Soul Summit Music Festival Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, NYC

Soul Summit Music Festival
Sunday, July 12 & 19th, 2009
Sunday August 2nd & 23rd, 2009
Fort Greene Park
Brooklyn, NY
3PM to 9PM

http://www.soulsummitmusic.com

Whole Foods Uptown is Hiring (NYC)

Hi All,

Whole Foods is recruiting for local staff among organizations in the neighborhood. Below is their information. If you are interested, reply to the phone or email indicated below.

Upper Manhattan Center
215 West 125th Street WORKFORCE 1
New York, N.Y. 10027
Tel: 917-493-7000

100 + POSITIONS AVAILABLE AT
WHOLE FOODS MARKET

The world's largest retailer of natural and organic foods is seeking:
Cooks
Runners
Cashiers
Cashiers Assistants
Front End Drivers
Bakery Team Members
Bakery Team Receivers
Whole Body Team Members
Café Team Members
Pre-Pack Team Members
Salad Bar Team Members
Dishwasher Team Members
Specialty Team Members
Seafood Team Members

Requirements:
Experience in area in which you are applying.
Ability to work a flexible schedule including nights, weekends, and holidays.
Ability to stand and walk for an entire 8 hour shift.
Ability to perform physical requirements of position.
Ability to operate all necessary equipment.
Bend and lift loads up to 50 pounds
Clean background

Positions start at $10.00/hr

Recruitment events will be held at the address listed above on:
Monday, July 6, 2009 at 10:00 am
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 10:00 am
Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 10:00 am
Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Friday, July 10, 2009 at 9:00 am

Please bring your resume and photo identification.
Tell us you are here for Whole Foods

Interested candidates please contact:
Vivian Stroman at (917)493-7066 or vstroman[at]seedco.org

New York City Workforce Career Center operates an equal opportunity program. Auxiliary aids and services are available upon request to individuals with disabilities.

Travel & Leisure Getaway - Michael Herbert's Travel Line, Inc.

Hey Black Family,

My friend and ADODI brutha Michael Herbert is in the travel & leisure business and wants to introduce you to some competitive and alternative travel and travel rate possibilities for that special destination trip you might be thinking about.

In the spirit of the fourth Kwanzaa principle: Ujamaa (oo-JAH-mah-AH): Cooperative Economics, please check out Michael's travel & leisure website business called Travel Line, Inc. ---> http://www.ytbtravel.com/michaelherbert

Whether you're thinking about that cruise or beach escape in the Caribbean or big travel plans overseas, there's a bunch of options to look at on Michael's website.

Michael's travel and leisure website offers:

Top 20 Destinations
All Inclusive Resorts
Offbeat Retreats
Family Friendly Vacations
European Escapes
Flight Itinerary Look-up
Online Flight Check-In
Stay the Luxurious Way


So check a brutha out! If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact him!!

BOOK YOUR TRAVEL ONLINE TODAY!
www.ytbtravel.com/michaelherbert
Ph: 561.306.6819
Michael Herbert
Referring Agent
m.a.herbert[at]gmail.com

Michael Eric Dyson's Radio Broadcast Critique of President Obama

This is an interesting video I came across and wanted to share it. I think Dyson has some real valid points. The video is quite powerful. No matter what your perspective on Dyson or Obama, I think it's always imperative to keep our critical thinking hats on.

ROD

I Loved Michael, But, I Don't Think he Did

I Loved Michael, But, I Don't Think he Did
by John-Martin Green

(A Guest Nubian Knight's Perspective)

We've lost Michael. Michael, the seventies singing prodigy who grew into the most visionary musical performer of our generation. Michael, who scaled untold heights of popular culture, rewriting the record books. Michael, who sang and danced his way into the hearts and souls of men women and children the world over.

I am torn about his departure. It strikes me that he left us a long time ago, actually. His retreat may have begun as long ago as the time of the infamous Pepsi commercial twenty-five years ago at which point he was said to have commenced his addiction to pain killers. Having been alcohol and drug addicted myself, I can attest to the fact that, when one is so afflicted, one is not really present. Perhaps it began a few years before that, with his first plastic surgery.

