Youngster sold pot brownies for $3 a piece

Junior high student brings 'magic' marijuana-laced brownies to school bake sale

Youngster sold pot brownies for $3 a piece

BY BEN CHAPMAN AND CLARE TRAPASSO / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Saturday, February 4, 2012, 3:03 AM

TANYA BRAGANTI FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

A student at IS 208 in Bellerose, Queens, allegedly sold pot brownies to her schoolmates.

SCHOOLS.NYC.GOV

Exterior of PS/IS 208 on Commonwealth Blvd.

A Queens public school went to pot last week when an eighth-grader sold her classmates marijuana-laced brownies, the Daily News has learned.

Twenty students at Intermediate School 208 in Bellerose were caught munching on the psychedelic treats that a girl peddled out of her backpack, officials confirmed.

The youngsters scooped them up for $3 each — or two for $5 — in the cafeteria during lunch on Thursday and Friday, said a parent of one of the kids, who estimated the baked baker raked in about $250.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/jr-high-school-daze-article-1.1017024#ixzz1lQK6uWe2

Stuyvesant High School Grads Sick 10 Years After 9/11

Stuyvesant High School Grads Sick 10 Years After 9/11

September 8, 2011 6:30am | By Julie Shapiro, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

SEE MORE PHOTOS

BATTERY PARK CITY — When Stuyvesant High School's 3,000 students returned to their Battery Park City classrooms on Oct. 9, 2001, they thought the worst was over.

Less than a month earlier, the 14-to-18-year-olds had fled their school, some in tears and some numbly silent, as the World Trade Center collapsed just three blocks behind them.

The students at one of the city's most selective high schools were ready to get back to their routine of coursework and college applications, and ready to reassemble the pieces of their pre-9/11 academic and social lives.

But from their first breath of smoky, dusty air they took as they emerged from the subway that October morning, many of the students feared that they had returned to lower Manhattan too soon.

"We could see the fire burning [at Ground Zero] on our way to school," said Lila Nordstrom, who was a senior on 9/11.

"It was very clear it was not safe."

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20110908/downtown/stuyvesant-high-school-students-sick-10-years-after-911?utm_content=blackcotton212%40gmail.com&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=Stuyvesant%20High%20School%20Students%20Sick%2010%20Years%20After%209%2F11&utm_campaign=Stuyvesant%20High%20School%20Students%20Sick%2010%20Years%20After%209%2F11content#ixzz1XUKtGB51

Black App! African-American Kid’s E-Book Links Culture & Character

 

The African-American presence in the technology space has been enhanced with the recent release of the first digital storybook for kids, “A Song for Miles.” Written by Dr. Tiffany S. Russell, “A Song for Miles” uses black musical history to teach children important life lessons. Launched to coincide with the start of Black Music Month, “A Song for Miles” was conceived and produced by a 100% African-American team. Here’s more:

A Song for Miles by Dr. Tiffany S. Russell takes children on a colorful and interactive musical journey. Through the lyrics of soul songs by artists like Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind, and Fire and Marvin Gaye, children learn the meaning of determination, kindness, and love. The digital book nurtures children’s inquisitive nature and love of music and sounds, all while teaching valuable lessons and the importance of having good character.

A Song for Miles links with a school-based character education curriculum. The story creatively aligns with character traits such as initiative, compassion, civility, respect, empathy, responsibility, and perseverance. Character development is an integral part of raising respectful and happy children and A Song for Miles appeals to parents as it creates a platform for values discussions. Children enjoy the colorful pages while parents and music lovers appreciate the musical content and paying tribute to their favorite soul music artists. [...]

A Song for Miles represents a watershed moment in “new media.” It is the first digital storybook on the AppStore that was written (Dr. Russell), illustrated (Raheli Scarborough), scored (c’beyohn), narrated (Jamal Ahmad), and developed (Diverse Mobile) by African Americans.

Will you be picking up a copy of “A Song For Miles” to share with the young people in your life? As we delve further and further into the 21st century, we need our cultural creators to make media that preserve our traditions while teaching them to the following generation. I salute Dr. Tiffany S. Russell and her team for successfully doing both.  Now go out and support!

Read more on BlackNews.com.

Black App! African-American Kid’s E-Book Links Culture & Character
Alexis Garrett Stodghill
Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:54:38 GMT

Politicians Push for African Burial Ground Museum in Lower Manhattan

Politicians Push for African Burial Ground Museum in Lower Manhattan

February 21, 2011

US Rep. Jerrold Nadler wants a memorial museum and education center so the graves are not forgotten.

The African Burial Ground on Duane Street already has an outdoor monument, but elected officials are now advocating for a memorial museum and educational center. (Flickr/Wallyg)

By Julie Shapiro

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

LOWER MANHATTAN — The remains of thousands of slaves lie beneath the streets of lower Manhattan, out of sight and often forgotten.

To honor their memory, as well as the memory of the free African and African-Americans who were also buried there, several New York politicians are pushing for a comprehensive museum near the African Burial Ground on Duane Street. The museum would be larger than the 2,500-square-foot visitors center that opened nearby last year, and it would also cover the history of slavery across the United States.

