Ctd (The Atlantic)

As an African-American, I understand the reluctance of rational, "judge by the content of their character" white people to challenge their racist relatives during the holidays, especially the ones that are bona-fide white supremacists .

Teaching Eunice kids Kwanzaa's cultural meaning (Zachary Plainsman News)

By J. Anfenson-Comeau jcomeau@eunicetoday.com Retired schoolteacher Ardessie Francois is still teaching; this month shea s helping to teach children about the history and traditions associated with the seven-day Kwanzaa holiday.

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Lawyers Report on Lawsuits Against Cathleen Black, David Steiner & Mayor Bloomberg

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C/o Sistas' Place

456 Nostrand Avenue

Brooklyn, NY11216

Phone (718) 398-1766 Fax (718) 623-1855

 

PRESS ADVISORY

For Immediate Release

Contact: Media Relations (917) 495-6979

Lawyers Report on Lawsuits

Against Cathleen Black, David Steiner & Mayor Bloomberg

PRESS CONFERENCE

Friday, December 24, 2010 at 12 Noon

Tweed Bldg / Dept of Education, 52 Chambers St., Downtown NYC

Three lawsuits were filed and argued against Mayor Bloomberg's selection of Cathleen Black as NYC public schools Education Chancellor. The oral arguments were conducted in front of Judge Gerald W. Connelly in the NYS Supreme Court in Albany on Thursday, December 23.

 

Lawyers representing the petitioners will hold a press conference on Friday, December 24, 2010 at 12 noon in front of the Tweed Bldg / Department of Education, 52 Chambers St., Downtown NYC. Freedom Party legal team includes Roger Wareham, Esq., Ramon Jimenez, Esq., and Kalfahni Nkrumah, Esq.; independent parent Eric Snyder, Esq,; and ACLU team Norman Siegel., Esq., and Herbert Titelbaum, Esq.

 

Ignoring established laws of procedure, Mayor Bloomberg pushed his selection of Ms. Black, the unqualified, former publishing corporate exec, to lead the education of over one million NYC school children. NYS Education Commissioner David Steiner secured her position. All are listed as respondents in the civil case. 

 

#30#

 

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Navy Considers Medal, 65 Years After a Heroic Act - NYTimes.com

Navy Considers Medal, 65 Years After a Heroic Act
By SCOTT JAMES

Scott James writes a column for The Bay Citizen.

Enlarge This Image

Adithya Sambamurthy/The Bay Citizen

Carl E. Clark in his home in Menlo Park.

Carl E. Clark, 94, served in World War II to defend America, not to win glory.

“We just figured it was a war that had to be won,” said Mr. Clark, who lives in Menlo Park.

Now the veteran, a remarkably modest man with a commanding presence, unexpectedly finds himself under consideration to receive the nation’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor.

It is an effort, 65 years after the fact, to repair history. Mr. Clark is one of an estimated one million black World War II veterans whose accomplishments were routinely ignored by the military.

Mr. Clark’s valor might never have been recognized, if not for an encounter with a community college teacher.

On May 3, 1945, the destroyer U.S.S. Aaron Ward was on “picket duty” to warn the fleet in Okinawa of impending Japanese attacks. At sunset, a kamikaze plane hit the deck in an explosion of fire. Five more planes followed in the next 51 minutes, killing dozens.

Yet the ship did not sink. As the planes struck, Mr. Clark, despite a broken collarbone, raced into the mayhem and manned a fire hose, one so powerful it usually took four men to control it, to douse flames headed for an ammunition locker, which would have exploded and split the ship.

Mr. Clark was a steward in a racially segregated Navy. His job was to serve, clean and shine shoes — and endure daily slurs from white enlisted men and officers. That he saved those same lives was omitted from the battle report, while white shipmates received the Bronze Star.

“If you put in your battle report that a black man saved the ship, that would be pretty embarrassing,” Mr. Clark said.

To provide for his family, he stayed in the Navy as it integrated, serving for 22 years and rising to the rank of chief petty officer. Racism still ran deep — on his final day, in 1958, a white clerk called him “boy.” Mr. Clark’s deeds on the Aaron Ward would remain unrecorded.

