As we get set to celebrate life and liberty, here are some tips to help with the pursuit of happiness this Fourth of July weekend.

Patricia Krzesinski, chairwoman of the ECC Board of Trustees, announced in a Buffalo News editorial today that she will push to close ECC's City Campus in downtown Buffalo.

Lashing out against criticism recently heaped on the board for its proposal to build a $30 million Health Sciences Center for Excellence at its North Campus in Amherst, Krzesinski writes:

I will, at the next scheduled meeting of the board, ask the trustees to begin the task of considering the plausibility of closing the most costly campus to operate. That, of course, would be our City Campus. It is the least efficient to run in terms of square feet per student.

Bernice Radle, chair of Young Citizens for ECC, says after reading Krzesinski's announcement over coffee this morning that she "couldn't believe my eyes."

"This is exactly why we are fighting this fight," says Radle. "The ECC Board of Trustees has clearly lost its way."

Radle points to a recent study by RCLCo, a leading real estate research firm, indicating a staggering 88% of Millennials, the generation born between 1986 and 1995, want to be in cities. The firm concluded the Millennials are the most urban generation since at least before World War II.

"The generation Erie Community College will be serving wants to be back in the city," says Radle. "This weird and alarming proposal to close the City Campus can only strengthen our resolve to bring a new direction to Erie Community College."

Young Citizens for ECC was formed in April to advocate for stronger linkages between Erie Community College and the burgeoning Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. The group can be reached at youngcitizensforecc@gmail.com.

Jane M. Vosseller, owner of Ace Flag since the mid-'80s, says the flag business is booming.

Buffalo’s Bruce Beyer sent us this dispatch from Toronto: In a large, three-story brick building, nestled into a shaded residential neighborhood two blocks from Spadina Avenue’s bustling Chinese community, 60 people gathered to show their support for the War Resisters Support Campaign (WRSC) on Wednesday evening, June 29. Housed on the third floor of this [...]

With all the back-slapping going on about passage of the NYSUNY 2020 bill, and how raising student tuition and fees is going to enable UB to move its medical school four miles down main street from the south campus to the Buffalo-Niagara medical campus, I can’t find a single media outlet* reporting on this particular [...]

I suppose everyone has a faraway place he or she hopes to visit in their lifetime. Ever since I was in grade school (please don’t ask how long ago that was… although you’ll figure it out in a second), my dream was to visit the Great Wall in China. Now, at 58 years of age I finally accomplished my goal.

It’s a landmark we’ve all seen many times on TV or in books. Still, when I actually arrived on the scene I could not stop saying “wow!” Before I made the trip, I did some reading to refresh my memory on the Great Wall’s history. Those facts make the viewing experience even more unbelievable. The first parts of the Great Wall were constructed beginning in the 5th century BC! The majority of it was built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)….a name very familiar to lovers of antique vases. The Wall covers an area of about 5,000 miles extending through mountains, deserts, grasslands, and plateaus in China. When you consider how old it is, it’s remarkable how much of it has survived the tests of warriors and weather. Sadly, significant parts of it did not. Others are buried under sand. Still other parts were actually destroyed to make way for roads. So America is not the only place where many treasures were also destroyed in the name of progress.

There are five major sections that are accessible to tourists. The part I visited is probably the most popular –the Badaling section. Since it’s up in the mountains you can access it by a cable car. It’s a ride I definitely would not take in the winter when winds are swirling around. Some pass up the car and hike up it. But you should be in solid shape to do it. That’s a lot of steep terrain to mount and once you arrive at the wall itself there’s still some aggressive walking awaiting. Many parts of it are on a steep incline. To reach the parts with the better view, I found myself hiking in a stretch position something like the way Grouch Marx used to walk!

The travel books jokingly refer to this part as “the Great Wall of tourists”…and that’s true . At this time of the year it’s most definitely a cattle call when you’re climbing up. The flow of the people traffic practically dictates your walking speed…keep up or be trampled! It’s also a challenge to take a picture without unknown “friends” becoming part of your photo memory. It seems every visitor has a camera. It makes you wonder the value of all this electronic gear. Surely the emperors never anticipated that a camera would someday become the dominant “weapon” on the wall.

