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EVENTS

Events

AFRICAN DIASPORA FILM FESTIVAL Through Dec. 15, with screenings of more than 100 films from 46 countries and special events at several locations, including Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue, at Second Street, East Village; Riverside Church, Riverside Drive at 122nd Street, Morningside Heights; Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, at 95th Street; and Columbia University, 525 West 120th Street, Morningside Heights. Screenings, ticket prices and other information: nyadff.org.

HOLIDAY SINGING IN HARLEM As part of Target’s Free Sundays, the Studio Museum in Harlem hosts community singing at 2:45 p.m. in the museum atrium, featuring the Harlem Opera Theater and other classical artists; 144 West 125th Street , (212) 864-4500, studiomuseum.org; free.

SHOP ’N MINGLE Saturday, 1 to 7 p.m., designer showcases on women’s and men’s wear. Includes rotating D.J. sets, an open bar, dessert tastings from local pastry chefs and free barber services and makeovers. National Black Theater, 2031 Fifth Avenue, at 125th Street, Harlem , shopnmingle.com; free, but reservations are required: going.com/shopnmingle09.

Walking Tour

HARLEM GANGSTER TOUR, Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m., features the stories and legends of Harlem’s underworld; led by George Lee Miles. Meeting on the northeast corner of Malcolm X Boulevard and 116th Street; (212) 862-9561; $25.

 

clipped from www.nytimes.com

One Man’s War Story Illuminates the Heroism of One Million

Until recently, Carl E. Clark, 93, was still driving his car around Menlo Park. Then came a fall, a new hip and recovery in a rehabilitation hospital. But it was another wound he wanted to talk about — one that happened 64 years ago.



Noah Berger for The New York Times

Carl E. Clark’s actions during World War II were negated.

“The Navy and the civilian media held back things that lots of us did,” Mr. Clark said. “For obvious reasons: the prejudice and bigotry that was going on at that time.”

He is part of “the greatest generation” whose valor remains largely invisible: he is among an estimated one million black veterans from World War II. Due to the endemic racism of the time, their wartime heroism was often not recorded in official battle reports, a history manipulated to negate their accomplishments.

Now there is a move to give Mr. Clark credit for his role in a dramatic tale of survival.

ChrismaHanuKwanzakah: A Holiday Anxiety Spectacular
 
 
Wednesday December 16, 2009 from 7:00pm – 10:00pm

 

 
16 Main St, DUMBO
New York, New York Get Directions
 

Join the Global Giving Circle for ChrismaHanuKwanzakah: A Holiday Anxiety Spectacular 2009 at Galapagos Art Space in Dumbo Brooklyn.

What: Improv skits and socially conscious gift emporium

The entertainment for the evening will be provided by members of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, a company of improvisational actors. They will riff off of any memories the audience is brave enough to volunteer: awkward family holiday moments, worst gifts ever received, and other experiences that make the holidays cringe-worthy. So bring your best worst moments on down for a holiday catharsis!

Where: Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main Street, Brooklyn (Dumbo), NY, 11201

When: Wednesday, December 16th at 7pm – 10pm

7-8pm holiday gift emporium
Entertainment begins at 8pm

URL: http://www.globalgivingcircle.org; http://www.globalgiftsthatmatter.org

Cost: Tickets are $25 and includes a glass of wine (white/red) or a non-alcoholic beverage

Tickets: http://globalgivingcircle.eventbrite.com Tickets will not be available at the door

Beneficiary:

Ticket sales will benefit Urban Arts Partnership, a non-profit organization that provides arts programs – film, music, photography, visual arts, theatre, and dance – to underserved inner city public schools in New York.

http://www.urbanarts.org

Contact: Shana Dressler at 646-752-4379 or shana@globalgivingcircle.org

Press inquiries: press@globalgivingcircle.org

Event description:

SAVE THE WORLD, SAVE THE DATE: GGC HOLIDAY PARTY DECEMBER 16

Join the Global Giving Circle on Wednesday, December 16th at 7pm for their first annual holiday party and gift emporium: ChrismaHanuKwanzakah: A Holiday Anxiety Spectacular at Galapagos Art Space in Dumbo, Brooklyn. Each ticket includes a glass of white/red wine or a non-alcoholic beverage.

