NPR Articles

Walter Dean Myers, A 'Bad Boy' Makes Good by Juan Williams August 19, 2008 Listen to the Story Morning Edition Add to Playlist Download Transcript   In this two-part series, we look at two writers — Richard Wright and Walter Dean Myers — who explored what it feels like to be African-American in the United States. Courtesy of Walter Dean Myers Walter Dean Myers's most recent books are Sunrise Over Fallujah and Game. Read an excerpt of Game. Enlarge Courtesy of Walter Dean Myers Myers uses old photographs of African-American life as inspiration for his books. The above picture of a tall, youthful Ethel Waters helped him develop Harlem Summer, which is set in 1925. Courtesy of Walter Dean Myers Myers uses old photographs of African-American life as inspiration for his books. The above picture of a tall, youthful Ethel Waters helped him develop Harlem Summer, which is set in 1925. Enlarge Courtesy of Walter Dean Myers When he was writing USS Constellation: Pride of the American Navy, Myers made a point of seeking out sailors who were of African descent. Courtesy of Walter Dean Myers When he was writing USS Constellation: Pride of the American Navy, Myers made a point of seeking out sailors who were of African descent. Enlarge Courtesy of Walter Dean Myers Myers amassed a collection of aviation photographs while preparing to write The Brown Condor, the story of a pilot in the Italian-Ethiopian conflict of 1935. Courtesy of Walter Dean Myers Myers amassed a collection of aviation photographs while preparing to write The Brown Condor, the story of a pilot in the Italian-Ethiopian conflict of 1935. August 19, 2008 Author Walter Dean Myers meets some of his young fans in a classroom at a juvenile detention center in the South Bronx. Though the audience members walk in wearing prison jumpsuits and sit slumped in their chairs, don't be fooled by the attitude: These kids have read some of Myers' dozens of books and are here because they want to meet the author. Myers' books tell stories that many in the audience are all too familiar with — stories about being insecure for lack of a dad, being scared to walk in your neighborhood, being viewed as a criminal monster. Growing up, Myers lived with his adopted family in Harlem, not far from this Bronx detention center. He was tall, with a speech impediment that elicited teasing. He got into his share of fights and run-ins with the law. But he was also bookish, and he knew he wanted to be a writer. The only problem was that all the authors Myers read in school were white and British. Then one day in the 1950s, he met Langston Hughes in Harlem. "He didn't look to me like a writer because he wasn't white," remembers Myers, now 70 years old. Myers also discovered Richard Wright, whose memoir, Black Boy, told of a troubled childhood in Natchez, Miss. It's a powerful book that details racism, extreme poverty and brutal violence. Some African-Americans struggled with it: "James Baldwin and Wright had this clash," Myers says, adding that Baldwin said "that when he read Black Boy he was both pleased with it, because it mirrored some of the things that happened to him, and he was upset with it, because he felt that Wright had glamorized in a negative way some of his earlier upbringing." Baldwin's charge that Wright had glamorized the negative aspects of his story stayed with Myers. When he wrote his own memoir, Bad Boy, Myers says he wanted to show "a duality of characters more clearly than Wright had." One aspect of his life that Myers omitted from his memoir was his mother's alcoholism. He says that if he were to write Bad Boy again, he would write more about what he calls "the burden I carried with me every single day." "The first time I dropped out of school, the counselors asked me what was wrong. ... I wasn't going to tell some teacher that my mom is an alcoholic — I wasn't going to do that," says Myers. Myers understands that there must be a lot weighing on the minds of the kids at that Bronx detention facility. He shows them old photographs depicting various aspects of African-American life, which he uses to help flesh out the characters in his books. Myers started gathering photos while doing a writing workshop in Jersey City. Today, Myers has over 10,000 of them. "The kids were writing such negative stuff about themselves that I began to collect photographs to show how beautiful they actually were," he says. "I used the photographs in a number of different books." During his talk the at the detention center, the kids who slouched in the chairs when he first started speaking lean in to listen. One girl tells Myers that she regrets not being as "book smart" as she wants to be. "One of the things you can do is start writing," he tells her. "What you're saying — other young people want to hear [it]. If you're interested, I am." Excerpt: 'Game' by Walter Dean Myers "Yo, Drew, here's the story!" Jocelyn called me from the living room. She and Mom were already sitting on the couch across from the television. Pops came out of the bathroom in his undershirt and started to say something, but Mom held her hand up. "Wait a minute, honey," she said. "They're talking about that stick up on 126th Street." Pop looked at me. There was a commercial on the television. "It's coming up next," Jocelyn said. A moment later a woman's face filled the screen. What's happening with the youth of America? Well, if you're talking about the young people in our inner cities, the picture is far from pretty. Today, two high school boys were involved in a vicious robbery and shoot-out in New York's Harlem community. The image on the screen switched to a picture of the police stretching yellow tape across the sidewalk in front of a discount store. At one thirty this afternoon, two boys, boys who should have been in school, attempted to stick up this store on 126th Street and Lenox Avenue. As they made their way from the store and down the busy street they encountered an off-duty policeman, who immediately sensed what was going on. The two youths shot at the policeman, who returned fire. The result: a badly frightened and wounded clerk in the store, a sixteen-year-old in police custody, and a seventeen-year-old fatally wounded. The country's educational mantra these days is "No Child Left Behind." Tragically, this is yet another example of the growing number of children left behind on the cold streets of New York. In Lebanon, negotiators have reached a tentative agreement . . . Jocelyn switched channels. "They didn't even give their names," Mom said. "That's because they weren't eighteen yet," Pop said. "You can read about it in the papers tomorrow." "It just tears me up to see young people wasting their lives like that," Mom said. "Every time you pick up the newspaper, every time you switch on the television, it's more of our young men either killed or going to jail. Lord have mercy! There just doesn't seem to be an end to it. Now there's a young man with all his life in front of him, and I know his parents wanted the best for him. Laying out on the sidewalk. It just . . . oh, Lord have mercy!" Mama's voice was cracking, and I wondered why Jocelyn even had the story on. She knew how it upset Mom. She had always worried about me and Jocelyn, but then when my man Ruffy's brother was arrested right after Christmas, she got really messed around. "I still think you children should finish school down south." Mom was on her feet. She had the towel in her hand she had been using to dry the dishes. "It's just safer down there." Pops started in about how it wasn't any safer in Savannah, which is where my grandmother lived, than it was in Harlem. I went back to my room, and Jocelyn followed me in and plunked herself down on the end of my bed. "Why don't you go to your own room, girl?" "Why don't you let me borrow your cell until I get mine fixed?" "No." "Drew, you ain't got nobody to call. Let me use your phone." "Those guys must have been on crack or something," I said. "Pulling a stick up in the middle of the day." "So when do you pull your stickups?" "Jocelyn, shut up and get off my bed." "How long you think Mom is going to be upset?" she asked, not budging from the bed. I took my sneakers off and threw them near her. "Yo, even when Mom's not acting worried, she's upset," I said. "I only got the rest of the year to go at Baldwin. You're the one she's going to send down south." "I was thinking that maybe I should just go to Hollywood and start my career," Jocelyn said. "I thought you were going to go to Harvard first." "I could