He was clearly a genius - a tortured genius. It frustrates me when I think about the extent to which, brilliant as he was, he seems not to have wanted to be who he was. It vexes and perplexes me that, with unfathomable resources and access to information - including African and African American History, all manner of progressive spiritual restoration models, and the best psychological support services the world has to offer - this uber-gifted man seems never to have opted to heal himself - to deliver himself of the self-hatred by which so many of us are stunted. For even a little of the incalculable psychological support of which he might have availed himself, he may not have had to remain psychologically trapped in boyhood.

While it is likely that the adults with whom he surrounded himself may not have been wont to challenge him to seek out help for fear of being dismissed, I can't imagine people like Quincy or Stephen or Diana being so cowered. Was there nobody pulling his coat? Nobody at all? If so, that's a tragedy.

Writers have conjectured about Michael's changing his appearance so radically so as to remove any traces of his father from his appearance. While he may have harbored some antipathy for his father, I think it's safe to say he learned his relationship to manhood and to Blackness from his father. His desire to escape the bonds of manhood and Black manhood were so intense that he went to extraordinary lengths to transform his physical self into something else. On a Larry King show one night this week, film director, John Landis told how, in approaching
him to direct the Thriller video, Michael told him, 'I want to become a monster.' Before his final departure, he would seem to have come very close to achieving that goal.


Well, in the end, we have his brilliant musical legacy to treasure.

____________________

John-Martin Green is Co-founder and Executive Director of The Black Men’s Xchange-New York (BMX-NY), an empowerment organization of same gender loving (SGL) and bisexual African descended men which works to bridge gaps and build dialogue and community with the larger Black community. BMX-NY is a pro-Black organization built on a philosophy that embraces same gender loving experience as an intrinsic facet of everyday Black life. Integral to BMX-NY’s approach is the understanding that, in order to decrease internal and external homo-reactionary thinking, and demystify differences around diverse ways of living, loving and being, homosexual, bisexual and transgendered Black people must engage in supportive dialogue with each other and the community.

John-Martin is also Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Blackberry Productions, Inc. Theatre Company (BP). Through BP John-Martin creates original theatre that reflects untold stories and history of African Americans, and uses the arts in schools and community-based-organizations to nurture the cultural health of our communities. An important facet of the cultural work John-Martin and his cohorts have undertaken lo the past twenty-five years lies in excavating the history and culture of Africans in the Diaspora, towards reconnecting us with ourselves. As we remember who we are, we are empowered to act as agents in our own struggle, our own progress.

As an educator, Mr. Green was a Co-founder and Co-Director over a decade, of Changing Scenes, an OBIE Award winning arts-based crisis intervention program for juvenile offenders. There he created a theatre workshop wherein participants explored their relationship to issues of human needs, power , control, self-concept, personal responsibility and societal expectations. At the Young Adult Learning Academy with BP, Mr. Green helped create interdisciplinary arts-based curricula that sparked creativity and receptivity to learning. Mr. Green has taught theatre at New School University, Brooklyn College, and SUNY campuses at Old Westbury and Nassau Community College.

He holds a BFA in Drama from Bard College and an MFA in Directing from Brooklyn College.

The 19th AnnualHOUSE OF LATEX BALL: VEGASSATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 2009ROSELAND BALLROOM | NEW YORK CITY

GMHC presents

The 19th Annual

HOUSE OF LATEX BALL: VEGAS

SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 2009
ROSELAND BALLROOM | NEW YORK CITY

239 WEST 52nd STREET

(BETWEEN BROADWAY & 8TH AVENUE)

DOORS OPEN AT 7:00PM
ADVANCED TICKETS ON SALE NOW AT GMHC

119 WEST 24TH STREET 8TH FLOOR

WEDNESDAY- FRIDAY 12PM- 8PM

$10 ADVANCED TICKETS/ $20 AT THE DOOR

CALL 212 367 1284 FOR MORE INFORMATION

(PLEASE NOTE:

THERE WILL BE MORE CASH CATEGORIES SO STAY TUNED)

Like Ballroom, Las Vegas is a true original; there is nothing else like it in the world. Once you experience the thrill of SinCity, you want to come back again and again, sort of like winning your first trophy. This years Latex Ball categories are design around the activities, shows, and the people that make up Las Vegas. We intend that with the creativity that ballroom participants contain and the innovative categories of the night this year Latex Ball will go down as one of the most talked about balls in ballroom history. The House of Latex Project dedicates The Las Vegas Ball to the Iconic Legendary Octavia St. Laurent- we all will miss ballroom’s Heavenly Angel.

