Advanced Scouting.....

To All My Fellow Gilmour Fans:

Here's Radio City Music Hall.....just waiting for David Gilmour and his band to start their North American OAI Invasion April 4th and April 5th. Across the street from Radio City is a water fountain plaza in front of the Time Life Building.

As you face the fountain (with Radio City behind you) you will see a sculpture to the left and a news telestrater to the right. I suggest we meet under the telestrater as that is the least crowded and easily recognizable area on the mini-plaza. We could get a nice group shot with Radio City in the background...

Here is a picture of the Heartland Brewery on 51st street between 6th and 7th (Radio City is on 50th street and 6th Avenue). This seems to be a nice place to hang out and is very close. The problem is they fill up quickly on a concert night. If we want to hang out before and after, we'd be on a waiting list.

We would have to meet by the telestrater at 4:45pm, take our group picture, and head over the Heartland to secure space by 5:00pm. Is that too early? I'll keep checking around and will update this page. In the meantime, how many people are we?

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Update 3/29/06:

It's settled. We'll meet under the telestrater at 4:45, take a group shot, move on to Heartland Brewery, toss back a few, take a few more pictures, and go see the concert we've all been waiting for. Heartland says there should be plenty of room for us by the bar. If we're lucky, and want a table, there may be some available between 5:00pm and 5:30pm. Though I hate their directions, here at least is a mapquest link for you of the area.

For those coming by PATH, here's a map for you. Click here for PATH weblink. Click here for NYC Transit System. The "1" Train, "E" Train, and "D" Train stop on and around 50th street (D Train being the closest).

If you are driving and need to park, expect to pay top dollar on an event night around RCMH & Rockefeller Center. You may want to check out this list of garages and call ahead to see what's cheapest. As a rule of thumb, I tend to go as west as I can in that area to find the cheapest parking (7th ave, 8th ave, 9th ave, 10th ave).

Getting Together for a New Family Member

There's nothing like getting together to celebrate the impending arrival of a new family member. Here is my wife Christine in the act of surprising her sister Angelica at a little babyshower she threw for her this weekend. It was a modest and warm gathering that refelcted the care and thoughtfulness my wife puts into everything she does. The decorations, the souveniers and baby shower basket she made by hand, the lapel pins, and how she rearranged the funiture (including using my piano as a decoration table!) all refelcted my wife's personality and warmth.

Angelica and Alain are expecting by April 5th when she's scheduled to be induced. It's amazing to think that very soon a new person will come into the world with her own individual personality and potential to contribute to our society....
Family is central to everything we are and all we wish to become in our society, and I'm lucky to be a part of this little family.


Above are some family and friends waiting for Angelica and Alain to arrive. Christine, her mom, brother, India (Angelica's daughter), and I were literally decorating and cleaning our apartment right up until people started arriving!!!

Here on the right Alain and Eric swing back Coronas while Eric's wife, Marisol (Christine's aunt) chats it up with Angelica's friend Xiomara. India keeps a watchful eye on her brother Carlos who's really interested in what his mom is doing.

What these pictures don't capture is the smell and taste of how good my mother-in-law's cooking was!!! The pernil (roasted pork shoulder) and moro negro (rice cooked with black beans) was about as good as any Dominican mom from the old country could make!!! There's my mother-in-law, Adriana, laughing it up as she watches her son, Dioliver, and Eric go at it in a baby dressing competition below.

Above in the background and below is that delicious Dominican cake with pineapple filling!!!

Becoming a parent is an awe inspiring experience, and no matter how many times you are graced with a child the experience never ceases to amaze. We only have one, Christine and I, but are hoping for more. We have, however, seen many babies born into our family, and, as observers and co-child rearers, are inspired every time there's a new family member. This baby will be Angelica's third and Alain's first. We wish them, India, and Carlos all the best as they gear up for the fifth member of their little household! I'm going to love posting here when the day comes.....

Mmm, I think it's time for a piece of that cake....

Light My Fire....

"With friends surrounding..." -Gilmour/Samson

In 2005 I attended another in a long series of campfires in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. I've been going up there since 1984 when I was a kid, and in this picture is Peter, who has been a friend of mine since that time, with his son, Max (today is Peter's Birthday...Happy Birthday Pete!!!). Whenever I've sought inspiration, I've turned to memories of this place. The "Camp-out", as we've called them, was just one of countless opportunities to bond with each other, find out about yourself, and dare to dream. I'm a big Pink Floyd fan, and it was Peter along with another friend, Sean, who first turned me on to that group as well as a whole genre of music.

These memories and that music are getting a lot of replay these days as I get centered and hold on to the idealism that sent me into social services. Well, off I go to start an important day.....

Hiatus, Balance, and Acrimony

It's good to be blogging again after such a long hiatus. I've been reading, researching on-line, checking my favorite blog (David Gilmour's Blog), and grant/report writing for my 9 to 5.... It's been a two month stretch that has been very trying on so many levels, but I'm plugging along...

The hard part has been balancing everything with my family life. It is impossible not to bring work home with me, but it has been impossible to want to do work at home. Then when I want to do work I can't get a moment to concentrate until 11:30pm!!! The end result is work that keeps piling up.

Trying to bring resources into an underserved community is nobel and satisfying work, but "doing more with less" has become tiresome to say the least. (I had to be born and persue a career in social services during the most fiscally conservative period in the field's history, didn't I...)

