Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
February 29th - International Day of Solidarity with the Haitian People
Flyer handed out in Haiti's streets warning that the people would never accept a coup d'etat again. However, on February 29, 2004 a coup d'etat forced democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and 7,000 elected officials from office. To read about the 2004 coup d'etat, it's impact on democracy and conditions in Haiti and continued injustices, see the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti website at http://www.ijdh.org/ Current list of 56 actions in 47 cities on 4 continents in solidarity with Haiti - as part of 2-29-08 global day of action for Haiti
Growing list of cities participating in actions on or around Feb. 29, 2008, in solidarity with the Haitian people, on the 4th anniversary of the Feb. 29, 2004 coup d'etat in Haiti. Updated as of Feb. 27, 2008 - 5 p.m. Pacific time Here is a list 47 cities - so far - that have informed us that they are participating in the Feb. 29th Day of Solidarity with the Haitian People. A total of 56 actions are planned in the 47 cities on 4 continents, in support of the Haitian people's demand for self-determination, democracy and justice. New York City (2 activities)Durban, South Africa - the Abahlali Shack Dwellers MovementMontreal, QuebecBerkeley, California (2 activities)Los Angeles, CaliforniaGeorgetown, GuyanaNotre Dame, Indiana (2 activities)Toronto, Ontario, CanadaSan Rafael, CaliforniaLondon, England (2 activities)San Jose, CaliforniaRoanoke, VirginiaDublin, IrelandSault Sainte Marie, Ontario, CanadaAtlanta, GeorgiaRichmond, CaliforniaMinneapolis/St Paul, Minn. (2 events in the Twin Cities)Huddleston, VirginiaKigali, RwandaFremont, California Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (3 activities)Rochester, New YorkOakland, CaliforniaVancouver, BC, Canada (2 activities)Boston, Mass. Detroit, MichiganSan Diego, CaliforniaAuckland Park, Johannesburg, South AfricaWashington, DCOttawa, CanadaPittsburgh, Penna.Miami, FloridaCalgary, AlbertaBrooklyn, New YorkSan Francisco, CaliforniaPrince George, BC, CanadaMacon, GeorgiaJacksonville, FloridaNew Orleans, LouisianaSanta Cruz, CaliforniaNorth Minneapolis, Minn.Enterprise, OregonSonoma, California (2 activities)Many cities and towns in Haiti (4 confirmed so far) For more info, see Haiti Action Committee at http://haitisolidarity.net/ or http://www.haitiaction.net/ or http://www.ijdh.org
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Our Legacy of Shame in Haiti
View full article and comments here http:///Books/2008/02/26/Haiti/
By Claude Adams (on TheTyee.ca website)
From this article: ...Why did Aristide have to go? It's simple, says Peter Hallward, the author of a dense and meticulously researched new book called Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment. Aristide had to go because "the movement he led (Lavalas, the Creole word for 'flood,') posed an intolerable threat to Haiti's comfortable ruling class."
Manny Vega and His ‘Hip Hop Byzantine’ Art - The New York Times
Librado Romero/The New York Times“I liked painting,” the artist Manny Vega said. “But paint fades.” His mosaic at a subway station at 110th Street and Lexington is a tableau of glimmering color that picks up light and movement.
Citywide
In Mosaics, an Artist’s Lasting Impression
By DAVID GONZALEZ
Published: February 25, 2008
There is life in the hands of Manny Vega. With nothing more than a pair of pliers, thick fingers and boundless patience, he transforms thousands of stubby tiles of stone and glass into glimmering mosaic portraits of poets, drummers, mothers and sons. By the end of the workday, he has to plunge his numb, dust-covered hands into hot water to revive them...
Published: February 25, 2008
There is life in the hands of Manny Vega. With nothing more than a pair of pliers, thick fingers and boundless patience, he transforms thousands of stubby tiles of stone and glass into glimmering mosaic portraits of poets, drummers, mothers and sons. By the end of the workday, he has to plunge his numb, dust-covered hands into hot water to revive them...
In Mosaics, an Artist’s Lasting Impression - New York Times
In Mosaics, an Artist’s Lasting Impression - New York Times
View multimedia show of Manny Vega's murals and listen him to talk about his art
View multimedia show of Manny Vega's murals and listen him to talk about his art
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Using Music to Lift Depression’s Veil
An uplifting result of music therapy. (Alan Zale for The New York Times)The New York Times, January 24, 2008, 10:38 am
Well
Tara Parker-Pope on Health
Using Music to Lift Depression’s Veil
Many people find that music lifts their spirits. Now new research shows that music therapy — either listening to or creating music with a specially trained therapist — can be a useful treatment for depression.
The finding that music therapy offers a real clinical benefit to depression sufferers comes from a review by the Cochrane Collaboration, a not-for-profit group that reviews health care issues. Although there aren’t many credible studies of music therapy for depression, the reviewers found five randomized trials that studied the effects of music therapy. Some studies looked at the effects of providing music therapy to patients who were receiving drug treatment for depression. Others compared music therapy to traditional talk therapy. In four out of five of the trials, music therapy worked better at easing depression symptoms than therapies that did not employ music, the researchers found.
“The current studies indicate that music therapy may be able to improve mood and has low drop-out rates,” said lead author Anna Maratos, an arts therapist for the National Health Service in London. “While the evidence came from a few small studies, it suggests that this is an area that is well worth further investigation….We need to find out which forms have greatest effect.”
Full article at:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/using-music-to-lift-depressions-veil/
Click here to listen to a podcast about music therapy with the study author.
A Basic Hospital To-Do List Saves Lives
Personal Health: A Basic Hospital To-Do List Saves Lives
By Jane E. Brody, Published: January 22, 2008, The New York Times
This is a call to arms for everyone who may someday be hospitalized, or who has a relative who may someday be hospitalized — which is to say everyone.
