Yearly Archives: 2010

Civics and Urban Life

Undomesticated Brooklyn: Passover Table

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by Paula Bernstein

When I was growing up and my extended family gathered for holidays, the kids would be seated at a separate “children’s table.” Presumably, there wasn’t enough room at the grown-up table — or maybe they just wanted us kids to be seen and not heard.

As you can imagine, it was a big deal when I finally “graduated” to the grown-up table.

Although that was many years ago and I now have two kids of my own, in a way, I feel as if I’m only now worthy of the grown-up table. Why? Because I can now cook.

Passover is coming up next week (although my family is having an “early bird”  seder on Saturday) and I’m excited. It’s the first year that I’m going to be cooking rather than just bringing wine or macaroons.

My cousin Claudia, who is in charge of delegating cooking responsibilities,  assigned  me the potato kugel. I should just be thankful I wasn’t given the job of making gefilte fish or matzoh ball soup.

The older generation is no longer able to cook, but my cousins and I still rely on their recipes. I plan to use my mom’s treasured potato kugel recipe.

(If you strain, you might be able to hear the melody to “Tradition!” from “Fiddler on the Roof.”)

I’m not too intimidated by the idea of making potato kugel, but when I think of preparing it for 28 people (the number who are expected at the seder), I am terrified. What if it turns out rock solid? What if I burn it? Will they send me back to the children’s table?

The good thing about kugel is that it can be prepared in advance. In fact, now that I think of it, I better start peeling potatoes right away.

arts and culture

Drinking With Divas – Robin Hessman

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Sarah Deming met with filmmaker Robin Hessman at Restaurant Tatiana on the Brighton Beach boardwalk.  Over shots of vodka and tasty snacks, we discussed Robin’s feature documentary My Perestroika,which will debut in NY March 25 and March 28 as part of the film series New Directors/New Films, curated by MoMA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

My Perestroika tells the story of five forty-year-old Russians – a married couple teaching history, a single mother, an aging punk rocker, and a successful businessman – tracing their paths from childhoods behind the Iron Curtain to comings-of-age during the collapse of Communism to their disparate fortunes in modern Russia. This beautiful film has the lingering finish of a top-shelf vodka.  Highly recommended!

Sarah: How was Sundance?

Robin: Wonderful.  The audiences were incredible.  We had a screening at 8:30 AM on a Monday, and I thought, “Who’s going to come to this?”  But it was packed!  We also had a midnight Q&A session that lasted over an hour and continued on the street in front of the theatre.  It was exciting to hear people say that they’d had no idea what a Soviet childhood was like, and couldn’t even conceive of the idea that people in the USSR could have happy childhoods, but that they could relate to it.  To see people make emotional, personal connections to the characters in the film was very gratifying.

Sarah: I loved the film’s structure.  You managed to tell the story of five individual protagonists, which seems really hard to do, while keeping it unified thematically.

Robin: Editing took a long time.  The struggle was how to make the film about the natural arc of these characters’ lives rather than trying to make their lives serve the history of the country.  If a particular political event didn’t touch them, it’s not in the film, even if it’s important globally. The soundtrack is full of songs that mean a lot to Russians of that generation, and all the archival footage is from their own point of view – lots of home movies, footage from their school.

Sarah: The archival footage is so cool!

Robin: That was one of my favorite parts.  I loved sitting in the archives in Russia, waiting for the reels to arrive, and then watching them.

Sarah: Some of your characters are doing well and some are struggling emotionally.  There’s no clear sense of whether the change in the country has been good or bad.

Robin: That was very conscious.  When I returned from the US after living in Russia for the 1990s, I got the feeling people wanted me to tie everything up in a neat bow for them and tell them what to think about the new, modern Russia. “It went from Communist utopia to porn and mafia land” or “It went from a restrictive, repressive regime to a land of freedom.”  But I can’t do that.  I see the complexities.  I’ve seen friends craving a new pair of leather boots but feeling awful because they grew up thinking that was degenerate.  Or friends who are ethnically Russian but grew up in a republic.  Emotionally, they support independence for the republic, but that means they will need a $100 visa to visit their grandmother’s grave.  And I’ve seen people who used to drop in on each other at all hours and stay up discussing the meaning of life now barely having time to grab a latte.

