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The Afro-American, December 29, 2012 - January 4, 2013
December 29, 2012 - December 29, 2012, The Afro-American
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Ideal Academy Students Receive Reward for Creating National Tree Ornaments Students at the Ideal Academy Public Charter School were given VIP tickets to the lighting of the National Christmas Tree as their reward for designing ornaments for the tree. “It was amazing to be that close to the President and his family,” said Micah Stewart, one of the student ornament designers. “We know that most kids our age will never have that opportunity and we are profoundly grateful for that experience.” Patricia Smith, local artist and art teacher at Ideal Academy, was selected by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities to work with students to create 24 ornaments for the Washington D.C. tree. “The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities is proud that Ideal Academy Public Charter School will be representing Washington, D.C. in this year’s National Christmas Tree display,”
said Lionell Thomas, executive director of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. But nothing could match the excitement of the students. “We were honored and thrilled to be a part of something so important and historical,” said Edwin Zelaya, another student who worked on the ornaments. “Who would have ever thought that our small
“We were honored and thrilled to be a part of something so important and historical.” – Edwin
Zelaya, student
school would be representing D.C.?” Smith said being selected was special to the students, who attend a small school with funding challenges. “It was a special distinction and honor for us because we at Ideal Academy believe that the arts play a pivotal role in how we learn about the world and how we express our ideas
Courtesy Photo
Ideal Academy students show off the ornaments they created for the 2012 National Christmas Tree. and dreams,” she said. “We were excited to be a part of the National Christmas Tree display because it provided us with a spectacular canvas
to celebrate the diversity of D.C.’s neighborhoods and the accomplishments of its residents.” The ornaments’ theme
was love and appreciation for Washington and the amazing attractions and history offered to residents and visitors. Using origami-style designs in the
shape of stars, snowflakes, orbs and hearts, the students showcased the District’s national monuments, people and neighborhoods.
Hey Cabbie II! Showcases Baltimore Cab Driver’s Wisdom By Ronald A. Taylor Special to the AFRO The best way for a curious stranger to find out about a city is to travel its streets and boulevards, in daylight, on public transportation. Public buses are cheap, but noisy and full of distractions. But a wise and knowing cab driver can do more to tutor a newcomer than any other resource. Thaddeus Logan, author of Hey Cabbie II!, is the sort of resource that the Baltimore Chamber of Commerce ought to enshrine. A retired detective who spent years on the city’s vice squads, Logan has a finely honed sense of right, wrong, history and urban style. His latest book, a sequel to Hey Cabbie!, is another odyssey through Baltimore’s streets in which he nails the sights, sounds and even the smells (a segment about the sewage treatment plant is priceless!) of this city in a way that newspapers could only hope to convey. In 116 pages of vignettes covering 72 cab rides, Hey Cabbie II! charts the psyche of the town, touching on events such as the Preakness and Halloween night and institutions such as Morgan State University in northeast Baltimore and Highland Beach in Annapolis. It even has a very useful map. But it is clear that Logan knows not only where places are and how to get from here to there, but also how the city ticks.
He has plenty to say about street vice, local political corruption and organized religion, especially the Black church. It is wisdom gathered from his fares and filtered through the prism of a man who has chased miscreants, stared down the barrel of a gun and tracked down criminals. He knows about the city and its inhabitants because he listens. It doesn’t take much for this Black cabbie to get a 50ish Black woman to share her views of local Black politicians in the ride from Northwest Market to his old neighborhood on West Lafayette Street. The woman had unflattering remarks about both former Mayor Sheila Dixon, who she regretted voting for, and her church, which had charged her over $2,000 for her daughter’s wedding. There are also several encounters with foreign visitors. In one instance, there was a chat with a woman in her mid-30s who had just emerged from a concert at the Meyerhoff Symphony Concert Hall. The woman, a visitor from Madrid, delivers a monologue in which she compares urban life in Europe and the U.S., wishing aloud that the two cultures would do more to learn from each other about to keep cities livable. Through another fare, just picked up from Port Covington Terminal where they had returned after an ocean cruise, he learned of the shortcomings of the U.S. health care system. Through his fare, a middle-
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don’t get as much service requests,” Rodio said. As casino jobs disappeared, the unemployment rate soared. It was 12.9 percent in October, ranking Atlantic City 362 out of the 372 metropolitan areas that the Bureau of Labor and Statistics tracks. While tax revenue has obviously fallen as the casinos draw in less money, demand for social services has spiked. In the last five years, food stamp recipients in Atlantic County, N.J., (home to Atlantic City) have doubled, according to the New Jersey Department of Human Services. “People asking for help are usually families that are underemployed. They might work in the casino industry, in the kitchens or housekeeping-type jobs,” said Tom Davidson, director of development at Atlantic City Rescue Mission, a local shelter and food pantry. Davidson has seen a steady increase of people asking for help—including families in crisis who receive one of 250 emergency food baskets every month. Over the last six years, families receiving assistance from the Community FoodBank of New Jersey nearly doubled, said Margie Barham, the food bank’s southern Jersey executive director.