These days, to spend time in the hospital is to be at risk of contracting a hospital-acquired infection. Some of these infections can be life-threatening. But there is a simple way to make that hospital stay safer, devised by Dr. Peter J. Pronovost, a physician-researcher at Johns Hopkins.
The method — a five-item checklist to assure that proper precautions are taken to prevent infection — has been thoroughly tested, first at Johns Hopkins and later in 108 intensive-care units in Michigan, where it succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams in saving lives and reducing costs for patients who received the major fluid tube called a central venous catheter.
See 5 steps and rest of article at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/health/22brod.html?scp=2&sq=jane+brody&st=nyt
Study Calls HIV in D.C. A 'Modern Epidemic'
Study Calls HIV in D.C. A 'Modern Epidemic'
More Than 80 Percent Of Recent Cases Were Among Black Residents
By Susan Levine, Washington Post
Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, November 26, 2007; Page A01
The first statistics ever amassed on HIV in the District, released today in a sweeping report, reveal "a modern epidemic" remarkable for its size, complexity and reach into all parts of the city.
The numbers most starkly illustrate HIV's impact on the African American community. More than 80 percent of the 3,269 HIV cases identified between 2001 and 2006 were among black men, women and adolescents. Among women who tested positive, a rising percentage of local cases, nine of 10 were African American.
The 120-page report, which includes the city's first AIDS update since 2000, shows how a condition once considered a gay disease has moved into the general population. HIV was spread through heterosexual contact in more than 37 percent of the District's cases detected in that time period, in contrast to the 25 percent of cases attributable to men having sex with men.
See full article and charts at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/25/AR2007112501677.html?wpisrc=newsletterDrugs-for-Information Scandal Shakes Up New York Police Narcotics Force
NYC Police give snitches portion of proceeds of drug seizures from dealers that the snitches pointed out to them! Doesn't that make the cops dealers themselves? Read this article!
The New York Times, January 23, 2008
Drugs-for-Information Scandal Shakes Up New York Police Narcotics Force
By Al Baker
In the world of urban policing, few relationships are as fraught with peril as those between narcotics officers and confidential informants. These informants — C.I.’s in police parlance — are often small-time criminals who are paid or get criminal charges dropped in return for information about other, theoretically more dangerous criminals.
Now four police officers in Brooklyn are under arrest in a case that involves paying informants not with cash or leniency but with the very drugs they craved, taken from the dealers who were arrested after the informants pointed them out. Two of the officers were charged in an internal sting last week after another was caught on a department audio tape bragging about the practice in September, officials said. For full story go to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/nyregion/23arrest.html?pagewanted=all
Also see the article's chart on [recent NYC] ...History of Police Misconduct Charges
at http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/01/23/nyregion/23arrestchart.ready.html
The New York Times, January 23, 2008
Drugs-for-Information Scandal Shakes Up New York Police Narcotics Force
By Al Baker
In the world of urban policing, few relationships are as fraught with peril as those between narcotics officers and confidential informants. These informants — C.I.’s in police parlance — are often small-time criminals who are paid or get criminal charges dropped in return for information about other, theoretically more dangerous criminals.
Now four police officers in Brooklyn are under arrest in a case that involves paying informants not with cash or leniency but with the very drugs they craved, taken from the dealers who were arrested after the informants pointed them out. Two of the officers were charged in an internal sting last week after another was caught on a department audio tape bragging about the practice in September, officials said. For full story go to:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/nyregion/23arrest.html?pagewanted=all
Also see the article's chart on [recent NYC] ...History of Police Misconduct Charges
at http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/01/23/nyregion/23arrestchart.ready.html
Keep Fighting for Lovinsky's Return!
Distributed by the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti http://www.ijdh.org/ on January 26, 2007
Half-Hour for Haiti: Keep Fighting For Lovinsky’s Return!
Human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, abducted on August 12, is still missing. For many of us, the holiday celebrations with family and friends were tempered by Lovinsky’s absence, from his family and from our midst (see the January 13 message from Lovinsky’s wife Michele). But the fight for Lovinsky’s safe return continues. Haiti’s Embassy in Washington reported receiving over 500 letters in response to Amnesty International's Action Alert for Lovinsky and his colleague, Wilson Mesilien. The Petition to Save Lovinsky now has 1803 signatories. This week Vanessa Redgrave signed onto the Free Lovinsky! movement, joining a host of celebrities including Danny Glover, Martin Sheen and Selma James.
This week’s action: Yesterday, United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of over 1,300 groups that came together to oppose the Iraq War, issued an alert for Lovinsky that was drafted by the Haiti Action Committee. The letters generated by UFPJ, on top of the letters for Amnesty International and all the other alerts, could make a turning point in this case. If you have not yet urged the Haitian government to investigate Lovinsky’s disappearance, now is the time:
Demand the safe return of Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.
Lovinsky was kidnapped on August 12th, 2007 after meeting with a U.S. human rights delegation. He is a member of Fanmi Lavalas and a founding member of September 30th Foundation. He is a psychologist who works with victims of torture, and a fierce activist who stands with his people in the streets.
Shamefully, the United Nations helped legitimize the Bush Administration-backed coup that forced out the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. That coup reversed Haiti's ten years of grassroots democracy, and in its aftermath, as documented by reports from the University of Miami, Harvard Law School, and other organizations, UN "peacekeepers" backed up Haitian police as they cracked down on activists with the pro-Aristide Lavalas movement. Lovinsky was among those who worked ceaselessly against all that the 2004 coup brought: killing, torture and exile of thousands; the destruction of schools, health services, markets - the infrastructure which served Haiti's poor; sex trafficking and rape of Haitian women and girls by UN troops and Haitian rightists.
