Brooklyn Bedouin

Rhea Vedro and Graham get Married!

Most people know of me as a network guy. I meet and connect people. In the past ten years there have been a few people who have connected me to their people and the rest is history.

Before cell phone ubiquity, before Friendster, before Myspace, and Facebook, there were house parties, conferences, and small gatherings of twentysomethings that were trying to be about something akin to revolution.

Akin because we did not move to a rural agrarian society and begin stirring up the peasants and march them to the capital. Instead we tried to create something parallel to the system. We wanted to capture the youth and we were artists.

Artists and Youth Educators. That’s what Rhea Vedro started. AYE for short. And it was a collective that at its height was international and hyper local. It was through this network that I met many of the people that I now consider my political contemporaries.

So, today, feeling the need to contain the cacophony of voices and emotions roiling through me like a cold winter wind on a mild day standing in a doorway… I ended up at Rhea and Graham’s City Hall wedding where I wore a white daisy in my head and shed a tear.

bb

Most importantly I now know what to do when I want to whisk someone off and do the same. It was inspiring, I believe that time is coming. 2009 is an important year for love and compatibility.

New York State or Illinois Senator?

YOU GOTTA PAY TO PLAY SUN!

Mural Brooklyn

...he loved her as soon as he saw her.  She was Brooklyn.

The walls sobbing and soaked with a menagerie of greens, yellows, reds, purples and brown; the color of the Earth. 

ibrahimSalih on Twitter

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URI's Cuttino Mobley announces his Retirement.

I graduated from college at the University of Rhode Island. In 1998 we had this outstanding basketball team that made it to the Elite 8 of March Madness. They were led by an outstanding shooting guard we all called “Cat” you know him, basketball fans, as Cuttino Mobley, and this past week Cat has now resigned from the NBA.

It was reported that he had the same heart condition that Hank Gathers and Reggie Lewis. Quite possibly, the trade from the Clippers to the Knicks could have saved his life.

I was getting very excited about rooting for Cat again. And saw it as a possible omen that he was going to part of a run, improbable, but a run nonetheless. It has happened in nYc before – namely about 10 years ago when the 1999 team took a Cinderella run to the Finals and lost to the Spurs.

Now, to be sure, Cat and I were not boys, we were not tight. But we definitely knew one another and were in the same larger circle that included all the athletes and their friends. I played linebacker at URI.

it is still heartening to see him say goodbye to professional basketball. Brooklyn Bedouin wishes him all the best!

Muslim Chic - America Hug Someone Today!

L-R: bb, Wamiq Chaudhury, Jordan Robinson, Ridwan Falah

Culture. We like it. We live it. Immersed in and defining a new culture. My sister Tauhirah remarked that defining the Muslim American culture is an exciting opportunity. She looks at it with the awe and promise of an engaged participant. I fancy myself as part of the 3rd resurrection of the American Muslim Promise. Our take on the dream that has buoyed generation after generation to these shores: the promise that with hard work one can achieve and excel, that we can create the cultural, political, and social institutions that define communities of faith like schools, hospitals, etc…

Van Jones once said to me that we define ourselves and we define success. Part of that definition of self is a definition of community – as a person of faith, I claim all people of faith.

Last night I ran into an old friend from the heady elevated days of the International African Arts Festival. She has since become a devout practicing Christian (getting married in 38 days, you go homie!) what became clear is that people of faith have more in common with each other. Despite creed, etc… we should stop trying to proselytize to one another and instead focus on what is in each others hearts and decide to be a stalwart example to the trans-mutative power of our own belief systems and our modes of expression – and we must continue to pray = pray, pray, pray, pray, pray!

Culture. Lets bring it back. So, I am a Muslim. I pray 5 times a day. Sometimes I also like to dance and party. I do not imbibe but I manage to find a way to fully enjoy myself. In a few coming days I will be enjoying the My Favorite Things vibe. December 18th to be exact. Its gonna be poppin. In a little over a month I will be hosting an event that will showcase Muslim Chic to the world, in the Community Cafe on January 31st Saturday, Jan. 31st, Malcom X & Betty Shabazz Center in partnership with IMAN out of Chicago.

Muslim American culture is as dynamic, fast paced, and fun as any other. At that same time, we are intentional and mindful of who we are, AND, importantly, who we are becoming.

Don’t sleep! Muslim Chic!

