2013-05-19T07:53:22-04:00 Len Hollie http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=len-hollie Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Len Hollie Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.981067 2011-09-28T15:11:45-04:00 2011-11-28T05:12:01-05:00

Len Hollie http://www.huffingtonpost.com/len-hollie/ Sand Queen, was published last month, and her non-fiction book, The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq, was published in 2009. Although both books deal with women at war, Benedict says it not necessary to read The Lonely Soldier to understand Sand Queen. I recently spoke with Benedict about the unique undertaking of writing both fiction and non-fiction from the same research material. Here are excerpts from that conversation:

How did you construct fictional characters and storylines from all of the non-fiction research material that you had gathered?
When I write fiction it doesn't even feel like fiction. It's more like daydreaming. The story just comes out once you have the characters in your head. So I had the idea of this U.S. female soldier, Kate, and I had the idea of Naema, the young Iraqi woman whose brother and father were arrested and all of the angst and misery she was going through. Once I had those two characters in my head I just poured out the story. I had to figure out how they would meet, and what effect they would have on each other from then on, and how their stories would evolve. But I don't think the story out beforehand. It comes out as I write it.

What is different in the way you structure your novels as opposed to how you structure your non-fiction books?
I plan out the structure of non-fiction before I write it. Novels I just pour out and let the structure find itself. In fiction, it's not really structure that matters, its plot. The plot -- the storyline -- forms the structure, and the plot comes from the characters.

How did you learn to trust your instinct to let your imagination determine what shape your fiction would take?
I found out a long time ago that my instinct and imagination are much smarter than the conscious part of me, at least when it comes to telling stories. Even in journalism, I just pour out the story and it finds its own shape. I learned that by working on a daily newspaper and having to write three stories a day, fast. No time for planning, just tell the story! Practice, is the short answer! But we all have the instincts of a storyteller. We use them whenever we tell friends stories of what has happened to us. We do this from the minute we learn to talk. As children, we make up stories as we play. In a sense, writers just never out grow this.

What are your trying to accomplish in your fiction?
I just want to move people, engage them, pull them out of their own lives and skins and put them in the lives and skins of others. I think becoming someone other than oneself, through reading or writing, is one of the most powerful antidotes to prejudice and hatred I know. In that way, fiction breeds compassion. That's what I want to do: breed compassion.

What are you trying to accomplish in your non-fiction?
Most of my non-fiction has been about violence against women or racism -- it's been about the harm that prejudice does to others. So I want my non-fiction to raise awareness and even, hopefully, trigger action against oppression. I am pleased to say that The Lonely Soldier did a little of this. It got me invited to testify to Congress twice on behalf of women soldiers who have been sexually assaulted. The Defense Department read the book and implemented some of the reforms I suggested in the book. And my book helped to inspire an incredible lawyer, Susan Burke, to press a class action suit against the Pentagon on behalf of military women and men who have been sexually assaulted while serving.

How do you organize your time to get all of your writing done?
I do most of my writing, at least the first draft in the summer when I don't have to teach. I leave the city and I go to an artist colony if I'm accepted, where I can write all of the time far away from my obligations. They shop and cook for you so you don't have any errands, and you can just write with complete concentration. It's delicious. Or I go upstate where we have a place in the countryside, which is very quiet. I work really hard over the summers, writing nine hours a day, and exercising, as well. And then I relax in the evenings.

What is your writing process like when you return to your daily routine?
It's really hard to get the depth of concentration that you need in the middle of work time when you have a lot of other things on your mind. When I'm absorbed in my writing I completely forget about everything else. I sometimes even forget to eat, return phone calls or answer e-mails, and I forget appointments I made with people. It's a sort dangerous state of mind in terms of living your daily life because you suddenly become wildly irresponsible and make a lot of mistakes. So it's better for me to not do that too much when I have a lot of duties to take care of, because I don't want to spread chaos (laughing).

