“Come with your hair nappy, leave with your hair happy”

That’s a slogan that I saw on a hair salon called Ghetto Fabulous in Crown Heights, Brooklyn on Friday — my first initial foray beyond the confines of Manhattan. Crown Heights, a 50 minute subway away, is more or less divided along the Eastern Expressway, with Hasidic/Lubovitch Jews to the south, and Jamaicans/Guyanese/Trinidadians/Surinamese/Haitians to the north. Should be a neat community to cover this semester.

I spent nearly two hours walking around there just getting an initial feel for the place before I had dinner with Veda and Peter to CafŽ de Bruxelles, a mussels place in the Village that had amazing food and really great Belgian beer. And Belgian chocolate cake to die for. I ate like a king — I recommend the roquefort mussels, ah so good!

Early Saturday morning I took the ApexBus for $24 round-trip to Philly. It took close to an hour to walk to the subway stop, take the subway (transferring twice) down to East Broadway along the Lower East Side and walking to the bus. There were several buses around, with various people running around, and little Chinese women waving signs of the various destinations, DC, Philly, and the like. On my bus was majority Chinese-Americans, with two Senegalese, a French couple, and three Italians. I slept the whole way to Philly, nearly a two hour trip. I followed Giselle’s instructions about hopping on the Philly subway to her place in West Philly, but I got on the wrong train and had to walk a little bit, but it was ok. I dropped my stuff, and we walked through Penn and into the city. Philly is a great little city, much smaller than I expected, and is great for walking. We walked through some of the older neighborhoods, that have many buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries. It has some great little cafŽs, bakeries and bookstores. We went down to the Liberty area, and saw the Liberty Bell and went in front of Constitution Hall, and walked through some bookstores and record shops. I bought a autobiography published in 1960 written by the Shah of Iran, which should be interesting. Giselle (a vegetarian) was kind enough to stick it out while I waited in line for 40 minutes at Jim’s Steaks, a Philadelphia icon for Philly cheesesteak (with provalone cheese and peppers with a root beer to wash it down). It was meaty, cheesy, and very Philly. Wonderful.

While we were walking around, we ran into a friend of Giselle, whom we agreed to get together with to go to Ortlieb’s Jazzhaus, a cute little jazz club in Center City. Despite an $8 cover, a mandatory 15% gratuity, and a tenor sax player who seemed to be rather hesitant/constrained when playing — it was a great time. Their yam fries are amazing.

Sunday we slept in late and headed almost immediately to south Philly where we caught the Phillies game lose to the Giants, 3-1 — Bonds didn’t do anything spectacular. The new ballpark is quite nice, done in the neo-retro style. After the game we caught up with Boring Matt and his friend Diane, who met up with Giselle and I and we went to the Caribbean Festival at Penn’s Landing, where we met up with a Malian and Ethiopian dude who chatted with us for awhile.

Today, we took a field trip to the Bronx, where we were to talk to three people as sources, and get six story ideas. We were lead by the Bronx bureau chief of the NY Daily News who send us from the Bronx Zoo to Belmont (Little Italy) to a police station to chat with some cops, and finally to Hunt’s Point in the South Bronx. Belmont, I thought was the most interesting part of the trip, not only because there was great Italian joints, but there were an increasing number of Albanian and Mexican businesses. I bought a CD of Albanian pop music, enjoyed a Jarritos Tamarindo, a slice at Carmania’s (?), and a couple of chocolate chip cookies from Madonna’s, a great Italian bakery.

And randomly, we got a talk by Ben Allen, who was an Eagle Scout in my boy scout troop in Santa Monica, who now works for Rep. JosŽ Serrano, (D-NY) from the Bronx.

I suppose New York couldn’t be boring if it tried to.

Go Bears! Natalie Coughlin wins the Gold!

Go Bears!

Associated Press
Monday, August 16, 2004; 1:11 PM

ATHENS, Greece – American Natalie Coughlin won Olympic gold in the 100-meter backstroke Monday night. Coughlin, the only woman ever to swim under 1 minute in the event, finished first in 1 minute, 0.37 seconds.

Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe, who swims at Auburn University in Alabama, earned the silver in 1:00.50. Laure Manaudou of France took bronze in 1:00.88.

Manaudou had won the 400 freestyle Sunday night.