Lovinsky's kidnapping serves to warn Haitian's poor majority that powerful forces can and will do whatever it takes to crush resistance.
Haiti Action Committee joins with organizations and individuals across the globe that are working to keep the pressure on those who hold the power in Haiti - the U.S. and the UN occupying forces - to demand the safe return of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.
A petition for Lovinsky has been signed by over 1600 organizations and public figures, including actor/activist Danny Glover, Selma James, actor Martin Sheen, Andaiye, writer George Lamming, playwright John Arden, former Labour Minister Tony Benn, John McDonnell MP, journalist Rickey Singh, Madaraka Nyerere (son of the late Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere), the Walter Rodney Commemorative Committee and many more. To sign the on-line petition, click here http://www.petitiononline.com/august/petition.html
Haiti Action Committee members are fasting on Wednesdays as part of an ongoing rolling fast to highlight the Haiti-based campaign for Lovinsky's safe return. Solidarity activities have been taking place in Los Angeles, London, Boston, San Francisco and Benton Harbor, MI, as well as in the Caribbean.
Support for Haitian democracy in the U.S. Congress has been led by notable progressive Democrats including Representatives Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, and Jan Schakowsky. Much work needs to be done to pressure other Congresspeople to support Haiti's poor majority, rather than Bush-backed elites.
Join the campaign, and open a discussion with your friends and co-workers about Haiti (learn more at www.haitisolidarity.net and www.haitiaction.net) and about taking action to save Lovinsky's life.
Haitian president René Preval's 2006 election was a victory for the country's poor, but pro-democracy activists maintain that government ministries remain dominated by coup forces, which also control the Haitian police. The Haitian government is also receiving enormous pressure from the Bush Administration to privatize state companies and to pursue even more draconian "free trade" (pro-rich, anti-poor) policies.
Preval needs to hear from supporters of Haiti's pro-democracy movement about the importance of the safe return of Lovinsky, the release of remaining political prisoners, the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and ending the occupation.
Please send a letter to Haiti's President René Préval, urging him to ensure that his government does everything it can to investigate Lovinsky's disappearance and ensure his safe return to his family and his community. A sample letter is below, please customize and personalize it if you can.
You may send your letter directly to President Préval by regular mail (.69 postage in U.S., $1.55 in Canada), or by fax: (206) 350-7986 (a U.S. number) or email: avokahaiti@aol.com, and they will be delivered.Thanks for your support and your solidarity in helping us save our brother Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.
Haiti Action Committee
---------------
January __, 2008
His Excellency René Préval
President of the Republic of Haiti
Palais NationalPort-au-Prince,
Haiti
Re: Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine's Disappearance
Your Excellency:
I am writing because I am extremely concerned about Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, the human rights activist kidnapped last summer. I sincerely request that you do everything in your power to ensure that your government takes every possible step to ensure Mr. Pierre-Antoine's safe return to his family. Mr. Pierre-Antoine is important to people all over the world that care about Haiti. His safe return is essential to show that Haitians can participate effectively and lawfully in Haiti's democratic process, without fear. I am also concerned about reports from Haitian grassroots human rights activists that the Haitian police are not zealously investigating this case. Please demand that everyone working for your government- from the Ministry of Justice to police leadership to investigators- immediately take every possible lawful step to investigate Mr. Pierre-Antoine's disappearance, pursue the perpetrators and return Mr. Pierre-Antoine safely.
Sincerely,
Half-Hour for Haiti: Keep Fighting For Lovinsky’s Return!
Human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, abducted on August 12, is still missing. For many of us, the holiday celebrations with family and friends were tempered by Lovinsky’s absence, from his family and from our midst (see the January 13 message from Lovinsky’s wife Michele). But the fight for Lovinsky’s safe return continues. Haiti’s Embassy in Washington reported receiving over 500 letters in response to Amnesty International's Action Alert for Lovinsky and his colleague, Wilson Mesilien. The Petition to Save Lovinsky now has 1803 signatories. This week Vanessa Redgrave signed onto the Free Lovinsky! movement, joining a host of celebrities including Danny Glover, Martin Sheen and Selma James.
This week’s action: Yesterday, United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of over 1,300 groups that came together to oppose the Iraq War, issued an alert for Lovinsky that was drafted by the Haiti Action Committee. The letters generated by UFPJ, on top of the letters for Amnesty International and all the other alerts, could make a turning point in this case. If you have not yet urged the Haitian government to investigate Lovinsky’s disappearance, now is the time:
Demand the safe return of Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.
Lovinsky was kidnapped on August 12th, 2007 after meeting with a U.S. human rights delegation. He is a member of Fanmi Lavalas and a founding member of September 30th Foundation. He is a psychologist who works with victims of torture, and a fierce activist who stands with his people in the streets.
Shamefully, the United Nations helped legitimize the Bush Administration-backed coup that forced out the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. That coup reversed Haiti's ten years of grassroots democracy, and in its aftermath, as documented by reports from the University of Miami, Harvard Law School, and other organizations, UN "peacekeepers" backed up Haitian police as they cracked down on activists with the pro-Aristide Lavalas movement. Lovinsky was among those who worked ceaselessly against all that the 2004 coup brought: killing, torture and exile of thousands; the destruction of schools, health services, markets - the infrastructure which served Haiti's poor; sex trafficking and rape of Haitian women and girls by UN troops and Haitian rightists.
Lovinsky's kidnapping serves to warn Haitian's poor majority that powerful forces can and will do whatever it takes to crush resistance.
Haiti Action Committee joins with organizations and individuals across the globe that are working to keep the pressure on those who hold the power in Haiti - the U.S. and the UN occupying forces - to demand the safe return of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.