What effect could these distractions have on your writing?
A novel is a huge thing to hold in your mind all at once. And there is a time when you really need to hold it all in your mind at once, otherwise you'll make mistakes. You'll give someone green eyes, when they had brown eyes on page four, or worse. You could have started a whole plot early in the novel and forget about it, and have the character do something else. You could make terrible mistakes if it's not all in your mind. Not only plot mistakes, but semantic mistakes, and philosophical mistakes. So in order to contain a huge, 300-page book in your head all at once, you really need a lot of privacy and quiet. At least I do.

Since both Sand Queen and The Lonely Soldier deal with war, what have you learned about death?
I'm not sure I've learned anything about death, but I've learned a lot about war -- how it not only kills and mutilates but corrodes people's souls, minds, and morals.

What do you think about the female soldiers who participated in the prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib?
When Bush's government gave the order to torture, it had a profound effect on the morals of U.S. soldiers. They, men and women, were not only encouraged but ordered to act in the most sadistic and depraved ways towards anyone regarded as an enemy. Some resisted, some didn't. It has nothing to do with one's gender, but with one's personality and circumstances. In Sand Queen, I examine how a very nice person -- even a woman -- can be changed and morally deformed by a corrupt and senseless war.

What would you like readers to take away from Sand Queen?
I think that I just want people to recognize that there are not very many novels out there that tell the story of the Iraq war from the point of view of two women, especially one that is Iraqi. I think it is an overdue and important point of view. Whether people like what I have to say or not, I hope it will be a really good subject for discussion. I've gotten very passionate responses to it, which is exciting. Someone even wrote me a poem in response to it. They were so moved. You work all alone for years in your room, and you have no idea what people will think. And so to get that sort of passionate response is very rewarding and moving to me.

For a closer look at the novel, Sand Queen, please read Women Isolated and at War in A Desert Outpost.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.949077 2011-09-06T20:00:17-04:00 2011-11-06T05:12:02-05:00

Len Hollie http://www.huffingtonpost.com/len-hollie/
That's because back-to-school shopping stretches from July through September, and historically it is the second busiest shopping period, surpassed only by Christmas. Retail stores are hoping for big Labor Day back-to-school shopping sprees.

And if spending trends are to be believed, many of those purchases were made with credit and debit cards. Although consumers, for now, may feel more comfortable in loading up credit card debt to buy needed back-to-school supplies, overall, debit cards are the plastic currency of choice.

Debit card use in the US now exceeds all other forms of non-cash payments, according to a 2010 Federal Reserve payment study. The average household pays about $200 per year on goods because of debit card swipe fees. In 2009, US consumers made nearly 38 billion debit card payments. That's a lot of money.

In August, the Federal Reserve imposed a cap on the fees banks can charge retailers every time customers swipe their debit cards. Banks used to be able to charge an average fee of 44 cents per transaction, now they can charge no more than 21 cents.

Why is that important? In addition to banks, consumers may be the biggest losers in this change. The reason we lose is that by reducing these fees, known as the interchange rate, we are likely to lose the rewards we get when we use debit cards.

"This rate is invisible to most of us, but it is the fuel behind half of the products that we use every day," said Schwark Satyavolu, CEO and co-founder of BillShrink and StatementRewards. "Now, suddenly you take all of that revenue away, and all of those products will suddenly have to go away, as well. What that means is debit rewards will go away," Satayavolu said. "And in some cases, you might even need to pay a fee to use your debit card."

Really? You may need to pay a fee to use your own checking account to make debit card purchases? True to form, banks have stepped in to make debit card fees a reality. Wells Fargo said last month that it will start charging a $3.00 monthly fee for debit card use to customers in Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada and Oregon beginning October 14.

At the end of last year, JPMorgan Chase began a similar test, charging customers in northern Wisconsin a $3.00 fee for using their debit cards. That test continues. Can you see a national trend developing here?