commute back and forth." "And you could get off my bed so I can get some rest." Jocelyn got up, picked up one of my sneakers, sniffed it, and then staggered out of the room. ***** The only time our neighborhood made the news was when something bad went down, and the talk in school was about the shooting and who knew the guy who had been killed. It was a hot subject in the morning but had cooled down by lunch time. A helicopter had gone down in Afghanistan and that made the front page of the newspaper. The main inside story was about some girl singer getting a divorce and accusing her husband of fooling around with her sister. That was good, because I knew Mom would be looking for news about the shooting. Everything that went down wrong in the neighborhood upset her. I could dig where she was coming from. There had been a time, a few years ago, when the shootings and all the drug stuff were just background noise. You heard about it happening, but unless some kid my age or Jocelyn's age was hit by a stray bullet, it didn't seem that real. But when I reached fifteen, it was boys my age being shot. Mom was always warning me to be careful and stay away from gangs. That's what she understood most — the gangs. She knew I wasn't about gangs. I was about ball. Ball made me different than guys who ended up on the sidewalk framed by some yellow tape. "Basketball is wonderful, Son," Mom would say. "And I'm sure glad you're playing sports instead of running the streets." She would let it go at that, but I knew she had listened to people talking about how hard it was to make it in basketball. I knew that, too. But I also knew that even if I didn't make it all the way, I could cop some college behind my game. Everybody in the city who played any real ball knew my game was strong. James Baldwin Academy had almost made it to the regional finals in my junior year, and now, as a senior, I knew we had a good chance to make it. Last year I led the team in scoring, assists, and defense. The word was that there were a lot of scouts checking me out at the end of last year, and I knew they would be back this year. They always came after Christmas, when the deal got serious. There would be some guy recording your shoe size and how strong your wrists were and smiling when they asked you if you did any weed. They were smiling, but I knew what I had going on. All the real players told me to pick up my action during February, because that's when the scouts were sending in their reports. The thing was to make it to the tournaments in March, when the college coaches would be making their final reports. My high school basketball career had been dope, but I knew I needed a strong finish, too. I remembered seeing documentaries on a couple of players headed for the big-time schools. Division I all the way. If I could deal big-time and get picked up by a smoking college program, I thought I could make it to the NBA. It was a dream, but it was a dream I could back up. Lots of dudes talked the talk and a few could even walk the walk, but I knew I was solid because I had big-money skills and my head was into the game. All I needed to do was to live up to my ability. But every time something hard went down in the hood — some young brother got wasted, some kid got killed in a drive-by, or someone we knew got arrested — Mom got upset. I could dig it. She was about family all the way. When Tony got a fall, it shook Mom. "Drew ain't Tony," Pops said. "He got more to him. Ain't you, Drew?" "Yeah, Mom," I said. "I thought you knew that." She smiled and patted me on the hand. Tony is the brother of my best friend. If I needed a reminder, it was Tony. Everybody had thought he was all-world on the court, too. I knew in my heart that I was more than Tony. Maybe not on the court, but in real life. I had seen Tony hanging out on the corner and messing with the crack hos. It worried me some, because I wasn't digging anybody in the hood getting into a telephone booth and turning into Superman. But I believed in myself. When I looked around, I didn't see too many brothers believing in themselves. They were steady rapping sunshine, but you could see the weakness in their eyes when they had to stop rapping and walk away. It was like when you were on the court with a dude, and he was blowing smoke but backing off when the deal went down. I was fronting strong, but I knew that ball wasn't a done deal. Ruffy Williams was Tony's younger brother. He was my main man and the team's center. He was usually happy, but when I met him in the hallway outside the media center, he looked pissed. "What happened?" I asked. "I bought an MP3 player from Ernie, and he told me he had downloaded over two hundred songs." Ruffy was six three, two inches shorter than me, but built like a tank. "So I hook up, and the only thing he's got downloaded is classical music." Ernie Alvarez was a guard. He was usually cool but a little quirky. His father ran a television repair shop, and he was always getting used tape recorders and stuff that didn't work quite right. But he sold the stuff cheap, so it was okay. "So we got practice today, right?" "Yeah." "How about we take some time out right after practice and kill Ernie?" I asked. "No big deal. We got other guys who can play guard." "Hey, I heard we got two new players on the team," Ruffy said. "Who told you that?" "Needham. You know those two white guys we saw in the gym last week?" "Yeah." "Them." I had seen the two guys around the school for a couple of weeks. One was small, maybe five ten, and played like he thought his game was hot. The other guy was big, my height, but broad. He played some ball during Phys. Ed. but I hadn't paid him a lot of attention. I did notice he had a slight accent. I hate it when it's really cold outside and the windows are closed and it's stuffy in the school. Time dragged all day. I slid through the morning and made it into my afternoon English class with the clock pushing towards two. I was getting sleepy when Miss Tomita asked me to stand up and discuss the play I had been assigned to read. She didn't expect me to have my stuff together, so I sat at my desk looking all stupid while she got her steam up, and then I stood and started running it down. "Okay, so Othello's a play about this brother who was a general but was married to a white chick," I said. "The brother was uptight and worried that the chick was stepping out on him, and this guy he trusted, Iago, started whispering in his ear about what was going on behind his back. I think Iago didn't like black people." "Mr. Lawson, Shakespeare described Othello as a Moor, but there's no reason to believe that his actual skin color was black. That probably would not have been acceptable in Elizabethan England." Miss Tomita was small, but when she was mad, she could make herself look bigger. "The guy's picture on the cover showed he was a black man," I said. "That is what the publisher assumed," Miss Tomita said. "We happen to be studying the author, not the publisher." There were some kids goofing up as if I had done something really stupid instead of just making a simple mistake. I sat down and looked at the book jacket again. I wondered why, if everybody else thought Othello was black, I wasn't allowed to think the same thing. I let it slide because you can't win with a teacher. Everybody knew that Miss Tomita was the hardest teacher in the school. She was Japanese American and taught English and acted as if she loved every book that was ever written. As far as I was concerned, she had to be reading in her sleep to know as many books as she knew. I wanted to get my grades together and English was my shakiest subject. Related NPR Stories The Legacy Of A Nation's 'Native Son' http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93699480 The Legacy Of A Nation's 'Native Son' by Juan Williams August 18, 2008 Listen to the Story Morning Edition Add to Playlist Download Transcript   In this two-part series, we look at two writers — Richard Wright and Walter Dean Myers — who explored what it feels like to be African-American in the United States. Enlarge Getty Images Getty Images Read an excerpt of A Father's Law. Watch a scene from the documentary, Richard Wright: Black Boy. The Impact of Richard Wright's 'Native Son' Add to Playlist   text size A A A August 18, 2008 African-American author Richard Wright had a very different upbringing from his daughter, Julia. In his autobiography, Black Boy, Wright described the neighborhood he lived in as a child as swarming with "rats, cats, dogs, fortune