PAKET UMROH BULAN FEBRUARI MARET APRIL MEI 2018

CARA DIET SEHAT SECARA CEPAT DAN ALAMI

Mempunyai tubuh ideal dan sehat adalah idaman setiap orang. Berat badan naik dan mengakibatkan kegemukan adalah telah menjadi masalah yang dialami sebagian orang. Adanya lemak di beberapa bagian tubuh seperti perut, paha, dan lengan bisa membuat sebagian orang tidak percaya diri dalam hal berpenampilan. Tapi untuk mendapatkan tubuh ideal dan sehat tidak bisa dengan cara diet yang asal-asalan saja. Banyak juga diantaranya telah melakukan berbagai macam cara diet, tapi kebanyakan cara diet mereka salah dan hanya menyiksa tubuh mereka. Kali ini Termuat Blog akan berbagi Tips Diet sehat untuk kalian semua.

6 Tips Cara Diet Sehat Secara Cepat dan Alami

Tips Cara Diet Sehat Alami

Untuk memulai diet sehat juga tentunya membiasakan diri untuk dapat mengikuti gaya hidup sehat dan teratur. Selain itu juga faktor psikis misalnya stress dan banyak pikiran juga bisa menyebabkan kesehatan tubuh kita terganggu. Mulailah dengan menenangkan pikiran sejenak dan buang segala pikiran yang bisa membuat kita stres. Bagi anak muda "Mantan" contohnya, hehehee, jangan pikirin mantan dulu deh kalo bisa membuat kalian stress. Bersihkan segala sesuatu yang bisa membuat kalian stress.

Oke langsung saja saya paparkan Tips Cara Diet Sehat Secara Alami :

1. Kurangi asupan Karbohidrat berlebihan
Karbohidrat sebenarnya adalah salah satu zat yang telah dibutuhkan oleh tubuh kita. Tapi dengan mengkonsumsi Makanan yang mengandung Karbohidrat berlebihan maka akan dapat membuat lemak dalam tubuh kita menumpuk dan menyebabkan kegemukan. Makanan yang mengandung karbohidrat misalnya Nasi, Roti, Kentang, dll. Untuk itu kalian harus membatasi untuk mengkonsumsi makanan tersebut.

2. Makan dengan jumlah secukupnya
Seperti kata Rasulullah "Berhentilah makan sebelum kenyang", karena saat kita kekenyangan membuat lemak dalam tubuh kita menumpuk. Kurangi mengkonsumsi camilan yang kurang bermanfaat bagi tubuh kita.

3. Konsumsi Sayuran
Sayuran yang beragam mengandung banyak zat yang dibutuhkan tubuh kita. Tubuh kita memerlukan banyak zat yang terkandung dalam sayuran tersebut. Perbanyaklah makanan sayuran hijau yang mengandung macam-macam zat yang bermanfaat bagi tubuh kita.

4. Konsumsi Buah-Buahan
Buah-buahan dengan berbagai macam jenis dan warna juga mengandung beberapa zat yang dibutuhkan tubuh kita. Salah satunya vitamin. Maka konsumsilah buah-buahan untuk memaksimalkan Tips Diet Sehat ini.

5. Minumlah air Putih
Sudah saya jelaskan di beberapa artikel sebelumnya tentang Mengatasi Kulit Kering Kusam, Menghilangkan Jerawat Secara Alami, dan Mengecilkan Perut Buncit bahwa air putih ini mempunyai manfaat yang banyak sekali. Air putih bisa menetralisir racun dan membuang racun dalam tubuh kita. Maka perbanyaklah minum air putih setiap hari.

6. Olahraga Secara Teratur
Olahraga sering dilupakan oleh kebanyakan orang, karena alasan kesibukan sehari-hari mereka tidak menyempatkan diri untuk berolah-raga. Hanya dengan lari-lari kecil setiap pagi juga bisa bermanfaat bagi tubuh anda. Cukup luangkan sekitar 10-15 menit setiap pagi untuk berolahraga.

Oke kiranya cukup sekian 6 Tips Cara Diet Sehat Secara Cepat dan Alami yang bisa dimuat di Termuat Blog. Semoga bermanfaat bagi kalian semuanya.