Whether many more banks will impose debit card fees is still unknown. But if most banks do so, will rising fees cause some people to forgo their banking privileges? An Associated Press-GfK poll of 1,001 consumers earlier this year found that 61% of bank customers would stop using debit cards if a $3.00 fee appeared on their account.

Satyavolu believes there could be a fundamental shift in how people even use banks that is driven by such an innocuous thing as changing the interchange rate. "One potential outcome that was not intended is that checking accounts could become expensive and larger numbers of people may become unbanked and move to check cashing services and prepaid cards," he said.

Another consequence could be plummeting card use. "More people may turn to cash, and may not make a purchase if they don't have cash," said Satyavolu. "If that happens, sales could drop and that could cause an economic impact. Plastic is a grease for commerce. So anything that impedes the use of plastic could have a negative economic impact."

So now that you've navigated the retail store crowds and surveyed your holiday bargains, just be aware of how much you may have really spent depending on the plastic payment option you chose.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.821892 2011-02-11T11:02:09-05:00 2011-05-25T18:30:24-04:00

Len Hollie http://www.huffingtonpost.com/len-hollie/
"What is she doing?" I asked.

"She's watching a movie," her nanny said.

Little Jenny's gaze fastened on me as any sensible person would when being talked about as if she wasn't present, and without a word, she returned to her movie. "She not only watches movies, she really knows how to use it," her nanny said.

Eli Barnstein, 5, lost his iPhone last year and has moved on to the iPad that his grandmother bought for him.

"My friend gave him her old iPhone and she put applications on it for him. He played with it, he loved it, and he lost it," said his mother, Missy Barnstein, 36. "My mom, who runs a nursing school in Maryland bought him an iPad and put education apps on it because she said a lot of the parents there have bought one for their kids," Barnstein said.

Eli says, "I like the iPad better than the iPhone because it makes everything bigger."

Today's children are more digitally attuned to their world than previous generations, which is causing some concern among parents about how to manage their children's use of these digital toys. Technology has changed what it means to be a parent raising children today, according to recent studies. Children are now growing up in an environment that would likely be unrecognizable to their parents. But parents are also devising ways to use these devices to improve learning.

"The smart phone and the computer are increasingly taking the place of the TV as an education and entertainment tool for children," said J.R. Smith, CEO of Internet Security Company AVG, whose Digital Diaries series, Digital Birth, is examining how children's interaction with technology has changed. "Our research shows that parents need to begin educating children about safely navigating the online world at a much earlier age."

In a new Digital Diaries study released in January, AVG found that small children are more likely to know how use a computer mouse, play a computer game, and increasingly, operate a smart phone than they know how to tie their own shoes, or learn how to swim.

The latest study also found that there is no technology gender divide between young boys and girls. As many boys, 58 percent, as girls, 59 percent, can play a computer game; and 28 percent of boys, and 29 percent of girls can make a mobile phone call. The study polled 2,200 mothers with Internet access and with children aged 2-5 in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Parents of newborns and toddlers know that their children are being digitized at a very early age. For instance, when do those childhood memories first appear on Facebook?

An AVG Digital Diaries study released in October 2010 shows that 33% of children have had images posted online from birth, and that 23% of children have had their pre-birth scans uploaded to the Internet by their parents. Astonishingly, 7% of babies have had an email address created for them by their parents.

Parents are certainly aware that they need to monitor and regulate their children's technology use. First Lady Michelle Obama said this week that 12 year-old Malia and nine year-old Sasha don't have a Facebook account. "(I'm) not a big fan of young kids having Facebook," she said. "It's not something they need."

Many parents share the First Lady's view.

"Our kids are the least tech-savvy of all their friends, and it's deliberate," said Sree Sreenivasan, 40, Dean of Student Affairs and digital media professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Sreenivasan, the father of seven year-old twins, Durga and Krishna, specializes in explaining technology to consumers, readers, viewers and users.

"When we are together we might go on YouTube, and they have a Wii, which they love, and they play, but they don't have a (Nintendo) DS hand-held unit. They're not on Facebook, they don't have a blog or an e-mail address, and a lot of their friends do. The result is that they will read more, and they know that eventually they will be able to use and play with all of these things," Sreenivasan said.