tellers, cripples, blind men, whores, salesmen, rent collectors and children." "Smoke obscured the vision and cinders drifted into the house, into our beds, into our kitchens, into our food; and a tarlike smell was always in the air," he wrote. Just a generation later, his daughter grew up in a very different world; in the late 1940s, Wright moved the family to Paris, where Julia would later attend the Sorbonne. It was in Paris that Julia first encountered her father's famous autobiography. She was 12 at the time, and she found Black Boy on the shelf one evening when her parents were at the theater. "I really didn't want to read it. I maybe would have preferred a mystery," she recalls. "Then I went into the kitchen and took some chocolate caramels and went to bed with Black Boy and the chocolate caramels." Here's some of what she read: By the time Wright was 12, he'd set fire to his mother's home, been sent to an orphanage and been lured into a Memphis bar and plied with liquor. "When I got to the end of Chapter 2 and I read that he only had an orange for Christmas and that he sucked it slowly to make it last, I spit the caramels out," says Julia. Richard Wright's story of his childhood made him one of America's most popular writers in the 1940s. In addition to Black Boy, which he dedicated to then 3-year-old Julia, he also wrote Native Son, a fictional account of a black youth in the segregated North. Native Son tells the story of Bigger Thomas, an uneducated black man from Chicago who unintentionally kills a young white woman. Bigger is a study in contrasts: Strong, ignorant and angry, he's also confused, vulnerable and at a loss about how to deal with a racist society. Wright's novel makes Bigger into America's native son — the offspring of a nation's bigotry. Julia has spent this year — the centennial of Richard Wright's birth — talking about A Father's Law, the book her father was writing when he died. It's about the relationship between generations. But now, a hundred years after Wright's birth, it seems that his books aren't as widely read as they used to be. "You would be surprised at how many students don't know who Richard Wright is," says Latashia Wansley Clark, a student at Copiah-Lincoln Community College in Wright's hometown of Natchez, Miss. To mark the centennial of his birth, the college produced a documentary about his life and work. "Actually, I'm 32 years old and I didn't know who Richard Wright was before I started this documentary," Wansley Clark says. "It changed my life," she says. "I read the book and now I read books all the time, because of the impact that it had on me. It's like you're there with [Wright] as he's going on his journey." Excerpt: A Father's Law by Richard Wright Chapter One He saw the dim image of the traffic cop make a right-face turn and fling out a white-gloved arm, signaling that the flow of cars from the east should stop and that those toward the south now had the right of way, and at the same instant he heard the cop's shrill whistle: Wrrrriiiiiieee . . . Yes, that was a good rookie. He had made change-over in traffic smartly, the exact manner in which the Metropolitan Handbook for Traffic Policemen had directed. The footwork had been perfect and that impersonal look on his face certainly inspired confidence and respect. That's the way a policeman should work. Well done, Officer, he mumbled in his sleep as the officer now did a left-face turn, again flinging out his flashing white-gloved hand and sounding his whistle: Whreeeeeiiiiiee . . . "Ruddy!" "Hunh!" "Ruddy! Wake up!" Wrrrriiiiiieeeeee . . . "Hunh? Hunh?" "Ruddy, it's the telephone, darling!" Wreeeiiieeeeee . . . "Oh!" "It's the telephone, Ruddy!" "I'll get it, I'll get it," he mumbled, blinking his sleep-drugged eyes in the dark and fumbling with the bedcovers. He sat half up and sleep rushed over him in a wave, seeking to reclaim him. "This rush-hour traffic . . ." He sighed, his voice trailing off. "Hunh? Ruddy, are you awake?" "Hunh?" "Darling, the telephone!" Wreeeeeiiiiiii . . . In one stride of consciousness, he conquered his sleep and pushed his feet to the floor, reached out to the bedside table and lifted the receiver. He cleared his throat and spoke professionally: "Captain Rudolph Turner, speaking." A woman's sharp, crisp voice sang over the wire: "Ruddy, Mary Jane . . . Mary Jane Woodford." "Yeah, Mary Jane. What is it? What's up?" "Who is that, Ruddy?" "Wait, Agnes. I'm trying to talk. Switch on the light." "What was that?" "I was talking to my wife, Mary Jane. Spill it. What's the trouble?" "A message for you. The commissioner wants to see you at two o'clock," Mary Jane informed him. "So hustle up here. And don't wear your uniform." "Two o'clock? Tonight?" "Naw. This morning. It's past midnight now. And it's urgent." "But what about?" "I'm not the commissioner, Ruddy. You understood what I've said?" "I got it." "You sound like you were dead to the world." "I was sleeping like a log. I was dreaming. I was coaching a rookie to direct traffic." "Traffic? I bet it was flowing north and south! Ha, ha!" "You dirty-minded gal!" "Ha, ha! See you, Ruddy!" Click! He hung up and stared into space, vaguely aware that his wife had flooded the room with light. "Who was that, Ruddy?" "Mary Jane. The commissioner's secretary." "Why in God's name is she calling you at this hour?" "It's her duty, honey. I got to go in at the commissioner's at two . . ." "Tonight?" "It's morning, darling. It's urgent, she said." "She shouldn't call you like that." "She's doing what she's told." "But she never called you before at this hour." "I know. Don't know what this can mean." "Didn't you ask her?" "Yeah. I did. But she won't tell." "Well, I never. You're a captain. They shouldn't rouse you out of your sleep like that." "Something's up," he said, idly scratching his chest, vaguely sensing the vivid dream he had had fading from his mind. Was it the Maybrick case? No—that was settled. And don't wear your uniform! "She said I was not to come in in uniform." "Why?" "The commissioner's order, she said." "That sounds fishy to me." He turned and looked down at his wife's dimpled, peach-colored face, the deep brown eyes clouded and heavy with sleep. "Now, Agnes, don't you be a little kitten and start scratching at Mary Jane. She's not trying to lure me out of the house for her sake . . ." "I didn't say that," Agnes mumbled sulkily. He glanced at his wristwatch; it was twenty minutes past midnight. He leaned over to his wife and lifted her head with his left palm and kissed her. Gently, he eased her face from him. "You go right back to sleep. I'll get dressed." "When will you get back?" "I really don't know, honey. Something's up. It's been years since I got a midnight call to come in . . . say, what's that?" "What?" "That noise? Jesus . . . Tommy's typing. And at this hour. Doesn't he ever sleep?" "He's studying for his exams, Ruddy." "Goddammit, he's overdoing it. A boy his age ought to be sleeping." "He sleeps enough. You'll call me as soon as you know?" "Sure thing, kitten." "And no uniform? Maybe they've got a plainclothes assignment for you and—" "Naw. Those guys are a dime a dozen." "Maybe you're being assigned to guard some bigwig?" "Could be. But they've got hundreds of guys to do that stuff. And I'm the man who assigns 'em. Couldn't be that." He rose, yawned, and stretched. "I won't wear my uniform, but I sure will take my gat." "You do that," Agnes said. "I'll shower," he said, turning as a knock came on the door. "Dad." "Yeah, Tommy. What is it?" "Come on, Tommy," Agnes called. The door swung in and a tall, slender brown youth of eighteen poked his head and half of his body around the doorjamb. "I heard the phone and heard you two talking," Tommy began. "I'm summoned to headquarters," Ruddy said lightly, poking his feet into his house shoes. "You still up?" "Cramming," Tommy said, twisting his lips in a self-effacing smile. "You ought to get your sleep, son," Ruddy said. "When I was your age, I was either playing baseball or chasing gals." "He knows what he wants to do," Agnes said. "A big crime case coming up, Dad?" Tommy asked. He now showed his right hand, which held a smoldering cigarette. He lifted it to his lips and drew smoke deep into his lungs. "Don't know, son. Got to report at two. Say, you look damned tired," Ruddy scolded softly. Excerpted from A Father's Law, by Richard Wright. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission from HarperCollins Publishers.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87984371