Sarah: Do you feel like a different person after living in Russia?

Robin:  I do.  I’d love to know who I’d have become if I’d never gone there.  I spent most of my life there between the ages of 18-27, in film school, working for Russian Sesame Street, and then making this film.  At this point it’s who I am.

Sarah: You’re not from a Russian family yourself.  What attracted you to the culture?

Robin: I had a subscription to Soviet Life when I was ten.  My parents didn’t want to let me get it –they were worried I’d be blacklisted or something – but I cried until they gave in.  It came in an unmarked, brown paper wrapper like porn.  Growing up as a kid during the cold war, I was just so curious about this “evil empire” out there.  I didn’t believe that millions of people could all be bad.  It started as pure curiosity.  Then I got hooked on the history and the literature.

Sarah: How is Russian Sesame Street different than the American version?

Robin: There’s a completely different sensibility.  Certain segments that the American producers thought were boring, the Russians production partners called lyrical and sad.  There were three special Russian muppets that our team invented.  Zeliboba was one of them, a blue monster with feathers and leaves.  He wore sneakers, lived in a hollow tree, and had the personality of a six-year-old boy.  He was very sensitive.  He could smell the melody off a record.

VODKA SHOTS

Vodka gets its name from the diminutive form of voda, meaning water.  This “little water” is one of the oldest distilled beverages in the world, dating back to medieval Poland and Russia.  Early vodkas were made through crude heat stills or through leaving the fermented grain or potato mash outside to freeze, concentrating the alcohol.  These spirits would have tasted rough and medicinal, unlike the highly refined vodkas we drink today.  Although allegedly “colorless, odorless, and tasteless,” vodka always offers hints of where it came from, its subtlety inviting the taster to be more sensitive.  Our chilled shots of Russian Standard had gentle notes of anisette, wheat, and snow.

Civics and Urban Life

Tonight: Poets for Haiti at the Old Stone House

Support Haiti in its greatest time of need.

Poets for Haiti is a series of “traveling benefits” organized by Louise Crawford and Michele Madigan Somerville.

The first event is tonight, March 22nd at 8PM. Poets/performers Sharon Mesmer, Joanna Sit, Wanda Phipps, Roy Nathanson, Bill Evans, Ellen Ferguson, Christopher Stackhouse and more will read at the Old Stone House in Washington Park in Park Slope (Fifth Avenue and Third Street).

Your donation of $10. will go to Doctors Without Borders.

Poster by Good Form Design. Photo by Hugh Crawford

arts and culture

10th National Black Writers Conference at Megar Evers College

Toni Morrison, the author of “Beloved” is coming to Brooklyn for Medgar Evers College’s 10th National Black Writers Conference, a  four-day literary event, which begins on March 25. This year’s theme: And Then We Heard the Thunder: Black Writers Reconstructing Memories and Lighting the Way.

Medgar Evers College’s Center for Black Literature and the conference organizers have put together an impressive roster of events, which include both local authors and writers, agents and publishers from America, the Caribbean, Europe and Africa.

A long list of discussions and readings include  “Politics and Satire in the Literature of Black Writers” and “The Impact of Hip Hop and Popular Culture in the Literature of Black Writers.” Also:  “Impact of the Internet: Blogging, Publishing and Writing” and  “Editors, Agents, Writers and Publishers on the Literature of Black Writers.”

Professor Brenda Greene, who runs Medgar Evers College’s Center for Black Literature, says the conference is targeted toward the general public. as well as writers, scholars, editors, agents, faculty, and students of all ages.

Continue reading 10th National Black Writers Conference at Megar Evers College →

Civics and Urban Life

House Passes Health Care Reform

It’s is 2:41AM in the morning and I just got this email from President Barack Obama in my inbox. I reproduce it here on this historic occasion:

Dear Louise:

For the first time in our nation’s history, Congress has passed comprehensive health care reform. America waited a hundred years and fought for decades to reach this moment. Tonight, thanks to you, we are finally here.