Entertainment for the evening will be provided by improv geniuses – members of the fearless Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre who will take the audience’s tales of holiday dysfunction and make them a springboard for hilarity. Ticket sales will benefit Urban Arts Partnership, a non-profit organization that provides arts programs to underserved inner city public schools in New York.

In addition to the evening’s performances, the Global Giving Circle will solve your holiday shopping needs with their lively gift emporium: Global Gifts That Matter. Buy jewelry, handicrafts, organic chocolates, bath and body products and many more amazing, innovative gifts. All purchases help support fantastic organizations doing humanitarian work. With prices ranging from $10 – $100, it’s never been this easy to make a loved one happy AND make the world a better place!

Can’t make it or want to get your shopping done before December 16th, please visit the GGC’s online gift shop at www.globalgiftsthatmatter.org.

To purchase tickets for ChrismaHanuKwanzakah please visit: http://globalgivingcircle.eventbrite.com. Tickets will not be available at the door.

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Ticket Info: $25

Smokers Inhale Germs from Cigarettes

Newsmaxhealth.com

Smokers Inhale Germs from Cigarettes

Thursday, December 3, 2009 8:36 AM

Cigarettes pose a danger not only to your future health, as a potential cause of heart attacks and lung cancer, but also your immediate health, as germ sources, according to an international study.

Cigarettes literally crawl with bacteria, and smokers inhale germs with each cigarette, including germs known to cause respiratory disease, according to the study by a University of Maryland environmental health researcher and microbial ecologists at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France.

The germs could even infect others via secondhand smoke.

“Cigarettes themselves could be the direct source of exposure to a wide array of potentially pathogenic microbes among smokers and other people exposed to secondhand smoke,” the researchers said.

Still, the researchers cautioned that the public health implications are unclear, and they urged further research.

“We were quite surprised to identify such a wide variety of human bacterial pathogens in these products,” said Amy Sapkota, an assistant professor in the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health.

500x_ny_nyp_01New York Post: was clearly too busy with Photoshop and did not read Spencer Morgan’s piece in the Observer yesterday, or they would realize that this pun now means Tiger is a 30-something predatory lady.

Court Deals a Blow to Columbia’s Expansion Plans

Updated, 3:43 p.m. | A state court ruled on Thursday that the state could not use eminent domain on behalf of Columbia University to obtain parts of a 17-acre site in West Harlem, dealing a major blow to the university’s plans to build a $6.3 billion satellite campus.

In a 3-to-2 decision, the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court annulled the state’s 2008 decision to take property for the expansion project [pdf], saying that its condemnation procedure was unconstitutional.

Columbia embarked on its first major expansion in 75 years in 2003, saying it had outgrown its cramped Morningside Heights campus. It planned to replace the low-scale industrial buildings north of 125th Street with school buildings, laboratories, restaurants, a jazz club and tree-lined streets.

The court’s decision is not fatal to to its expansion plan. It already owns or controls 91 percent of the 17-acres–61 of 67 buildings–in the project area. It can simply build around the other property owners, or come to some sort of agreement. But the state and the university had always sought the entire site.

It bought most of the land between 125th Street and 133rd Street, between Broadway and Riverside Drive. But the university failed to work out a deal with Nicholas Sprayregen, who owned four Tuck-it-Away Self Storage buildings in the area, and the Singh family, who own two gas stations. At one point, Mr. Sprayregan offered to swap his properties for other land owned by Columbia nearby, but Columbia refused to do a deal. He said the state never came to him asking to work out a solution.

“I feel unbelievable,” Mr. Sprayregen said following Thursday’s decision. “I was always cautiously optimistic. But I was aware we were going againt 50 tears of unfair cases against property owners.”

He and the Singh family challenged the state’s finding that the neighborhood was blighted and its decision to condemn property in the project area on behalf of the university.

Warner Johnston, a spokesman for the Empire State Development Corporation, criticized the court decision as “wrong and inconsistent with established law.”

He added, “E.S.D.C. intends to appeal this decision.”

The decision comes less than two weeks after the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, ruled 6-to-1 that the state could exercise eminent domain in taking businesses, public property and private homes on behalf of a Brooklyn developer who planned a 22-acre residential development and a basketball arena.