Article- Healthy Living

_ INCLUDEPICTURE "http://l.yimg.com/a/i/brand/purplelogo/uh/us/shine_transparent.gif" \* MERGEFORMATINET

The 5 foods you should eat every day

·        by Holly Robinson Peete, Shine staff, on Tue Feb 16, 2010 11:31am PST

Eating right on a budget can be a challenge, but it's certainly not impossible. Consider this your cheat sheet to the 5 inexpensive foods you should eat everyday for optimum health.



#1 Leafy greens
Medical experts call them one of nature's miracle foods. Leafy greens like Swiss chard and kale are high in nutrients like folate and vitamins A and C that can lower your risk of cancer. Just one cup of dark, leafy greens a day could also prevent diabetes and high blood pressure.

#2 Nuts
Many nutritionists recommend nuts like almonds, cashews and walnuts because they're high in natural fiber. Fiber slows your digestive process, keeping hunger and unhealthy mid-afternoon snacks at bay. Goodbye vending machine runs!

#3 Onions
Studies show that consuming onions on a regular basis may reduce symptoms of asthma and the risk of developing stomach cancer. Add them to soups and stir-fry, and just remember -- the stronger the onion, the greater the health benefit.

#4 Whole grains
Refined grains, like white rice and pasta, have lost 90% of their nutritional value through the refining process. As if that weren't reason enough to choose whole grains like brown rice, quinoa and whole oats, a recent study showed that a diet rich in whole grains actually flattens your belly by reducing fat storage in your lower abdominal region.