A petition for Lovinsky has been signed by over 1600 organizations and public figures, including actor/activist Danny Glover, Selma James, actor Martin Sheen, Andaiye, writer George Lamming, playwright John Arden, former Labour Minister Tony Benn, John McDonnell MP, journalist Rickey Singh, Madaraka Nyerere (son of the late Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere), the Walter Rodney Commemorative Committee and many more. To sign the on-line petition, click here http://www.petitiononline.com/august/petition.html
Haiti Action Committee members are fasting on Wednesdays as part of an ongoing rolling fast to highlight the Haiti-based campaign for Lovinsky's safe return. Solidarity activities have been taking place in Los Angeles, London, Boston, San Francisco and Benton Harbor, MI, as well as in the Caribbean.
Support for Haitian democracy in the U.S. Congress has been led by notable progressive Democrats including Representatives Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, and Jan Schakowsky. Much work needs to be done to pressure other Congresspeople to support Haiti's poor majority, rather than Bush-backed elites.
Join the campaign, and open a discussion with your friends and co-workers about Haiti (learn more at www.haitisolidarity.net and www.haitiaction.net) and about taking action to save Lovinsky's life.
Haitian president René Preval's 2006 election was a victory for the country's poor, but pro-democracy activists maintain that government ministries remain dominated by coup forces, which also control the Haitian police. The Haitian government is also receiving enormous pressure from the Bush Administration to privatize state companies and to pursue even more draconian "free trade" (pro-rich, anti-poor) policies.
Preval needs to hear from supporters of Haiti's pro-democracy movement about the importance of the safe return of Lovinsky, the release of remaining political prisoners, the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and ending the occupation.
Please send a letter to Haiti's President René Préval, urging him to ensure that his government does everything it can to investigate Lovinsky's disappearance and ensure his safe return to his family and his community. A sample letter is below, please customize and personalize it if you can.
You may send your letter directly to President Préval by regular mail (.69 postage in U.S., $1.55 in Canada), or by fax: (206) 350-7986 (a U.S. number) or email: avokahaiti@aol.com, and they will be delivered.Thanks for your support and your solidarity in helping us save our brother Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.
Haiti Action Committee
---------------
January __, 2008
His Excellency René Préval
President of the Republic of Haiti
Palais NationalPort-au-Prince,
Haiti
Re: Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine's Disappearance
Your Excellency:
I am writing because I am extremely concerned about Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, the human rights activist kidnapped last summer. I sincerely request that you do everything in your power to ensure that your government takes every possible step to ensure Mr. Pierre-Antoine's safe return to his family. Mr. Pierre-Antoine is important to people all over the world that care about Haiti. His safe return is essential to show that Haitians can participate effectively and lawfully in Haiti's democratic process, without fear. I am also concerned about reports from Haitian grassroots human rights activists that the Haitian police are not zealously investigating this case. Please demand that everyone working for your government- from the Ministry of Justice to police leadership to investigators- immediately take every possible lawful step to investigate Mr. Pierre-Antoine's disappearance, pursue the perpetrators and return Mr. Pierre-Antoine safely.
Sincerely,
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Artists of Grand Rue, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
The Artists of the Grand Rue
http://www.artshaitian.com/Pages/epluribus2.html
E Pluribus UnumAn urban museum in Port-au-Prince, Haitiphotographs© Bill Bollendorf 2005
E Pluribus UnumAn urban museum in Port-au-Prince, Haitiphotographs© Bill Bollendorf 2005
VIEW SLIDESHOW at http://www.artshaitian.com/Pages/epluribus.html
Artists Resistance, The sculptors of Grand Rue (See top image)
http://www.atis-rezistans.com/Monday, November 26, 2007
Anyway poem on wall of Mother Teresa's home
Anyway
People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Love them anyway,
If you do good, people will accuse you of
People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Love them anyway,
If you do good, people will accuse you of
selfish, ulterior motives;
Do good anyway.
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight;
Build anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth;
Give the best you’ve got anyway.
Do good anyway.
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight;
Build anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth;
Give the best you’ve got anyway.
On the walls of Shishu Bhavan,
Mother Teresa’s home in Calcutta
Friday, November 9, 2007
Amy's Professional Hair Braiding, Brooklyn
Amy's Professional Hair Braiding, 62 Bond Street, Brooklyn, New York, 718-875-4120
Model: Riva Precil
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Friday, October 5, 2007
Photo book raises money for Haiti : Balance : Boulder Daily Camera
Superior woman donates all profits to feeding programs
By Aimee Heckel, Camera Staff Writer, Friday, October 5, 2007
By Aimee Heckel, Camera Staff Writer, Friday, October 5, 2007
Murals in San Francisco and Baghdad
Mural in Baghdad
Mural in San Francisco...to admire. In a city renowned for...of these murals is in their accessibility: enjoying them is free. What makes...smells from the neighborhood, the buildings...Drescher, who was a professor of humanities...of Precita Eyes is on a guided tour...
March 28, 2007 - By MATT VILLANO - 994 words
March 28, 2007 - By MATT VILLANO - 994 words
- See Slideshow of San Francisco murals at STREETLIFE; A Neighborhood Is a Gallery, Its Brick Walls Canvases
With Fixtures of War as Their Canvas, Muralists Add Beauty to Baghdad
...visible legacy of the latest war in a city with a long history of wars. For...and sidewalk as they shut...to soften their harsh gray...soldiers working with Iraqi neighborhood...murals are part of wider beautification...organizations as part of an...dangers. Their hope, though...
August 11, 2007 - By STEPHEN FARRELL - World - 1185 words
...visible legacy of the latest war in a city with a long history of wars. For...and sidewalk as they shut...to soften their harsh gray...soldiers working with Iraqi neighborhood...murals are part of wider beautification...organizations as part of an...dangers. Their hope, though...