"The African Burial Ground is a site of the utmost historic and cultural significance for New York City and the United States," U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who introduced legislation supporting the museum last week, said in a statement.

Life-sized figures illustrate a burial ceremony at the African Burial Ground's small visitors center, which opened in 2010. (DNAinfo/Josh Williams)

"A [museum] on those grounds will provide a means of paying respects to the thousands buried there, and will educate Americans and others about slavery's profound impact on our society."

Nadler's legislation, introduced last Thursday, would create an African Burial Ground International Memorial Museum and Educational Center adjacent to the 300-year-old cemetery.

The federal government would pay two-thirds of the cost of finding a site and building the museum, including an initial allocation of $15 million in 2012.

The legislation also sets up an advisory council for the museum, consisting of the secretary of the Interior, the National Park Service, the General Services Administration, the Smithsonian Institution, the mayor, the governor, the borough president and others. The museum would be affiliated with the National Museum of African American History and Culture, scheduled to open in Washington D.C. in 2015.

The lower Manhattan burial ground first surfaced 20 years ago, when workers were digging foundations for the Ted Weiss Federal Building at 290 Broadway. After years of emotional debate about how to treat the exhumed skeletons of hundreds of men, women and children — the remains of many of which showed the trauma of a difficult life — the government decided to re-inter them in a memorial on the site.

The striking black stone monument above the graves opened in 2007 at Duane and Elk streets, and last year a small visitors center opened around the corner in the Ted Weiss building.

Nadler's legislation, which was co-sponsored by Reps. Charles Rangel and Gregory Meeks, seeks to finally bring the drawn-out saga to a close.

The museum would "help ensure that this global story of injustice, sacrifice and eventual triumph is no longer hidden nor forgotten," Rangel said in a statement.

Links

• African Burial Ground National Monument Debuts Downtown

  In 1991, the remains of more than 400 African men, women and children were discovered at the site. [DNAinfo]

By Julie Shapiro, DNAinfo.com
Follow Julie on Twitter @JulieShapiro

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20110221/downtown/politicians-push-for-african-burial-ground-museum-lower-manhattan?utm_content=blackcotton212%40gmail.com&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=Politicians%20Push%20for%20African%20Burial%20Ground%20Museum%20in%2E%2E%2E&utm_campaign=National%20Arts%20Club%20Prez%20Threatens%20Boardcontent#ixzz1EjIvoJdI

NPR and PBS under attack

 

Tell Congress: Save NPR and PBS

Don't let Republicans pull the plug on NPR and PBS.

Clicking here will automatically add your name to this petition to Congress:

"Fully fund NPR and defend public service media."

Dear Friend,

We're only a few weeks into the 112th Congress, and Republicans are already attempting to pull the plug on public media.

In a budget proposal made public on Wednesday, House Republicans announced plans to zero out all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the nonprofit responsible for funding public media including NPR, PBS, Pacifica and more.

If the Republicans are successful, it would be a tremendous blow to the entire public interest media sector.

We cannot allow Republicans to destroy public media.

Tell Congress: Fully fund NPR and defend public service media. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Republicans are disingenuously claiming that they need to cut funding for public media because of budgetary constraints. But what they fail to highlight is that national public broadcasting is remarkably cost effective, providing local news and information, free of charge, for millions of viewers while only receiving about .0001% of the federal budget.¹

More to the point, it's nearly impossible to put a price tag on the actual value of public broadcasting.

Public media is one of the last bulwarks against the corporate media where the combination of consolidation and profit-motive has long since shifted the focused to infotainment rather than substantive news. In many rural and less affluent communities, broadcasters rely on federal funding to provide the only available high-quality news and public affairs programming.

Without public media, corporate media monopolies would increase their already large control of what we see on television, hear on the radio or read in the newspaper.

This outcome should deeply worry all of us. The increased accumulation and consolidation of corporate power is a threat to our democracy. And nowhere is this more evident than in our media.

At a time when media consolidation is shrinking the number of perspectives we have access to over the airwaves and when newsrooms are shrinking, we need more diversity in our media not less. And we simply cannot afford to lose what public media brings to the table.

Tell Congress: Fully fund NPR and defend public service media. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Conservatives have longed for any opportunity to defund NPR, PBS and other public media. And with Speaker Boehner wielding the gavel, it looks like they may finally get their wish.

Don't let Congress pull the plug on NPR and PBS! Tell them reject cuts to public broadcasting. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Thank you for defending public service media.

Matt Lockshin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

P.S. It's been said that NPR receives 98% of its funding from non-government sources. But that's highly misleading. The government — through the Center for Public Broadcasting — provides a significant source of funding for NPR and NPR member stations.

Notes:
¹"Public broadcasting is critical to our democracy," Rep. Earl Blumenaur, The Hill's Congress Blog, Jan. 20, 2011.

NPR and PBS under attack
Rafael Martínez Alequín
Sat, 12 Feb 2011 19:42:00 GMT

Fewer Black, Hispanic Students Admitted To City's Elite Public High Schools

 

The number of black and Hispanic students offered admissions to the city's most elite public high schools is going from bad to worse, according to entrance exams released Friday.

Fewer Black, Hispanic Students Admitted To City's Elite Public High Schools
Sat, 12 Feb 2011 15:49:58 GMT