Then in 1999, Sheila Dunec, an instructor at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, invited local retirees to share their wartime memories for an oral history project and videos. In search of more diversity, Ms. Dunec reached out to the local black community, which led her to Mr. Clark.

“When you hear his story, you say this is not our country living up to our ideal,” Ms. Dunec said.

Mr. Clark’s story was featured in this column last year after a public screening of Ms. Dunec’s video. When the ship’s only known surviving officer, Lefteris (Lefty) Lavrakas, a lieutenant who managed the deck guns, now 91, was located for the article, he said, “You go get justice for Carl.”

The remark set in motion efforts to give Mr. Clark his due.

Representative Anna G. Eshoo, a Democrat who is Mr. Clark’s congresswoman, obtained a Congressional decree honoring him, and then began lobbying the Navy for a medal.

Last month Ms. Eshoo’s efforts took a significant step forward when Mr. Lavrakas asked that Mr. Clark “be bestowed the highest military honors,” specifically, “the Medal of Honor and the Silver Star.”

The statement Mr. Lavrakas filed with the Navy said, “Alone, Carl aimed the hose at the smoldering ammunition locker.” The ship stayed afloat. “Carl Clark is the reason why.”

Citing policy, the Navy declined to comment, but documents obtained by The Bay Citizen confirm that an investigation is under way.

The process for awarding the medal is secretive with a statute of limitations of two to five years after battle so that forensics and witnesses can corroborate events, said Dwight Jon Zimmerman, co-author of “Uncommon Valor: The Medal of Honor and the Six Warriors Who Earned It in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

But in cases involving racism, exceptions have been made, Mr. Zimmerman said. In 2000, for example, Medals of Honor were awarded to Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii, and 19 fellow Japanese-American soldiers whose World War II heroics were ignored due to discrimination.

Mr. Zimmerman said that Mr. Clark could receive a decoration other than the Medal of Honor, which is rarely awarded, and that the process could take years.

Considering the advanced ages of those involved, Ms. Eshoo recently petitioned the Navy to speed its inquiry. “We could very well run out of time,” she wrote.

Mr. Clark said he did not believe in bravery. Surrounded by so much killing that night in 1945, “you lose respect for death,” he said to explain why he ran toward the carnage. “I was just out there putting out the damn fire.”

As for receiving a medal, “if something could happen where I could represent all these guys,” he said, referring to his fellow black sailors, “that would make me feel good.”

Scott James is an Emmy-winning television journalist and novelist who lives in San Francisco.
sjames@baycitizen.org

Navy Considers Medal, 65 Years After a Heroic Act - NYTimes.com.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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Mark Bradford Exhibition in Boston - Review - NYTimes.com

Tracking Racial Identity, But Not Defined by It
By HOLLAND COTTER

BOSTON — A spin of the marketing wheel has brought abstract painting back into the spotlight, and much of the new stuff turns out to be rewrapped old stuff. At the same time there are enough artists seriously rethinking existing models that very basic definitions — What does abstract mean? What qualifies as painting? — are in flux. Mark Bradford, a 49-year-old Californian, is one of these rethinkers, and a lean, bright 10-year survey of his work at the Institute of Contemporary Art here gives a sense of what he’s been up to.

Mr. Bradford first gained national attention in 2001 in “Freestyle,” the self-designated “post-black,” new-talent survey at the Studio Museum in Harlem. He was one of the oldest people in the show, but his art looked fresh, and it came with an intriguing history. He had a graduate degree from the California Institute of the Arts, known for its theory-intensive curriculum. But he supported himself as a stylist in his mother’s beauty salon in South Central Los Angeles and used hairdressing supplies — curling paper, gels — in his art, the large abstract collages that he called paintings.

One of the pictures that was in the Studio Museum show, “Enter and Exit the New Negro,” opens this retrospective. With its all-over linear grid and monochromatic silver-gray tone, it immediately brings to mind Agnes Martin’s graphite-line-and-wash paintings. But Mr. Bradford used neither paint nor drawing to make it. Instead he composed a grid from many small sheets of translucent, dark-edged paper arranged in rows on canvas. The paper is the kind used to wrap strands of hair for perms.