Of course, there were no electronic devices of any type in the Wall’s heyday. That’s where the watchtowers came in. From perches higher than the Wall itself, guards communicated with signals what was going on. This most have been a fun place to work in the winter. The weather in this part of China is comparable to that of Western New York. Walking along with serious snow and ice was probably a treat too. It’s a long way down if you fell off this structure!

It’s no surprise that there are plenty of vendors ready to capitalize on all these tourist dollars. One of the more popular souvenirs is an “I climbed the Great Wall” T shirt. Of course I had to have one to commemorate this major accomplishment in my life. Just like the marketplaces all over China, the price you’re quoted is NOT the price you should pay. My special T shirt started out at $80 RMB but by the time I got done making grumpy faces at the merchant the price dropped to $45 RMB or about $6 American. She accepted my final offer so I’m sure she was still making money on it even at that price. Remember this is China where merchandise is cranked out by the boatload (literally) in its many factories.

The immensity of the Great Wall gets you to thinking about the labor it took to construct it. There’s no doubt the emperors basically pressed millions of Chinese into slavery to accomplish this feat. Historians refer to it as the “longest cemetery ever built” because millions of peasants were buried in it when they died from exhaustion or pain while constructing it.

The Great Wall is another of travel expert Howard Hillman’s 100 natural wonders of the world. These are places he highly recommends you visit before you die. I’m pleased I finally made it here before I leave this earth and while I was physically able to make the trek!

The current state of the city of Buffalo has long been an enigma in my mind. Notorious for decline and extreme underfunding, Buffalo hasn't garnished the best reputation over the last fifty years. As a young person growing up in the suburbs, I was told to stay away from the city; it was a dangerous place and I would probably be murdered. As I have grown up, however, my experiences in the city of Buffalo have only been good ones, and almost everyday I learn something new about the city.

My latest fascination came in the form of a documentary entitled Nickel City Smiler. I watched the film with the intention to write a brief summary of it and then probably forget about it, but my humbling experience with the subject ended up going farther than that.

"Why only a brief article?" Scott Murchie, co-director of the film, asked me.

"Hm," I thought to myself. "Well is there something here that can be turned into more than a summary?"

It was then I began to learn about and experience the situation of the refugees in the city of Buffalo.

Before I watched "Nickel City Smiler" I had no idea that there were refugees in Buffalo, and I wasn't really even sure what a refugee was. I assumed that Buffalo had little diversity, and that was just another disappointment about it. I was ignorant though, because what I learned about the diversity of our Queen City was incredible.

At first I thought Scott was a little over-zealous. He seemed obsessed with the way refugees were being poorly treated by resettlement agencies in Buffalo, and by their community around them. He and his colleagues would tell me that something needed to change, because these people are so important to the city of Buffalo. Soon I got to know him and came to understand his cheery, outgoing, and passionate disposition, and realized that he truly wanted to help a struggling population in Buffalo.

Scott is a filmmaker and director who owns a film company in Clarence, Chance Encounter Productions. He came across Donna Pepero, an employee at Journey's End Refugee services and head of the Refugee School Impact Program when his company was randomly selected to do a documentary on refugees in Buffalo. The crew, made up of directors Scott Murchie and Brett Williams, and then freelance camera operator Tim Gera, completed an 18 minute documentary, entitled "Refugees: Buffalo's Next Generation." But their interest didn't stop there. They were only telling one side of the story of refugees in Buffalo. There was also another side of the story, the refugee's side.

Scott says he and his colleagues began to see the true problems the refugees are facing assimilating into American culture when they began their short documentary. It is hard enough for many citizens of Buffalo already living there to get by, let alone someone who just came from another country.

Getting most of their information from resettlement agencies, their first film only showcased some positive points of bringing refugees into Buffalo. As well as many positive aspects to bringing refugees to Buffalo, there are many negative situations as well. In the spring of 2008, Chance Encounter Productions started filming another, much more in-depth documentary. This time as a way to reach out to the community for help. Scott believes that the resettlement agencies are not doing a good job for refugees, in fact he believes that they are doing a very poor job.