August 11, 2007 - By STEPHEN FARRELL - World - 1185 words
- Dozens of artists have been painting murals upon the miles of vast concrete blast walls throughout Baghdad. See Video of Baghdad's Blast Wall Murals
Barred From Public Housing, Even to See Family - New York Times
Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesHector Monsegur, 40, was barred from visiting his mother, Irma, 65, at the
Jacob Riis Houses after his drug conviction. “It’s one strike and they give me life,” he says.
Nobody covers public housing quite like The Journal, the New York City Housing Authority’s monthly tabloid newspaper, delivered to 178,000 apartments.Irma Monsegur looking at old photographs of her children.
There are colorful photographs and cheerful stories about the agency’s youth chorus, community center ribbon-cuttings and teenage tenants headed to college.
But there is one widely read feature that residents hope they never appear in: the Not Wanted List.
It names former residents who are “permanently excluded” from Housing Authority buildings — and barred from even an afternoon’s visit to a family member. The Not Wanted are barred for a wide variety of reasons, some of them for criminal arrests and others for being nuisances.
In The Journal’s September issue, Peter Kilpatrick from Hammel Houses in Queens — “formerly associated with the second floor,” the newspaper noted — is first on the list. Next is Tyrone Taylor, “formerly associated” with the fourth floor of Lincoln Houses in Manhattan, followed by more than a dozen others.
Anyone who sees a barred person on the premises is urged to contact the complex management or Housing Authority investigators. Last year, 864 men and women were permanently excluded from Housing Authority properties, and this year, the number is at 772.
Public housing authorities around the country use similar policies, including the agencies in Philadelphia and Portland, Ore. In Chicago, exclusion from public housing is called an “order to bar.”
The practice, public housing advocates and some tenants said, splinters families, preventing the barred from seeing their parents, siblings or grandparents. And in the close-knit world of public housing buildings, they said, the public list is a kind of scarlet letter for struggling families.
“It’s degrading not only for the people on that list but for the family members of those people,” said Damaris Reyes, a resident of Baruch Houses in Manhattan and the executive director of Good Old Lower East Side, a community and tenants’ rights group. “You’re trying to keep your business private, and now the whole neighborhood knows that your son or daughter was arrested.”
Read full story at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/nyregion/01banned.html
Nassau County protests federal raid and arrest of 186 immigrants
Pool photo by Michael Schwartz (appeared in The New York Times)Men arrested in a week of raids on Long Island. Nassau County officials
said the police there were misled into participating.
EDITORIAL; Stop the Raids
...catch of peaceable immigrants. Its agents have set...not only among illegal immigrants, but among citizens...agents fanned out across Nassau County, Long Island...him to investigate the Nassau debacle. Mr. Suozzi...that the undocumented immigrants cannot, and will not...
October 4, 2007 - Opinion
Raids Were a Shambles, Nassau Complains to U.S.
...Lawrence W. Mulvey, the Nassau County police commissioner...mistakenly drew their guns on Nassau County police detectives...resulted in the arrests of 186 immigrants on Long Island. Thomas R. Suozzi , the Nassau County executive, said yesterday...
October 3, 2007 - By NINA BERNSTEIN - New York and Region
Officials Protest Antigang Raids Focused on Immigrants
Nassau County officials today will...resulted in the arrests of 186 immigrants on Long Island. They said...than 2,000 suspects from Nassau that we vetted jointly, Mr...Lawrence W. Mulvey, the Nassau County police commissioner...
October 2, 2007 - By NINA BERNSTEIN - New York and Region
Reporting While Black - The New York Times
Photo by Chris Keane for The New York TimesReporting While Black by Solomon Moore, September 30, 2007, The New York Times
...Last month, while talking to a group of young black men standing on a sidewalk in Salisbury, N.C., about harsh antigang law enforcement tactics some states are using, I had discovered the main challenge to such measures: the police have great difficulty determining who is, and who is not, a gangster.
My reporting, however, was going well. I had gone to Salisbury to find someone who had firsthand experience with North Carolina's tough antigang stance, and I had found that someone: me.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Commercial Companies In Our Children's Schools and Minds
COMMERCIAL COMPANIES IN OUR CHILDREN'S SCHOOLS AND MINDS
When we moved back to the U.S. and my daughter entered a New York City public high school, I was very surprised, and concerned, to find out that the Tampax company lectured the students on sex education and was pushing their product at the same time. A search on this subject has turned up some good articles on the onslaught of commercial companies in our schools, and the perks schools get, while corporations are pushing their products on vulnerable children in an effort to capture new consumers for their markets. Here's a look at the hundreds of corporations currently in our schools, some of the public relations firms facilitating their entry, the products being distributed to our children, the advertisers involved, how students influence their parent's consumer choices, what schools are getting in exchange, discussions on the pros and cons of this practice, and recommendations for better practices to protect our children.
- Marketers Are Joining the Varsity by Stuart Elliott, New York Times, June 11, 2007
Athletes, if they are talented, train hard and get a break or two, can climb the sports ladder from high school to college to the pros. Madison Avenue, sensing a lucrative opportunity, is heading the other way.
Decades after marketers began selling products by capitalizing on consumer interest in professional teams, then college teams, they are becoming big boosters of high school sports.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/business/media/11adcol.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/business/media/11adcol.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
- Captive Kids: A report on Commercial Pressures on Kids at School
Selling America's Kids: Commercial Pressures on Kids of the 90's (Consumers Union)
Corporate-sponsored teaching materials are reaching more than 20 million students in elementary and high schools every year. Product samples and coupons are distributed to more than two million students. TV commercials and magazine ads in the classroom reach countless millions more. This report describes some current advertising messages and how they're "packaged" in order to gain entry into schools.