Norman Siegel, a lawyer for the property owners who opposed the use of eminent domain on behalf of Columbia, called the court’s decision a “major victory” in a state that has been very deferential to the state’s power to take private property. He said the ruling establishes “a road map for how property owners can fight these battles.”

Columbia, which had touched off a major community battle in 1968 when it tried unsuccessfully to expand into Morningside Park, had hoped to avoid a similar battle this time around. It chose a neighborhood consisting mainly of small businesses, warehouses and little housing. Although state and city officials approved Columbia’s plans, some residents opposed it and several business owners chose to fight in court and refused to sell to Columbia.

For his part, Mr. Sprayregan said he never opposed Columbia’s expansion plan. “The research and education they will perform are very beneficial,” he said. “The fact remains that even if they don’t get the last five percent they can still go ahead and build their campus.”

clipped from www.care2.com

Laboratory Grown Meat: Coming Soon to Your Dinner Plate

Laboratory Grown Meat: Coming Soon to Your Dinner Plate
posted by Megan, selected from Green Options Dec 2, 2009 5:07 pm

By John Chappell, Green Options

Scientists in the Netherlands recently announced that they have grown meat in a laboratory for the first time. Though no one has yet to taste this laboratory meat, there is speculation that it could be commercially viable, and on your dinner table within the next five years.

The process of creating artificial meat started with extracting cells from a live pig and then placing them in a broth-like mixture of other animal parts until the cells multiplied. When the cells eventually multiplied they created muscle tissue, the texture and appearance of which has been described by researchers as “soggy pork.” Tasty.

The creation of artificial meat makes for an interesting dilemma for vegetarians. Is this “meat” still meat?
clipped from www.nytimes.com

City to Shut 4 Schools for Poor Performance; More Closings Expected

Closing the four schools — a large technical high school in Brooklyn, one school in the Bronx and two in Manhattan — would add to the 91 other schools that have been shut since 2002 as part of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s effort to overhaul the city’s school system.

The school, Kappa II, a middle school on East 128th Street in Manhattan with 200 students, was opened in 2004 and is slated for closing by reducing one grade a year until 2012
Also in Manhattan, the 558-student Academy of Environmental Science Secondary High School, which opened in 1997 on East 100th Street, is expected to close.
The middle school grades at the Frederick Douglass Academy III, a secondary school on Third Avenue in the Bronx with 517 students, are also a target for closing.
Among the four schools whose closing was announced Wednesday is the W.H. Maxwell Career and Technical Education High School in Brooklyn,
clipped from www.nytimes.com

Bringing Down the Curtain on a Symbol of Blight
Richard Perry/The New York Times

Gates like this one at a restaurant on First Avenue in Manhattan must eventually be replaced.

New York City’s storefront gates, like its fire escapes and stoops, are there but not quite there: the unnoticed wallpaper of New York at night. They have been battered by vandals and defaced by graffiti taggers. They have secured diamonds, handmade tortellini and other valuable commodities. They have provided the clattering soundtrack of dawn and dusk, the steel canvas of struggling artists, the most compelling evidence that the city does, indeed, sleep.

And now, on orders of the City Council, roll-down gates have joined the ranks of fatty foods and cigarette smoke: they have been legislated against, some right into extinction.



Richard Perry/The New York Times

Solid roll-down gates like this one on First Avenue become canvases for the spray-paint crowd.

clipped from cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com

At 100 Years, Black Newspaper Seeks to Preserve Its Legacy


Bao Ong for The New York Times At the 100th anniversary gala for The Amsterdam News at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center on Monday night.

He’s not always fond of newspapers, but Gov. David A. Paterson has said he has long respected The Amsterdam News. It’s the city’s oldest black newspaper, and it has inspired passions both positive and negative for most of its life.

Under the editorship of Wilbert A. Tatum, who died in February, the paper ran a slew of weekly editorials from February 1986 to September 1989 calling for Mayor Edward I. Koch to step down. In the infamous, racially charged case of the Central Park jogger, a 28-year-old woman who was severely beaten and raped in 1989 in the park, the paper decided to run the victim’s name. After the 1991 Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn, the paper ran the headline “Many Blacks, No Jews Arrested.”

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