The rise in families applying for charitable assistance mirrors the rise of unemployment and underemployment in the state, said Diane Riley, the food bank’s director of advocacy. “People are not making enough. They have to pay their rent first and then perhaps supplementing their food,” Barham said. “They get on food stamps, go to food pantries, try to do whatever they can.” Sandy has just exacerbated the underlying problems. “No one is coming to the casinos because half our market is underwater,” McDevitt said. “Half our members haven’t worked since the storm.” The struggles of workers deepen when the casino business and tourism slows down. The Casino Association of New Jersey calculates that casino resorts support more than 100,000 New Jersey jobs, either directly or indirectly-including construction workers, security guards and vendors. Many residents with jobs tied to the gaming industry end up working only eight months a year, Davidson said. “A lot of people have learned to deal with it. They will patch two or three jobs together,” Davidson said. He added that these workers often need extra food or clothing to carry them through the rest of the year. Read more on Afro.com.
aged married couple on their way home to Columbia, Md., he learned it might be wise to sign up for health insurance on a cruise. They told him that a couple on the cruise, whose husband suffered a heart attack, had not signed up for the cruise line’s health insurance and were suddenly confronted with huge medical bills. He also shares his conclusions about the decline of civilization, as seen through the crowd at Pimlico Race Track for the annual Preakness Stakes. He talks about how degenerate the scene is in the track’s infield. “You name it, it was happening,” Logan writes. Readers should be cautioned that the language and scenes are graphic, salty and
sometimes x-rated. For someone who grew up, as I did, the son of D.C. cab driver, it was pretty tame but provided fresh insight about the city. But when future anthropologists comb through the rubble of this civilization, let’s hope a copy of Hey Cabbie II! is still readable. Thaddeus Logan is a former Baltimore City vice detective turned taxicab owner/operator who has chronicled his 35 years behind the wheel in Hey Cabbie! and Hey Cabbie II!. He will be the subject of a book signing at the Pratt Library main branch Jan. 27. The books are available at his web site, http://www. heycabbie.net. Hey Cabbie! is $11.99. Hey Cabbie II! is $9.99.
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the front. Once Jeffrey reached the front of the line, he immediately stopped crying and wrapped himself around Santa, giving him the biggest, warmest and longest hug he could muster. “It’s a commitment to service,” said Alvin Greene, an event volunteer from World Missions Church and a pre-K teacher at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School. “With the economy the way it is, a lot of people lost jobs. It’s good to be able to give gifts to people that might not be able to go out and buy them.” The event was scheduled to start at 9 a.m. but many parents started lining up much earlier in order to secure a spot. Once inside they registered with volunteers and then waited for gifts to be distributed that afternoon. Volunteers from World Missions Church of Christ Extension Center, the Army Junior ROTC, St. Alban’s School and other groups were in a back hallway frantically wrapping gifts and organizing them by gender and age groups. The hallway was flooded with gifts of all types and sizes from toy cars and planes to doll babies and bikes. Around noon, they started calling numbers for families to line up for their toys. “Numbers 1 through 25,
Photo by Teria Rogers
Jeffrey Collins hugs Santa. line up in front of the elf,” the announcer said. Carlita Green, a 29-yearold mother of three, was there for the first time and got there at 5 a.m. She was number 83. “I got my mother-in-law and nephews and a girlfriend and her kids with me. Everybody came together and everybody’s ready,” she said. While some parents were attending for the first time, many had participated in past years. Angela Tucker-Barnes, a bus driver and mother of eight, was attending for the second time and showed up at 8 a.m. “It’s a long process before the kids get the toys but they give out excellent gifts,” Tucker-Barnes said as she sat
with friends and big bags full of toys. Courtney Thompson, a northeast D.C. resident and father of three, got there around 9 a.m. and was number 298. He was attending for the second time and patiently waited for his turn in line. He gratefully shared that “as long as they do this, I’ll be here every year.” Tiara Howard, mother of 7-year-old Jerimiah and 1 week old Jamari, registered late but was still able to get about five gifts. She had loaded her bag of toys onto her newborn’s stroller. When her son Jeremiah was asked if he was excited about receiving the gifts, he responded, “Yes.”