- Who Advertises In Our Schools? These 234 Companies (Consumers Union)
This is a partial listing. U.S. News and World Report quotes one estimate that the total number of companies and organizations in the schools is 12,000. A few companies in this list sell equipment to schools, but the vast majority have their materials in the classroom.
(See list) at
- RECOMMENDATIONS (from Consumers Union):
Multinationals Fuel Graft in Poor States: Watchdog - CommonDreams.org
Multinationals Fuel Graft in Poor States by Sylvia Westall for Reuters
Multinational companies and financial institutions that use bribery and tolerate illicitly gained wealth are helping fuel corruption in the world’s poorest countries, a global corruption watchdog said on Wednesday.
Multinational companies and financial institutions that use bribery and tolerate illicitly gained wealth are helping fuel corruption in the world’s poorest countries, a global corruption watchdog said on Wednesday.
Berlin-based Transparency International (TI) said in its latest corruption perceptions report that while poorer countries should tackle their own graft problems, richer states are also responsible, and often to blame.
“Bribe money often stems from multinationals based in the world’s richest countries. It can no longer be acceptable for these companies to regard bribery in export markets as a legitimate business strategy,” the report said.
Continued at http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/27/4132/
Division and Dislocation: Regulating Immigration through Local Housing Ordinances
DIVISION AND DISLOCATION: Regulating Immigration through Local Housing Ordinances, Summer 2007, Immigration Policy Center, A division of the American Immigration Law Foundation, by Jill Esbenshade, Ph.D. with Barbara Obrzut, Benjamin Wright, Soo Mee Kim, Jessica Thompson, and Edward O'Conner
The last two years have seen an intensified public debate over the issue of undocumented immigrant in the United States...One way in which some policymakers and activists have expressed this frustration is through support for ordinances that target undocumented immigrants. As of March 10, 2007, such ordinances had been proposed, debated, or adopted in at least 104 cities and counties in 28 states. These ordinances encompass a number of measures -- most notably prohibitions on renting to or employing undocumented immigrants and the adoption of English as the official language of the local government. Forty-three of the 104 localities have debated or passed rental restrictions alone or as part of broader ordinances. See report at http://www.ailf.org/ipc/special_report/SpecialReport0907.pdf
The last two years have seen an intensified public debate over the issue of undocumented immigrant in the United States...One way in which some policymakers and activists have expressed this frustration is through support for ordinances that target undocumented immigrants. As of March 10, 2007, such ordinances had been proposed, debated, or adopted in at least 104 cities and counties in 28 states. These ordinances encompass a number of measures -- most notably prohibitions on renting to or employing undocumented immigrants and the adoption of English as the official language of the local government. Forty-three of the 104 localities have debated or passed rental restrictions alone or as part of broader ordinances. See report at http://www.ailf.org/ipc/special_report/SpecialReport0907.pdf
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
An 80-Block Slice of City Life - New York Times
John Casey's amazing rubber stamp store included in this New York Times guide to the Lower East Side!
An 80-Block Slice of City Life - New York Times
An 80-Block Slice of City Life - New York Times
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Blog the Debt: ‘Economic Terrorism’: Ignoring the Debt Issue in Haiti Part 1
Public Mural in Cayes, Haiti: Yes to Life, No to the Debt! (Photo by Peter Kondrat, June 2007)
Economic Terrorism: Ignoring the Debt Issue in Haiti. Michelle Karshan, the former Foreign Press Liaison for former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, blogs her perspective on how Haiti's struggle with debt and economic recovery was ignored by the international press.
Blog the Debt: ‘Economic Terrorism’: Ignoring the Debt Issue in Haiti Part 1
by Michelle Karshan
In May 2007, while in Haiti, friends told me of the rising cost of living. As I spent what seemed like a lot of money purchasing food to cook three meals a day, I wondered how folks were feeding their families even one meal a day at those exorbitant prices.
Michelet, a young man, considerably thinner since 2004, pointed out that he had personally seen a rise in TB in his own neighborhood. He explained that with the increase in the cost of living people could not nourish themselves enough to fend off disease.
Dr. Paul Farmer has so eloquently drawn this connection between infectious disease and poverty, yet the international financial institutions have yet to re-prioritize their economic plans.
Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide often referred to structural adjustment and the debt as “Economic Terrorism”, because globalization and the way it revolves around creating and keeping impoverished countries impoverished results in starvation, disease, illiteracy and death. And, in the end millions of dollars spent on poverty reduction cannot turn a country around without debt reduction and forgiveness.
Last week, while Haiti and each Haitian there still suffers from the backbreaking debt inherited from the Duvalier regime, former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier was heard on the airways apologizing for the atrocities and corruption during his administration.
Not coincidentally, his plea for forgiveness came immediately following Switzerland’s announcement that they would extend the Haitian government’s period of time to wage their legal battle to recover the millions of dollars in Duvalier’s Swiss bank accounts.
Haitian President René Préval rightly responded to Duvalier’s maneuvers, stating that while forgiveness is good, justice must prevail. Préval made it clear that his government would continue its pursuit of the monies, and that if Duvalier chooses to return to Haiti he will certainly be brought to justice.
It was extremely frustrating working as the Foreign Press Liaison to presidents Aristide, Préval and Aristide again. All the while, the international press ignored the debt that shackled any efforts towards recovery, ignored the U.S.-led embargo against Haiti’s government, and the economic “death plan” Aristide tried to resist. The U.S. Embassy waged a campaign denying that there was any financial embargo and they harassed press who dared to call the embargo an embargo!
The international press, distracting its readers from the real talking points, lay all blame at Aristide’s door, and characterized Haiti as: “spiraling downward;” “a basket case;” “a failed state;” and “a people unable to govern themselves.”