He bought it in bulk and lightly singed stacks of it with a blowtorch to get the dark edges, which form the grid lines. He then glued the sheets in place with gel, occasionally pausing to digitally photograph the grid-in-progress. He printed the photos and glued them to the canvas too, to create an effect of deep layering.

The title he chose added yet another unorthodox layer in the form of political content. In 1925 the African-American philosopher Alain Locke, a shaper of the Harlem Renaissance, told black artists to advance themselves by adopting modernist forms that would move them beyond racial stereotypes. Mr. Bradford’s art takes Locke’s idea and flips it around by creating modernist abstraction from everyday materials of black culture.

Soon afterward, in search of more painterly effects, Mr. Bradford began to experiment with color. For a 2002 picture, “Strawberry,” he scavenged advertising posters, most of them printed in Day-Glo orange and yellow, from the poor, crime-plagued neighborhood around his mother’s shop. He cut the posters into scraps, glued them down, and laid the translucent papers on top, so the colors showed from behind. The paintings radiated a kind of ethereal warmth even though everything about them was straight from the city street, including the title. Strawberry is slang for a female crack addict who supports her habit through prostitution.

Mr. Bradford’s art is of and about cities, the main one being Los Angeles, where he grew up black and gay in an era dominated by hip-hop, identity politics and AIDS. He lived in South Central until he was 11, then in a largely white neighborhood, and finally returned to where he started from, and stayed. After his mother retired, he turned the beauty salon into the studio that he still uses.

Los Angeles appears in his art primarily in the form of the quick-and-dirty printed posters that he routinely harvests in South Central. Most are ads for credit cleanup businesses, or DNA testing to establish paternity, or other services directly geared to social and economic realities of a particular place and time. Long after he stopped using the perm end papers, he continued to cover his surfaces with cut, torn and shredded poster paper, each scrap the equivalent of a paint stroke.

In a large piece called “Scorched Earth” hundreds of tiny cut-up papers are carefully lined side by side to suggest the buildings or blocks of a city seen in aerial view. Much of the center of the city, however, is bare of such structures, and ash black as if smoldering. And, in an addition rare for this artist, the top third of the piece, representing the sky, is covered with paint, fiery red.

Mr. Bradford made “Scorched Earth” in 2006 as a response to the American war in Iraq. But the precise reference he had in mind was to another war, one that had occurred almost a century earlier, in 1921, on United States turf, when mobs of white men torched an African-American neighborhood in Tulsa, Okla., after rumors spread of an assault on a white woman. Technically “Scorched Earth” is abstract. Nothing in it actually identifies a historical event, but everything speaks of cities, violence and fire.

Several other pieces in this show were inspired by a more recent urban catastrophe, the devastation of New Orleans by natural disaster and governmental neglect. In 2008 Mr. Bradford spent time there working on a temporary public sculpture — an ark built from scrap materials in the flood-flattened Lower Ninth Ward — commissioned for the city’s new contemporary-art biennial, Prospect 1.

The only evidence of the sculpture in the retrospective comes in the video “Across Canal,” which documents its construction. But the sight of what amounted to an immense three-dimensional collage being fitted and hammered together gives a sense of how labor intensive Mr. Bradford’s art is, and how formally versatile his career has been.

The retrospective has several modest-size sculptures that tend to be fairly literal in their political allusions. Race is the unmistakable subject of “Crow,” and “Kobe I Got Your Back” plays with codes of masculinity. It consists of a basketball covered in black papier-mâché in which a string is embedded in what looks like a fissure, as if the ball were about to split open.

By far the strongest and wittiest of the nonpainting works, though, is the 2005 video “Niagara.” It’s based on a single famous sequence in the 1953 film of that name, the long-held shot of Marilyn Monroe walking into the distance as the camera focuses on her undulating posterior. Mr. Bradford’s Marilyn equivalent is a South Central neighbor, Melvin, who, wearing marigold-colored shorts, walks away from the camera and down the street with a wild, hip-swinging strut. In a departure from the 1953 model, however, Melvin’s body is pressed up against the camera when the sequence starts. And he is filmed in slow motion, which transforms his strut into a sensuous sashay.