TIPS MEMILIH BAHAN BANGUNAN

Semen juga merupakan jenis bahan bangunan material rumah yang paling sering digunakan, bahan bangunan material ini juga digunakan untuk dapat membuat sebuah pondasi. Selain kayu, logam dan besi, semen juga merupakan elemen yang sebenarnya tidak bisa ditinggal.

Saat ini, banyak sekali jenis semen yang beredar di pasaran toko bahan bangunan material. Namun, banyak sekali dari orang–orang yang tidak tahu cara memilih semen yang baik. Semen yang baik adalah semen yang bisa menghasilkan bangunan rumah minimalis yang berkualitas dan juga bagus. Yang paling penting saat pembelian semen itu adalah dengan mencoba kelunakan dan kelembutan semen dengan menekannya meski masih berada dalam kemasannya. Jika semen yang di tekan dari luar kemasan terasa keras, itu tandanya semen sudah terlalu lama disimpan dan sudah tidak dalam kondisi yang bagus lagi.

Lalu semen yang baik juga akan terlihat ketika sudah dikeluarkan dari kemasannya. Semen yang baik kualitasnya, adalah semen yang seluruh butirannya bisa terurai dan nampak lembut seperti debu, juga tidak menggumpal. Tapi jika semen tersebut mulai menggumpal dan terlihat kasar, maka kualitasnya juga sudah pasti berkurang. Apalagi jika sudah terlihat mengeras dan membatu seperti kerikil.

Kemudian setelah tahu dan mendapatkan semen yang baik, tentu kita juga harus tahu cara untuk menyimpan semen yang baik agar tidak turun kualitas semennya. Karena jika terjadi salah–salah dalam menyimpan semen, bisa akan membuat semen menjadi rusak dan juga mengeras. Kita tentu tidak ingin hal itu akan terjadi bukan? Oleh karena itu, ada sedikit cara untuk dapat menyiasati agar hal tersebut tidak terjadi.

Material bahan bangunan semen yang sudah dibuka atau yang belum dibuka harus disimpan dalam ruangan yang tertutup atau minimal terlindung dari sinar matahari dan hujan. Selain itu, kita juga harus memperhatikan permukaan lantainya. Sebaiknya, kita harus menyimpannya di permukaan lantai yang datar dan tidak berupa tanah.

Dan untuk semen yang belum dibuka dari kemasannya, kita juga bisa menggunakan kayu sebagai wadah landasan. Jadi, semen tidak langsung diletakkan pada lantai. Dan metode ini tentu telah memiliki tujuan. Jika terjadi penguapan air dan pengembunan didalam tanah atau dibawah lantai maka tidak akan langsung terkena semen. Otomatis, semen akan terhindar dari kerusakan. Jika semen yang disimpan dalam jumlah yang banyak, maka bisa disimpan dengan menggunakan konsep susunan batu bata. Saling berjajar, namun pada bagian atasnya telah diletakkan dalam posisi yang saling menyilang. Hal ini untuk dapat menghindari susunan kemasan semen agar tidak bisa jatuh dan tumpah. Selain itu, tujuan untuk menyimpan semen dengan metode ini adalah agar semen bisa mendapatkan celah atau ruang untuk mendapatkan udara dan terhindar dari penggumpalan.

Dan dari keadaan yang disimpan, untuk dapat menggunakan semen haruslah diambil dari stok pertama atau dari tumpukan pertama (bawah). Hal ini telah dilakukan agar menghindari penggumpalan pada semen karena disimpan terlalu lama. Dalam penyimpanan semen, hal yang harus diperhatikan juga adalah kebersihan dari tempat penyimpanan. Tempat yang lembap bisa akan membuat semen cepat menggumpal dan mengeras jauh lebih cepat. Begitu pula dengan dengan sirkulasi udara yang pengap, hal itu bisa menimbulkan masalah yang sama. Namun, jika tidak terdapat tempat penyimpanan di dalam ruangan atau seperti gudang untuk dapat menyimpan semen, maka sebaiknya gunakan tempat yang teduh dan lindungi dari sinar matahari. Untuk perlindungan lebih maksimal, kita bisa gunakan kain terpal.