Consider the staggering scope of what you have just accomplished:

Because of you, every American will finally be guaranteed high quality, affordable health care coverage.

Every American will be covered under the toughest patient protections in history. Arbitrary premium hikes, insurance cancellations, and discrimination against pre-existing conditions will now be gone forever.

And we’ll finally start reducing the cost of care — creating millions of jobs, preventing families and businesses from plunging into bankruptcy, and removing over a trillion dollars of debt from the backs of our children.

Continue reading House Passes Health Care Reform →

Civics and Urban Life

Today it’s Bklyn’s Turn: St. Patrick’s Day Parade

The Brooklyn St. Patrick’s Day Parade begins at 1 pm today at 15th Street and 7th Avenue. It goes down to Union Street and turns right ending at Prospect Park and Union.

Here is the schedule for the day:

9AM: Pre-Parade Mass
 at Holy Name Church
245 Prospect Park West (between Windsor Pl & Prospect Ave)

12 Noon: Parade Assembly Point: Prospect Park West & 14th St

12:45PM: “Re-Dedication Ceremony” to the Heroes & Victims of 9/11 – WTC
At Prospect Park West & 15th Street, before Parade “step-off”

1PM: Parade Route
 down 15th St to 7th Ave
Along 7th Ave to Union St
Up Union St to Prospect Park West

Street Closings

Seventh Ave. between 15th and Union Sts. and

Prospect Park West between President and 15th Sts.

Both streets are closed noon to 5 pm Sunday.

arts and culture

All About Park Slope’s Tina Chang, Bklyn’s New Poet Laureate

An excerpt from today’s article in the NY Times about Brooklyn’s new poet laureate, who lives in Park Slope:

AFTER Tina Chang puts her 7-month-old son, Roman, to bed, she pads, barefoot, about three feet over to her office, where a desk cohabits with the changing table. She opens the window to take in the sights and sounds of her neighborhood, Park Slope — men arguing on the street, neighbors sipping wine on fire escapes, apartment lights twinkling. She opens a spiral notebook from the 99-cent store and begins scribbling. One night she started with a recipe for black bean sauce, another with the first line of a rejection letter from a literary journal, another with a to-do list.

“Then something takes over,” said Ms. Chang, 40. Over days, weeks, months, her stream-of-consciousness musings grow into poems like “Birthing a Boy”:

My child was once a thought and he had

no name, locked in the stall of my making.

The child was housed inside me for a long time,

held still in water, his limbs floating on a screen,

fingerprints intricate as aerial maps.

Ms. Chang is no ordinary journal keeper: She is a college teacher, published author and Brooklyn’s new poet laureate, the fourth person — and first woman — to fill the august, if odd, post. But don’t be intimidated. One of her chief goals is to “demystify the role of the poet.”

Civics and Urban Life

Brooklyn Bridge Park To Open on Monday

From the Brooklyn Paper:

The city announced on Thursday that the first phase of Brooklyn Bridge Park — featuring a vast green lawn and a granite front-stoop sitting area located on Pier 1 — will open to the public.

The public and a handful of elected officials — including Mayor Bloomberg, who allocated $55-million in city funds as part of a takeover agreement with the state earlier this month — will enjoy a “Great Lawn” with sweeping views of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline, while children will take advantage of a small playground.

The newly opened area will be most-easily accessible from Old Fulton Street in DUMBO.

Smartmom

Smartmom is “Crazy Lady”

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Smartmom has a brand new name: Crazy Lady. She gave it to herself because, lately, much of the time she really does feel crazy.

She feels crazy every time the Oh So Feisty One leaves her rock-heavy backpack in the foyer. How many times has Smartmom asked her not to do that? How many times has Smartmom stubbed her toe on that textbook-stuffed thing?

She also feels crazy when OSFO leaves a trail of towels in the hallway after a shower. For Buddha’s sake, how many towels does one girl need? And why can’t she pick them up?

But it’s not just OSFO. Teen Spirit makes her feel crazy every time he forgets his keys and buzzes at 2 am when she and Hepcat are in a deep sleep. Talk about murderously crazy.