Nickel City Smiler received some interesting feedback. According to Scott, the response was overwhelmingly positive around the community, with people wanting to know how they could offer aid to refugees. The response within the resettlement community was however more mixed. Shortly after my review of Nickel City Smiler was published in Buffalo Rising, I received an invitation from Journey's End to come speak with them. Of course I accepted the invitation and met with the directors of three of the major resettlement agencies in the area.

First off, if you haven't seen the documentary, it is based on a family of Karen refugees who live in the West Side of Buffalo. The family is made up of Smiler Greely, his wife MaDee, and their three children, MoeJoe, Poe Kwa Si, and Poe Mu Si. In 2007 Smiler's family was accepted for resettlement to the United States. Smiler is employed by Journey's End Refugee Services, and works within the Buffalo Public schools. He is a valuable asset since he speaks Karen, Burmese, Thai and Engliah. He is an academic coach, helping children and their parents adjust to life in America.

The documentary portrays the situation of refugees who are living in poor conditions in the city. For example, there are two refugee families featured, which speak different languages, crammed into a small apartment. A woman, who did not know how to get help for her husband when he was having a heart attack, is suffering with the loss. The film explores why refugees may be having such problems, and what they find is that the resettlement agencies in Buffalo could be doing a better job, well, resettling the refugees in their care.

When I met with three directors from three of the four major resettlement agencies, I asked them about their response to the film. I was curious as to why they were not represented, and I wanted to give them a chance to speak. 

They told me that the film was inaccurate, possibly cut and pasted, and misrepresents the agencies completely. When I asked Ann Brittain, director of the Immigration and Refugee Assistance Program of Catholic Charities, about the two families featured in the film who live crammed in one small apartment, she said that was a completely false situation.

"It's not that they live like that," Ann said, "they congregate."

She explained that on any given day you might see a lot of refugees mingling at one house, since they enjoy being together. I met Tikee, one of the fathers living in that apartment, and I do believe that the film represents Tikee's situation fairly. Is it the resettlement agencies fault entirely? Probably not, but something went amiss for this situation and others like it to have come into being.

Why are the filmmakers and the resettlement agencies bickering? Molly Short, Executive Director at Journey's End Refugee Services, says there was poor communication between herself and the filmmakers. Scott says the agencies just don't want to admit their mistakes, and just don't have the resources to care for all the refugees they bring in. So what is going on, and why should you care?
 

The Merchant of Venice has been making the rounds.  Last year it was superstar Al Pacino as Shylock in the Public Theatre's production in Central Park (later transferred to a limited Broadway run) This year the Royal Shakespeare Company's production at Stratford-Upon-Avon features superstar  Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard to you Star Trek junkies).  And now in Delaware Park, Buffalo's own superstar,  Saul Elkin, takes on the troublesome role of Shylock in a wonderful, animated, and soulful production directed by Brian Cavanagh.

Mr. Cavanagh, best known as Buffalo's premier lighting designer, also served many years as Shakespeare in Delaware Park's technical director.  For more than a decade it was he who built the stage step by step, and reversed the process at the end of each season. To say that he knows every square inch of the stage at Shakespeare Hill, is an understatement, to say that he knows how to use every square inch as a director is no overstatement.

The Merchant of Venice is the story of Antonio (The Merchant, played with great depth and sensitivity by park veteran Peter Palmisano) whose good friend, Bassiano (a dashing Adriano Gatto) has fallen hard for the beautiful and wealthy Portia (a most excellent, lucid and lovely Susan Drozd). Unable to fund his romantic quest, Bassiano turns to Antonio for financial support, but the Merchant has all his money invested in ships currently at sea.  Antonio bids Bassiano to seek what loans he can obtain on Antonio's good credit.  Bassiano goes to Shylock, a Jew who is known to finance large loans. Shylock bears a deep grudge against Antonio (and all his class of Venetians) who have mocked and scorned him over the years as a moneylender and a heathen.