Talk Show Host Maurice Runea Harassed by NYPD

Maurice Runea's Spoken Testimony:

On Saturday June 27th, 2009 @ around 2pm, I entered BEST BUY on 23rd St and 6th Ave. to get my cell phone repaired and was in the process of speaking with the sales rep when this Afro -American older gentlemen approached me from behind and said put your hands behind your back, I not knowing who he was replied excuse me and he said in a threatening tone put your hands behind your back as he reached for my arm, I started to react but the clerk, who has assisted me many times before mouth to me "Don't fight, he's a cop", So I trusted her advice and he handcuffed me and NEVER NOT ONCE DID HE EVER IDENTIFY HIS SELF.




Now anyone who knows Best Buy on 23rd & 6th knows it is always a very busy store and to be handcuffed, humiliated, degraded and accused was down right wrong and humiliating.

The man preceded to walk me from the front of the store to the back in handcuffs as the customers all stopped and watched as he hauled me off from the front of BEST BUY to the back (and to add to the humiliation he walked me through the store, mind you he still didn't identify his self... I am saddened at how this unfolded, he could of approached me identified his self and asked to see my ID and that would of been fine, but he felt the need to try and humiliate me.

So we get in the back of the store and then he said he was Officer Robert's and pulled out this wanted poster and said you going to tell me this ain't you? I said you have got to be f%$king kidding me, that doesn't look like me the least bit, he took the cuff off and I'm fuming at this point... he asked for my ID, I handed it to him, he looked at it had too BEST BUY employees guard me while he stepped out and was gone for about roughly 4mins. He returned handed me my ID and said Miss. Harrison, here's your ID (Maurice Runea is my 1st and middle name, Harrison is my legal last name)... I took my ID and said this is just the beginning... He replied, what you going to sue? Go ahead the City got alot of money Miss. Harrison, I relied your going to stop calling me Miss and requested his full name, the precinct he works for and his badge# and I also got a copy of the wanted poster... Now this is the killer, when he found out that I am the host of a talk show, write for a magazine and extremely well known, he offered to give me two days of body guard service... ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? He couldn't protect my rights or my dignity, I sure as hell don't trust him with my body!!!

To make matters worse, I'm am a frequent shopper at that BEST BUY, I work on the next block at The Gay Men's Health Crisis and I'm always in the neighborhood shopping, dining and just being a law bidding citizen... I am upset beyond belief with this whole unnecessary situation and the migraine I have proves it... Yeah I was cleared but my reputation is tarnished due to the fact that the customers who saw me being hauled off like a common criminal had long gone about there business by the time I was released and I'm humiliated. I have witnesses who witnessed the entire ordeal and thank God I was still thinking logically enough to get the the name and contact info .

To make matters worse I was scheduled to be at two functions, one a celerity mixer (which I was a 1 and a half late for due to my detainment and then I had to cover the red carpet for The 40th Anniversary commemorative concert and benefit @ the Nokia Theater... I did all this while trying to hold it together because work is work but to make matters worse I had on all white, so just imagine what my pants looked like. That night when I was trying to wind down I simply couldn't.. I would dose and jump up and the migraine got worse... Then Sunday I was scheduled to be at NYC Pride, which I attended still not feeling 100% but was even more uncomfortable seeing the police after my ordeal

I always thought the NYPD was suppose to Serve and Protect, but as of lately I'm feeling like they abuse there power and authority... They speak to you like you don't matter, they use excessive force and are just down right messy with there everyday antics and the city in my opinion the city allows this nonsense to take place on a daily basis. I'm also a little disturbed that this is the type of behavior allowed to take place in BEST BUY.

I am now in the process of handling this situation... I will keep you posted!

Contact the 75th Precinct and let them know we will not tolerate Officer Wilson Robert's handling of this situation:

75th Precinct
1000 Sutter Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11208
(718) 827-3511
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/precincts/precinct_075.shtml