Semoga tips dalam memilih bahan bangunan khususnya semen bisa bermanfaat untuk Anda! Selamat berbelanja!

PROSES PEMBUTAN SANITASI

saco-indonesia.com, Indonesia merupakan negara dengan sistem sanitasi ( pengelolaan air limbah domestic ) terburuk ketiga di Asia Tenggara setelah Laos dan Myanmar ( ANTARA News, 2006 ). Menurut data Status Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia tahun 2002, tidak kurang dari 400.000 m3 / hari limbah rumah tangga yang dibuang langsung ke sungai dan tanah, tanpa melalui pengolahan terlebih dahulu. 61,5 % dari jumlah tersebut telah terdapat di Pulau Jawa.

Pembuangan akhir limbah tinja umumnya telah dibuang dengan menggunakan beberapa cara antara lain dengan menggunakan septic tank, dibuang langsung ke sungai atau danau, dibuang ke tanah , dan ada juga yang dibuang ke kolam atau pantai.
Di beberapa daerah pedesaan di Indonesia, telah masih banyak dijumpai oleh masyarakat yang berada di bawah garis kemiskinan dengan sanitasi yang masih sangat minim. Masih sering dijumpai oleh sebagian masyarakat yang telah membuang hajatnya di sungai karena tidak mempunyai saluran pembuangan khusus untuk proses pembuangan air limbah rumah tangga maupun air buangan dari kamar mandi. Bahkan terkadang juga masih dijumpai masyarakat yang membuang hajatnya di pekarangan rumahnya masing-masing. Hal ini telah terjadi selain disebabkan karena factor ekonomi, faktor kebiasaan yang sulit dirubah dan kualitas pendidikan yang relative rendah dari masyarakat pun juga memang sangat berpengaruh besar terhadap pola hidup masyarakat.

Berdasarkan perkiraan WHO/ UNICEF, sekitar 60 persen penduduk di kawasan pedesaan di Indonesia telah kekurangan akses terhadap sarana sanitasi yang pantas. Kegiatan mandi dan mencuci pakaian di sungai serta buang air besar di tempat terbuka telah membuat orang mudah terpapar penyakit, mengontaminasi air tanah dan permukaan, serta menurunkan kualitas tanah dan tempat tinggal. Perempuan dan anak-anak berada dalam risiko.

1. PENGERTIAN SANITASI
Sanitasi adalah bagian dari system pembuangan air limbah, yang khususnya telah menyangkut pembuangan air kotor dari rumah tangga, dapat juga dari sisa-sisa proses industry, pertanian, peternakan dan rumah sakit (sector kesehatan).
Sanitasi juga merupakan suatu usaha untuk dapat memberikan fasilitas di dalam rumah yang dapat menjamin agar rumah selalu bersih dan sehat. Tentunya tang ditunjang penyediaan air bersih yang cukup, dan pembuangan air kotoran yang lancar.

2. AIR LIMBAH
Air Limbah adalah air buangan yang telah dihasilkan dari suatu proses pruduksi industri maupun domestik (rumah tangga), yang terkadang kehadirannya pada suatu saat dan tempat tertentu tidak dikehendaki lingkungan karena juga tidak memiliki nilai ekonomis. Dalam konsentrasi dan kuantitas tertentu, kehadiran limbah juga dapat berdampak negative terhadap lingkungan tertutama kesehatan manusia sehingga dilakukan penanganan terhadap limbah.