But it is painting — or Mr. Bradford’s collagist’s version of it — with all the touching, shaping and editing that clearly engages him most fully. And he does not stand still with it. The most recent pieces, dated to this year, are both some of his densest and his most reductive. Made from multiple layers of inked, bleached and sanded newsprint, they have no apparent narrative subtext; they seem to be entirely about the material allure of their surfaces, alternately bumpy with raised relief and as smooth as watered silk.

Of course “pure” abstraction carries narratives of its own, about making choices and why, as Mr. Bradford is fully aware. If one had to point to bodies of historical painting with which his art is closely aligned, African-American abstraction of the 1960s and ’70s would certainly be one. I’m thinking of Alma Thomas’s pictures composed of blocks of color and infused with references to both dressmaking and urban life, and of the sewn, pieced and stained painting-sculpture hybrids of Al Loving, Sam Gilliam and Joe Overstreet, with sources in tailoring and quilting.

I’m thinking of the ways these painters and others, who wanted to avoid being trapped in didacticism — political, ethnic or formal — managed to incorporate their lives and histories into abstraction, often in symbolic ways. Jack Whitten used an Afro comb to texture his surfaces; Ed Clark pushed paint around with a broom; William T. Williams accompanied a solo show of abstract paintings with a jazz soundtrack.

In the 1960s cultural identity and abstract painting were still widely viewed as irreconcilable. As a result many of those abstract artists were insufficiently honored. Today such categorical barriers have pretty much evaporated. Mr. Bradford’s retrospective — originally organized by Christopher Bedford for Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, and coordinated in Boston by Helen Molesworth, chief curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art — is an eloquent demonstration of that.

It is also an instructive example of what “post-black” art means: art that can choose to refer to racial identity — or to class, or gender, or aestheticism, or daily life — or choose not to. Mr. Bradford has opted to tackle the full spectrum of subjects, which is what makes his abstraction feel deep. And he does so to stay on the move, trying this, trying that, hands on, hands off, which keeps his art light and fleet.

Mark Bradford Exhibition in Boston - Review - NYTimes.com.

Fw: Breaking News: Black Father Jailed in Slaying of White Teen Released Early

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Breaking News: Black Father Jailed in Slaying of White Teen Released Early A man convicted of fatally shooting a teenager outside his Long Island home in what became a racially charged case was released from prison Thursday after Gov. David A. Paterson commuted his sentence. Complete details from NBC New York: http://click1.nbclocal.com/ivmprdvyhbtwfyfvwbnrywzyqqwrtbkhmfbkbmydgbdzzg_alykmtpdpsh.html

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Cop Kicked Out Of Brooklyn After Ticketing Jaywalking Rabbi

The unidentified NYPD police officer that slapped Rabbi Sholom Emert with a jaywalking ticket on Shabbos has now been transferred to a less Jewish Orthodox community, reports the Flatbush Scoop. The ticket was handed over in the Midwood section of Brooklyn on November 26th, and Emert said the officer was rude when he busted him. Specifically, he made him write his own name down-thus forcing him to violate Jewish law on the Sabbath, lest he end up in the station.

According to the Daily News, the officer has been transferred to the 25th Precinct in East Harlem. Brooklyn Councilman David Greenfield, who was calling for the officer's suspension, says, "There was no reason to force this observant Jew to violate the Sabbath by forcing him to write."

Millions of Glucose Test Strips Recalled

FLAVOR00-NONE-0000-0000-000000000000 0.000000 ; Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Millions of Glucose
Test Strips Recalled
Abbott Laboratories is recalling up to 359 million blood sugar (glucose) testing
Strips. Sold under six different brand names, the strips are considered a safety
Risk because they can give false low blood sugar readings.

•  Find Out Which Brands Are Part of the Recall

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Police Tactics in New York City Housing Are Criticized - NYTimes.com

Judge Criticizes Stop-and-Frisk Police Tactics in Housing Projects
By AL BAKER and JANET ROBERTS

A Manhattan judge criticized the policing tactics in New York City Housing Authority developments, ruling on Tuesday that officers appeared to be routinely flouting the law by questioning people without legal justification.