#5 Yogurt
Making yogurt part of your daily eating routine can improve your digestion -- if you're buying the right stuff. Check that the label lists "active cultures" to make sure you're getting healthy probiotics, and pick a yogurt rich in vitamin D to prevent osteoporosis.  

Thanks for watching Real-Life Makeover! Tune in next week with more simple solutions to enrich your life.

News Article

ADVERTISEMENT Family's pit bull is targeted and tortured in Savage Article by: HERÓN MÁRQUEZ ESTRADA Star Tribune July 26, 2012 - 9:05 PM A family pit bull was beaten, tortured and left for dead in Savage this week, and animal rescue workers said Thursday that the animal was targeted because of its breed. The dog's owner, Robert Cole, said Thursday he also believes the attack was directed at him because written on the back of the dog, Cesar, in green ink, were the words, "Back off Bob." "It wasn't random," said Cole, who works with pit bulls and advocates for them. "The person knew Cesar well enough to write on him. They were trying to get back at me through Cesar." Savage police confirmed on Thursday that investigators are looking into the incident, which happened at 11:45 a.m. Wednesday. "I don't know what the motive is," Savage police Capt. David Muelken said. "This is a first of its kind in the city." Muelken refused to provide details of the attack because it is an open investigation, but he said police were making progress and close to discovering who did it. The animal was taken from its fenced yard while two other dogs, a black Labrador retriever and a Chihuahua mix, were also outside. The other two dogs were not touched, but 4-year-old Cesar was taken and dumped in the driveway 15 minutes later. Cole said his fiancée found the dog limping up the drive, losing a lot of blood and with a cut on its leg deep enough to expose bone. Joan Tabak, a spokeswoman for Midwest Animal Rescue and Services (MARS), said the writing on the fur and the fact the other dogs were unharmed lead her and the family to consider this a breed-specific attack. "We believe he was targeted because he is a pit bull," Tabak said. "It's a very sick situation. These animals, especially pit bulls, are misunderstood." Tabak said she and her group are unaware of other instances in the Twin Cities where a pit bull had been targeted. Tabak said Cesar was rushed to the vet and was without a heartbeat for a short time. The dog was revived and returned home late Wednesday night. By late Thursday afternoon, the dog was doing better, she said. "He's improving," Cole said. "But it's a lot of pain control." Cole said he has a good idea who might be involved in the attack but did not provide further details because of the Savage police investigation. MARS uses Cesar as a therapy dog to help other dogs that have been rescued. He is brought in to calm the other dogs, Tabak said. The plight of the dog has been highlighted on the group's Facebook page and donations from all over the state and the country have been pouring in. "This renews your faith in people," Tabak said. "The person who committed this crime is the exception and not the rule." Heron Marquez • 952-746-3281

Boston Herald Article

Patrick Chung won't shy away
Parental guidance prepped Patriots safety for stardom
By Ian R. Rapoport  |   Friday, October 21, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  N.E. Patriots

Photo by Nancy Lane

FOXBORO — There isn't a how-to guide on being a celebrity. There should be, considering the pitfalls and life-shaking changes the famous encounter, but there isn't.

It's trial and error and learning on the fly while striving to continue doing the job that brought one into public consciousness. All of which makes the education Patrick Chung received priceless.

Before he was a star safety for the Patriots [team stats] heading toward a breakout season, before he was a do-everything playmaker for the University of Oregon, Chung was born in Jamaica to reggae star Sophia George and her producer/manager/husband Ronald Chung. On their laps, Patrick heard stories of stardom and star-crossed situations, of fame and of infamy.

From California to Foxboro, those conversations continue on the phone. He has devoured every word.

"I said, 'Son, I can stretch my hand and let me reach you, because there is so much I can teach you," said his mother George-Chung, whose song "Girlie Girlie" was a No. 1 hit in Jamaica in 1985 and made it into the top 10 in the United Kingdom. "You always learn from people who have been there before you. One thing you never want to ever say is, 'I have arrived.' Be humble at all times. I teach him about my life experiences being in that 'celebrity status' for a while. He always listens."

Rising star

Chung has risen from Patriots 2009 second-round pick, to special-teams maven, to starter, to likely to star. On a suddenly surging defense heading into its bye, the 5-foot-11, 212-pound Energizer bunny has 37 tackles, an interception and a sack.

During camp, coach Bill Belichick noted "you really can't outwork Chung," and he meant it.

The same studious, diligent nature that led him to morph from child soccer player to Rancho Cucamonga (Calif.) High football star also led him to soak up the advice doled out by his parents on how to thrive amid backslaps, back-stabs and bright lights.

His parents, married for 26 years, warned him he won't please everyone. They spoke on how to deal with a performance that doesn't delight the crowd, and how to choose your friends and advisers. How to succeed, how to fail, and how to handle each in public.

Accordingly, Chung is polished and even-keeled, whether he's injured and missing the loss in Buffalo or making a game-turning, red-zone interception against the Raiders.

It all goes back to lesson time in the Chung household. Sophia and Ronald have traveled from Kingston to Japan, London and anywhere in between performing, picking up experiences along the way.

The lights have since dimmed. George-Chung set singing aside to raise a family that includes 28-year-old Patrice, who works in pharmaceuticals, and 19-year-old Petra, an Oregon student and aspiring journalist. George-Chung still writes songs, but mostly she just sings to her children in between life lessons.

"I got prepped for this," Chung said. "My parents, they've been through it, they've lived it. Giving me advice along the way. I should've listened 100 percent instead of 80 percent. But I did pretty good."

Chung will rarely admit to performing anything to the highest level. Of that Oakland interception, for instance: "Off to the next one," he said.

Chung described his mom as "a rock" and his father as the one who made him a man. Patrick intends to give them a reason to "brag about us kids," and he already has.