Coughlin, of Concord, Calif., broke the minute-barrier for the first time in July 2002, going 59.58 to lower the world record of 1:00.16 set by He Cihong of China. Coughlin did it again at last month’s U.S. trials, when she swam in 59.85.

The American owns six of the top 10 times in the event, but didn’t need a sub-minute time to win her first gold medal.

Haley Cope of Chico, Calif., was eighth and last in 1:01.76.

Back from Philly

Philly is a cool place.

In a nutshell from these past few days:

Thursday: Pizza with Sarmad at Sal & Carmine’s, Farmer’s Market on Broadway

Friday: Crown Heights, Dinner with Peter and Veda at CafŽ de Bruxelles in the Village, Belgian beer rocks.

Saturday: Philly via Chinatown bus. Chez Giselle. UPenn, Downtown Philly, Liberty Bell, Jim’s Steaks (Philly Cheesesteak), Nap, Dinner/Jazz at Ortlieb’s

Sunday: Sleep in, Phillies game, Saw Matt & friend Diane, Caribbean Festival @ Penn’s Landing, Chat with Malian and Ethiopian dudes, Chinatown bus back, met French woman and daughter en route,

Tomorrow: Field trip to the Bronx

More tomorrow.

Kerry: Preach this from the mountaintops!

This proves what Kerry, Edwards, Clinton and even Al Gore in the last campaign have been saying for years:

Fully one-third of President Bush’s tax cuts in the last three years have gone to people with the top 1 percent of income, who have earned an average of $1.2 million annually, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to be published Friday.

The report calculated that households with incomes in that top 1 percent were receiving an average tax cut of $78,460 this year, while households in the middle 20 percent of earnings – averaging about $57,000 a year – were getting an average cut of only $1,090.

The new estimates confirm what independent tax analysts have long said: that Mr. Bush’s tax cuts have been heavily skewed to the very wealthiest taxpayers. Those are also the people, however, who pay a disproportionate share of federal income taxes.

[The New York Times, August 13 2004]

Live from Santa Monica Airport!

Why can’t our public officials be funny all the time?

On Thursday evening, the Bushes were joined by Schwarzenegger inside a hangar decorated with large U.S. and California flags.

“It’s fantastic to be with all of you here tonight to salute our great president, George W. Bush,” Schwarzenegger said in his brief introductory remarks. “I just want you to know, President Bush, how hard I’ve been working for you here in California.

“I’ve been organizing Republicans for Bush-Cheney. I’ve been organizing Austrian former bodybuilders for Bush-Cheney. I’ve been organizing girlie men for Bush-Cheney.”

The crowd roared its approval particularly to the final line, a reference to the governor’s recent slam on the California Legislature, whose failure to pass a budget he attributed to the presence of “girlie men.”

Bush reprised his joke from the first time he met Schwarzenegger. “The governor and I have a lot in common. We both married above ourselves,” Bush said. “We both have trouble with the English language. We both have big biceps. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.”

Los Angeles Times, August 13 2004

Thursday news

Bad news: California Supreme Court Voids Gay Marriages in San Francisco (NYT, August 12 2004)

Optimistic caveat: Mr. Newsom had argued that he could order the licenses issued because he believed the state ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. The justices today did not address the constitutional question, which is the subject of a separate lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court. But they did say that should the existing marriage law ultimately be found unconstitutional, “same-sex couples then would be free to obtain valid marriage licenses and enter into valid marriages.

Good News: I got another profile approved for Wired! And look out for my first one coming out in the Sept. issue, due out in about a week with Arnold on the cover!

“Do we need the first amendement to tell us that our bras can kill us?”

That was a direct quote from Prof. Tucher who gave us a lecture today on journalism history. She was talking about a TV story she heard about from the 1970s about how bras are dangerous because someone died wearing an underwire bra when she got struck by lightning there are sometimes, both today as well as in the past, really silly news articles. The best one from the early 19th century was, right when newspapers were first coming out in New York was about how there was a story about how a flock of pigeons sat in a tree in battery park for half an hour.

Interesting point from the journalism history lecture: Journalism is the only profession mentioned by name and protected by the US Constitution. Chew on that for awhile.

In another note, I was just realizing how much I miss KQED and interesting radio in the evening. WNYC here switches to classical starting at 7 pm instead of how KQED rebroadcasts some of the talk shows from earlier in the day but then — *cue dramatic music* — I realized I can listen to the Internet stream! Ta-da! I love the Internet.

