Brooklyn Ron

Five Brooklyn Bloggers Die Over the Weekend, Latest Victims of New, High-Tech Disease

Yes, it's true.

Many had only wished them dead, but this weekend five bloggers from Brooklyn finally did succumb to the rigors of their self-styled line of work (sometimes called the world's newest profession).

The cause of their demise was a new illness identified by The New York Times as Bloggers Syndrome, also know by its initials, BS.

Until Sunday, when The Times ran it's article -- "In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop" -- no one had an inkling (or, for that matter, really seemed to care) what had caused the key-strikers to fall fatally at their computer screens.

But now it's known that bloggers are compulsive, poorly compensated insomniacs, and that this combination is not good for their health. Some are losing weight, others are gaining weight. Forced to remain at their home-offices for hours on end, they can't get to neighborhood bars for beer and flings.

So they suffer endlessly, or seemingly so, until the end mercifully comes.

As it did for five over the weekend.

Look for their long, thoughtful obits in the next day or so in The Times.

But don't hold your breath.

(And you fellow bloggers in particular, please, please, don't hold your breath!)

Jodi and Ron of Fox News: Stop the Tricky, Biased Attacks on Michelle

                                                 

Are these doctored audio tapes or what?

Whatever the case, the media should be careful to make sure the very important word "really" is included in Michelle Obama's recent, controversial comments.

Jodi Applegate and Ron Corning of Fox's Channel Five in New York City were on the tube this a.m., running audio clips of Michelle saying, "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country."

But AP and other legitimate news outlets have her saying, "For the first time in my adult life, I am REALLY proud of my country."

Did Michelle make the statement twice, leaving out the really on one occasion?

Or is the comment doctored, edited, as we'd expected political low-lifes to do?

Whatever the case, Jodi and Ron should be  careful to  avoid  the  partisanship that will turn off many  viewers in New York  who already suspect  organizations like Fox may do anything to abort an Obama (not to mention a Democratic) victory.

They were trying (sometimes it seemed a little too hard) to sound fair and balanced in their solicitation of comments on the issue of Michelle's remarks, but the effort was by far overridden by the use of the quote they used.

If anyone has wisdom or information to add on this, please email me or post a comment here.

Death of Ledger Causes Reflection on Fickleness of Brooklyn's Boom

He was Oscar-nominated and a symbol of the new wave reflecting openness and honesty in things sexual and artistic.

And so when Heath Ledger – the 'Brokeback Mountain' star found dead, with prescription pills near his bed – moved some time ago to Brooklyn with his Baby Mommy and co-star Michelle Williams, it was an affirmation to many, mostly of the newcomer variety, of the new popularity of their recently chosen borough.

The presence of shy Australian Ledger was a particular source of delight for gawkers and realtors in Bococa, that strangely named neighborhood between Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope to which Ledger and Williams had transplanted themselves along with their little daughter.

(See previous BrooklynRon post on the 'Brits Coming to Brooklyn.')

Then, several months ago, Ledger and Williams did the thing that movie stars do. They said goodbye to each other and to the young coupling that had delivered a child, and they fled to new relationships and new places.

Ledger's relocation to Manhattan left many to say that this so-called rise of Bococa was nothing more than an illusion, brought to life by a handful of glittering personalities who chose, for the moment, to be side by side with other newcomers, many of them in Brooklyn only because they could not afford Manhattan rents.

(See New York Times piece back then on 'Brooklyn's Fragile Eco-System.')

Today there is much reflecting on this and other topics and emotions related to the death of Heath Ledger in the blogosphere, notably the Gawker and Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn.

Rockin' at the Keyboard, and Zingin' Hillary – Brooklyn Style

The MainStreamMedia's gatekeepers always seem to limit attacks on Hillary to right-wingers and Republicans (okay, maybe they are one and the same thing).

But the truth is that there has been enormous questioning and dissing of the Senator from the left.

So why is it that we never see or read these black or lefty Hillary questioners, not even in our so-called community newspapers (which are becoming, we should say, more and more mainstream by the week, a la the now Murdoch-owned Courier Life papers).

Despair not! There is now this thing called the blogosphere, and presently comes a Brooklyn Blogger, Rock Hackshaw by name, sounding off on Hillary in the wake of her New Hamsphire defeat of Obama.

The jottings are done with a passion and eloquence that cry in the wilderness.

Hackshaw, who comes out of the world of Brooklyn politics – but writes exceedingly well anyway – accuses Hillary of racism, dirty tricks and outright lying in the manner she and Billary went after Barack Obama, especially in the waning hours of New Hampshire. 

This Violence Can be Curbed by the Police, the Media and You!

The killing of poor Carol Simon in the Crown Heights section is a tragedy that few can feel with the heart-breaking agony of her family, especially her husband and the nine-year-old son (Kieron, pictured here with her years ago) whom she left behind.

The good that is coming from this is an awareness that violence continues to explode with fatal consequences in our communities, and that it seems to be increasing in some neighborhoods, contrary to sanguine reports from some sources of ever-declining crime rates. (See Daily News Article.)

Diversity a la NY Times -- Everybody but Blacks

It was an extraordinary piece of journalism manque, an article about the Bensonhurst neighborhood that two decades ago was a flashpoint of racial tension in the city.

In 1989 Yusuf Hawkins was murdered in that then-largely Italian community by locals who had never hidden their distaste for dark-complexioned interlopers. The drama that ensued in the months and years after that incident was transformative, for the borough, for the city and for one Al Sharpton, who rose to increasing notoriety and almost reached martyrdom as he was actually stabbed by an attacker at one demonstration.

But the New York Times article -- while wondrously proclaiming Bensorhurst to be a new neighborhood of ethnic wideness and understanding -- says curiously little about blacks, except to passingly mention the Hawkins episode and suggest (effectively) that, oh well, maybe blacks don't really need to be in the "United Nations of Brooklyn."

To me, and to about a million other Brooklynites, that article was like focusing on a few interesting-looking trees and ignoring the burning forest. It missed the central point -- that real estate interests and those who control the make-up of certain neighborhoods in the borough have been able to keep blacks out of Bensonhurst, today just as two decades ago.

(Above photo is from one of the countless demonstrations after the Hawkins murder, as Bensonhurst residents, most of them of Italian descent, angrily denounced demonstrators protesting the killing.)