Air kotor adalah air bekas pakai yang sudah tidak memenuhi syarat kesehatan lagi dan harus dibuang agar tidak dapat menimbulkan wabah penyakit
Beberapa hal yang berkaitan dengan pengertian dan kegiatan yang berhubungan dengan limbah cair menurut PP 82 tahun 2001 yaitu :
1. Air adalah semua air yang telah terdapat diatas dan dibawah permukaan tanah, kecuali air laut dan fosil.
2. Sumber air adalah wadah air yang telah terdapat diatas dan dibawah permukaan tanah, seperti, mata air, sungai, rawa, danau, waduk, dan muara.
3. Pengelolaan kualitas air adalah upaya dalam pemeliharaan air sehingga dapat tercapai kualitas air yang diinginkan sesuai peruntukannya untuk dapat menjamin kualitas tetap dalam kondisi alamiahnya.
4. Pengendalian pencemaran air adalah upaya untuk pencegahan dan penanggulangan pencemaran air serta pemulihan kualitas air untuk dapat menjamin kualitas air agar sesuai dengan baku mutu air.
5. Pencemaran air adalah masuknya makhluk hidup, zat, energy, dan atau komponen lain kedalam air oleh kegiatan manusia sehingga kualitas air turun sampai ketingkat tertentu yang dapat menyebabkan air tidak berfungsi lagi sesuai dengan peruntukannya.
6. Limbah cair adalah sisa dari sutu hasil usaha dan atau kegiatan yang berwujud cair.
7. Baku mutu limbah cair adalah, ukuran batas atau kadar unsure pencemar yang ditenggang keberadaannya dalam limbah cair yang akan dibuang atau dilepas kedalam sumber air dari suatu usaha atau kegiatan.

3. ALAT PEMBUANGAN AIR KOTOR
Alat pembuangan air kotor dapat berupa :
- Kamar mandi, washtafel, keran cuci
- WC
- Dapur
Air dari kamar mandi tidak boleh dibuang secara bersama sama dengan air dari WC maupun dari dapur. Sehingga harus dibuatkan seluran masing-masing.
Diameter pipa pembuangan dari kamar mandi adalah 3” (7,5 cm), pipa pembuangan dari WC adalah 4”(10 cm), dan dari dapur boleh dipakai diameter 2”(5cm). pipa pembuangan juga dapat diletakkan pada suatu “shaft”, yaitu lobang menerus yang disediakan untuk tempat pipa air bersih dan pipa air kotor pada bangunan bertingkat untuk dapat memudahkan pengontrolan. Atau dapat dipasang pada kolom-kolom beton dari atas sampai bawah. Setelah sampai bawah, semua pipa air kotor harus juga merupakan saluran tertutup di dalam tanah agar tidak menimbulkan wabah penyakit dan bau tak sedap.
Dibawah lantai, semua pipa sanitasi diberi lobang control, yang sewaktu-waktu dapat dibuka bila terjadi kemacetan.

4. JENIS-JENIS UNIT PENGOLAHAN AIR LIMBAH
a. SEPTICTANK
Sistem septic tank sebenarnya adalah sumur rembesan atau sumur kotoran. Septic tank juga merupakan sitem sanitasi yang terdiri dari pipa saluran dari kloset, bak penampungan kotoran cair dan padat, bak resapan, serta pipa pelepasan air bersih dan udara.