And Hepcat makes her feel crazy, too! It’s like she’s speaking in tongues when she asks him to walk his dinner plate to the sink or load the dishwasher.

She might as well be Linda Blair in “The Exorcist” when she suggests that he make the bed or not leave his dirty clothes on the floor next to the hamper, but actually put them in the hamper.

Crazy.

And when she asks him to shop for dinner at the Coop or just to pick up milk and Tropicana at Met Food, it’s like she’s one of the Oompa Loompas in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

Crazy Lady. The name fits because Smartmom feels crazy most of the time. And she’s starting to act that way, too. She’s been known to rant to herself when she does the dishes — and when Hepcat asks her what she’s saying she just pretends that she’s singing along to something on WNYC.

La La La.

Lately, her eye has been ticking and she’s even been stealing sips of the Sailor Jerry’s rum she keeps in the cabinet.

And it’s all because nobody listens to her or takes her needs seriously. She’s sick and tired of the adolescent rolled eyes, the exasperated stares, the walking away from her when she’s in the middle of a sentence; the not being paid attention to.

Don’t they get it? If something doesn’t change soon, she’s going to be Really Crazy Lady.

Unfortunately, the more she yells, the crazier she feels — and the more they ignore her. It’s like she’s a lunatic babbling on the subway and Hepcat and the kids are those passengers who don’t even look up from their iPods.

And if she doesn’t say anything, they just keep on keeping on with their annoying, crazy-making habits. What’s a smart mom to do?

And that’s when Smartmom had a great idea: She would treat Crazy Lady as just another persona. That way it would be Crazy Lady, not Smartmom, who was nagging her family all the time.

Crazy Lady would be the invisible and irascible houseguest who never leaves. She’d hover over the apartment like a ghostly super-ego making sure that everyone was doing his share.

With Crazy Lady around, Smartmom can go back to being the mild-mannered, loving wife and mother she wants to be. Crazy Lady could be the bad cop.

So the other day, Smartmom told Hepcat that Crazy Lady found his dirty laundry next to the hamper and nearly stashed it in the garbage. “The woman is a little crazy,” Smartmom whispered.

Hepcat looked nervous and quickly put his dirties in the hamper.

Later, she told OSFO that the sight of wet towels in the hallway nearly caused Crazy Lady to seizure. “And that’s not a pretty sight,” she added. OSFO immediately picked up most of her wet towels and put them on the rack to dry.

When she told Teen Spirit that if he wakes up Crazy Lady in the middle of the night, she might pummel him with a coat hanger, he searched his room for his long lost keys and vowed never to forget them.

So far so good.

It really is great to have Crazy Lady around and she doesn’t take up any extra room. Crazy Lady will be a good influence on the household because she’s just scary enough to keep everyone on their toes. Already, she seems to have had the desired effect.

And it’s nice to have super cool Smartmom back, too. Hopefully, she can go back to baking cookies and being everyone’s best friend.

Yeah, right.

arts and culture

Poets for Haiti on Monday, March 22 at 8PM

Support Haiti during its greatest time of need.

Poets for Haiti, is a series of “traveling benefits” curated by Louise Crawford and Michele Madigan Somerville.

On March 22nd at 8PM, poets/performers Sharon Mesmer, Joanna Sit, Wanda Phipps, Roy Nathanson, Bill Evans, Ellen Ferguson, Christopher Stackhouse and more will read at the Old Stone House in Washington Park in Park Slope (Fifth Avenue and Third Street).

Donation $10. for Doctors Without Borders.

Poster by Good Form Design. Photo by Hugh Crawford

Civics and Urban Life

Monday, March 22 at 8PM: Poets for Haiti at the Old Stone House

On Monday, March 22 at 8PM at the Old Stone House, Louise Crawford and Michele Madigan Somerville present POETS FOR HAITI, an entertaining and inspiring benefit designed to raise funds for relief efforts in Haiti.