Yet inside the storm, at the eye of the storm, was globalization, the endless debt, the imposed impoverishment of a country up against a proud nation that believes that justice — economic justice — means accessible, universal health care, schools, literacy programs, and the right to work and farm.
It will not be hard for me to begin my fast today. What has been hard is to eat, knowing that more than 8 million people in Haiti cannot eat one meal a day.
Michelle Karshan is the former Foreign Press Liaison for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Blog the Debt: ‘Economic Terrorism’: Ignoring the Debt Issue in Haiti Part 2
Mother and Children, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Photo by Evens Sanon, Copyright 2003Economic Terrorism: Ignoring the Debt Issue in Haiti.
Michelle Karshan, the former Foreign Press Liaison for former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, blogs her perspective on how Haiti's struggle with debt and economic recovery was ignored by the international press.
Blog the Debt: ‘Economic Terrorism’: Ignoring the Debt Issue in Haiti Part 2
By Michelle Karshan laughingmaze.blogspot.com
In Part One of my blog I said it would not be difficult to begin my fast but by 9:30 a.m. I had already started experiencing actual hunger pains.
At first I reflected on why I was feeling so intensely hungry after such a short period of time. I thought perhaps it was because I was starting to feel deprived, but then also realized that I had eaten very little the day before — very similar to how most Haitians actually live.
I thought of the homeless children who hang out in downtown Port-au-Prince or hide behind tombstones at the main cemetery while keeping an iron grip on plastic bottles filled with glue which they keep at their noses all day.
Apparently, glue sniffing not only gives one a dangerous buzz, but more importantly it eases the pains of hunger.
And there are the street children, boys and girls, forced to sell their bodies, risk contracting HIV/AIDS, and are subjected to brutality, just to buy a meal to eat. Other children, live in domestic servitude — as slaves — serve hefty meals to their masters, and pray that a few scraps will be made available to them.
And what of those who wear their hunger like a billboard?! The children with orange hair and distended stomachs , the prisoners with swollen bodies dying from Beri Beri, a fatal and painful illness from B vitamin deficiency, children with stunted growth, or even the average Haitian so thin that the bones in their faces protrude and many people collapse in the street from weakness and dehydration.
Why is there still hunger in Haiti if millions of dollars are pouring into the country, as the press would have us believe? In fact, contrary to press releases issued by various donors, and press stories to back them up, much of the funds we read about don’t actually get to Haiti when they say, if ever.
And, as a USAID representative testified before Congress some years ago, 84 cents on every dollar of USAID monies to developing countries actually goes to U.S. workers, consultants, companies, or materials. That means only 16 cents on every dollar actually goes to the receiving country.
Written in the early 1990s, but still relevant today, this extraordinary breakdown and analysis by the Washington Office on Haiti entitled Where Did the Money Go? “AID” Received by Haiti: October 94 – October 1995, explains:
It is not difficult to see how the large infusion of foreign “aid” had relatively little impact on most people’s lives. The economy did recover from the severe negative growth of the embargo years to a positive 4.5 percent real growth rate, but this is still quite slow a rebound from such a deep slump. The influx of foreign exchange has helped to stabilize the currency and therefore inflation. But there was very little in the way of investment in infrastructure, agriculture, soil conservation, education, credit to small farmers and employment creation – the most pressing needs that might improve the economic opportunities of the vast majority. And this is primarily because the money has not been allocated for these purposes.
Also, to understand the extent of the theft of monies and the creation of the debt accumulated by the Duvalier regime, which Haiti is still struggling to pay back today, please see the story of Duvalier, Haiti’s former dictator, and the monies he stole from the Haitian people.
The best piece for an overview and analysis on the imposition of structural adjustment on Haiti, as well as an in depth look at Haiti’s debt, is Democracy Undermined, Economic Justice Denied: Structural Adjustment and The Aid Juggernaut in Haiti by Lisa McGowan for The Development Gap.
Michelle Karshan is the former Foreign Press Liaison for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s president in 1991, then from 1994 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2004. Aristide was the second elected leader of Haiti.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Long Island Latino International Film Festival at Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center
September 28-29-30
SEE FULL FILM SCHEDULE FOR THIS WEEKEND'S
LONG ISLAND LATINO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL AT
Projecting lots of friends Latino film festival predicts a warm welcome from East End's Hispanics by Gene Seymour, New York Newsday, September 28, 2007
Baby steps are the best that any planner of a fledgling film festival can hope for. And those putting together the Long Island Latino International Film Festival insist that after three years, they're barely beginning to establish themselves as an annual showcase for - and celebration of - the eclectic range of Hispanic cinema.
Still, the fact that the third edition of the weekend-long festival opens tonight at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center seems pretty audacious, as baby steps go.
Baby steps are the best that any planner of a fledgling film festival can hope for. And those putting together the Long Island Latino International Film Festival insist that after three years, they're barely beginning to establish themselves as an annual showcase for - and celebration of - the eclectic range of Hispanic cinema.
Still, the fact that the third edition of the weekend-long festival opens tonight at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center seems pretty audacious, as baby steps go.
In its first two years, the LILIFF ("Just like lisping the name, 'Lilith,'" jokes festival co-founder and executive director T.J. Collins) played at the Bellmore Movie Theater. Making the move to the glamorous East End is bold, but Collins says it's a logical step backed by market research and demographics.
"Between Nassau and Suffolk counties, there are more Latinos in Suffolk," he says. "So if it's going to be here, it may as well be in the East End."
There are 19 films on this year's schedule, which begins and ends with documentaries involving bats and balls.
The centerpiece of tonight's opening-night festivities at 7 is "Bragging Rights: Stickball Stories," wherein first-time-feature-director Sonia Gonzalez chronicles how immigrant groups of succeeding generations used New York's street baseball to assert their presence in the city.