This is also a thankless job. No one in the community is ever satisfied with what they perceive you to be doing except for the kids and families you actually serve. I won't go into this here (just a rant now) but what has made these two months more difficult is having to deal with bad faith gestures, ego trips, and all kinds of mis-communication flying around me. Sometimes I wonder, "Why do I bother?", and then I see Noella and understand...

Below is a letter to the editor I sumbitted this week to a local paper.
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Dear Editor:

I find that more and more I am confronted with the question, “How does one build successful collaborations in a community where we either fail to listen or fail to speak out effectively?” As a social worker, it is in my blood to serve and motivate others to act to the best of my ability. Whatever the answer is to that question, I am propelled to act as my heart and mind tell me is right within the context of my knowledge and experience. The question I pose is a deeply personal one, for all around us is an insidious darkness that threatens to extinguish our better nature with mistrust, connivery, and blame. Mike Green of “ABCD Organizing” in Denver, Colorado says that building community “...begins with conversations.” Conversation is the engine that drives what people care about into action, but what about a community where people fail to listen or hear only what they want to, or speak at each other and not to each other, or speak far too much? When conversations breakdown relationships fall apart, and this community is rife with broken conversations. Last night at a community meeting I saw a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” I will live by that truth and continue to serve and motivate through speaking and active listening despite the surrounding darkness that threatens. Is that the answer? I’m not sure, but I’ll keep shining my light and will let you know if I find one.

Angelo Ortiz
Inwood Community Services, Inc.

TBP Part 3: The Bush White House & The Iraq War

There has been a lot of debate in the three years since the Iraq War began. Are we there for Oil or to fight terrorism? Well, no matter who is right, this war is just a backdrop in a much larger sociopolitical drama. The debate is compelling, but when you see the bigger picture you are compelled to question your most basic presumtions.

When the Bush Administration came to power in January of 2000, the conservative movement in America acheived a pinnacle of success: they finally controlled two branches of the federal government (executive and legislative) and were within striking distance of controlling a third (judicial; note recent fights over Supreme Court nominees). It was the culmination of an almost forty year effort to roll back a liberal agenda over-reach that in the period between the FDR and Johnson Administrations. The details of that argument are beyond the scope of this post, but it starts with a philosophical debate that dates back to the founding of the nation: What is the role of the Federal government in the lives of Americans, and how much power does the Federal government have over the individual states?

It is well kown that Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented a broad sweep of federal programs to get America on it's feet again after the Great Depression, The New Deal. Thirty years later came Lyndon B. Johnson and The Great Society. Conservatives, as I understand it, hate the expansion of Federal Government these programs represent, and they abhor how the Supreme Court began legislating from the bench passing decisions that were consistent with liberal thinking as opposed to maintaining their neutrality such as with Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. Ronald Reagan and the American Conservatism Movement slowly began turning liberal policies around preaching new economic policies and a strong America. The Contract with America helped solidified Republican Congressional control in 1994. This conservative climate shift in Washington and across the nation also ushered in a new age of conservative lobbying and conservative media control, and unprecedented corporate influence.

By the time Bill Clinton was sworn in to a second term in 1996 (much to Republicans dismay after their attempted impeachment of him) , the stage was set for taking over the White House. Hitting the airwaves right after the 1998 mid-term campaign were reports of fund raising for the next potential Republican candidate: Gov. George W. Bush of Texas. Looking at the Republican rise and the changes in Federal spending at face value one could brush off the significance as just a change in the electorate. Then you look at how Bush came to power in 2000 and you raise an eyebrow, but then again there is a little something called "The Project for a New American Century".

This is a conservative think tank promoting policies that from their point of view strengthen America home and abroad. In 1998, a group of PNAC conservatives wrote an open letter to then President Clinton encouraging his administration to take an aggressive stand against Saddam Hussein. They stated that a free Iraq would help spread democracy through out the middle east, create a strategic advantage for the US, and secure American "interests" in the region. This policy position, written three years before 9/11, seems to provide a very disturbing side note to what is happening today in 2006. What makes it all the more disturbing is the fact that the architects and signers of that document are they very same people at the heart and head of the current Bush Administration. Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheyney, John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz were all signers of that letter to Clinton, and they are the very same War Hawks who pushed for the war in Iraq (Jeb Bush was also a signer, the Governor of Florida that played a large part in the 2000 election).

PNAC wrote in their policy paper "Rebuilding America's Defenses" that the only way to get Americans to support a larger role in world affairs is an event on par with a Pearl Harbor? That opinion feeds fuel to 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and, quite frankly, has made me suspicious as well. (read here if you'd like what the other side says about these theories).

Today terrorism is on the rise, Iraq is on the verge if not in the middle of a civil war, and the poll numbers for Bush and the Republican party are sinking lower and lower. The bigger picture here is that, though Iraq has begun to try and govern itself, the whole Iraq War has bred the kind of western resentment that created Al-quaeda type terrorism in the first place. Resentment against america builds. What's more is that Islamic fundamentalists are getting politically smarter. Hamas, a recognized terror organization, was voted into power in a Democratic Election in Palestine.

As the Bush Administration keeps finding justifications for granting greater authority to a Unitary Executive, the middle east might destabilize further as Iran asserts it's autonomy. I'll go into these issues in The Big Picture Parts 4 & 6, but in the meantime keep an eye on the middle east this year as well as reports coming out of the Islamic world and the policies of the Bush Administration's war on terror.