C A P I C O S T I A

by Edgar Miraculous Dyer Consider that Star Trek' s beautiful Lieutenant Uhura (played by actress Nichelle Nichols), one of the first African American women with a major role on an American television show, is positively ADORED by sci-fi fans . Furthermore, the television show, which spawned an immeasurably more successful movie franchise, is an American television and film genre institution. What does that have to do with VIDEOs like the one that I just watched, posted by Afro-American YouTuber and wellness enthusiast, Ruth Whitfield? Well...I have noticed that the peculiar tone of pushback, resentment, dismissiveness and hostility to any identifiably Black American rallying or showing care for their ethnic group (not race) is unmatched by what we typically find in responses to videos shared by almost any other group. It is particularly nasty, when the Afro-American content creator is trying to right a wrong or offer help with a problem, specific to other Afro-Americans. I don...

"...WHAT IS SEX THERAPY? Sex therapy, at its core, is a specialized form of psychotherapy aimed at addressing sexual issues and improving sexual health. Think of it as the emotional and psychological component of sexual and reproductive health. Whether it’s concerns about libido, sexual intercourse, or emotional connectivity in intimate relationships, sex therapy offers a safe space for exploration and resolution..." Therapy Group of DC NOTHING WRONG WITH YOUR PENIS? NOTHING WRONG WITH YOUR GAME OR APPROACH? THIS has nothing to do with THAT. Sexual HEALTH is LIVING HEALTH. Sexuality is how men and women form relationships to make more people, solve social problems, model healthy relationships for others (esp. younger people) and a way, though not the only way, that humans keep each other happy and healthy and keeping our WORLD going. When something, anything, gets in the way of all of that happening, and people aren't or don't know how to get together... We've go...

by Edgar Miraculous Dyer COLORISM (complexionism) is RACISM... And when we - white, tan, olive-skinned, brown-skinned, light-skinned, dark-skinned - act on colorist ideas, we willfully BOW to the status-obsessive pathology that is white supremacist racism. It's a willful, intentional bow - we don't need any help or force or historical victimization to do it. All we need is IGNORANCE and the will to keep it going, with all of us non-whites securely, comfortably at the bottom, ..with no accountability to stop it. Ever. Colorism is very powerful in America, among a broad, diverse array of ethnic groups, because we make it powerful and impactful. Latino people, Asian people, white and European people, black or African people and Arab people. We all do it. We cannot be too Latino, Asian, white, black, Arab , mixed race, light-skinned or rich to recognize racism, when we see it . As I see it, colorism is the idea that one skin color or likeness to a race (looking a little white or Sp...

  by Edgar Miraculous Dyer Ward Seven and the Pennsylvania Avenue East Corridor (region between Capitol Hill and Anacostia) needs an off-ramp, from Interstate 295 South onto East Capitol Street East. Presently, folks travelling on 295 South, heading (or returning) to our Corridor neighborhoods, have TWO wasteful, environmentally destructive options. One: get off 295 and take pothole-ridden East Capitol, over the Anacostia River, a mile around RFK Stadium and  back  over the river, to get to a tiny loop that spits you out, a block from Minnesota Avenue, ..in Fort Dupont. The other: stay on 295 South and ride it [God help you, in rush hour traffic!], all the way, nearly  two, potholey miles,  ..down to Pennsylvania Ave. The resulting air pollution, clutter of traffic, wasted time, commuter stress and wear and tear on East Capitol Street (East and West) and that mile-plus on 295 South ..is utterly ridiculous. It's an environmentally wasteful, mile-plus ha...

By Edgar Miraculous Dyer The  NY PIZZA GRILL of CAPITOL HILL has one of the largest and most diverse menus of any restaurant, full service or takeaway, in all of Washington, ..and y ou are hungry. You are very hungry. You've got to start somewhere...choose something, but this is not a problem  here . Everything on NYPG's menu is very, very GOOD. Take the GRILLED CHICKEN CAESAR WRAP... Basically, a lightly warmed BURRITO, ..it's exceptionally loaded with the best balance of fresh, REAL Halal chicken, lettuce and a magnificently crafted, flavorful Caesar vinaigrette dressing. As it has no equal between the Hill and the Maryland state line, NYPG is your last stop for GREAT FOOD like this, before you hit South I-295 or the Beltway. As wraps and other deli classics are not hot, trendy fare in DC, right now, a good Caesar wrap is hard to find, ..you really must try this. And you must try it here ..at NY PIZZA GRILL of CAPITOL HILL! Come! Call now for quick pickup or delivery! Bu...

