CRUNK!!! And pot, java, the popo, Obama, more
Meredith Aska McBride | Thu, Feb 14th, 2008 | Category: Headlines | Tags: new york city, barack obama, meredith aska mcbride, coffee, nypd, original white trash, aclu, titanic, koreatown, lucille ball, marijuana, grassroots drive, soul food
Celebrity and Showmanship on a Soul Food Menu
“Of a bag of ‘Original White Trash,’ a snack mix coated in white chocolate, he said, ‘If you put that in the article, you have to say it was made by a Caucasian.’
“Among the collectibles there was a tin of Lucille Ball ‘Predic-a-mints.’ What, a questioner wanted to know, did that famous redhead have to do with soul food?
“ ‘Soul is the very essence of who we are. And she had it,’ Mr. Willhoite explained. ‘We all love Lucy. I wouldn’t think of having a soul food museum without Lucy.’ “
Grass-Roots Drive, Political Machinery Were Key to Obama
“ ‘There was this general excitement. . . . What we were able to do is harness that,’ he said. ‘The other campaign did not have that capacity.’
“Sinclair Skinner, a former Fenty field campaign coordinator who helped organize Tuesday’s ground campaign, said Clinton was also missing the intangible—a spirit of history in the making that was touching voters.
“ ‘Somebody told me that that was the first time they thought their vote mattered,’ he said.”
ACLU, Rick Steves launch marijuana campaign
“Washington was considered a good place to launch a campaign to discuss marijuana laws because it’s viewed as being on the cutting edge of drug legislation, the ACLU’s Alison Chinn Holcomb said. A law allowing medical-marijuana use was approved by state voters in 1998, and in 2003 Seattle voters approved Initiative 75, which made the adult use of marijuana a low priority for law enforcement.”
5 airlines at Midway back city’s plan to lease airport
“City Hall, which already has generated more than $2 billion by leasing the Chicago Skyway and four downtown parking garages and is thinking about leasing out metered parking spaces, could see several billion dollars from a long-term lease of Midway.
“As with those going-private transactions, however, consumers could see some of their costs increase. For example, there would be no restrictions on parking garage rates or on what could be charged for food and other items sold in the airport terminal.”
Runnin’ Scared: Getting Out of Dodge
“The NYPD has said that it missed its recruiting goal by nearly 75 percent for its July 2007 academy class, attracting only 800 people to fill 2,800 slots. Fourteen percent of the recruits dropped out before hitting the streets. Of those who made it through the academy in recent years, hundreds have already left the department. A recent PBA report noted that 820 cops defected in the first 10 months of 2007, mostly for other law-enforcement agencies in the area.
“It doesn’t help that the NYPD’s youngest officers often find themselves in the city’s most dangerous precincts. For those reasons, many young officers like Deoliveira and Bonsignore view their jobs with the NYPD as detours in careers that will ultimately take them to safer departments.
“‘It’s hard feeling like you’re putting your life on the line for so little,’ Bonsignore says. ‘It wears on you, I guess I’d say.’ “
“Cafe Jack looks like a teenage girl’s dream bedroom circa 1997. There’s a wall of DiCaprio and Kate Winslet photos adorned with red twinkling lights as if it’s a shrine. The wood furniture looks like it belongs on a cruise ship. A staircase leads to the second floor, where you can lean out over the bow and imagine the street’s really the Atlantic Ocean. The only thing that disturbs the vision is the Korean pop music in the background instead of ‘My Heart Will Go On.’
“Shin said he’s seen ‘Titanic’ more than 100 times. ‘I really like this sad, lovely story. It was my dream to build something like this in Koreatown,’ he said.”
Meredith Aska McBride, originally from Milwaukee, is halfway to a music degree at the University of Pennsylvania. In her spare time she plays viola, writes for The Daily Pennsylvanian, freelances and raises hell with Students for a Democratic Society.
