Yesterday, my after-school ‘Music Writing’ students rocked their big Xmas presentation in the large, reverberating performance auditorium of Behrman Elementary on the West Bank. Compared to Orleans Parish schools, Behrman is great; the kids almost all meet their grade level expectations. I was recently moved to Behrman after mold shut down my former school, Craig Elementary in the Treme. Though I loved the Craig kids, too many of them, regardless of age, read and wrote at a kindergarten or pre-K level. Which is definitely parents’ fault. Kids should be semi-literate before entering kindergarten.

Anyway, with only one week to prepare, my Behrman ‘Music Writing’ students programmed the beats, wrote the lyrics and worked-out melodies for a wholly original Xmas song – which we hadn’t even time to title. Per usual, after I’d helped the kids pen the chorus, they were so excited to have something of their own to sing all together, that the remaining elements fell quickly into place. Sarajena, age 11, suggested a slowish Jamaican dancehall beat for said chorus:

Sometimes it snows for Xmas / down here in New Orleans/

But even though / it doesn’t always snow / we still know /

what Xmas means.

It’s about laughing and singing / and jingle-bells ringing

And presents unwrapped in our dreams /

It’s about giving and getting / and never forgetting

What Xmas means!

The aforementioned Sarajeni is sort of a genius, which she sort of knows – I’m very smart / and I’m into art, she rapped my first day at Behrman. Though she shares few words, barely meets my eye when we do speak, and rarely smiles (giving her a false aura of defiance that sometimes psyches me out) Sarajeni always participates in class. When I hopped over to her table to pump her up about performing for 50 or 60 parents (mostly moms), Sarajeni claimed no nervousness — logical, since today she would blend-in with the background singers, having not written her own solo rap. “I am not a rapper,” Sarajeni had already told me, eyes down. Read the rest of this entry »

by Sam Winston

Thanks Oyster for the link, after watching the video footage of NOPD pepper spraying rowdy protesters, tasering two women, and Arnie Fielkow asking for calm and then “security, enforce our rules,” this first hand blog account is really what you need to see. It’s what makes blogs great. It puts us right there, unfiltered, to see what was happening inside the building from a first person account.

The comments are also worth reading. On a personal note, watching people get tasered and pepper sprayed made me sick to me my stomach, no matter who was right and who was wrong. There have been consistent calls for finding the middle ground but obviously that didn’t matter today. I also wonder since I wasn’t there and you can’t tell from any of the video, is it true what the media has been reporting all week that the protesters were only about 100 people?

On a sidenote, give the nolablogosphere credit on an issue that they could have easily just taken the anti-establishment nature of the protests’ position (blogs being a bit anti-estab in nature), this whole past week they in large part spoke out about how the issue was not so cut and dry and how the agitators on both sides, including the media, were missing key points.

Today’s downpours had a silver lining for me. I was playing chicken with the rain bands and trying to bicycle myself over to the post office near my house to mail out what will be a very late Christmas package. I was nearly there, the grocery bag-wrapped package balanced on the handlebars, when the clouds began spittling again and it looked like worse was imminent.
Fortunately, I happened to be close enough to Parkway Tavern and Bakery to smell the roast beef aroma. The bike was parked and I was in line at the kitchen window before the real rain could do much damage. To my surprise, I here discovered that Parkway is now serving gumbo, and not just any gumbo.

Theirs is made with roasted turkey and alligator sausage. It has a very dark, rich, country-style roux, but it also includes copious amounts of okra and chopped tomato. An unorthodox combination, but it all proved to be an extraordinary gumbo and it just happened to make a perfect snack on a rainy day. Best of all, the rain cleared almost as soon as I found a seat to eat. So tempting fate on a rainy day turned out a little wet but a lot delicious.

- Ian McNulty

Those who suffer from asthma may want to try choking down oh-so-good-for-you-tofu and other soy products as much as possible from now on. New research suggests that soy products may help reduce asthma symptoms. According to a study conducted by Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, isoflavones found in soy foods may reduce levels of leukotriene in the immune system, the substance responsible for producing inflammation — airway inflammation is a primary cause of asthma.Participants in the study showed a marked decrease in the level of leukotriene at the cellular level— 1/3 less —after only four weeks of eating foods rich in isoflavones. Also known as phytoestrogens, isoflavones are pretty much found only in soyfoods, so if you want to reap the benefits you better get used to silky soy milk, tofu, or the much more appetizing choices ( I think, anyway), of edamame or soy burgers.Research is currently being conducted on the benefits of soy in other areas of prevention as well, such as coronary heart disease, osteoporosis and cancer. Likewise, soy also is known to lower cholesterol and is a rich source of protein.Many health food companies have jumped on the soy wagon, making it quite easy to find soy products in almost any grocery aisle, from produce and vegetarian products to meat substitutes, snacks (soy chips) and frozen desserts like soy ice cream bars. For more information about the nutritional benefits of soy, visit the SoyFoods Council Web site.