The decision by acting Supreme Court Justice Analisa J. Torres barred the admission of 29 plastic bags of cocaine that the police seized last February from Jose Ventura in the lobby of the Baruch Houses on the Lower East Side.

More broadly, the court action renewed a debate about the policing tactics in public housing, including the use of “stop, question and frisk” and vertical patrols. Officers use violations of Housing Authority rules — which forbid people from being in city housing projects unless they live there or are visiting someone — to justify the stops.

In her ruling, Justice Torres cited the testimony by Police Officer Jason Del Toro, who said the police could simply question anyone they encountered inside a public housing building. The judge wrote that officers had to have a legally meaningful reason for the stop, such as the site being drug- prone.

“To the extent that Del Toro’s description of vertical patrols is accurate, that in public housing the police routinely engage in random, unjustified questioning — and there is evidence that they do — the practice would amount to a systematic violation” of the court decision that spells out the legal basis for stops and questioning, Justice Torres wrote.

Police Tactics in New York City Housing Are Criticized - NYTimes.com.

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Season's Greetings!

The holidays are in full swing here at the Almanac. We hope that you are enjoying this festive time as well!

December 25—Christmas Day
Christmas Day is a Christian holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ. Although the actual date of Christ's birth is unknown, it has been celebrated on December 25 since the 4th century. Today's rich mosaic of Christmas customs dates back through the ages. Read more about Christmas Day.

December 26—Boxing Day
This holiday derives from the Old English custom of giving Christmas "boxes" of gifts to tradesmen. Where celebrated (such as in Canada), Boxing Day is welcomed as a quiet day of recuperation from the season's festivities. Read more about Boxing Day.

December 26—Start of Kwanzaa
From December 26 through January 1, Kwanzaa is observed worldwide by those of African descent. Each day centers on one of seven principles: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith.

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Stop and Frisk? No, Stop 'n' Swap - NYTimes.com

City Room - Blogging From the Five Boroughs

December 22, 2010Stop and Frisk?

 No, Stop ‘n’ Swap

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

For New Yorkers whose New Year’s resolutions include getting organized or cleaning out their closets, the nonprofit group GrowNYC, which promotes recycling in the city, has scheduled “stop ’n’ swap” events in all five boroughs starting Jan. 8. The swaps are scheduled on Staten Island on Jan. 8, in Manhattan on Jan. 22, in the Bronx on Feb. 5, in Queens on Feb. 12 and in Brooklyn on Feb. 26. You can read about it from our colleagues at the Green blog.

Stop and Frisk? No, Stop 'n' Swap - NYTimes.com.

New Focus in Sex-Assault Cases

• By SEAN GARDINER

A committee chosen by Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly to study how his department handles sex offenses has made six recommendations aimed at decreasing the number of misclassified complaints and increasing officer sensitivity when dealing with victims.

The committee, called the Sex Crimes Working Group, was convened in April after sex-crime victim advocate groups and rape counselors said they believed many rape and sexual-assault complaints were being classified as lesser crimes or reports weren't being taken at all.

Harriet Lessel, executive director of the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault, said her organization, an advocacy group for rape-crisis programs, had reached out to Mr. Kelly. She said rape-crisis programs were concerned that anecdotal evidence they collected suggested some sexual-assault reports weren't being taken, especially by patrol officers.

"We found that people, in all five boroughs, were having a hard time reporting sexual assaults," she said.

Paul Browne, the NYPD's spokesman, said that over the past nine months the NYPD has conducted an audit of 1,922 sex-crime cases. Of those, police found the charges in 19 cases were misclassified and needed to be corrected, he said.

Mr. Browne said Mr. Kelly has "accepted all of the recommendations and is moving forward in coming weeks with expanded training and the assignment of the additional detectives to Special Victims."

According to a copy of the committee's report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the committee recommended that all sexual-assault complaints be assigned to Special Victims Division (SVD) detectives who are specially trained in sex-crime investigations. Currently, sexual-assault complaints are also handled by patrol officers.

The committee members believe the change will lead to a decrease in the number of sex-crime misclassifications, the recommendations state.