Never was there a better example than on Jan. 17. One day after the Patriots' shocking loss to the Jets in last season's playoffs, Chung sat at his locker, sorting through old cleats and gloves. Quietly, he motioned reporters over to talk about the issue that dominated the airwaves.

Late in the first half, as personal protector, Chung called for a fake punt that failed, an ill-advised adjustment that derailed his team. He could have easily slinked off into the offseason, allowing the hurt to fade before responding in the spring that the issue was "in the past."

Instead, he stared into the cameras and declared, "That's on me."

Out in California, a heart-sick mother looked on.

"I felt for him, because I know inside he was dying," Chung-George said. "When I talked to him, I said, 'You know what, son? I am very proud of you. You just have to take responsibility and just try to move on from there.'

"The Jamaican elder says, 'Breathe, stretch, shake and let it go,' " Chung-George said with her island-tinged accent. "You must always know bitter and sweet."

Chung does. With an ever-ready smile and an easiness that brings teammates into his fold, Chung handles it all with equal aplomb.

Living on Jamaica until their son was nine, the Chung family moved to Florida, then a year later drove to California. The reason was simple — better opportunity for the children to attend college. The several-day drive made an impression, with Chung recalling how he asked, "let's put wings on the car and let's just fly there." Life was changing, and he knew it.

When they landed in California, it presented Patrick with fresh obstacles.

Just 11 years old, he was the half-Jamaican, half-Chinese newcomer who looked different. With an accent that clashed with the surfer dudes, children would ask him if he could speak Chinese or Jamaican, despite the Jamaican Patois he lapses back into when he's around family being mostly English.

Being the curiosity is what Chung says made him stronger. Now 24, he identifies himself with his entire catalogue of ethnicities.

"I'm Jamaican and I'm Chinese," Chung said. "I'm not going to try to separate the two. That's me."

It also means he can offer light-hearted jokes about both cultures, saying his speed comes from his Jamaican roots while his ability to see things before they happen comes from his Asian background. A self-described "goofball" off the field, Chung's diverse background helped turn him into an arms-outstretched, all-welcoming teammate who says he can "be cool with anybody."

No surprise, his dad is the same way.

"That's Patrick's personality," George-Chung said. "Try and make friends with everyone, try and make everyone feel welcome, and don't think that you're better than that guy across the street because you earn a little bit more money."

When touted prospects came to Eugene, Ore., it was Chung who was assigned to tour the would-be college students around.

"He's a guy that we would use in recruiting because he put a positive face on things," recalled ex-Oregon coach Mike Bellotti, now an ESPN analyst. "Very comfortable in terms of representing the university on the field, off the field."

It's that way in New England, as Chung is starting to become one of the Patriots public faces.

A "relentless" child, George-Chung said, he swam, played soccer, and earned karate belts. Stubborn just like his mom, Chung once refused to come to dinner because he was dressed like RoboCop, and RoboCop didn't need food.

Love at first sight

He picked up football from scratch as a high school freshman, falling in love quickly. He proudly proclaimed to his parents that he yearned to hit, which anyone can see now. He admired the passion of former Eagles safety Brian Dawkins and tucked away his pride to embrace criticism from his coaches.

Playing time led to a scholarship at Oregon, despite being a year younger than most seniors.

Bellotti used to tell his defensive backs to have "quick feet and a short memory." He didn't remember the two-time All-Pac 10 player having many bad plays, but on the rare occasions Chung did, there was that same deep breath and steely expression.

"I don't remember him dwelling on things, just being upbeat, positive," Bellotti said. "Not the life of the party, but pretty close. . . . The beginning of junior year, he started making reads and recognizing how to train his eye to see what the coaches kept talking about. He became not only a great football player, but also an instinctive football player."

The progression was similar in New England.

Belichick raised eyebrows this camp, cutting veteran James Sanders [stats] and two-time Pro Bowler Brandon Meriweather. That left the safety position to just Chung and unproven players James Ihedigbo, Sergio Brown and Josh Barrett. Despite an ever-changing starting unit and some growing pains, Chung has shepherded the group toward improvement with his smarts and his magnetism.

"He definitely does a good job of making guys know that we're a unit," Barrett said.

On the field, Chung's passion comes through. He is always moving, always hitting, always filled with emotion. He unabashedly says, "I love football," and that's not an act.

His mother views Patrick as "a guy with a big heart who likes to make everyone happy," and the result is he outworks others in a battle for success to please his coaches, teammates and family. No one beats him during practice sprints.

Chung is fighting to make his family proud and to begin paying his parents back for the opportunity they gave him on the trek from Jamaica. Now established in New England, Chung wants more. He aims for a long career on the field and hopes to help children — "the funniest people on earth" — off it.

"If you start off on the right track when you're younger and you're raised the right way," said Chung, who has a 1-year-old boy, Taj, and a fiancee, "it's a lot easier to get a good man or woman out of that when they grow up."

He would know.

"His dad always says, 'Pick sense out of the nonsense that I'm saying,' " George-Chung said. "He has listened. . . . I love watching him (on TV). Even though I watch him and think 'Oh my goodness, he's going to get hit,' it's such a joy watching him. I can't express how proud I am."

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/football/patriots/view.bg?articleid=1374852

Huffington Post Article

Samantha Garvey, Homeless Intel Science Competition Semifinalist, Is Dedicated To Helping Her Family Overcome Hardship (VIDEO)

First Posted: 01/19/12 12:02 PM ET Updated: 01/20/12 02:23 PM ET

New York -- America is slowly taking notice of the inspirational details that mark the life of a young woman from Long Island named Samantha Garvey, who learned she was a semifinalist in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search while living with her family in a homeless shelter.

"My daughter is a blessing," said her proud mother, Olga Garvey Coreas, who came to this country to escape El Salvador's civil war in the early 1980s. "I never tire of thanking God for giving her the talent she has. She lives dedicated to her studies -- nothing stops her."