Barnstein said she tries to breakdown the time that Eli spends on his iPad. "I don't worry that he's using his iPad too much. We play a lot of board games. And if I ask for help with something and he helps me, I'll say OK, I'll buy you an app," Barnstein said. "All of his apps are strictly educational. Some are games, but a lot of them are Nickelodeon or Magic School Bus. He can also watch is favorite TV shows on his iPad."

Bill Hartnett, 48, says he's had his iPad for a year and enjoys sharing it with his eight-year-old son, Cole, and his five-year-old daughter, Tatum. "I think it's an attractive and inviting platform that kids naturally want to play with and you can covertly sneak a little learning in on it," Hartnett said.

"The iPad is used as a reward, the same as watching TV. I really limit it," he said. "My son loves his iPad time. He and his sister get a half-hour to an hour a day total of TV, Wii or iPad. I try to make sure that most of their experiences are offline, like reading, playing, and talking to others."

Hartnett said his son, Cole, has dyslexia and he has found that the iPad is helping him to learn and improve his motor skills.

"He has blossomed after using it," said Hartnett. "His progress is also attributable to good teaching, but using the iPad has helped him to become much more focused. He has developed strategies to play games, and he's become analytical in how to run his favorite app, Zombie Farm. The iPad offers children sure enjoyment, and it requires dexterity and finger skills. Cole has become an iPad wizard."
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.780960 2010-11-09T18:35:58-05:00 2011-05-25T18:10:25-04:00

Len Hollie http://www.huffingtonpost.com/len-hollie/ Knock Me A Kiss, by playwright Charles Smith, begins previews Thursday in its Off-Broadway premiere at the New Federal Theatre on the Lower East Side.

Leading the cast, Tony Award nominee Andre De Shields said the role of W.E. B. Du Bois presented a great and satisfying surprise. "The role is reminiscent of Shakespeare's tragic king, Lear, due to Du Bois' inability to be spontaneous, his Ptolemaic need to be the center of his self-crafted universe, and his controlling relationship with his daughter, Yolande," said De Shields. "Those similarities afforded me the opportunity to mine the tragic elements of Du Bois' character."

The year is 1928, and the daughter of America's foremost black intellectual, Du Bois, is just one month away from marrying a young poet, Countee Cullen, whose work was considered one of the pinnacles of the New Negro movement, which we now know as the Harlem Renaissance.


From left, sitting, Andre De Shields as W.E.B. Du Bois, and Sean Phillips as Countee Cullen.
Standing, from left, Marie Thomas as Nina Du Bois, and Erin Cherry as Yolande Du Bois.


The marriage marked the height of the renaissance and was viewed as the perfect union of African-American talent and beauty. It would unfold during the apex of a cultural phenomenon, which through intellect, literature, art, and music challenged the era's pervasive racism and stereotypes, and redefined how America and the world perceived African-Americans.

What could go wrong?

"I want the audience, after seeing this play, to investigate these characters and dig deeper into the life of W.E.B. Du Bois, Countee Cullen, and the Harlem Renaissance," said Chuck Smith, the Chicago-based, Emmy winning director of the play and one of its producers. "I want viewers to see what's changed, and get more involved in our culture. They should know that the lifestyle of affluent black Americans is not that much different than anyone else," Smith said.

The play opens as jazz bandleader, Jimmy Lunceford, woos a willing but skittish Yolande Du Bois, who insists that she and Lunceford be married in a manner befitting her stature. She tells her friend, Lenora, "I want to touch and kiss and all he wants to do is hump and bump."


Erin Cherry as Yolande Du Bois and Morocco Omari as Jimmy Lunceford.


Meanwhile, the elder Du Bois tries to convince Cullen to take a wife of great breeding, stature and education. A letter of recommendation for a prestigious fellowship in Paris is part of the persuasion. Cullen realizes that Yolande seems to possess all of the attributes described by Du Bois and sets out to win her affection.