The committee also suggested having SVD investigators respond to interview victims being treated in hospitals. Currently, patrol officers respond to hospital sex-crime victim calls. The committee found that prosecutors, medical professionals and victim advocates have complained that patrol officers often fail to demonstrate the proper sensitivity when dealing with sex-crime complainants.

To do this, the SVD will have to add more investigators. Mr. Browne said the number of new detectives moved into the sex-crimes unit will number in the dozens.

The committee also recommended increasing cooperation with prosecutors, reorganizing the staffing of the SVD, enhancing officer training for all SVD investigators and NYPD officers and having Mr. Kelly meet regularly with victims' advocates groups for feedback on the department's efforts.

"I think those are really pretty basic and are all obviously good answers," Ms. Lessel said of the committee's recommendations.

The committee includes four police officials and Denise O'Donnell, who quit her cabinet post in February as the New York State Deputy Secretary for Public Safety in protest, saying that Gov. David Paterson's involvement in a domestic-violence case involving one of his aides was unacceptable. Earlier this month, Ms. O'Donnell was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as the director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

In 2009, rape complaints in the city dipped to a modern-day low of 1,206. This year the city is on target for a 16% increase, to about 1,400 reported rapes. It would be the first increase in rapes since Mr. Kelly became police commissioner, for the second time, in 2002.

Write to Sean Gardiner at sean.gardiner@wsj.com

STUDIO MUSEUM HARLEM

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Holiday Gift Guide
Find the perfect present at the Museum Store!

Need to do some last-minute holiday shopping? Head uptown to the Museum Store to find the perfect gift for everyone on your list!

The Store is open Wednesday, 12/22 from 12—6pm and Thursday, 12/23 from 12—9pm. The Museum, Museum Store, and Atrium Cafe will be closed 12/24 and 12/25.

Visit Studio Blog for the full gift guide. Museum Memberships also make a great gift, starting at only $25!

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TARGET FREE SUNDAYS: KWANZAA CELEBRATION

Sunday, December 26, 2010, 12—6 PM

Photo: Ray A. Llanos

Join us for an all-day Kwanzaa celebration filled with festive art-making activities, film screenings and more--all free of charge!

12—4 PM
Studio View Film Screening: Black Candle
Narrated by world-renowned poet Maya Angelou, The Black Candle (2008), is a landmark, award-winning documentary that explores the African-American experience through Kwanzaa. The film is an extraordinary, inspirational story about the struggle and triumph of the African-American family, community, and culture. Filmed across the United States, Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean, The Black Candle is more than a film about a holiday; it's a celebration of a people!

1—5 PM
HandsOn: Kuumba Crafting with Buttons
Use markers and crayons to let your Kuumba (creativity) show while designing your own Kwanzaa-themed buttons! Kuumba is the sixth principle of Kwanzaa.

2—3 PM
Story Arts: Storytelling with Lady Nyota
Experience the lively tales of Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and friends with storyteller extraordinaire, Lady Nyota. Steeped in the African oral tradition, Lady Nyota will use song, musical instruments, puppetry, and rhyme to share tales of how these and other animals used the seven principles of Kwanzaa in stories full of fun, mischief, and magic.

4—5 PM
Harambee!
Join noted scholars Maitefa Angaza and Will Halsey for an interactive and informative presentation celebrating the holiday of Kwanzaa. Focusing on the day's principle of Umoja (Unity), the presentation will give a brief overview of the history of Kwanzaa and will conclude with a libation and Mishuma (candle) lighting ceremony that all families will be sure to enjoy!

Visit studiomuseum.org/event-calendar for complete event listings

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Jellyroll Morton

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My neighbor Matt Chauvin has created

A video site all about 20s jazz.

I have to admit, I didn't get it at first.

Now that I'm getting the videos, it's

Really opened up my ears.

Great stuff!

Check this one out from Jellyroll Morton.

Video:

http://www.20sjazz.com/page/819.html

- Lester Perkins

Jazz on the Tube

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African-American News - December 22, 2010

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African-American News - December 22, 2010

African-American News a " December 21, 2010 (All Bronx News, All the Time!)

African-American News - December 21, 2010 Tuesday,December 21, 2010 African-American News - December 21, 2010 Quitting menthol cigarettes may be harder for some smokers Menthol cigarettes may be harder to quit, particularly for some teens and African-Americans, who have the highest menthol cigarette use, according to a study by a team of ...