Nevertheless, Shylock offers Antonio the loan with only a "joke" as collateral, that is if Antonio defaults Shylock would have but a  "pound of Antonio's flesh" as his penalty.  No one believes Shylock would ever make good on the bond, especially as the required  assets will surely come home to port with just one of Antonio's many ships.

With funds in hand, Bassiano is off to woo Portia.  Meanwhile, Shylock's daughter Jessica, (a lovely performance by Leah Russo) escapes her father's oppressive household, taking a sizable fortune with her and then weds Lorenzo, a  Christian.  Shylock is beside himself with the betrayal, the humiliation, the anger and hatred.  Antonio's ships are lost at sea, and the bond is forfeit.  Even if one never saw The Merchant of Venice before, one could guess the rest.

Shakespeare  intended "Merchant" as a tragedy-comedy, and so it is, although the "comedy" is a bit stretched  and largely embodied in the quality of the clowns, the servants Launcelot and his father,  Old Gobbo. These two characters offer a very broad physical comedy,  the kind the groundlings would have loved and cheered (and who are well executed here by Chris Labanca and David Lundy, respectively.)  Other than that, comedy is a pretty rare commodity.

The "wit" and barbs are otherwise most often made at Shylock's expense.  Antonio, and  Bassiano's friends Gratiano, Salanio, and Salerio (David Autovino  Joe Cassidy and Matt Witten,  all spot-on and properly full of themselves as young Venetians about town)  pepper their comments with sarcasm, disdain and racism.  Even the Duke (a majestic Jay Desiderio) gets in some licks.

Not that Shylock doesn't get in his own jabs.  He gives as good as he gets, or would have, had the social deck not been so heavily stacked against a sixteenth century European Hebrew.

 And  there's the rub, so to speak. That is the dilemma which so often plagues modern interpretations of The Merchant of Venice. There is a tendency to soften those anti-Semitic blows, either in sincere deference to the feelings of those who would be hurt by the awful words, or in fear of the reaction which they may (and often do) provoked.  Indeed,  Shakespeare in Delaware Park's last production of Merchant  in 1996 generated some heartfelt protests.  Though, ironically, Mr. Elkin's portrayal of Shylock in that production was far softer, and much more the victim than in this current production.

This play is often been at odds with modern sensibilities. Taken at face value the issue of anti-Semitism which Shakespeare so boldly employs in this story can rightly raise hackles and offend those who are rightfully guarded about the appearance,  or any suggestion,  of the mad dog of prejudice.  It does not take a holocaust to sharpen that nerve, but obviously, our mid- twentieth century history, still a living memory for many people, sharpens the reality of anti-Semitism, and for that matter, genocide in all its   gruesome manifestations.   

At its heart though, The Merchant of Venice is less about racism than about the poison of greed. The character of Shylock is a convenient vessel, but he's hardly the only character who is consumed by greed in the play, and certainly not the one least entitled to his anger. Shakespeare, in my mind anyhow, was tremendously forward looking  in dealing with the subject of anti-Semitism at all, at least given the historical context. The Inquisition raged across Europe, Queen Elizabeth's own personal doctor, Rodigo Lopez, a Portuguese native and a " hidden Jew", was a successful, highly acclaimed physician, but fell victim to a charge of conspiring to poison the Queen, and ultimately was drawn and quartered.  The charges were trumped-up  and no doubt anti-Jewish  sentiments were the fuel. Some think Lopez was the inspiration for Shylock,  but while it was a concurrent and topical event, there is no proof of any  connection.

The Merchant of Venice works best when the director pulls no punches and lets the words Shakespeare wrote tell the story. Quite wisely, director Cavanagh has done just that, and managed to stage, in two- and- a-half hours, a fast and fluid version which suits the park (and that stage he knows so well).  

Allowed his full vigor, this Shylock may be a victim, but Saul Elkin does not play him as the victim. Mr. Elkin seems so right for this part now, age appropriate, and confident in the character, he handles the language beautifully, certainly as well as you will ever hear it. The result is a much more human Shylock, one at whose audacious hatred one can gasp, but also one whose wounded psyche one can grasp. The audience here can sympathize when Shylock's utter defeat comes in no small part because Shylock goes down swinging, no more nor less imperfect than those around him.