Ultimately, Yolande is forced to choose between her passion for Lunceford, a soon to be successful band leader, and marrying Cullen. Although both parents reject Lunceford as a suitable husband, Nina Du Bois, who lives in the shadow of her husband, is also wary of Cullen. She warns Yolande that Cullen is like her father and that she is placing her head in the mouth of a beast. Noting that her father put her brother on an alter without giving it a second thought, and that the boy died in infancy, Nina tells her, "your father sacrificed my only son and now he wants to sacrifice you."

However, Yolande's devotion to her father overpowers her, and she reluctantly chooses a marriage filled with pomp and pageantry that fails almost immediately. But announcing a failed marriage so soon after it began would not be tolerated by her strong-willed, successful father.

Navigating this dilemma is essential to Yolande's emergence as her own woman. "She has to confront her father and stand on her own two feet," says Smith. "While everyone else around her is crumbling, or has abandoned her, she has to find a way to take charge of her life."


Left, Gillian Glasco as her friend, Lenora, and Erin Cherry as Yolande Du Bois


The play, which is a fictional account of actual events, takes its title from the much recorded hit, Knock Me A Kiss, by Mike Jackson. Smith said he raised the idea of bringing the play to New York about 10 years ago.

"I told (playwright) Charles Smith that this play belongs in New York. Now here it is," said Chuck Smith, who is not related to the Emmy winning playwright. "You have to find someone to help you produce a play in New York, so we turned to Woodie King."

Woodie King, Jr. the founding director of the New Federal Theater, and a co-producer of the play, is a renowned stage and screen director and producer. He said lack of funding is always an issue when staging theater productions in New York.

"We agreed about 1-1/2 years ago that "Knock" is the kind of New York play that we want to showcase," said King. "So we started working on funding for it about a year ago. We are always looking for plays that bring forth little known information that black Americans may not be aware of, and we try to find a writer to do it in a very creative way," he said.

Previews of Knock Me A Kiss begin Thursday November 11. The play opens on November 18 and runs to December 5, 2010, at the Henry Street Settlement's Abrons Arts Center/Recital Hall, 466 Grand Street, New York, NY 10002. They can be reached at 212.598.0400, or www.abronsartscenter.org
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.766437 2010-10-18T11:05:07-04:00 2011-05-25T18:05:23-04:00

Len Hollie http://www.huffingtonpost.com/len-hollie/
Listening, Nina Talbot, a New York-based painter, heard the cacophony of Brooklyn's immigrant experience:

• One of Verna King's sons died and she is trying to get back to her art while dealing with her grief. She has lived in the Red Hook projects for 40 years, supporting herself as an accountant, and raising four children.
• Arriving through Ellis Island, Bella Neger had very little money. When she saw a dress in a store window that she couldn't afford, someone suggested she sell her waist long, wavy black hair to a wig maker to earn the money. She did.
• Serena Stamler was liberated from the Mauthausen concentration camp in Germany in 1945 by an American battalion consisting primarily of black soldiers. Having been raised in pre-war Hungary, a homogeneous European society, she had never seen a black person.

"I tried to put myself in their shoes to experience what they described," said Talbot, who was born in the Bronx, but lives and works in Flatbush. She spent 11 years interviewing her neighbors and painting them. "Sometimes it is hard to imagine the life of an immigrant and the struggles to survive. It is a painful process, but one that I have found necessary to understand what those around me have been through."

The result of Talbot's curiosity is the exhibit, Painting Brooklyn Stories of Immigration and Survival, now on display at the Brooklyn Historical Society through February 27, 2011. Talbot has numerous paintings from her years of work, but the 17 canvases in the exhibit represent three series: Generations of Brooklyn, Vendors of Newkirk, and Neighborhood Folks.

"Each of the series has its own theme, but they are all united by the overall idea of people in my community who have had larger than life paths to arrive where they are," said Talbot.