But anyway, back to life over here — as I walked back to my apt after the morning session to make myself a sandwich, I noticed that the air became heavy and the clouds menacing. (It’s really convenient having my apt be a seven minute walk from the journalism building. I’ve never lived so close to my classrooms before.) By the time I got back to my apt and had eaten my sandwich, the clouds exploded into torrential rain. I changed into pants, closed-toed shoes (I do wear them sometimes, I swear), and a rain jacket. I hopped back across the street toward campus and had to splash my way across the brick and cobblestone, worrying about my laptop in my backpack (it was fine).

Our afternoon session was a lecture by David Isay, of Sound Portraits fame. He played some really moving pieces that he did by some 12 and 13 year old kids from South Side Chicago living in housing projects, and ones by men sentenced in prison to life in Angola, Louisiana. He is also responsible for an oral history project where he’s put in a soundproof booth in Grand Central Station here in New York and for $10 you and a family member/friend can record, using high-quality equipment, a 40 minute interview/oral history. When it’s over with, you get a copy, and one copy goes to the Library of Congress. Really neat. Anyone wanna do this with me?

The subject of “The Terminal” hasn’t left CDG in Paris

Reuters, August 9 2004

Since “The Terminal” opened in the United States in June, reporters have been lining up to meet him at his makeshift airport home, passengers stop to take his photo and fans send him letters — addressed to “Alfred, Terminal 1”.

“I might be famous. But my life hasn’t changed at all. I’m still sitting here, and not in some fancy flat,” Merhan said.

The soft-spoken, balding man says he received more than $300,000 (162,813 pounds) from Spielberg’s production company DreamWorks for the rights to his life story, but he hasn’t touched most of it. He lives on a few euros each day, buying papers, food and coffee.

Merhan, who says he is 59, does not look like a tramp. His moustache is impeccably trimmed, his black hair carefully combed. Although 16 years at the airport have not made him physically ill, his doctor says he has lost his grip on reality.

“Alfred might be on the same record as us. But he’s not on the same groove,” said Philippe Bargain, head of the airport’s medical centre, who has treated Merhan since he arrived in 1988.

. . .

Merhan then bounced across Europe on a homeless odyssey for several years and spent several months in prison for illegal immigration. In 1999, the French authorities finally agreed to grant him refugee status but he had changed his mind.

“When we arrived at the prefecture to sign the papers, it said Merhan Karimi Nasseri on the document — his real name,” Bargain recalls. “Alfred said: ‘I refuse to sign these papers because that’s not my name. My name is Sir Alfred Merhan’.”

Merhan, who denies he was born in Iran and says he does not speak any Farsi, is still without papers but the authorities turn a blind eye to the quiet man in the corner.

“He doesn’t disturb public order,” said a police officer. “He’s not bothering us, so we’re not bothering him. We’ve never had any problems with the guy. He’s a bit of the airport mascot.”

Welcome to Harlem, I guess

I think I just almost got mugged, in plain daylight.

I was walking through Morningside Park, which is just east of my apartment, separating Columbia’s hood Morningside Heights, from Harlem. I had a few hours between when our latest orientation session got out and the evening discussion about media coverage in Iraq and decided to go for a walk in Little Senegal. I was on my way back, talking to Matt “Boring Matt” Bunczk, a friend from Senegal who I’m going to see this weekend in Philly and was walking up the stairs that lead back up to Morningside Heights and was going around a hairpin turn. I passed these two young guys who were hanging out near the stairway and after I walked by them while on my phone and they started following me, walking quite quickly. As I made the turn, I stopped and turned around to face them. They seemed very surprised that I noticed them and one of them stumbled for words, saying:

“Uhh . . . do you know what time it is?”

I hung up on Matt by accident and said:

“Yeah, it’s a quarter to five.”

Still seemingly stunned, the same guy said:

“Are you a cop?”
“No.”
“Why do you look — are you scared?”
“No — should I be?”

And they walked off. I looked up the stairs and saw that a woman was coming down, so maybe that scared them off as well.

So yeah, that was weird. Remind me not to be on the phone next time I walk through the park again.

Little Senegal was very cool, and I’ll definitely have to explore more of it. I walked into the first main shop that I encountered and hung out for maybe 20 minutes or so, talking with the shop owner, Samba Seck. He was very friendly, and pointed out all the great Senegalese products that he was selling, including a Turkish-made packaged cookie called Biskrem, which goes for about $0.30-$0.50 in Senegal, and $1 in Samba’s store. I bought a pack, and a bag of dried hibiscus (bissap) to try to make juice with it for $2. Just hanging out in the store, there were all kinds of characters coming in and out. It didn’t take long before a guy showed up wearing a whole boubou, the traditional Senegalese dress, with loose pants and a matching long shirt going to the knees.