Supporting roles in the park are often truly secondary, in more ways than one.  In this large cast,  however, the second string is largely first rate.  Kay Keriman as Nerissa,  Portia's friend and confident, turns in a wonderful performance, more than holding her own in all her scenes.  Larry Smith as the suitor Prince of Arragon  and Monish Bhattacharyya as the counterpart Prince of Monaco offer some nice additional comedy and Dominic Mazella is a most competent court  clerk. Brendan Cunningham turns in a sturdy Tubal, Shylock's friend and "go-to" guy. Some of the characters are drawn a bit too broadly, but as a rule of thumb, the actors can get away with stuff on this huge outdoor stage which would never fly indoors.  

At first the technical support seems a bit off kilter. Yet the costume design by Ken Shaw, showy and fantastical, works in this space, again, just as the large park setting allows. The set design, by Ron Schwartz, doesn't scream "Venice", but it also works well, and the little pier is an inspired exclamation point.  The lights by Chris Cavanagh are effective and even subtle when necessary, no easy task outdoors.  Tom Makar offers a very different sound design here, but it also works well with this production. It's all a bit mish-mash, but ultimately all blends nicely.

Overall, this Merchant of Venice makes for a great show. The director has made some wise cuts which help pick up the pace, and, license in hand, he's added a touching bit at the end which works quite well in  this production.  Get thee to the Realto, Buffalo, ye will be glad of it.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE,  by William Shakespeare, Directed by Brian Cavanagh and starring Saul Elkin, for Shakespeare in Delaware Park, at Shakespeare Hill in Delaware Park, through July 10*.

Susan Drozd as Portia, Peter Palmisano as Antonio and Adrianno Gatto as Bassario, photo credit Chris Cavanagh.

*Shakespeare starts at 7pm, but don't forget to show up at 5pm to catch live music at the Rose Garden pergola (atop Shakespeare Hill) every Thursday before the play begins - brought to you by our friends at the Olmsted Parks. It's called Summer Breeze at the Lake... check out the schedule. 
     

Fans crowd Wharf for a great night of musical highs

Good Morning Buffalo: 7/1/11

Heather Golubski, On Tips for Healthy Grilling:

Download audio file (070111heathergolubski.mp3)

Joe Major, from the Sports Insiders:

Download audio file (07111major.mp3)

Michael Calleri, for Film Friday:

Download audio file (070111calleri.mp3)

You’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to understand why in our televised global village the Casey Anthony trial has lit the match under the back-fence philosophers and gossips.

I have said this before and I will say this again…the Central Terminal is one of the coolest places in Buffalo for an art exhibit.  The echo: Art Fair looks to be a great event.

From the Central Terminal website…

echo: Art Fair
Saturday, July 9, 2011
9:30am – 5:30pm
Central Terminal
Buffalo, NY

echo: Art Fair is a new art event that connects experienced collectors and first-time buyers with emerging local, regional and international artists in a centralized and creative environment. Curated by a jury of contemporary art experts, echo: Art Fair will be a venue for independent artists and artists with gallery representation to exhibit and sell their work. It is recommended that all artwork will be priced under $3,000. Admission to the Fair is free.

Read more about the event—>

The state will end moratorium on "fracking" on private land upstate.

Sam Hoyt acknowledged Thursday that he has accepted a "senior position" with the Empire State Development Corp.

From time to time, I like to pull out this image I made of the only newspaper you’ll ever need in Buffalo:

They Snooze, We Lose...

But I may have to tweak it a little going forward. For instance, “Twin Span Bridge Delayed” headline should switch “delayed” with “abandoned”, as Alan points out.

And there is development in our waterfront: we get a shanty shack!

And with the Sabres (under the regime of Dear Owner Pegula) spending the big bucks, perhaps there is hope for our dreams of a championship, as long as we can continue to pick up the best players.

Not to be cynical or anything. Actually, yes I do mean to be. It’s what I do! That said, enjoy your holiday with your friends and family, and make the most of where you are and who you’re with. Because the leadership in this city certainly won’t…

Buffaload of crap