On Tuesday, Garvey is expected to sit in the House of Representatives chamber as President Obama delivers the State of the Union address. She will be a guest of Long Island Congressman Steve Israel, who believes Garvey's story should make all Americans ask themselves how a middle class family with a gifted child could end up homeless.

For Garvey and her family, 2012 got off to an inauspicious beginning.

On New Year's Day, they were evicted from their home because they could not pay the rent. They spent a week in a hotel before moving to a homeless shelter in Bay Shore.

Days later, however, Garvey's smarts and hard work brought news which began to change the family's hard luck path. She learned that she was an Intel science competition semifinalist, meaning that she's in the running for a $100,000 prize against 299 other top students.

Her story moved Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone to make available a three-bedroom, rent-subsidized home for the struggling family, which includes parents Leo and Olga, 13-year-old twins, Kenny and Erika, and Samantha. Bellone also offered Garvey an internship in Suffolk County to work on marine fisheries issues.

"You have inspired us," Bellone said last week, calling the story "an inspiration to millions of families in our country."

And just today, it was announced Garvey will be presented with a $50,000 scholarship from AT&T.

Garvey is in her final year of high school. In 2010, she was a semifinalist in the Siemens national Competition in Math, Science & Technology. That same year, she started a study of the mussel population in a Long Island salt marsh, focusing on the effects of the ribbed mussel on the bio-systems of some species in swampy areas along the coast. Her research was published last year in a magazine specializing in marine life.

More recently, Rebecca Grella, Garvey's science research teacher, provided her access to the Stony Brook University laboratory, where Garvey conducted the research on mussels and other mollusks affected by the Asian short crab, an invasive species.

Her research concluded that mussels exposed to the Asian short crab grew stronger, with thicker and heavier shells to protect them from predators.

"Her life's dream is to be a marine biologist," her mother Garvey Coreas told The Huffington Post. "Since she was 5 years old, she would tell her father that she wanted a pool in the yard to have a pet dolphin or a shark."

Garvey Coreas emigrated alone to the U.S. from El Salvador in 1981. She met Leo Garvey in 1990, while they both worked in a hospital. They married a short time later. Garvey, who is of Irish ancestry, was born in North Carolina.

According to her mother, Garvey is a very simple person, leading the life of any girl her age, but with a clear notion of her responsibilities.

"She's very sensible, a homebody who loves her siblings -- and her pets -- very much. Samantha was suffering greatly because at the shelter, we couldn't keep Pulga, her dog, or her cat, Spike, nor her two turtles," Olga said.

Pulga, a 4-year-old pit bull, was turned over to an animal shelter. Samantha feared the dog would be put down if it wasn't adopted. Spike was able to stay with a family member in Queens. The turtles went to work, so to speak, with her father at his taxi dispatch office.

Now, the pets will be rejoining the family when they move into the county-owned home this month.

Like so many Americans, Garvey's family has been through hard times in recent years. Her parents lost their home and moved several times, hoping to find an affordable place.

To make matters worse, Samantha's parents were hospitalized after a car accident last February. Their earnings eroded.

Accident-related injuries left Garvey Coreas out of work for nine months. Leo Garvey recovered and returned to work as a cab driver.

Garvey said she and her siblings attended three different schools in one year.

"My family's setbacks are a source of motivation. I want to get my family ahead, which is why I do well in school," Samantha told Newsday.

Karin Feil, a counselor at Brentwood High School, said, "Samantha's will is unsurpassed. She has overcome more obstacles than any other student I've ever seen."

Feil said Samantha maintains a 3.9 grade point average, and her faith lies in the fact that education will bring her -- and her family -- a better life.

Samantha is president of her school's chapter of the National Honors Society, is ranked 4th out of 433 students in her grade, and hopes to attend Brown or Yale universities. She also takes courses in Italian and music; her favorite instrument is the violin.

"We are confident that she can continue on in the career of her choice and have better opportunities in life," Garvey Coreas said, adding that her daughter "never fails at what she sets out to do."

"In the summer, her vacations are spent as an intern at the university laboratories," she added. "She only visits us on the weekends."

Garvey Coreas said Samantha hasn't let the media attention change her and that she remains proud of her roots.

"At home, her favorite foods are still beans, tamales, pupusas [the Salvadoran version of tortillas] with rice and plantains. She's told me she eats sushi with her friends."

The struggling mother said parents shouldn't leave their children alone and always support their goals.

"Leo worked nights and I worked days," she said. "The fact was that we never left them alone; we were always there to help them with their homework. I believe that good communication is the basis for guiding our children."

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/19/samantha-garvey-intel-science-immigrant_n_1215994.html

NY Times Article

It's the Economy
What's a $4,000 Suit Worth?

Illustration by Peter Oumanski
By ADAM DAVIDSON
Published: September 4, 2012

A few years ago, Peter Frew came to New York with an important professional skill. He was one of maybe a few dozen people in the U.S. who could construct a true bespoke suit. Frew, who apprenticed with a Savile Row tailor, can — all by himself, and almost all by hand — create a pattern, cut fabric and expertly construct a suit that, for about $4,000, perfectly molds to its owner's body. In a city filled with very rich people, he quickly had all the orders he could handle.

Deep thoughts this week:

1. How can you not get rich selling $4,000 suits?

1.5. Insist on making them perfect.

2. The bespoke business is being squeezed by the luxury business it helped start.

3. Can it learn anything from the Kardashians?

It's the Economy

Adam Davidson translates often confusing and sometimes terrifying economic and financial news.