More orientation stuff was pretty straightforward. Lots of info on health services, avoiding carpal tunnel, library research, and so on.

I did meet a guy named “Wally” from Ibadan, Nigeria who has been working from Lagos as a journalist for the last few years. He’s also been working on some project about early post-independence Nigeria — so once he heard about you guys, Heidi, Mom, Grammy and Grandpa — he wants to interview and meet you all! He lives in the Bronx and says that he cooks a lot and that there’s an African market near his apt and that I should come over for dinner. Sounds good to me.

“Some days, you’re the bug — splattered on the windshield of reality.”

Such were the words of my RW1 professor Sig Gissler today, summing up the life of a journalist. Gissler, among other things, has a reputation of being a very good, but very strict RW1 prof. He scolded someone for being five minutes late to class today. He also is the administrator of the Pulitzers, so I suppose it’s good to stay on his good side. Hardened and raised by Chicago and the Midwest, Prof. Gissler reminds us to “put hay in the barn” or to “keep nuts in the nest” — in other words, get your stuff done ahead of time if possible and be ready for when things go awry. He also says that he has a secret weapon used in the fight against the perils of a journalist: oatmeal. According to his father, a Swedish immigrant farmer, “. . . and this is the only time I’m going to use this word — ‘Oatmeal is the only food they haven’t fucked up.’ ” He’s pretty hardcore old school, but seemingly very wise.

This was probably the most interesting part of Day 1 here at “Pulitzer’s School,” beyond the obviously compelling introductory bureaucratic lectures and explanations. Our class has 16 people in it (I’m the youngest, not surprisingly), but includes a few really interesting people, like a 20 something girl from Egypt who’s written for the New York Times from Cairo, a 20 something girl of Lebanese descent whose family fled to Monaco during the war (her French accent gave her away as having something to do with France) and has lived in Montreal, and a 25-year-old guy, Sarmad Ali, a Baghdadi who before last week hadn’t been outside of his native Iraq.

He’s traveling on a document given to him by the now-defunct CPA with a visa that had to be obtained in Amman, Jordan. I tried to befriend him after class let out today for lunch, and after we got our IDs together he treated me to a street hot dog and Pepsi. He lives in the I-House, enjoys soccer (his favorite team is Manchester United), and has been to a baseball game and finds it very boring. He completed his master’s in English Lit in Baghdad and his favorite author is Jane Austen. He’s written for the English-language publications Iraq Today, the Daily Star (Beirut), and Voice (Dubai). He’s definately someone I want to get to know.

The early evening was spent getting hors d’Ïuvres and cocktails in a mixer for the students, staff, and faculty. There I met some students from DC, South Carolina, LA, and Boston. However, the guy who really took the cake was Elias of Nairobi, Kenya. A tall and dark-skinned guy with a shaved head, he just sat down at our table and his charisma seemed to take over. He told us a little bit about his experience at University of Montana, Missoula, which was where he went to undergrad. Given how random it was that a Kenyan would end up in Montana, Elias said that he wanted to go to somewhere in the US off the beaten path, and despite all that he’d heard about racism, militias and the like — he was still determined to go to Montana. “You could fit all the black guys in Missoula on the back of a truck,” he said with a smile, “and if I got killed by a militia in Montana at least I’d be on CNN or something. If I got killed in DC, no one would care.”

“And because Missoula loves their football players, and all the blacks in town are football players, everyone would think that I was a football player. I’d be in a bar, and they’d say ‘No, you don’t have to pay, you played a great game last week,’ and it’d be great because I never had to pay for beer. Same thing if I got pulled over by cops while driving. I’d also go driving down the street and there would be these white kids in their car who would turn up their rap music and would look over at me and say ‘Whazzup dawg?’ and I’d just sort of nod and would have to turn down my NPR so I didn’t blow my cover. But because of that I want to go to Compton so I can learn how to be a real ‘brotha,’ y’know? I walk around in Harlem and they say “Hey, you talk like a white man,” and so I don’t know what to do.”

And there’s 200 some students more that I haven’t gotten to know yet.