Fatima of New Royal Fabrics from the Vendors of Newkirk series

Generations of Brooklyn was the first series in which Talbot actually interviewed people in depth, edited the elements of their stories, and painted them. Vendors of Newkirk offers a sense of place: mom-and-pop shops on her local shopping strip, Newkirk Plaza, in Flatbush. "Those shops have been there since the turn of the century," said Talbot. Newkirk Plaza was the first subway shopping mall in the US. "The shops are somewhat at risk of disappearing due to gentrification. Most of them are owned by immigrants from all over, such as Haiti, Ghana, China, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Mexico," she said.

Neighborhood Folks, the most recent series, focuses on people that Talbot met or knew. "The lives of the people in this series were extraordinary in scope of struggle, and tinged by racism, torture, war, and loss," she said.

Talbot said the painting process begins with listening. "In those cases where people are around, I can actually talk to them," she said. "Then comes remembering, editing, and finally, laying out the elements in preparation for painting. There are also revisions, in terms of scale -- big events need more space in the paintings, and details, such as family elements, need to be smaller in scale."

Talbot's work has been in solo exhibitions at the Bread & Roses Gallery, The Brooklyn Public Library, the Ingber Gallery, and the Williamsburg Art Historical Center. Her work has also appeared in group shows at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Bronx Museum of Art, Sewall-Belmont House Museum, Kouros Gallery and Three Brooklyn Artists, organized by the Smithsonian.

"I've loved Nina's paintings since I first saw them some years ago, said Esther Cohen, a New York City-based book editor and poet who contributed poems to many of the paintings in the exhibit. "Nina came to my office when I was executive director of Bread and Roses and we gave her a show. Everyone was crazy about her work," said Cohen. "When she told me about the Brooklyn project, it seemed like a natural for the Brooklyn Historical Society, which is revitalized under new director, Deborah Schwartz. They loved her work, she was very happy with them. It's a good match," Cohen said.

Talbot said her next series of paintings will be portraits of veterans from different wars. "Usually I'll segue from strong paintings that interest me most from a current series into the next," she said, noting that her last series, Neighborhood Folks, has two veterans, Fitzroy Newsum, a Tuskegee airman, and DeNorval Parks, a Desert Storm veteran. "At this point in time, with our country involved in two wars, I can't think of anything else more important to focus my work on."

Painting Brooklyn Stories of Immigration and Survival continues at the Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont St. at Clinton St, Brooklyn Heights, through February 27, 2011. Contact them at 718-222-4111, or brooklynhistory.org. For more information on Nina Talbot's work, go to her website, www.Ninatalbot.com.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.667455 2010-08-02T17:30:05-04:00 2011-05-25T17:15:21-04:00

Len Hollie http://www.huffingtonpost.com/len-hollie/
But backstage, recently in BET Studio's Green Room on West 57th Street, Jabari "Young Bari" Baldwin, 20, and Johnathon "J-Roc" Murell, 21, are a picture of calm. Glued to a wall of video screens watching the live audience and reels of video rap performances, both rappers were confident and relaxed before being called to the stage to compete in the network's Wild Out Wednesday competition.

"All New York needs to know is I'm a different type of artist with a different type of swag that you're going to feel before I even step up in the room," says Bari.

Within an hour, Young Bari and J-Roc appeared on camera in front nearly 100 screaming young fans, mostly female, mugging for the cameras while singing a minute and half of their Bay Area hit, "I Bangz." Although his sound is gangsta rap, and Bay Area hyphy (hyperactive), Young Bari uses no profanity.

When asked what his music says to listeners who crowd his concerts, buy his CDs and download his songs on iTunes, Young Bari says: "I just want them to respect a real young dude on his grind who talks about what you could be going through and how you're living right now. I am really in these streets to talk about it without using any type of advisory in my music. I just want people to feel and hear and walk through the shoes of Young Bari out of the San Francisco Bay Area and show them how we rock on this side."

