C A P I C O S T I A

by Mel Dyer I was Larry King's FIRST intern, from Howard University - from a little office in Howard's School of Communications, where the now legendary career guidance counsellor, Ms. Carol Dudley, ..launched Titans into the world of men. Sometimes, the miracles that Ms. Dudley (to whom I am eternally grateful) created there, ..changed the world. Sometimes, they changed us ..and how we saw our place in it. Larry King, with B. B. King, at the legendary Mutual Broadcasting System, in Virginia's Crystal City district (from Arlnow.com) I recall much of the summer of 1993, that I spent, working for him and his producers, Mr. Pat Piper and Ms. Judy Thomas, who was also his personal and executive assistant. I remember the day that he told me I could call him 'Larry', ..instead of the more deferential 'Mr. King', which I, being an old-fashioned son of Mexican and Afro-American parents, ..preferred. We had a few, brief conversations, over the course of my summer int...

  "...She was about two years old before she really started understanding and comprehending me,” she continued. Maybe it was because she was home alone with her father at seven-weeks-old when I went back to work and they bonded. He would talk to her only in Spanish and when I would come home, she did not quite understand me,” said Graham interviewed at her Penn Branch home on P Street SE that she shares with Anna Elizabeth’s father Efren Martinez Montero. In Ann Elizabeth’s case, her crayon became a life line, earning her a national art award..." A Penn Branch girl, living with autism, who is an artist...and Afro-Latina? Though I am not, myself, autistic, ..my sister is. My family is Cameroonian, Ghanaian, Mexican AND American. We are also artists and proud  Branchers, since 1965 [I was born in 1969]. So, we check ALL of those above boxes, and we are so proud. Congratulations, Anna. Read more in East Of The River magazine... https...

A new vignette, every WEDNESDAY, ..starting right here. Right now. More changes to come in 2013! To all who followed this quirky, little experiment called Steak Island, ..a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everywhere! Mel Dyer

Bullethedd.com , the Official Website of Steak Island, has a new look, this week! From now on, the week's latest vignettes - the fresh steak - will be featured right on the index page, making some pretty smart changes to the way you get this cartoon. Tweeted links will now bring you directly to the latest feature, while also giving you easy access to all the features of the homepage! Your favorite archived issues of Steak Island,  a quick introduction to Island' s creator, (me) Mel Dyer, and (soon) mini-bios of the characters, and all of our Twitter, Facebook and Blogger, with the latest news and developments on the cartoon; all of that can now be accessed with one link! That's a big pile of new-new, my friend! Stay tuned for a Special Presidential Debate Night Edition of Steak Island, ..posting the evening of President Barack Obama 's second debate with GOP candidate, Governor Mitt Romney - Tuesday, October 16, 2012! That's only TWO DAYS! S...

  In STEAK ISLAND, the red-skinned, pointy-headed alien strongman, Bullethedd, stocks shelves and unloads trucks for the metamythically gargantuan Bygmo warehouse store. Among the denizens of Steak Island, are Bygmo's general manager, the Iron Munkee, a grumpy, living statue, a fallen health goddess and others – all brought to life in weekly, one-panel vignettes, struggles desperately ..to be liked. Steak Island creator, Mel Dyer, is an American freelance website developer and weblog publisher, who grew up in a hard-working, middleclass, Catholic family in Washington, D.C. Between them, his parents privately operated two successful small businesses, a print shop and a detective agency, for nearly fifteen years, while holding down full-time jobs. At home, the political views of his mother, a right-leaning liberal, and his father, a pro-labor conservative, inspired strong populist patriotism at an early age that endures, today, ..and he is very proud of his Southern American her...