Poets/performers Sharon Mesmer, Joanna Sit, Wanda Phipps, Roy Nathanson, Bill Evans, Ellen Ferguson, Christopher Stackhouse and more will read at   the Old Stone House in Washington Park in Park Slope (Fifth Avenue and Third Street). Donation $10. for Doctors Without Borders.

arts and culture

The Weekend List: Hitchcock, Baroque Opera, Frocks and Furbelows

FILM

Friday, March 19 at 2PM BAM presents To Catch a Thief, a free Senior Cinema event  at BAM. Grant and Kelly make fireworks in this breezy romantic mystery from Alfred Hitchcock. John “The Cat” Robie (Grant) is an ex-jewel thief living in France who may or may not be behind a recent string of burglaries. The element of danger only excites American socialite Kelly who’s all too happy to get mixed up in a little danger.

The Ghost Writer, Alice in Wonderland, Shutter Island at BAM; Green Zone (with Matt Damon), Avatar in 3D, Crazy Heart and Shutter Island at the Pavilion in Park Slope

Also at BAM on Friday, March 19 at 9:15PM: White Material, the latest from living legend Claire Denis (35 Shots of Rum, Beau Travail), the director returns to her homeland of Africa for this story about a headstrong woman (Isabelle Huppert) who refuses to abandon her coffee plantation even as violence and civil war erupt around her and her family. An evocative examination of post-colonial African political strife that resists easy answers and opts for a far more personal, philosophical approach to a complex subject. In French with English subtitles.

MUSIC

March 21, at 9PM Food, drink, and a dressed-down version of the English Baroque come together in Love’s Delights, an exquisite evening of arias and instrumentals staged in the intimacy of BAMcafé. Join rising star conductor Jonathan Cohen and members of Les Arts Florissants as they perform selections by Purcell, Handel, F. Mancini, and Blow.

March 23 and March 25-27 at BAM: The Fairy Queen is a semi-opera (or dramatic opera), an early form of opera from the English Baroque that combines spoken plays with intermittent singing and dancing. Considered Purcell’s greatest work in this form, The Fairy Queen was thought to be lost following his death but rediscovered at the turn of the 20th century. BAM presents a new edition of Purcell’s score, first performed in July of 2009 by Glyndebourne Festival Opera in celebration of the 350th anniversary of Purcell’s birth.

Friday, March 19 at 9PM: All Great Things, The Dough Rollers at Sycamore on Cortelyou Road in Ditmas Park.

THEATER

If you missed Brave New World Repertory Theater’s production of The Crucible at the Old Stone House: March 21-April 4, the Gallery Players present this classic play by Arthur Miller about the Salem witch trials.

Through March 28th, DUMBO’s St. Ann’s Warehouse presents A Life in Three Acts. “In this warm, intimate and engaging evening Mr. Bourne sits down…to recall his upbringing…, his years as an actor…, his discovery of the liberating joys of frocks and furbelows, his immersion in a politically active drag commune, and his fertile, happy years as a performer with the theater ensemble Bloolips. The evening has the informal feeling of a languid stroll through an English garden… with a strangely moving sense of the ordinary.”
– Charles Isherwood, NY Times

ART

Friday, March 19th at 2PM a gallery talk with Kiki Smith, an engaging conversation about her most recent installation, Sojourn, in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, 4th Floor
Art.

Civics and Urban Life

FIPS: “Truly We Could Not Be More Proud”

5 Comments

Erica at Fucked in Park Slope seems to be as happy as Baller can be because FIPS writer, Allison, was ousted from Park Slope Parents. This evening she posted the following:

(Allison) joins an elite group of BREEDERS who somehow managed to avoid becoming totallyfuckingannoying zombie parents by holding on to some modicum of their former fun/cool lives, and/or maintained the ability to express original, non-helicopter parental thoughts from time to time (BR-ALLER-n. a BREEDER who’s proven themselves to be cool enough that, despite their tendencies to procreate, can still maintain the basic principles of a BALLER attitude and lifestyle).

This whole thing has officially gotten to be very silly and it’s time to move on to other voices, other rooms.

Civics and Urban Life

Member Removed from Park Slope Parents List-Serve

On Thursday the Advisory Board of Park Slope Parents (PSP) announced that a PSP member was removed from the group. An email went out to all members explaining why.