On their first visit to New York City, Young Bari and J-Roc left their Baldwin Hotel room with the idea of winning the competition and moving on to bigger things, but they came in second. However, they showed enough energy and stage presence that Pat Charles, creator of the popular Blaze the Stage competition and head writer for BET's hit show, 106 & Park, asked them to return to New York.

They will be performing with a group of rappers at the Blaze the Stage "Summer 2010 Invitational" at Symphony Space on Saturday, August 7. The program is a homecoming that features the hottest up-and-coming dance teams, singers and hip-hop/ R&B artists from all over the country who have already wowed millions of viewers on national television. Like other contestants, Young Bari and J-Roc will be competing for cash prizes, industry-wide recognition and bragging rights.

J-Roc says they are thrilled to return to New York to perform, and describes what he sees as the difference between East Coast and West Coast rap styles. "East Coast rappers always have a story to tell, and always have something to say lyrically," he says. "But these days, a lot of West Coast rappers have a great story too, but they say it with a different swag and flava to it. We'll be there to prove that."

The duo will already be in town with their reps from the talent development company UGMX to meet with record executives about a label deal. Young Bari, who writes his own music and has been rapping since he was 11, recorded his first record at age 14. He now sees Saturday's competition as a chance to show his artistry.

"I get the chance to do a complete song, and a full performance in front of a national audience this time," Bari says. "Now at the end of the day I'm an artist so I know how to make music for everybody. Keeping it real it's just a natural thing to me because I just have so much love for music, and I love for people to hear my story and relate to my words. When I write music, the pen basically matches with what I see, what I know, what I grew up around, what I do, and how I live my life on a daily basis."

By Len Hollie

In addition to iTunes, Young Bari's music and information are available at www.myspace.com/yungbari and www.youngjabari.com. Tickets for Saturday's Blaze the Stage "Summer 2010 Invitational" performance at Symphony Space are available at http://www.symphonyspace.org/events.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.575273 2010-05-13T14:14:46-04:00 2011-05-25T16:30:24-04:00

Len Hollie http://www.huffingtonpost.com/len-hollie/
With the title, "No End in Sight: The Agony of Prolonged Unemployment," many people would probably have avoided reading the report even if they had noticed it. But the voices of the disenfranchised, the dispirited and the discontented recorded during the research would have certainly resonated with a lot of New Yorkers:

• "In 15 months of being unemployed I only had three interviews, and all three times was because I knew someone."
• "I settled for much less income."
• "The longer I am out of work, the less competitive I can be with people who are trained, or receiving ongoing training to maintain and increase skill levels. I am outdated and can't afford to update."
• "Although there is nowhere on a CV/resume that you state your age, employers can tell how many years you have worked. I have been interviewed for positions requiring experience by managers who are more than half my age, and they can barely contain their disdain - despite the fact that my work experience is greater than theirs."

Does any of this sound familiar?

New York City's unemployment rate fell to 10% in March from 10.2% in February, the third consecutive monthly decline, according to the latest figures from the New York State Labor Department. The rate was as high as 10.5% late last year. The city's private sector added almost 25,000 jobs in March, which is significantly more than the normal gain in the month. But economists caution against getting overly excited about a one month gain.

Still, unemployed workers are interested in any increase in jobs, especially if they can land one. But the Rutgers University report, which surveyed 1,202 men and women nationwide in August 2009, and returned in March 2010 to interview 908 people of the original group, found that 79% of those surveyed were still unemployed or out of the job market. "A dismal one if five (21%) of those looking for work last year had found it by March of this year," the report said. "Fully two-thirds (67%) remain unemployed and looking, with the remaining 12% having left the labor market."

As expected, the report showed that younger job seekers fared better than older ones. While 29% of those under 30 have found new jobs, only 21% of those between 30 and 49 had done so, and just 12% of those over 50 had found work. The report also said that job search pessimism is a threat to economic recovery and that 52% of unemployed people are somewhat or very pessimistic about finding a job, while 46% are simply unsure as to how long it will take to ever find work.