(NYTimes.com) As the four of us headed toward the eastern gate of Ajdabiya, the front line of a desperate rebel stand against the advancing forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, a car pulled up alongside. “They’re in the city!” the driver shouted at us. “They’re in the city!” Lynsey and Steve had worried that government soldiers might encircle the town, trapping us, but Tyler and Anthony discounted it. We had covered the fall of two other rebel-held towns — Ras Lanuf and Brega — and each time, the government had bombed and shelled the towns for days before making a frontal, methodical assault. When they did, rebels and journalists fled in a headlong retreat. If Ajdabiya fell, Colonel Qaddafi’s forces would be on the doorstep of Benghazi, the opposition capital, and perched on a highway to the Egyptian border, from... Read full story here

With a garden store on the way, could Caribou Coffee be far behind? I have just reopened the featured polls and want very much to hear your opinions about the changes in Penn Branch and the surrounding areas. So far, the Deanwood-Burroughs Avenue area and the MLK Avenue-Uniontown area of Anacostia are the River East neighborhoods that people are saying need the most commercial development. In another poll, people are saying the Fairfax Village-Fort Davis and Uniontown neighborhoods have the most potential. And I agree . Being a large condominium community , Fairfax Village is more transient than the rest of Fort Davis. Should the cost of renting and owning a condo in the Village dramatically increase, the population of the area could change in kind. It is not at all impossible to imagine that garden stores and coffeehouses wouldn't be far behind. As when Fairfax Village went from being a fashionably upscale roost for junior congressmen and Capitol Hill staffers in the 197...

It's STEAK, River East! Run for your lives! (Photo from Wikipedia ) It bothers me that the opening of something so ordinary and Middle American as a simple steakhouse in River East could generate so much resentment and gentrification paranoia among our neighbors, considering that River East has been deprived of this kind of mid-upscale retail for so long. We are already hearing, "That ain't for us!", "What THEY think they doing putting that here?" and "**** that white ****! I'm going to Clinton!" It's in line at the bank. It's on the subway. It's everywhere. Before *RAY's THE STEAKS opened in the colorfully chaotic and rapidly developing Benning Road-Minnesota Avenue area of East River Park , we were grumbling about not having the kind of sit-down restaurants in River East that other parts of D.C. enjoy. When DENNY's opened, just up the street, we were all atwitter with how refreshing it would be to take our familes to...

"Joe (Smokin' Aces) Carnahan's The A-Team picks up the TV series' original setup; the A-Team is a U. S. Army special forces unit, who go on a covert mission in Iraq to steal something important for the government, but, get sent to prison, when their commanding officer dies, taking the truth about their mission with him. Now, upgrade all that with inter-agency government conspiracies, huge explosions, aerial dogfights with F-22 Raptors, high-speed car-chases, a crazy attempt to fly a TANK that's been dropped out of an exploding airplane, kicking back with the guys, more explosions and Jessica Biel in tight outfits, ..and you're scratching the surface. It gets WAY better..." I pity the fool, who doesn't read my review of The A-Team! I pity the fool! Mel Dyer

It really bugs me that I missed Blogging While Brown , and, if you missed it, you are probably as bummed as I am. The time to start preparing for the next one is right now, and the following link will tell you what to expect... Ping. That's the sound of relevance hitting your brain. Mel Dyer

Problems facing the penitentiary system of Costa Rica will be very familiar to us...a link . President Laura Chinchilla is making the prosecution of drug-related crimes, even non-violent ones, a top priority of her administration, and the country's prisons are finding it all difficult to manage. Mel Dyer

Above: President Felipe Calderon of Mexico, looking a little like my late papa here. I was one of the people, who was not at all surprised, when Mexican president, Felipe Calderon , told a joint session of Congress that eighty percent of the seventy-five thousand guns seized by Mexican law enforcement, over the last three years, have been traced right here to the United States of America. According to the Associated Press , Calderon, after urging U.S. legislators to strengthen gun laws, warned that over ninety percent of the guns used by [Mexican] drug traffickers come from north of Mexico's border. I was not surprised because I know what "guns used by drug traffickers" means, and you probably do, too. Even if you think you don't. Don't get caught up in the political crap-storm brewing over the ninety percent part. The guns being used by the drug traffickers President Calderon spoke of are small arms-- handguns --the same our local papers tell us are being...