A PSP member named Allison, who writes for the blog Fucked in Park Slope and Babble, a popular parenting website, began a thread last week with the subject “Politically-Incorrect Parenting.”

According to the Advisory Board, all contributions to the thread were approved but one — and that was a response from Allison. The PSP moderators deemed her response “too mean-spirited to post.” Specifically, they objected to the fact that she referred to another member, in jest, as a “borderline child abuser” because she gave her child an unusual name.

PSP moderators asked Allison to revise her post and she did though she was, according to the moderators, reluctant to remove the borderline child abuser line.

She also informed them that she was working on an article about bad parenting for Babble.  In keeping with PSP policy and guidelines, they asked her to re-submit her post through the Journalist Request Process, which is clearly outlined on the PSP website.

“Journalists are welcome to post to PSP to get material or interviews, but they need to go through our Journalist Request Process if they are posting for an article, so that our members know the purpose of the posting. We feel that it is important that our members are informed when their message may be used for journalistic endeavors and this was a case that warranted a “journalist” heading.”

The following is PSP’s reason for requesting that Allison pitch the article as a Journalist Request and an explanation of why she is being removed from the PSP list serve:

Begin Message ================================

“I’m sorry we were unable to get back to you as quickly as you would have liked. We have been discussing your response to R’s rejection of your last post. In that response you indicated that your reason for posting was to pitch a story for ____ about `bad parenting’ and that your idea has now been accepted and you will be writing that story.

This disclosure caused some consternation among our Advisory Board. As you know, when journalists want to use PSP to get material for a story, we require that they go through the Journalist Request Process, so that our members can choose whether to participate or not. When you posted as if you were just interested in people’s ideas on what constitutes bad parenting, without mentioning that you were doing so to “finesse a pitch,” some members participated who might have chosen otherwise had they known what your intentions were. Now that you are indeed writing a story on the topic, it’s even more important that you be frank with our membership about the reason you’re posting.

So at this point we cannot accept more posts from you without disclosing your plans to the list. I’ll append the journalist request procedure after my signature, in case you don’t have it handy. If you wish to continue using PSP for research for this story, please follow this procedure. We’ll try to respond to your request in a timely manner.

Also, please remember that when you joined Park Slope Parents you agreed to abide by our posting standards. This includes not forwarding or copying PSP posts without the permission of the people who wrote them. If you want to use any of the messages that have been posted so far in this thread, or any that you get in response to a journalist request, make sure you get the explicit permission of the posters before quoting them.”

End Message ================================

As of today the poster has not chosen to repost her revised message through our journalist request policy. Instead, the poster chose to reproduce messages from PSP members to a blog . As such she has violated the agreement she signed onto when joining PSP – to respect the privacy of the list and not forward or post messages (even private messages) to blogs without the permission of the people who wrote the message.

Park Slope Parents attempts in all ways possible to provide a safe space to talk about parenting issues and feels strongly that our members’ posts are not to be fodder for blogs. She is therefore no longer a member of our list.

For your information we are including links to both our
Joining Agreement <http://tinyurl.com/yhn7ryv>
and
Journalist Request Policy <http://tinyurl.com/yjhyttb>

Civics and Urban Life

Writer Stands by her PSP Censorship Story

2 Comments

Allison had this to say about Park Slope Parents response to this morning’s OTBKB piece:

Puhleeze. PSP didn’t invite or encourage me to continue the discussion. They  closed it down because I had supposedly raised the issue under false pretenses, after turning it down twice before because it supposedly demeaned the dialogue or was too snarky.

Sounds like research for the Babble article wasn’t the first reason PSP moderators turned Allison down, which they are now claiming.

To make sure, Alison went back and looked at the emails and found that she mentioned the article research to the very first moderator. The Babble article wasn’t mentioned until later as the reason to prevent her response. And she’s got the email to prove it:

I wasn’t sure what was posted to the group and what came directly to me. My email has been overtaken with a sea of replies. Most are from closeted parents asking me out for drinks and wanting to form a bad mommy group, some were hilariously droll ( I don’t usually buy into the Park Slope Sanctimommy thing, but parents here are outdoing themselves – was I this humorless when my kids were little?

