“Blaq Boi” new play May 3-6, Albany HS

The play is a celebration of black America through the reflections of a diverse Albany High School playwriting team.

The Albany High Theatre Ensemble uses the stage to tackle issues of race and identity in the Promising Playwrights Festival’s upcoming production of “Blaq Boi.”

The four-performance run of the student-written play opens at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 3 with shows at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 4 and 5, and a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, May 6.

Tickets are $10 for general admission and $5 for students and seniors.

“Blaq Boi” is the story of Treasure, an African-American male. It follows his journey from childhood to adulthood and delves into the myriad challenges black men face growing up and living in America.

“Though the play boldly addresses issues of institutional racism, white privilege, and internalized oppression, it is also a celebration of black America through the reflections of a diverse Albany High School playwriting team,” said Theatre Ensemble Director Ward Dales.

The play was written by students Camille Dobbs, Jacklyn Flynn, Thia Fowler, Sion Hardy, Jaidyn Hires, Xji-Anne Hudson, Zanief Washington and Immanuel Williams, and teacher Gregory Theodore Marsh. Marsh also directs the play.

The play contains strong language and may not be appropriate for very young audiences.

You can learn more from this video or by visiting the Albany School District website.

13 years – feeling lucky, blogger?

Roger Green, strolling the streets of Albany, talking about the weather.

After 13 years, I think blogging is easy. There are 365 days. My birthday. My two sisters’ birthdays. My parents’ birthdays, the anniversary of their marriage, and the anniversaries of their deaths. 12 posts about The Daughter, always on the 26th of the month. Music throwback – another 52.

Various holidays – a dozen more. ABC Wednesday – 52 posts. Birthday people who turn 70 – 3 score and 10. There were 21, but some became music throwbacks, so let’s say 12 additional. That’s roughly 170 posts right there. All I need is another 185. Easy-peasy.

Blogging is hard. I have no skill, and frankly little interest, in the backside of the blog, how it works. So when it doesn’t work, for reasons mysterious and frustrating, makes me wanna holler, to quote Marvin Gaye. Dustbury has been gracious and helpful and gracious in this regard.

Blogging is convenient. When I’m on Facebook and having a conversation about a movie I’ve seen or an issue I care about, it’s easier to reply with a link to a blog post I’ve already written rather than answering on the fly.

Blogging is a community. I’ve discovered a bunch of other bloggers over the years. My friend Fred Hembeck, when he was blogging, had a sidebar. That’s how I was introduced to comic book fans such as Lefty Brown, Greg Burgas, and Eddie Mitchell; maybe SamauraiFrog, as well. I was reintroduced to my old buddy, former Swamp Thing artist, Steve Bissette, who had done work for FantaCo, the comic book shop/publisher I worked for in the 1980s.

Somehow I connected with other people I didn’t know, from Jaquandor at the other end of the Erie Canal, to AmeriNZ, on the other side of the globe. Mrs. Nesbitt started ABC Wednesday, and I got involved in that early on.

Blogging begets blogging. The same month my blog started, our work blog began. Because I was blogging here, I was invited to blog on the Times Union site, something I do rarely these days, for all sorts of reasons. Alan David Doane, a young FantaCo customer in the day, had invited me to blog on a couple of his comics-related blogs.

And blogging generates connections. People from my elementary school, old friends of the late FantaCo artist Raoul Vezina, fans of donuts, and many others.

It’s even gotten me on the news: Here’s Roger Green, strolling the streets of Albany, talking about the weather. The station saw my blog post from 10 years earlier and decided to interview me.

So I guess, if I can do 13 years, I’ll keep at it for another 12 months.

Q is for quinquennial Economic Census

The Economic Census is considered a “cornerstone of many Census Bureau and other federal statistical programs that provide timely information on the health of the U.S. economy.”

The U.S. Census Bureau is mailing out instructions for businesses filling out the quinquennial 2017 Economic Census to businesses nationwide. Quinquennial means every five years.

Census tracks the business activities at a detailed level in years ending with 2 and 7, obviously after those years are completed, and businesses have the information to be reported.

In April, the Bureau sent out letters to about 3.7 million U.S. businesses nationwide, including those in U.S. territories, big and small, selected single-location companies and all multi-location companies. The mailed information contain instructions on how respondents can create an account and use the authentication code provided in the letter to access their questionnaire.

For the first time, the Economic Census will be conducted almost entirely online, designed to be both data secure and more convenient for businesses to respond. For the 2012 Economic Census, the vast majority of companies were mailed paper forms in early 2013, but had the option to answer online. It turned out that 53 percent of respondents decided to report electronically.

For this iteration, respondents create their own, unique passwords on the Respondent Portal, which provides an added layer of privacy where the respondent can manage their account online and decide if they want to share access with someone else.

The deadline for response to the quinquennial 2017 Economic Census is June 12. The individual responses are confidential. Only aggregated data will be released.

The Bureau says: “Every five years, the Census Bureau collects information about businesses that are essential to understanding the American economy. The economic census serves as the most comprehensive source of data related to business activity and serves as the foundation for the measurement of U.S. businesses and their economic impact.”

While it is true that the Census Bureau conducts other economic surveys, the ones that are more frequent are also less detailed. The Economic Census is considered a “cornerstone of many Census Bureau and other federal statistical programs that provide timely information on the health of the U.S. economy.”

In other words, like the population surveys double check each other for accuracy and completeness, the economic side does much the same thing.

For ABC Wednesday

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