At this point might we ask, what about that jobs bill? Congress has made virtually no progress in creating broad legislation to increase employment. But President Obama noted last month that, by itself, government cannot replace the 8.2 million jobs lost over the past two years. What government can do, he said, is "help to create the conditions" for renewed hiring.

Even though a surprising 290,000 jobs were created in the overall economy in April, unemployment also rose, and economists calculate that it would take more than four years of similar job growth to replenish the job losses from 2008 to 2010.

Now that's scary.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.562911 2010-05-04T14:03:08-04:00 2011-05-25T16:20:27-04:00

Len Hollie http://www.huffingtonpost.com/len-hollie/
Traditionally, when airlines have merged, frequent flier miles were carried over allowing customers to select among an increased number of flights and destinations. It's unlikely that this merger will be any different. But airlines merge in part to take advantage of more efficient operations, such as fuller flights, which could make it harder to use frequent flier miles.

"Historically, people won't lose their miles, but they will probably have a harder time booking miles because fewer award seats will be available," said Rob Seltzer, a CPA and personal financial specialist, based in Beverly Hills, Calif. "I recommend people use them sooner rather than later, and try to book as early as they can," he said.

On Monday, United Airlines and Continental Airlines announced a $3.1 billion merger that is expected to create a coast-to-coast behemoth with a leading presence in the top domestic markets, including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, along with an extended network to Asia, Latin America and Europe, according to the New York Times. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

In coming weeks both companies will issue bulletins on how they will handle the frequent flier miles, but you can imagine what would eventually result from this union - less competition and higher air fare prices.

Are there steps consumers can take now to help lessen the burden of higher prices and fewer seat selections? The California Society of Certified Public Accountants has some suggestions. The society is the nation's largest professional, non-profit state association representing more than 34,000 CPAs in the area of tax, audit, accounting and consulting services, such as personal finance. They offer these six tips:

• Consider using frequent flier miles sooner than later. Major carriers have cut back on the number of planes flying on most of their routes, which translates to fewer available rewards seats. In effect, the value of your miles is decreasing, and the trend isn't likely to reverse itself anytime soon.

• Book very early or very late. You'll have the best chance of finding an available seat if you book soon after the flight has been entered into the computer booking system, which happens up to 330 days in advance. On the other hand, if a flight hasn't sold out, airlines figure they've nothing to lose by making more seats available for award travel.

• Consider paying double. It may be worth spending 50,000 to 80,000 miles for unrestricted access to any unsold seat on a domestic flight. It's not cost-effective but there's a point at which you should stop doing the math and just do it because it makes you happy.

• Use miles to upgrade, especially on long flights. New York City to LA coach fare is running about $250 these days. Buying your way into a $1,000 business-class seat is a great use of 5,000 to 15,000 miles.

• Don't overpay for miles. If you're being charged $80 a year for a Visa card that earns miles and it takes you three years to earn a coach ticket, that ticket has cost you $240 -- enough for you to go almost anywhere in the country on a low-fare carrier.

• Finally, aspire to be elite. Even as mileage programs are getting stingier for occasional fliers, they're growing more generous when it comes to heavy travelers, who are being wooed with an ever-growing array of perks. Getting into the so-called "elite" status league usually requires 25,000 flight miles (as opposed to miles accrued on a credit card) in a calendar year - which will usher you into a world of early boarding, guaranteed upgrades and reams of bonus miles. So if you take more than four long-haul trips each year, it pays to stick with a single carrier.

Also, don't expect to see any changes in the extra charges that many consumer pay for luggage, and even carry-on bags. "Paying for baggage is here to stay, mainly because of the higher fuel costs that the airlines are paying," said Mitch Freedman, a CPA and personal financial specialist, in Westlake Village, Calif. "Airlines want ticket prices to be competitive, so they won't raise those if they can help it. But they will still keep these extra fees."
]]>