I guess it may take awhile to get your body back,but even longer to get back your sense of humor…) , and some were just so ridonculously self-righteous they begged a response.

So I can’t do a no-name roundup of all the vituperation and closeted mean mommy responses?

And, btw, I was just trying to finesse a pitch for a babble article on the best in “bad” parenting, old-school ideas that are finding favor again. Who knew I was going to set off today’s tempest in a teapot.

This is getting to be a real “she said, she said” thing and I feel like I’m in the middle. And I’m not sure it’s worth all this discussion. However…

The issue seems to be: was Allison’s “detachment parenting” post a ploy to get quotes for an article in Babble or, as she claims, a sincere attempt to  think out loud about different styles of parenting???

Civics and Urban Life

Have You Seen This Man? His Family is Worried Sick

His name is Maxo Etienne and he’s missing. His family is worried sick. If you have seen him please get in touch with the 78th precinct (see information below). Apparently, he left home on Monday, March 15th to take a short walk around 3:00PM (EST).

He was last seen near his home on 12th Street and 5th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn. He is a 60-years-old, Haitian-American, black male, around 5″3, with a shaved head. wearing a Grey t-shirt, black or dark blue jacket with white stripes on the sleeves and black sweat pants.

Any info please contact the 78th Precinct at 718-636-6411.

Civics and Urban Life

Response from Park Slope Parents to Accusations of Censorship

I got this response from Park Slope Parents about my post “Censorship at Park Slope Parents?”

We were surprised and disheartened to see this blog post since we had not been contacted to find out if it was accurate.  It is not.

We have not prevented Allison from posting on this topic.  We have required that she do so through our Journalist Request process, once she disclosed to us that she had posted to PSP on the topic of “bad parenting” as part of a pitch for an article she was hoping to write.  She also disclosed that the pitch has now been accepted and she wishes to continue the discussion because of that.

The moderators and Advisory Board thought that it was best that Allison inform members that she was requesting information not solely for her own parenting interest, but for her business interests as a writer. Some members who participated in the thread with the understanding that it was solely an intramural discussion of what constitutes bad parenting might have chosen otherwise if they’d known that Allison is writing an article on the topic and using PSP to, as she told us in her email, “finesse a pitch” for that article.

Once she disclosed out that she had posted for journalist purposes, we asked her to post through our “Journalist Process,” so members could decide for themselves whether they wanted to engage in her journalistic endeavor.  We also reminded her that, whether or not she chooses to continue the thread, she must not use any quotes from the thread without getting explicit permission from the posters.

As of yet, she has not amended her PSP post in such a way that it makes her intentions clear.  Is this censorship? We don’t think so. We are still open to Allison continuing this thread openly, as a journalist.

Finally, OTBKB compliments some good characteristics of PSP. These characteristics exist BECAUSE of the moderation We do have standards for conducting discussions which we enforce and that everyone agrees to abide by when they join. To equate enforcing these with censorship is to trivialize censorship and free speech. If Allison had been up front about her intentions from the start, this wouldn’t be an issue.

Civics and Urban Life

Censorship at Park Slope Parents?

6 Comments

Park Slope Parents, that incredibly useful list-serve for parents in Park Slope, has been appropriately lauded and applauded for all the good that it does. But it’s also been lampooned and treated with snarky gloves in various magazines, blogs and newspapers.

Sure, there’s lots to make fun of: Parents obsessing over teething, tantrums and teats.

But there’s lots to love. The open way that parents share their questions, advice, resources, support and information. Indeed, it has become such a necessary part of parenting life in Park Slope, it makes you wonder how parents did it before.

Okay, so maybe they used the telephone or talked to each other in the streets and school yards.

But the Internet and PSP has made Park Slope an even more cohesive and open community than ever. And it’s a win-win for parents and children.

That’s why I was concerned when I heard that PSP, in an effort to moderate the level of discourse, decided NOT to publish one mother’s post. Okay, so that mother was Allison, who writes for Fucked in Park Slope and Babble.com. But still.