  The gentlemen of 'East Washington Heights', had big plans for the land between the Hill and Anacostia. [Photo from PennAveEast.com] If I had a nickel for every time someone in the blogosphere outright dismissed the authenticity of this blog's title,  Capicostia,  ..or asked me what the hell it pointed to in Washington, D.C. - well, I wouldn't be publishing an obscure blog on a Friday night, let me tell you... Ha. In the 1980s, at Jefferson Junior High School in DC's Southwest Waterfront District, ..if your East-of-the-Anacostia-River home's close proximity to the John Philip Sousa Bridge, the Anacostia River beneath it or Capitol Hill on the other side of that bridge ..confused you enough to think you actually  lived on  Capitol Hill...no worries! If you said it out loud in a classroom, after being told that by sympathetic elders, hoping to give your or their egos, a  boost,  ..there was always someone happy to correct you - tp talk you down..."...

  by Edgar Miraculous Dyer COYOTES are loose in Southeast Washington, D.C. ..and ANC-7B, most specifically! We're surrounded by deep, unspoiled, picturesque woodlands in  Fort Davis, Dupont Park, Penn Branch, Randle Highlands, Pope Branch Park, Hillcrest  and  Westover!  That's charming...even comforting to some of us, ..but these areas also offer shelter and food resources - Nature's  supermarkets  - to our resident wildlife. So let's be careful, out there, coming home or taking out our garbage after dark. No, amigo--that's NOT the neighbor's COLLIE. Where'd Mr. Paul's Collie go? Lassie...? Oh, no. (Original photo from  Wikipedia ) Do you know how long I've been telling my Fairfax Village neighbors that we've got coyotes passing through, along our patios, back doors, parking lots and back walkways? They have been sniffing around and foraging from our trash, since at least 2012, ..and spotted as far Southeast as Savannah Terrace, just off of Stan...

by Edgar Miraculous Dyer Who  do  we  think  we are? There are perfectly sensible people living along Pennsylvania Avenue, between the Sousa Bridge and the Southern Avenue D.C. State Line - in Naylor Dupont, ANC-7B - who think that they live in as colorful a scattering of socially and politically diverse neighborhoods, as to be found, anywhere else in Washington. They  think  they live in neighborhoods, called  Greenway, Penn Branch, Fairfax Village, Hillcrest  and  Skyland , ..in spite of the fact that so many Washingtonians, west of the Anacostia River, persist in dismissively referring to these neighborhoods, as .. 'Anacostia'. There are people living on exclusive  Westover Drive,  secluded in the emerald majesty of historic Fort Davis Park, where Ohio Representative, Dennis Kusinich, presently resides, who are so removed from the fabled, urban grit of Southeast Washington...they might think they're ...

by Edgar Miraculous Dyer Jamaican American journalist, ANDREW RICKETTS, recently wrote an article, presently featured on MSN.com - HOW MANY DARK WOMEN SHOULD I DATE TO CURE MY COLORISM? I have a BIG problem with the question posed in that title. I will try to be sensitive in addressing my problem with the titular question. I will try to court clarity and eloquence in my exposition on it, ..but bear with me. A wide berth below will be appreciated, where you can intellectually afford it. Thank you in advance. I am an unremarkably orangish-looking (but proud) American man of Afro-American, Mexican and Near Eastern ancestry - light-skinned, but not the lightest - and I have dated more than a few women of almost any color, you can think of. My maternal grandmother was a regal, brown-skinned, Afro-American woman, whose gentle beauty, just yesterday, was compared to a Disney princess's...by me. [Ha'ha.] Her daughter, my mother, was a brass-toned beauty, alternately compared to Halle B...