Sunday's closing-night feature - following the 5 p.m. awards ceremony - is "The Legacy of #21," a tribute to Latino baseball pioneer and Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente.
In between, there are features and short films coming from as far away as Brazil (Fernando Pinhero Guimares' animated short, "A Garota") and Mexico City ("I Like You, Too/Yo Tambien Te Quiero," a romantic-comedy short by Jack Zagha Kababie to be shown tonight before "Bragging Rights"). Other scheduled features include Ivan Velez's melodrama, "Indiscretion" and Miguel Aviles' crime drama "44."
Collins and fellow festival producer Janet Cruz sat in the lobby of the Westhampton Beach theater one recent morning to talk about how the festival arrived at this point in its short history. As founding partners of the Long Island-based Mezcla Media Market, Inc., a nonprofit organization sponsoring the festival, Cruz and Collins have cultivated the LILIFF's growth with careful attention to they way they reach out to the burgeoning and diverse Hispanic audience.
Continue article at (and see trailer of The Little Cyn, entered in the Short Film Competition):
Saturday, September 15, 2007
The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
From Commondreams.org NewsCenterThe Shock Doctrine
The Age of Disaster Capitalism
by Naomi Klein
The following is excerpted from Naomi Klein’s recently published book:
"As George Bush and his cabinet took up their posts in January 2001, the need for new sources of growth for US corporations was an urgent matter. With the tech bubble now officially popped and the DowJones tumbling 824 points in their first two and half months in office, they found themselves staring in the face of a serious economic downturn. John Maynard Keynes had argued that governments should spend their way out of recessions, providing economic stimulus with public works. Bush’s solution was for the government to deconstruct itself - hacking off great chunks of the public wealth and feeding them to corporate America, in the form of tax cuts on the one hand and lucrative contracts on the other. Bush’s budget director, the think-tank ideologue Mitch Daniels, pronounced: “The general idea - that the business of government is not to provide services, but to make sure that they are provided - seems self-evident to me.” That assessment included disaster response. Joseph Allbaugh, the Republican party operative whom Bush put in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) - the body responsible for responding to disasters, including terrorist attacks - described his new place of work as “an oversized entitlement programme”.Then came 9/11, and all of a sudden having a government whose central mission was self-immolation did not seem like a very good idea. With a frightened population wanting protection from a strong, solid government, the attacks could well have put an end to Bush’s project of hollowing out government just as it was beginning."
See rest of excerpt at
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/10/3726/
College Drinking a National Epidemic
Photo from http://www.medicineworld.org/College drinking is a national epidemic. Drinking and alcohol poisoning are regular occurrences at most college campuses across the U.S. The byproduct of this epidemic is death, expulsion, fires, sexual assault, etc.
March 2007 press release reveals findings of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University study entitled Wasting the Best and Brightest: Substance Abuse at America’s Colleges and Universities
The report found that half of college students binge drink, abuse prescription and illegal drugs and nearly one in four meet medical criteria for alcohol, drug abuse and dependence.
"Forty-nine percent (3.8 million) of full time college students binge drink and/or abuse prescription and illegal drugs, according to Wasting the Best and the Brightest: Substance Abuse at America’s Colleges and Universities, a new report by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.
"The study also finds that 1.8 million full-time college students (22.9 percent) meet the medical criteria for substance abuse and dependence,[i] two and one half times the 8.5 percent of the general population who meet these same criteria.
"The comprehensive 231-page report, the result of more than four years of research, surveys, interviews and focus groups is the most extensive examination ever undertaken of the substance abuse situation on the nation’s college campuses." See rest of press release or link to actual report at http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/templates/PressReleases.aspx?articleid=477&zoneid=65
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This September 12, 2007 New York Times education article, Calling the Folks About Campus Drinking by Samuel G. Freedman, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, looks at how one university is addressing the problem.
Quote from the article:
"UNAMBIGUOUSLY, alcohol abuse is the No. 1 health and safety problem on every college campus,” Chancellor Wiley said in a recent interview. “I don’t even know what would be No. 2. Just about every unpleasant incident, every crime, involves alcohol abuse by the victim or the perpetrator. The question is, what do you do that’s effective to prevent it? And there’s no magic bullet.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/education/12education.html?pagewanted=all
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National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) College Drinking: Changing the Culture website explains
"Forty-nine percent (3.8 million) of full time college students binge drink and/or abuse prescription and illegal drugs, according to Wasting the Best and the Brightest: Substance Abuse at America’s Colleges and Universities, a new report by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.
"The study also finds that 1.8 million full-time college students (22.9 percent) meet the medical criteria for substance abuse and dependence,[i] two and one half times the 8.5 percent of the general population who meet these same criteria.
"The comprehensive 231-page report, the result of more than four years of research, surveys, interviews and focus groups is the most extensive examination ever undertaken of the substance abuse situation on the nation’s college campuses." See rest of press release or link to actual report at http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/templates/PressReleases.aspx?articleid=477&zoneid=65
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This September 12, 2007 New York Times education article, Calling the Folks About Campus Drinking by Samuel G. Freedman, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, looks at how one university is addressing the problem.
Quote from the article:
"UNAMBIGUOUSLY, alcohol abuse is the No. 1 health and safety problem on every college campus,” Chancellor Wiley said in a recent interview. “I don’t even know what would be No. 2. Just about every unpleasant incident, every crime, involves alcohol abuse by the victim or the perpetrator. The question is, what do you do that’s effective to prevent it? And there’s no magic bullet.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/education/12education.html?pagewanted=all
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National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) College Drinking: Changing the Culture website explains
What is alcohol poisoning? What are the symptoms? What to do if you think someone has alcohol poisoning...
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