NAACP to Protest Secession Ball (Free Republic)

Members of South Carolina's NAACP will march in protest of a 'secession ball' in Charleston later this month which will commemorate the 150th anniversary of South Carolina's secession from the Union.

American Gets Nearly 20 Years For Sexually Abusing Haitian Boys (CNN)

(CNN) -- An American school founder who young Haitian men once hailed as a savior was sentenced Tuesday to nearly 20 years in prison for sexually abusing them. Douglas Perlitz, 40, was sentenced in federal court in New Haven, Connecticut, to about 19 years and 7 months behind bars for abusing the Haitian men when they were boys under his care, said Bruce Foucart, special agent in charge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston. "We're very pleased with the sentence," he said. "He was brought to justice and I hope it sends a strong message to people who are doing that or who are even thinking about doing that." Perlitz arrived in the northern Haitian city of Cap-Haitien in 1997. There, he opened a charitable school called the Project Pierre Toussiant (PPT). He got homeless boys off the streets and gave them shelter, food and education.

2010 census results give Texas four additional seats in Congress (Dallas Morning News)

Torrid growth over the last decade has earned Texas four additional seats in Congress - the state's biggest leap in political clout in a century, far outstripping any other state.

Stop Defending R. Kelly (womanist-musings)

Black women are continually accused of being angry and unreasonable, when we speak out against the harmful actions of abusive, violent, rapist, Black male celebrities. The fact that some find Kelly's music pleasant to listen to, should in no way invalidate the fact that he has a history of abuse. (Yes, I remember his so-called marriage to a teen-aged Aaliyah) In the spam que, which contains comments I refuse to publish, on the various R. Kelly posts, there are a multitude of comments asking me to seek Jesus and to turn the other cheek. Only God has the right to judge I'm told, which makes me wonder why we have a judicial system in the first place. God did not create Black women to be abused by Black men because they can sing, act, or box. Everytime a Black woman allegeds wrong doing against a Black male celebrity, she was asking for it in some way, she was acting grown or she is nothing but a gold digger. It seems that once one achieves a level of fame, rape and violence are deemed an impossiblity. It is victim blaming at it's finest and it has to stop.

Black history group coming to Clarksville (The Leaf Chronicle)

To educate the community, inspire youth and to commemorate Black History Month and the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the Mount Olive Cemetery Historical Preservation Society will bring the group "Female Re-Enactors of Distinction" to Clarksville in early February.

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Stop Defending R. Kelly - Topix

Stop Defending R. Kelly

Full story: www.womanist-musings.com

Black women are continually accused of being angry and unreasonable, when we speak out against the harmful actions of abusive, violent, rapist, Black male celebrities. The fact that some find Kelly's music pleasant to listen to, should in no way invalidate the fact that he has a history of abuse. (Yes, I remember his so-called marriage to a teen-aged Aaliyah)

In the spam que, which contains comments I refuse to publish, on the various R. Kelly posts, there are a multitude of comments asking me to seek Jesus and to turn the other cheek. Only God has the right to judge I'm told, which makes me wonder why we have a judicial system in the first place. God did not create Black women to be abused by Black men because they can sing, act, or box. Everytime a Black woman allegeds wrong doing against a Black male celebrity, she was asking for it in some way, she was acting grown or she is nothing but a gold digger. It seems that once one achieves a level of fame, rape and violence are deemed an impossiblity. It is victim blaming at it's finest and it has to stop.

Stop Defending R. Kelly - Topix.

African-American News - December 21, 2010

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African-American News - December 21, 2010

Quitting menthol cigarettes may be harder for some smokers (Penn State Live)

Menthol cigarettes may be harder to quit, particularly for some teens and African-Americans, who have the highest menthol cigarette use, according to a study by a team of researchers.

More mothers behind bars in US Watch (BBC)

This year more kids than ever before will have a parent behind bars and African Americans are feeling the greatest brunt.