Multimedia
Slide Show
Bespoke Tailors in New York
Enlarge This Image

Marvin Orellana for The New York Times

Peter Frew at his apartment in Brooklyn, where he works. More Photos »

When I learned about Frew, I assumed he was some rich designer in an atelier on Madison Avenue. That's what Frew hopes to be one day, but for now the 33-year-old Jamaican immigrant works out of his ground-floor apartment near Flatbush Avenue, in Brooklyn, and makes around $50,000 a year. His former living room consists of one large table piled with bolts of cloth and a form with a half-made suit. As Frew sewed a jacket, he explained how he customizes every aspect of its design — the width of the lapel, the number and size of the pockets — for each client. What makes a bespoke suit unique, he said, is that it's the result of skills that only a trained hand can perform. Modern technology cannot create anything comparable.

As I watched Frew work, it became glaringly obvious why he is not rich. Like a 17th-century craftsman, he has no economy of scale. It takes Frew about 75 hours to make a suit — he averages about two per month — and he has no employees. A large part of his revenue is used to pay off his material expenses, and because his labor is so demanding, he relies on an outside salesman, who requires commissions. (Frew can't even afford to make a suit for himself. When we met, he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt.) While he hopes to one day hire full-time assistant tailors and rent a Manhattan showroom, he knows it will be a huge challenge to get there.

Tailors pose an odd riddle for our current economy. Why can't a wealthy city — particularly at a time when the rich are doing so well — support a niche business that people are willing to pay for? Even London, the historic home of the bespoke suit, isn't immune. During the 1980s and 1990s, Anderson & Sheppard — the prestigious Savile Row suit maker to kings and movie stars — seemed content to survive through its existing clients and, perhaps, their sons. But in 2005, Anda Rowland joined the company and began catering to newer customers. (She even plans to introduce a line of casual trousers and accessories to capture more of the brand's value.) Seven years ago, the company made 17 suits each week for revenue of $3.6 million. Today Anderson & Sheppard makes around 25 suits per week, for $5.4 million a year.

Growth of 40 percent over seven years is mediocre for many businesses and could get a C.E.O. fired from a large apparel firm. But for the bespoke industry, it's close to miraculous. As Rowland explained to me, even with a century-old reputation and a profoundly loyal customer base, it's nearly impossible to get ahead. "There's no scalability," she explained. "Whether we're making 50 suits or 1 — each unit costs the same."

In essence, Anderson & Sheppard simply faces a larger version of the problem plaguing Frew. Bespoke suits — like expensive couture gowns — are great for building a reputation, but they are lousy for business. And modern clothiers' profits have long come from establishing a strong brand and then emblazoning it on all sorts of cheaper products, like fragrances, which can be mass-produced. Michael Kors and Ralph Lauren — not to mention Carolina Herrera — began as small studios before spinning off into variegated billion-dollar businesses. Meanwhile, Anderson & Sheppard stuck to its stock in trade and has stayed about the same size.

The only way to make money in the perfectionist craftsperson industry, it seems, is to stop being a perfectionist craftsperson. However, Martin Greenfield Clothiers in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has maintained high-quality tailoring standards along with modern efficiencies for decades. Greenfield himself says the factory floors are almost the same as when this place opened, in 1916, and nearly identical to what he first saw when he got a job here in 1947, before he bought the factory. More than 100 tailors sit at sewing machines, some ancient, or work by hand.

Greenfield's factory makes custom suits, which are known in the business as made-to-measure. Customers can go to a third-party boutique, like J. Press, to pick a fabric and be measured. The cloth and measurements are then sent to Brooklyn, where patterns are created, fabric cut and then sent through the production line of cutters and tailors. Just as Adam Smith described in "The Wealth of Nations," there are huge efficiency gains when one complex process is broken down into constituent parts and each worker specializes in one thing. At Greenfield, one worker sews pockets all day long, and another focuses entirely on joining front and back jacket pieces. The labor involved in each suit's construction is about 10 hours. The suits Greenfield makes typically retail at around $2,000.

Even with all those efficiency advantages, Greenfield isn't without its difficulties. Demand has fallen just as the cost of raw materials has gone up. Manufacturers in China, where a suit can be made in about 30 minutes at a cost well below $100, are driving up the price of wool, which increases the prices of fancier fabrics too. A few decades ago, there were thousands of clothing factories in New York. Now Greenfield's is one of only a handful left. He and his sons, Tod and Jay, who run the business with him, say there are several ways they could have made more money, but their two best bets are selling their building to a residential housing developer or moving their manufacturing operation to Asia.

Sentimentality aside, Greenfield told me that he has not even considered moving. Suiting is an apprenticeship business, and new employees learn their craft by watching the many people who have worked there for years. If they started over, they could never replicate that institutional knowledge. At the end of the day, he said, their only competitive advantage is that knowledge.

Unable to move, though, they're also unable to make much profit. They pay New York prices for all their services and are further undercut by cheaper suits coming from low-wage countries that use all the latest technology, which is, indeed, getting better. The glue that simulates stitches is nowhere near as good as hand sewing, but it's an awful lot better than it used to be. The whole marketing apparatus of fashion magazines, shows, billboards and celebrity endorsers is increasingly sophisticated. As the handcrafted stuff continues to cost more, it just keeps getting easier and cheaper to profit from mass-produced branded products.

Still, I kept thinking that if people spent the time to learn about suits, they'd value Frew's work so much more. But not everyone is willing to wait. Bespoke suits commonly require three fittings, and that's after a long consultation. Even the richest customer simply has to wait — sometimes months — before the new suit is finished. No wonder so many pass up a $4,000 bespoke suit for a ready-to-wear Kiton version at twice the price.

When I spoke to Frew, Rowland and the Greenfields, they talked about how there is now a large difference between what is monetizable and what is actually valuable. One of the defining attributes of capitalism is that the market determines what succeeds even if it means that the Kardashian Kollection might bring in more money than all the bespoke suits in the world.

Adam Davidson is co-founder of NPR's "Planet Money," a podcast, blog and radio series heard on "Morning Edition," "All Things Considered" and "This American Life."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/magazine/whats-a-4000-suit-worth.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&pagewanted=all