St. Louis Jazz Festival, Senegal

Firstly, how awesome that the new Minister of Culture for Senegal is Youssou Ndour, one of Africa's leading artists.

I've listened to his music since the mid-80's and followed his social activism efforts with United Nations, Amnesty International and UNICEF on issues of health care, human rights and the consequences of illegal immigration. He has developed a micro-finance organization in conjunction with Benetton United Colors to support and encourage small business owners in Senegal and has worked with many musical artists - notably Peter Gabriel (Biko), Sting, Wycliff Jean, Lou Reed to raise awareness for human rights across the world. So great that someone who has made such a worthy contribution on so many levels is acknowledged and honoured with such a position.

AND one of his first order of business as Minister or Culture was to declare, for the first time, that the St.Louis Jazz Festival's (in Senegl) would be free. For a country whose personal income level is barely at subsistence level, one can imagine that such an internationally acknowledged festival would have been out of reach for a majority of the local community, and this gesture allowed for a population, for whom attendance at this festival would never have been thinkable, doable. Very cool.

http://www.senegalsoul.com/2012/01/festival-of-jazz-20th-annual-st-louis.html?m=1

In-App Purchase

We are an Apple family.

The children have their iPod Mini's, mom and dad iPhones. We've got cute neon-colored clip iPod Shuffles, Airport Extreme, big iMacs and smaller ones, Apple TV, and an iPad, which was a birthday gift for me but I rarely get to use it. So the gist is that we've drunken the cool-aid and will forever be Apple fans (but there are healthy limits established on use!)

Last fall, I was emailed two iTunes Store receipts with over $100 worth of charges I was unfamiliar with. The invoices had line after line listing:

Monster Pet Shop, 50 Monster Berries, Seller: Capcom Interactive, Inc. Beeline Interactive, Inc. In-App Purchase    $4.99

There was, of course, only one answer and when I conferred with the kids, they were completely unaware that it cost real money to buy the monster berries -  they assumed, reasonably, that they were purchasing them with points earned in the game. I believed them - they were too young to try to pull one over on mom. 

They had purchased monster berries from within the application "Monster Pet Shop" on the iPad.

When the heart palpitations subside, I scoured the Apple site for help. Within 3 hours I received a response and a clarification of what had happened, a link to an Apple article on in-app purchases, and the Monster Berry purchase was reversed - a one time exception. Andrew, the iTunes Store/Mac App Customer Support person who helped me, also spelled out how to prevent in-app purchases in the future:

Follow these steps:
1) Tap Settings on your device's home screen.
2) Tap General.
3) Tap Restrictions.
4) If necessary, tap Enable Restrictions and enter a passcode. This passcode will prevent restrictions from being disabled without your permission.
5) Scroll down to the Allowed Content section. Switch the In-App Purchases option to OFF. Enter your Restrictions passcode if prompted.

Needless to say, all our iOS devises are now set to block in-app purchases.

I wonder how many other parents have had this little adventure?

Paper Lanterns In Central Park

What a great way to celebrate Memorial Day......

Watching Through the Window

A little afternoon entertainment at the ASPCA on the Upper East Side.

NHL Play-Off Hockey

Nothing more exciting for a child who
loves hockey than to go to a play-off game! NY Rangers vs NJ Devils in NJ!!

Time and Life Plaza

This always looks like a great fountain to wade through....no matter what the weather. It must be the turquoise bottom that elicits thoughts of tropical waters.

Poetry - The PS 166 School

School is fun, it is for everyone.

I love school, it is cool.

I love school, you can run and have some fun.

In school you can learn,

But be careful because you can also get rug burn.

Share in school and don't be a fool.

Don't drool in school

or you will be a fool.

My mom is here, oh dear!

PS 166 is nice.

No, no - fine - you can stay and play with your dice.

By Alison Giebler, age 6.

Student, PS 166 Richard Rodgers School for Art and Technology

Ducks on Terraces

She left bird seed on her seat.

The lady who was sitting there had a small dog crate, empty.

She was going to rescue a duck that had landed on an Upper East Side residential terrace. I guess the duck couldn't figure out how to get off that terrace. She said he was migrating but that New York city was not a good place for ducks, and he probably go confused. She will release him near the water so he can find his way again...after he has a snack of bird seed.

NYC in the Rain

We love NYC in the rain, especially when we can show off our new rain coats.

Thanks Nana.