COMING SOON TO DC's WILDEST HILL... Penn Branch Community Association COMMUNITY DAY and BLOCK PARTY Inhale the Sevenbeeism. See you there, Brancher! Edgar Miraculous (Mel) Dyer, without his fine, coyote-hatin' Goldiweiller, Kirby (now moved on to that big, coyote-hatin' hate group in the Sky) continues a somewhat bleaker, dogless existence in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, DC. He has been an active member of the Latino Culture Council of the Capitol Area (El Consejo de Cultura Latina – La Zona del Capitolio) and the Kiwanis Club of Capitol Hill.

By Mel Dyer Every year, I see people, online and off, speculating what LGBTQA Pride is - gay Mardi Gras, gay Fourth, gay King Day, gay Memorial Day, gay Valentine's...gay Halloween? It's all that and more. Go to an event, introduce yourself, talk to other humans - see for yourself. Learn. I've been the only Catholic in Anglican mass, the first Afro-American at a bar for Cinco, the only Mexican American at a Nigerian birthday gala...the only str8 pal in the drag bar! PRIDE isn't a UFO. Go to a film festival or parade and meet some people! Introduce yourself. See them. Talk to them. Learn. Live. In the celebrations of many cultures, with social justice struggles, ..great JOY has been purchased with great sacrifices and courage. People are posting the documentary film, STONEWALL FOREVER, all over the web, right now, because so many don't KNOW the history. So, if you haven't seen it, want some perspective, ..see it, right here (below), on YouTube! To the struggling,...

By Edgar Miraculous Dyer Some thoughts on the 'Black Lives Matter' Movement. I think... 'Black lives' will really matter, when I can leave my doors unlocked, at night, ..east of the Anacostia, in DC. Afro-American lives will matter, when I can drop my mother and sister off at an old, run-down shopping center in Southeast Washington and not give their safety a second thought, ..while I run errands. We are the only ones, through what we do with, to and for each other, everyday, who can make our lives truly matter, ..to each other and to the world. Until we realize that we are enough, without dashikis or luxury sports cars or the right handbag - that we've always been enough - nothing else we do will matter... And nothing will change. I believe in GREENWOOD. I believe in group economics. I believe in educating our children to be the next generation of job-creating entrepreneurs, institution-builders, legislators...civic and world leaders. I believe that you can't...

by Edgar Miraculous Dyer BETTY WHITE... Right now, I am just saddened, knowing Betty isn't out there, doing her Betty-thing, anymore, because it was pretty special...genius. For writers and artists, White's courtiers and compatriots, the starry firmament just got a little dimmer. White had a penchant for making characters, who were unassumingly oblivious to their own absurdity...even grotesqueness, ..heart-warming and, sometimes, unforgettable. She has been, over the course of a half-century's work in movies, TV and radio, far more influential on other comediennes and comedic actors - she was certainly one of those - than we will recognize, for a long time. WANDA SYKES, one of them, surely - if Sykes isn't the lost comedy-lovechild of REDD FOXX and Betty White, I don't know who is, and her comedic genius goes, where Foxx, White and Moms Mabley ..went, boldly before it. A comedic mastermind in EVERY era, here's Betty White in 'her' 2020s. (from AARP.com )...

Typically, it's this time of year, when Afro-Americans or black people, living in America, generally speaking, ..are asked if we will be celebrating Kwanzaa, this holiday season. While I don't, ..some of us have welcomed into our Christmas traditions, musings on the Sky Father and King of the White Cloth, Obatala, who, when the world began, ..climbed down from Heaven on a golden chain, into a giant tree, to bring mankind the divine gifts we would need to live and thrive, on Earth. While many West Africans, at home and abroad, honor the King of the White Cloth with more formal traditions, like the festivals coming up in January, the rest of us carry on these traditions, very simply. On Christmas Eve, after the children were put away to sleep, we left some milk and FRIED CHICKEN, near the Christmas tree, ..where, if we've been kind, honest and respectful of our elders, the King will reward us, by covering the WHITE CLOTH beneath our trees, with amazing gifts, ..i n the sam...