It all started with this:

Politically-Incorrect Parenting Posted by: “Allison” Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:52 am (PST)

So, I’m curious to know if I’m the only aspiring detachment parent in this neighborhood. Have you gone back to old-school ways? Because I don’t know if I can get through another 12 years of over-parenting with my sanity intact and I doubt my kids would be better off if I did. So, show my your bad parenting, please. I’ll get you started… I yell, i’m mean, i punish, i say no, i’m inconsistent, i’m tired and often lazy, i cave, i have no desire to get on the rug and play… You?

Needless to say: along with some supportive emails sent directly to Allison’s email address, a  slew of mostly negative reactions showed up on Park Slope Parents. This response went to Allison’s email:

Yikes.. you do not want to get down on the floor and play with your kiddos.. you yell and are mean. Maybe you should let your kiddos come to my house. I will play and cuddle and tickle, sing and dance and treat them like children should be treated… with love and respect. Don’t get me wrong, i do discipline when needed in the form of time out or i try to divert their attention to something more constructive. But i do not yell and am not mean. I would not call what you are doing “old school”.. i call it wrong and sad and i feel sorry for you and your children. But to each their own i guess.

If you are being sarcastic with your post i do not find it funny at all. Maybe you need to see a therapist or just go to the park or museum with your children and see how wonderful they are!

Wow.. this post made me so mad i want to wake up my sweet babies from their nap and give them big hugs and kisses!!!

And so it began.

As you can imagine, Alison was itching to write a response and she did and hurried it over to PSP. But guess what happened? The powers-that-be at PSP wouldn’t let her do it. And that doesn’t seem right, especially since she’d been roasted and toasted on the site. Here’s an excerpt from Allison’s post that was rejected by PSP.

When I finally got home yesterday (after dodging attachment folks who wanted to string me up by their slings at 321 pickup), I had over two dozen emails from the gamut of park slope parents in my mailbox.I’ve been asked to form a bad mommy club (sorry, I’m not much for clubs that would have me, either), go out for drinks with a pregnant woman (after the baby’s born!), head to my nearest support group/therapist, put my “kiddos” up for adoption since I’m such a crappy mother.

I was applauded and excoriated by a roughly 3/1 margin (applause from closeted mean mamas 3, haters 1). I WISH I could show you all the emails because some were truly, if unwittingly, brilliant.

In fact, I apparently touched off some sort of culture war I didn’t even realize was going on in our bucolic almost suburb. I’m just waiting for us to be preserved in print once again in Gawker or the Times for the humorless priggish mombies they’ll no doubt be calling us by the end of the day. Has anybody trademarked “Park Slope” yet, by the way?…

…So, my original query, which I obviously didn’t articulate as earnestly as I might have but which is actually a legitimate line of inquiry, was whether all the hand-holding and tush-wiping and vigilant, ever-patient, unconditional love is actually all that good in the long run for our kids. And whether it’s sustainable for most parents.

I am kind of appalled and fascinated by the response. Why are people who are purportedly so loving and caring, responding in such a judgmental way to another point of view? Why such intensity and hostility? I mean, the whole tenor is too close for comfort to the crowd picketing Planned Parenthood. The longer I’m a parent, the less I feel like I know.

My goal as a parent is to teach my kids to ask good questions, not to think they have all the answers. It’s to help them be self-reliant, to be good citizens and friends, to have fun and play (but not necessarily exclusively with ME).

The moderators didn’t post the above after three requests citing the fact that she’s writing an article for Babble about “non-attachment parenting.”

Is that censorship or just PSP being picky about what they do and don’t want on their site. Or is that the same thing?

I get that PSP is sick and tired of being ripped off and savaged by the media (who lurk around the site and steal quotes for their snarkathons).

But it does aim to be an open, democratic community. That’s what makes it interesting, informative, fun, provocative and always a true reflection of the parenting zeitgeist of the Slope.

If it starts to become a censorship machine, it will really become a parody of itself by not allowing quirky, funny, contrary, and sometimes downright silly things hang out to dry.

Let it go, Park Slope Parents. Join the democracy that is the Internet. Things don’t need to be quite so squeaky clean all the time. Keep your sense of humor and your commitment to openness at all costs.

Everything will work out just fine.