Haley Barbour accused of praising 'racist organisation' (Telegraph.co.UK)

In an interview about his early days in the state's Yazoo City, Mr Barbour praised a group called the Citizens Council, which historians say was pro-segregation. When asked about the civil rights era as a whole in his area, he said: "I just don't remember it as being that bad." Mr Barbour told The Weekly Standard that, where he was, the Citizens ...

Civil rights groups seek review of Texas schools (Ventura County Star)

Two civil rights organizations are seeking a federal review of public school education in Texas, accusing state school administrators of violating federal civil rights laws after curriculum changes approved earlier this year by the Texas Board of Education.

"Secession Ball" in Charleston commemorates Civil War, stirs protest by civil rights group (WTVM Columbus)

Exactly 150 years after South Carolina became the first state to leave the United States, a group whose purpose is to preserve Confederate history is holding a dance in Charleston.

West Haven Muslim Seminary Student Featured in New PBS Documentary (Fairfield Weekly)

Bilal Ansari was raised in West Haven by a Christian mother and Muslim father. He's one of seven subjects in the PBS documentary The Calling.

Partisan redistricting fight likely (Hattiesburg American)

The decennial task of redrawing the districts from which Mississippi legislators are elected has produced some of the state's most protracted political dramas.

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Bishop Eddie Long's Church Linked to Alleged Financial Fraud

Bishop Eddie Long's Church Linked to Alleged Financial Fraud

Filed under: News, Politics

Bishop Eddie Long is in the media again, and not for good reason. Long and another Atlanta megachurch pastor, Gary Hawkins, have been linked to a mortgage company that is being investigated by federal authorities for allegedly stealing money from church members.

The company, Matrix Capital, has been allowed to hold financial seminars in the churches of both men, offering to help lower their mortgages in exchange for $1,500 payments. According to police, thousands of people paid money to Matrix, but ended up filing bankruptcy and/or losing their homes.

Fred Lee, the proclaimed front man for the company, was allegedly able to convince quite a few church members to give him their money primarily because he addressed them within the confines of their joint church environment. The Secret Service and the DeKaulb County Police are now investigating Lee.

In defense of Eddie Long, the church says that all his church did was provide a room for Lee to hold his seminars. Gary Hawkins was much more involved in supporting and promoting Lee by appearing on one of his videos vouching for his credibility and integrity.

"I believe that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this man walks in great integrity," he said in a company video.

One of the church members told CBS Atlanta that it was the pastor's endorsement which led her to trust Lee with her money. The woman claims she paid the money and later found out that she was in trouble with her mortgage because Matrix had allegedly never even made a phone call to the bank. She also claimed that Hawkins wouldn't answer her questions when she went to him about her problem.

When it comes to this particular financial scheme a few thoughts come to mind. First, there is no evidence that Eddie Long promoted Matrix Capital or Fred Lee, so he should not necessarily be accused of swindling anyone. At the very least, however, he is learning a valuable lesson about properly vetting anyone making financial arrangements with people who trust him. It is clear that if Lee was involved in any kind of scam, he was able to take advantage of the trust induced by the deep relationship that members of the congregation had with their respective pastors.

Secondly, this incident serves as yet another lesson regarding how African Americans and our churches evolve as it pertains to complex financial relationships. I am willing to bet that someone came in and offered money to gain access to the pastors' congregations, similar to the way Wells Fargo offered money to Tavis Smiley and black church leaders to allegedly sell predatory loans to members of urban communities. When we take money from anyone offering it, we find ourselves in the middle of some peculiar situations that can lead to very bad outcomes. But our hunger for resources in the black community becomes an incredibly unhealthy habit in a nation that is addicted to mass consumption. Black folks have to be more intelligent than that, and realize that money should be a tool for your liberation, not a pathway to spiritual demise.

The final lesson to be learned from this debacle (which happens in churches all throughout America) is the importance of making careful decisions and not putting too much trust in anyone, even our spiritual leaders. While it is tempting to presume that you should put your financial livelihood into the hands of the man or woman who runs your church, the reality is that far too many pastors allow their lust for money to overwhelm their desire to protect you or your family. So, thinking for yourself is critical, for there will always be financial predators seeking to take advantage of people during desperate times like these.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the Athlete Liberation and Academic Reform Movement (ALARM). To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.