September 8, 2010

I’d bitch about health care, but I’m too sick.

My apologies, peeps:  I’ve been rogue lately.

Was knocked on my butt last week with chest pains and shortness of breath.  When I got home from picking up a few groceries on Wednesday evening at 7:30, I sat down to check my mail like I usually do, when I suddenly felt sharp pain in bands across my back and I was having noticeable trouble breathing.  My breath was coming in short gasps.  My roommate gave me a couple of muscle relaxers, as I thought it might be from my Fibromyalgia, but after thirty minutes I had no relief, and so she decided to take me to hospital.

I HATE going to hospitals.  If you’re not clearly dying or decapitated, then they make you sit in the ER forever; although, I’ve known a few who lost limbs and still weren’t considered “trauma”.  My minimum that night was 2 hours before being seen by a doctor, and another 2 once I had been seen to await my test results.

The highlight of the evening had to come when they needed to do a CT scan for blood clots or tears in the aorta, but they couldn’t get a vein for the IV.  Finally, after yet another chest x-ray and blood work, they sent me home. Continue reading I’d bitch about health care, but I’m too sick.

September 8, 2010

The Atlanta ‘Child’ Murders

 

It was a chilly fall day in New Jersey when I realized that the Atlanta Child Murders, as they were called, had a terrible effect on the way people of color were looking at the world. I was in the grocery store with a friend visiting from Atlanta for the weekend. My not quite 2 year old daughter was sitting happily in the seat of the cart when an elderly white woman came over offering my child a treat. I don’t remember if she was working in the store promoting the items she was giving out but she seemed harmless enough and  I allowed my smiling daughter to take the wrapped crackers. My friend gave me an irritated frown. “You let her take stuff from strangers after all those murders in Atlanta?”

It was something that had never dawned on me since my child wasn’t old enough to be allowed anywhere outside the presence of her family or her sitter. But it was something that had taken over the matter of child rearing in the south. Continue reading The Atlanta ‘Child’ Murders

September 2, 2010

Not Everyone is Meant to Be a Winner

This trend started some years back that baffles me. In a world dominated by fierce competition schools, sports teams, and even some youth clubs were giving awards to every child- just for being a child. There was no spirit of competition, no desire to become the best. And although it is sad when children get left back socially because they didn’t get picked for the team what is sadder is the growing number of people who think mediocrity is something be rewarded. Continue reading Not Everyone is Meant to Be a Winner

August 24, 2010

What Hurricane Katrina Taught Me

For the past few days I have been haunted by the memory of  Hurricane Katrina. August 28th marks the fifth anniversary of the storm that destroyed most of New Orleams and displaced one of the poorest sections of this country- the 9th Ward. I have never been to New Orleans but what happened in 2005 changed my life. Continue reading What Hurricane Katrina Taught Me

August 24, 2010

The Gaslight Journal is Done

Begun back sometime in 2001, this book was originally a fluke of an idea… [...]

August 21, 2010

I Love New York

I love New York, I always have, I always will. Now wait, wait hold on a second, you say, didn’t you leave New York several years ago?  Yes, I did but not because I didn’t like living there.  I left because I didn’t like the cold winters in New York.  I strongly dislike winter’s cold, snow and ice except at Christmas. Christmas weather is supposed to be cold isn’t? Yeah, it is, so you can hang stocking  by the chimney with care,  laugh a Frosty the Snowman and wait for Santa in his sleigh .  Do fur or spruce trees grow in LA?

People are always downing New York and New Yorkers, shame on them.  They do so, I think, out of jealousy.  New York is a marvelous mixture of cultures, ideas and habitats.  I’m a New Yorker born and raised.  Even though I have left my fair city home for a warmer climate it is still in me.  I am always told that I carry a distinctive NY accent when I speak.  I am often told that I dress like a New Yorker, we do have quite a bit of style you know, and that I don’t think or act like a southerner; I don’t. Continue reading I Love New York

August 21, 2010

Finding Your History in a Box Under a Bed

It was the week before Christmas, I have forgotten what year, and I was searching as was my habit for my presents. Perhaps I was 8, no more than 9, at the time and had asked for more things then my parents would ever consider giving to me. It was a Saturday afternoon and my younger siblings were taking a nap. So was the sitter, a teen girl who had partied too much with the boyfriend her mother did not know she had the night before. In the quiet I was supposed to be reading my book. Instead I slipped into my parents’ room to hunt for gifts. Damn the surprise, I wanted to see what I was getting. Continue reading Finding Your History in a Box Under a Bed

August 19, 2010

Subway Story: Free Show with Ride

Someone or some group is always on the hustle on the subway trains. From people claiming to help the homeless to those singing for a few cents there is always some type of entertainment provided. Most of the time you wish those bothering the riders would get off the train between stops and never be heard from again.

But then there are moments worth the embattled ride. Continue reading Subway Story: Free Show with Ride

August 4, 2010

Saying No! to a Ground Zero Mosque

Saying No! to a Ground Zero Mosque


By Alan Caruba

In the August 3rd edition of The Wall Street Journal, in the Greater New York section, the lead article was “9/11 Memorial Pledged as Part of Mosque Plan.”

There already is a 9/11 memorial. It is called Ground Zero and will be incorporated into whatever structure that eventually gets built on the site.

If one continued to read the story, however, you had to jump to page A21 where side-by-side with the mosque story was one titled, “Verdict in JFK Bomb Plot”, subtitled “Jury Finds Two Guilty in Conspiracy Charges for Plan to Ignite Fuel Tanks.” Continue reading Saying No! to a Ground Zero Mosque

July 25, 2010

Giving back through journalism

Giving back through journalism

 

by Tyree Harris

When people think of giving back to the community, they think sandwich lines, clean-up service, and financial charity.

Though all of these are great and important, there is no better way to give back to your community than with the very talents you are practicing for your career.

Give back with what you do best.

I spent my first week of summer at the Oregon State University campus being journalistically revived by 24 bright-eyed, teenaged writers. For the past three years, I’ve dedicated June 19th through the 27th to the High School Journalism Institute, a joint effort between the Oregonian and Oregon State to promote newsroom diversity. It is, without question, the most cultural journalistic experience possible in Oregon — students in the program are all from underrepresented backgrounds. Continue reading Giving back through journalism