Green Muslimah's: L-R, Sanjana Ahmad and Tauhirah Abdul-Matin

ps- i am not ignoring the fact that today "candidate #5" was announced to be civil rights prince Jesse Jackson Jr. i do want to point out that there is a odd synergy between a corrupt midwest political scene, failing inustrial sector, confluence of meth labs, staggering unemployment all in a region that is described as the heartland. America! HUG SOMEONE TODAY!

Gov. Blagojevich gets Pinched!

Once Again the fearless U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Brooklyn New York, exposes systemic corruption, shed light on patronage and its horrendous hold on our democratic system. In a manner that resembles the rank schemes of power wielding of men like Robert Moses and scores of other U.S. politicians we see the dramatic slide of "Blago" This is a sad sad day for democracy and makes you wonder what else is happening behind the closed doors of the thousands of politicians and elected officials that are currently playing with public funds, entrusted with our confidence and goodwill.

A political insider said of this recent development" "what a tool!"

Eid ul-Adha --- Eid Said!!!

the paving of fulton avenue

Pavement.
Crypts of the past
 tablets of dreams, closer
never too far away to lose sight
   your straight path is your birthright
stop stilling in the sadness
   decay is inevitable
specificity is a weakness
   good ideas need speed
bad thoughts need concrete, and the grooves
     underneath
forgetting your home is the net worth
   freeways, jobs, insanity
      redo-culture
re-fashion, make babies
   make lots and lots of babies
raise them like Moses in the Egyptian court
  then dance on the pavement with them
      like a seer into the straight wilderness
into the bright white lights of the soul
    the cauldron of the inevitable,
  vaguely knowing…
     the builders of great things
   do not benefit from them
       yet they still have vision
       yet they still have vision
        yet they still have vision

tell me oh!  saint,  oh! ancestor in training…
 what do you see?

this is what a indonesian-dominican baby looks like

Let the Auto Industry go Bankrupt!

"Too much consumption and borrowing and not enough production and savings"

now read about the history of riba

the problems we face have to do more with unchecked consumption and car culture. What we are dealing with is also the unraveling of the system of patronage and abject power that Robert Moses created, the first stage of this was the birthing of hip hop from the ashes and rubble of the south bronx and has reached a fever pitch here in 2008 with the current state of the world. Now, there's money to be made telling people to save, which was the way that our grandparents understood the world. there is wisdom to be found in learning how to can food, a skill we used to have, what recession proof skill do you have?

my two cents on the auto industry: let them die. if you believe in market forces you will allow a firm to exit, however ungracefully. If you look at a parallel industry, the processed food delivery system that uses public education as a form of welfare system that garauntee certain levels of profits. If you live by the market then be prepared to die by the market. there is no bailout, as my boy Mervyn said, for me if i make a bad decision as a consumer, no bailout - why for them?

bb

MTA wants to HIT BROOKLYN

 I often have Internet trouble. I was walking from my apartment to the local mom and daughter coffee shop (son on the weekend) and I heard a brother walking almost parallel to me saying, “bills, bills, bills,” he was fumbling a con-ed, and a national grid bill in his hands. He then rattled off aloud about the fact that he was getting sucked of his money by child support for a child he claims is not his. Still, for 5 years he’s been sucked $72,000 out of his pay.

This is the middle of the day.

Then I passed by this building 

and thought of the unfinished business that is plaguing the city. Then listened to the talk about tolls on east river bridges that Marty Markowitz, the tireless Brooklyn advocate and borough president claimed would hit Brooklynites the hardest.

These are already tough times. Can’t the MTA modify their proposal? What happened to the commuter tax? What about taxes on people with SUV’s or on folks that are new car buyers? Why is it that we always have to get hit the most when we are getting hit the most? And why are we paying for banks to be bailed out when critical services need “bailing out”.

This happens a few days after a deadly stabbing of a MTA employee, a bus driver who is on the front lines of the frustration of the city. Now I have NO SYMPATHY for a man who kills someone for $2 dollars and then brags about it in a cab ride! To see his girlfriend, but it does highlight something, in Bed-Stuy, there are many many people who do not pay their fare every day. In fact this area is known for that. People are struggling. 

Why are people NOT paying fares? And now they will raise them?

Expect more disaster ladies and gentlemen of people who are the most affected by the crisis we are facing are not supported because they are forced to live in and clean up the mess made by the people least affected.