Brooklyn Journalist

The ABC’S of Grading Restaurant Cleanliness

March 17, 2010

By Luisdes Diaz

The Board of Health voted yesterday to substitute letter grades for the point system on restaurant cleanliness, which confused many New Yorkers, and contended it would make the results of food-safety inspections more clear to consumers.

Restaurants would soon sport a grade card from A through C indicating their compliance with sanitary codes. And instead of having to visit the agency’s Web site to get a restaurant’s score, consumers could easily view the grade card, which will be required to be posted at the entrance of each restaurant.

The Restaurant Association opposed the new regulations, arguing that they would dampen the depressed economy and that any grade less than an A would stand as “a scarlet letter” for the restaurant.

Multimedia Student Ally Andriolas Examines Addictive 'World of Warcraft'

The World of Warcrack

By Ally Andriolas

Sam Bowyer usually wakes up at 12pm, everyday. He eats a bowl of cereal, grabs a glass of orange juice, and makes himself comfortable in his computer chair. Like most people, Mr. Bowyer enjoys checking his email and surfing the internet in the morning. What makes Mr. Bowyer different is that he doesn’t then go to work, or school. Instead, he plays World of Warcraft for hours.

Here is some background behind the game:

Howard Schwach Rides a Wave

By Mallory Wyman 

October 14, 2009

[Listen to audio of Howard Schwach half-way into article.]

Editor Howard Schwach can generally be found burrowed into his corner desk, a one-man museum of history exhibiting family photos, years of old press passes, and several well known manifestos including the priority rules saying, ‘if it bleeds, it leads,’ printed on old crinkled newspaper. 

It’s Thursday, publication deadline day for The Wave, a small weekly in Rockaway, New York, that has been circulating since 1893 and still costs 35 cents an issue, but Schwach is already hard at work on next week’s edition. Always looking forward, he keeps a matrix of rotating columns and a checklist of articles to be written, which reporter is assigned to cover them, what page they will appear on, and whether or not there will be accompanying pictures.     

    The patriarch of this family, and the inhabitants of this small seaside storefront converted into a newsroom could never be considered anything but, Schwach keeps a medicine cabinet’s worth of supplies stocked in the upper cubby of his desk where the aspirin bottle mingles with the crushed red pepper on hand for the pizza often ordered for the staff.

CUNY Students Struggle Amid Talk of More Tuition Hikes

 By Ariana Costakes

Since entering Brooklyn College in the spring of 2005, Ingrid Feeney, 25, has struggled to remain enrolled.  A year later, unable to register for classes due to an outstanding debt to the college, she was forced to take a two-year leave of absence.

“After four semesters of maintaining a 4.0 average, I had to drop out because I owed the school over two grand,” she said. “My registration was cancelled and that started the two years in limbo.”

Feeney is one of many CUNY students who struggle to remain enrolled due to financial difficulties.  She was able to enroll again in the fall of 2008, but has struggled ever since to balance full-time restaurant work with her studies in order to pay rent and tuition.

Cambodian Soldier Chronicles His Life During History’s Bloodiest Times

By Joanne Keo

Thirty-nine years ago, a seventeen-year old man from Battambang, Cambodia witnessed the Vietnam War. It was three decades of merciless shooting helicopters, civilians tightly shielding their heads through thick brown mud and shallow roads, and exhausted soldiers gracelessly running in bullet belts and wobbly helmets.

This man’s story is nothing new to me; for many years, it has sat in my thoughts as a life lesson. This man is my father and I am a product of history. 

The Khmer Rouge starved, enslaved and executed approximately 2 million civilians between 1975 and 1979, when it ruled Cambodia. The period followed a stream of casualties resulting from the Vietnam War’s military conflict from 1959 to 1975, between communist north of Vietnam, and the government of South Vietnam, aided by several nations including the United States. 

Hanging above his living room wall is the Cambodian flag and a 38 by 62 inch painting of Angkor Wat, a Hindu temple complex that has become a symbol of Cambodia. The flag is the only visible reminder of his past. Now 56, Dahreck Keo is, to the outside world, a hard-working father of four children who mops and cleans from 6.am to 2p.m at a country club on 61st between Park and Madison Avenue and on his time off he likes to spend his afternoons singing karaoke in his native language.

“No one can beat me, my surround sound system is the best!” Keo says jokingly as he gazes over his beloved home recording system neatly placed between hundreds of bright blue, green and yellow Cambodian karaoke DVDs.

Mexican Dropout Rates: Who’s to Blame?

 By Kateryna Stupnevich

Carlos Perez said that school was always his main priority, that is until adult life came knocking on the door.

“High school for a Mexican is different than for anyone else,” said Carlos, a 16-year-old dropout. “[We] have different responsibilities in life. It’s no wonder so many Mexican kids drop out.”

In 2001, at the age of 8, Carlos moved to a country that he now calls home, a country that he saw as “the land of opportunity.” Ironically, Carlos soon came to discover that any opportunity came with a price; he had to work for everything he wanted. Carlos’ parents, Jose and Maria Perez, settled the family in an undersized basement of a private house on Brighton Beach. The two-bedroom dwelling provided them and their three kids exactly what they needed – a roof over their heads.

But having a home would only get them so far. With three young, dependant children, Mr. and Mrs. Perez had to make a living, and they couldn’t do so without Carlos’ help.