Flavor Flav has special message for Caps fans; “Don’t Believe the Hype”
Another Washington area sports team’s season bites the dust with the Capitals 2-1 7th game defeat last night at the hand of the Montreal Canadiens. The last time a professional DC sports team won a championship was the Mark Rypien led 1991 Washington Redskins who defeated the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl 26.
As Mike Wise, who gets it right more than half of the time, says, “In the end they teased everyone. Cruelly.”
The Caps only teased the gullible fans who believed the hype. The Syndicate knows better.
At least the Nats improved to 12-10 last night behind the young arm of Luis Atilano.
Due to the Caps predictable failure postseason after postseason, the goodwill Leonsis has laboriously built with puck fans over the past decade is now seriously strained and will not be transferable to his newly acquired ’Zards fan base that just withstood the most chaotic season in the history of Les’ Boulez.
Obama’s FDA could ban Newports & other menthol jacks
Discarded Newport boxes seen on the city streets during the winter. Courtesy Wash Syndicate
Although President Obama has publicly acknowledged he smokes jacks and Press Secretary Gibbs has said President Obama’s fallen “off the wagon“, the US Drug and Food Administration is considering a ban on menthol cigarettes. Whether it be Newports, Kools, or the never realized Uptowns, menthol cigarettes are predominantly the choice of black americans. A little more than 1/4 of all US smokers smoke menthols, but more than 3/4 of menthol smokers are black americans.
The Syndicate has fond memories of smoking Newports at Clyde’s on 7th St. NW before the cigarette ban. In the same spirit of former City Council member Carol Schwartz, who made an effort to ban alcohol from bars, we fear the day when the government makes Newports illegal. The slippery slope is real and in full effect as it increasingly goes vertical.
If the FDA does ban menthols all they will be doing is strengthening the already thriving underground economy for cigarettes. The government says weed and other drugs are illegal too, right? Last time The Syndicate walked the city streets we smelled evidence that smoking weed is a popular recreational activity.
On June 22, 2009 President Obama signed a law giving the FDA authority to regulate the tobacco industry. Change came and it will continue coming. Whether menthols are banned or not, the death stamp of skull & bones is coming to the pack in your pocket soon. Get ready for the change we voted for.
Anacostia Library has that new smell as it opens for business; DC Public Library continues to make moves citywide
As previously stated, The Syndicate was conceived, birthed, and raised up as a youngster in the DC Public Library system and thusly must continue to applaud the opening of new libraries citywide.
Wash Syndicate
Today, the Anacostia area joined ranks with other city neighborhoods who have recently welcomed new epicenters of learning and research to their communities. Libraries are sacred. They are where young children on the wrong end of the digital divide keep pace with their more advantaged peers. It is where folks who for one reason or another do not have their high school diploma or GED seek out information to obtain these necessary credentials. It is where community groups such as the Friends of the Anacostia Library join together to plan, organize, and make a sustainable difference in their ‘hood. Thank you to Ginnie Cooper, city politicos, all library staff, and city residents who love the library for showing their love and keeping it 100. The Syndicate, never a green simp gump sucka, loves you and our city libraries right back.
Wash Syndicate
From the Post’s DC Wire,
New library opens in Anacostia, as part of citywide effort
The District on Monday opened the new $14.7 million Anacostia Public Library, part of an effort by the administration of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty to complete the construction of long-awaited libraries throughout the city.
The new library, which can hold 80,000 books, DVDs, CDs and other materials and features 32 computers for public use, was six years in the making. Though the former library’s closing pre-dated the Fenty administration, the mayor was criticized in 2007 for quickly moving to rebuild the Georgetown public library after a fire when construction on other libraries, like Anacostia, were in limbo.
Wash Syndicate
“This facility is a perfect example of the city government striving to deliver world-class services and facilities to our neighborhoods,” Fenty said of the new facility on Good Hope Road SE in a statement. “This state-of-the-art facility will serve as a valuable tool for our youth providing them with additional educational resources enabling them to continue down the path of academic progress.”
The new library will be open Monday through Saturday.
Over the past three years, the Fenty administration has saw the opening of dozens of new parks, playgrounds, athletic fields, libraries and recreational centers. Although many of them were in the planning stages before Fenty took office, administration officials argue they deserve credit for pushing the projects to completion.
But Fenty’s chief rival in the mayor’s race, Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D), is questioning whether the mayor has spread enough of the wealth around to the city’s poorest communities.
Gray suggested at his campaign kickoff that Fenty didn’t care about the poorer sections of the city.
“We hoped for a mayor that would represent the entire city, but instead see one that ignores those who live in the most underserved neighborhoods,” Gray said.
A Washington Post poll conducted in January showed many residents who live east of the Anacostia River also question Fenty’s commitment to their neighborhoods. In a head-to-head match-up with Fenty, only 14 percent of voters in Ward 7 and 8 said they would support the mayor, compared to 55 percent who would support the council chairman, according to the poll.
Since that poll was published, Fenty’s official scheduled has included at least one event in Southeast a week, suggesting he understands he faces an uphill reelection battle unless he improves his numbers in that part of the city.
Seen on the Southside: 24 Hour ATM Gives You $1.00 and Up
While The Syndicate mobs down both sides of the city streets local politicians, community leaders, and academics make endless and circular pretty talk about the problems of our city streets amounting to a whole bunch of pretty nothing.