From the New York Times "...she had been brought in to try the biggest case of her career: the murder of a Black man on a sunny afternoon by three white men just outside a small city pinned to the South Georgia coastline. Despite the evidence of racism she had at her disposal, Linda Dunikoski, the prosecutor, stunned some legal observers by largely avoiding race during the trial, choosing instead to hew closely to the details of how the three men had chased the Black man, Ahmaud Arbery, through their neighborhood. The risks went beyond her career and a single trial. Failure to convict in a case that many saw as an obvious act of racial violence would reverberate well outside Glynn County, Ga. For some, it would be a referendum on a country that appeared to have made tentative steps last summer toward confronting racism, only to devolve into..." Conviction!  Justice,  for the family of slain jogger,  Ahmaud Arbery !  How did it happen? The restraint of Special Prosecu...

From Eater.com "... The Trump International Hotel will get a new “identity” as a Waldorf Astoria without the Trump name attached...Miami-based investment firm CGI Merchant Group... to take over the hotel’s lease for a reported $375 million..." Trump International Hotel, Washington, D.C. (From Wikipedia) Read the article, here, ..on EATER. Edgar Miraculous (Mel) Dyer, without his fine, coyote-hatin' Goldiweiller, Kirby (now moved on to that big, coyote-hatin' hate group in the Sky) continues a somewhat bleaker, dogless existence in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, DC. He has been an active member of the Latino Culture Council of the Capitol Area (El Consejo de Cultura Latina – La Zona del Capitolio) and the Kiwanis Club of Capitol Hill.

Krystan of the Capitol Hill area has a SERIES of healing, self-empowering and affirming videos (free), ..waiting to be discovered by YOU! They are videos waiting to fill your life with fearlessness, mindfulness, joyful ambition ..and the wealth of LOVE, in all its forms. Browse "Make Love All The Time" and check this space for more life-changing videos, from Krystan, right here, on ... C A P I C O S T I A!

From Washington, DC's Naylor-Dupont district - Capicostia - proudly East o'the River, ..to America's great Men and Women in Uniform, past and present...God bless you for all you have sacrificed to fight for our beloved country, on this VETERAN'S DAY, 2021... The Airmen of America's Fighting 332nd, in a briefing, in 1945 - World War II - Capicostia honors, and is honored by,  ..YOU!  Edgar Miraculous (Mel) Dyer, without his fine, coyote-hatin' Goldiweiller, Kirby (now moved on to that big, coyote-hatin' hate group in the Sky) continues a somewhat bleaker, dogless existence in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, DC. He has been an active member of the Latino Culture Council of the Capitol Area (El Consejo de Cultura Latina – La Zona del Capitolio) and the Kiwanis Club of Capitol Hill.

©  Mel Dyer 2013 I think First Mondingo is probably equal parts Phantom, Black Panther and Batman ...a kooky, right-leaning allegory for what I'll call Greenwoodism, and that's visually reflected in his costume's colors. 1st Mondingo Bank will always 'look like' it's burning - that's non-negotiable - but, not because some racist psychopaths set it, afire. Too woke, for Halloween? Too Booker T. to be woke? Probably. Ha! Happy Allhallows, anyway! Edgar Miraculous (Mel) Dyer, without his fine, coyote-hatin' Goldiweiller, Kirby (now moved on to that big, coyote-hatin' hate group in the Sky) continues a somewhat bleaker, dogless existence in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, DC. He has been an active member of the Latino Culture Council of the Capitol Area (El Consejo de Cultura Latina – La Zona del Capitolio) and the Kiwanis Club of Capitol Hill.

From MSNBC, on YouTube "When are we going to have the guts to finally level the playing field for working people and take on China?" Rep. Tim Ryan (D) of Ohio Just heard the singular BEST pitch and justification for President Joe Biden 's Build Back Better agenda--how it empowers, uplifts the American working-middle and rallies Co America to action, ..and Ryan only scratched the surface. My God...a Hill Dem, who sounds, like a MAN and knows what the hell he's talking about? Rallying! Urgent! Forcefully masculine! Why do so many Dems sound, alternately like Southern Baptist ministers or whisper-mumbly NPR Sunday talk-show hosts? ["You're listening to Liberal, Postwar, New Age, Himalyan Basket-weaving, ..with Journeyman Hushmeyer...Tamer Goodwoodsman..."] Who's telling our politicians to do this, with America so culturally divided and looking for inspiring leadership? Yes, it may be entirely superficial, but, I'm totally down, with the Ryan tone. ...