Wash Syndicate
Wash Syndicate
James Ballentine, one time Deputy Administrator for Government Contracts and Business Development for the Small Business Administration, now with the American Bankers Association as the Director of Community Development, said while addressing the “Tapping the Unbanked Market” symposium hosted by the FDIC, “I was born over in Anacostia, Washington, D.C., southeast D.C. And for those of you that don’t know Anacostia, it’s two Harlems and a Brooklyn put together.”
Maybe Mr. Ballentine is doing something about these ATMs that are scattered throughout East Washington, but most likely he and others like him are doing nothing. In all honest respect, there is little he and his can do when entire communities of our city are littered by liquor stores, cash checking spots, and parasitic EBT dependents.
We’re not mad at the $1.00 ATMs. We are mad at those who make pretty agitprop talk such as the Save Our Safety Net folks, but have no idea what is really going as evidenced by their proclivity to complain and blame others for their self-inflicted problems of being broke.
“Toe to Toe”; Indie film set in the city opens at historic Avalon Theatre
The oldest movie theater in the city, the historic Avalon Theatre at 5612 Connecticut Avenue NW opens the 2009 Sundance Selection “Toe to Toe”, set in the city – featuring Anacostia, Sunday at 1:15 PM in Avalon 2. The film will run until Thursday.
The film has a positive rating from Rotten Tomatoes.
Godmother of the Civil Rights Movement; Dr. Dorothy Height’s funeral services announced
Funeral services for Dr. Dorothy I. Height, chair and president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), who passed earlier this week, will take place in Washington, D.C. beginning Tuesday, April 27 and end with funeral services at Washington National Cathedral on Thursday, April 29.
Dr. Height served as president of the National Council of Negro Women for forty years, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.
Dorothy Height was born on March 24, 1912 and for the last years of her life was highly active in Washington, DC society and social life as a crowd drawing public speaker and a frequent guest of honorary receptions in her name and for other stalwarts of the Civil Rights movement.
The Syndicate had the honor and pleasure of hearing Dr. Dorothy Height speak years ago at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library.
It is a memory I do cherish.
Below is the announced schedule of activities honoring Dr. Height.
Tuesday, April 27
6:00 – 10:00 p.m. — Dr. Height will lie in repose at the NCNW Dorothy I. Height building for a public viewing.
Wednesday, April 28
2:00 p.m. — The Delta Sigma Theta Sorority will conduct a public Omega Omega Service at Howard University. Dr. Height served as national president of the sorority from 1947 to 1956 and was a lifelong Delta.
7:00 p.m. — A “Community Celebration of Life” memorial will be held at Shiloh Baptist Church at 1500 Ninth St. NW. The memorial is open to the public.
Fort Lincoln Cemetery Historic Marker
Thursday, April 29
10:00 a.m. — A funeral service will be conducted at Washington National Cathedral and is open to the public. The burial service will follow at Fort Lincoln Cemetery on the Maryland / DC border at 3401 Bladensburg Road.
DC Archives: Sean Taylor Tribute DC Go Go mix – Critical Condition Band
As the funeral and city’s remembering of Dr. Dorothy Height is scheduled to begin next week, we want to not forget the eternal spirit of 2 time pro bowler Sean Taylor, Redskins #21 & #36. The ‘Skins recently announced that Sean Taylor’s Locker at the Redskins training facility in Ashburn will be moved to the club level at FedEx Field.
Wash Syndicate
A h/t to the Wash Post’s online Memorial page here.
Death of an Era as Hip Hop Pioneer Guru of Gang Star dead at 43
(Today’s “hip hop / rap” music is betraying our community.)
The Syndicate made a call this morning to 901 G to acknowledge the passing of Dr. Dorothy Height who will be remembered in a forthcoming post, but we must now take a moment to recognize the passing of the pioneer hip hop artist Guru.
As a high school freshmen The Syndicate was hipped to Gang Star by an older friend who let me hold his “Moment of Truth” audio cassette. I thumped it in my Sony Walkman as I woke and as I fell asleep. I ran through batteries on the strength of that tape alone.
When I look back at that time, the fall of 1998, I now realize they don’t make the come up like they used to. These kids with holes in their faces and tats on their hands and faces do not know how to think, speak, or live. Hip hop at one time was the father figure for young men and women in our communities who had no parents that could tell them through their music to chill out, wipe those tears, and get out here and MOB for yours to make good out of bad.
The death of Guru is symbolic of the death of hip hop to The Syndicate. I frankly don’t care that today’s music is straight garbage — all entertainment and no thought — as I am a grown educated consumer. However, these youngsters out here robbing and mobbing and the studios kids who spend their nights at the city’s libraries until closing hour, because their broken home ain’t nothing to desire or return to, do not understand that today’s hip hop or rap is all cosmetic.
It can’t be explained. It has to be lived.
Guru was not a legend in his own mind like many of our city’s political and community “leaders”, he is a street legend in the mind and lives of those who walk and survive in these streets.
Most of today’s “artists” peddle an empty image of nihilism and hedonism to our communities and the people in them which . Guru, and his peers, uplift people and communities through their music
Putting out solo albums under the Jazzmataz name and a compilation album with Baldhead Slick & Da Click, Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal / God is Universal; he is the Ruler Universal will be missed. We’ll mourn you till we join you.
UPDATE:
Just got an email about a tribute to Guru at Liv (2001 11th St. NW) with a free midnight open DJ set. “Some of the best DJs in the city will all trade of on the 1′s and 2′s playing the things that move them from Guru’s classics.”
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