Hal-hal yang yang harus diperhatikan saat pembangunan septic tank agar tidak mencemari air dan tanah sekitarnya adalah :
1. jarak minimal dari sumur air bersih sekurangnya 10m.
2. untuk dapat membuang air keluaran dari septic tank perlu dibuat daerah resapan dengan lantai septic tank dibuat miring kearah ruang lumpur.
3. septic tank direncanakan untuk pembuangan kotoran rumah tangga dengan jumlah air limbah antara 70-90 % dari volume penggunaan air bersih.
4. waktu tinggal air limbah didalam tangki diperkirakan minimal 24 jam.
5. besarnya ruang lumpur diperkirakan untuk dapat menampung lumpur yang telah dihasilkan setiap orang rata-rata 30-40 liter/orang/tahun dan waktu pengambilan lumpur diperhitungkan 2-4 tahun.
6. pipa air masuk kedalam tangki hendaknya selalu lebih tinggi kurang lebh 2.5 cm dari pipa air keluar.
7. septic tank harus dilengkapi dengan lubang pemeriksaan dan lubang penghawaan untuk dapat membuang gas hasil penguraian.
Agar septic tank tidak mudah penuh dan mampat, awet dan tahan lama perlu diperhatikan hal berikut :
1. Kemiringan Pipa
Kemiringan pipa menentukan kelancaran proses pembuangan limbah. Selisih ketinggian kloset dan permukaan air bak penampung kotoran minimal 2 %, artinya setiap 100cm terdapat perbedaan ketinggian 2cm.
2. Pemilihan Pipa yang tepat
Pipa saluran sebaiknya berupa PVC. Ukuran minimal adalah 4 inchi. Rumah yang telah memiliki jumlah toilet yang banyak sebaiknya harus menggunakan pipa yang lebih besar. Perancangan saluran diusahakan dibuat lurus tanpa belokan, karena belokan atau sudut juga dapat membuat mampat.
3. Sesuaikan Kapasitas Septic tank
Untuk rumah tinggal dengan jumlah penghuni empat orang, cukup dibuat septic tank dengan ukuran (1.5×1.5×2)m. bak endapan dan sumur resapan bias dibuat dengan ukuran (1x1x2)m. semakin banyak penghuni rumah maka semakin besar ukuran yang telah dibutuhkan.
4. Bak Harus Kuat dan Kedap Air
Septic tank harus terbuat dari bahan yang tahan terhadap korosi, rapat air dan tahan lama. Konstruksi septic tank juga harus kuat untuk menahan gaya-gaya yang timbul akibat tekanan air, tanah maupun beban lainnya.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

ADA TSUNAMI KECIL YANG BERBAHAYA MELANDA ACEH

saco-indonesia.com, Sembilan tahun yang lalu, Aceh telah diterjang gelombang tsunami. Infrastruktur di kota serambi Mekkah itu telah hancur dan warga menderita.

Kini setelah sembilan tahun sudah berlalu, masih ada 'tsunami kecil'. Akibat dari 'tsunami kecil'itu yang dapat merusak generasi muda.

"Narkoba yang merupakan 'tsunami kecil' yang sedang terjadi di Aceh, ini juga sangat memprihatinkan, karena dengan narkoba bisa menghancurkan generasi bangsa," kata Wakil Gubernur Aceh, Muzakir Manaf, di Banda Aceh.

Pria yang akrab disapa Muallem itu juga mengatakan bahaya tsunami narkoba lebih parah dari tsunami air laut naik ke darat.

"Ini bahaya, imbas dari tsunami narkoba, orang akan mati pelan-pelan," imbuhnya.

Oleh karena itu, Muallem telah mengajak kepada seluruh orang tua di Aceh untuk tidak lupa menjaga dan mendidik anaknya. Jika semua pihak ikut berpartisipasi maka generasi muda Aceh yang terlibat narkoba akan berkurang.

"Orang tua itu juga harus bertanggungjawab dalam menjaga anaknya agar tidak terlibat narkoba," tangkasnya.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

TEMPAT WISATA MUSEUM SATRIA MANDALA

Museum Satria Mandala merupakan salah satu objek wisata sejarah yang berada di pusat pemerintahan negara Indonesia, Jakarta, tepatnya di Jalan Gatot Subroto. Museum ini di buka untuk umum mulai tahun 1972 yang pada saat itu peresmiannya telah dilakukan oleh presiden Soeharto dimana menurut sejarahnya, bangunan museum Satria Mandala awal mulanya sebagai rumah dari istri Soeharto yang bernama Ratna Sari Dewi Soekarno.

Museum milik Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI) ini juga telah menyajikan beragam peninggalan – peninggalam benda – benda perang mulai dari rudal, pesawat tempur, torpedo, ranjau, helicopter dan peralatan tempur lainnya. Sehingga objek wisata ini juga sangat cocok sekali dikunjungi oleh para pelajar yang ingin mengenal lebih jauh mengenai sejarah pertempuran bangsa Indonesia pada zaman dahulu.

Objek wisata Museum Satria Mandala mempunyai halaman depan yang cukup luas dan telah di tata sedemikian rupa sehingga suasananya akan tampak rapih sekali. Di beberapa sisi halaman depan-nya anda akan melihat sebuah benda “roket peluru kendali” yang mempunyai ukuran antara 7 hingga 8 meter, dan tidak jauh dari alat tempur tersebut anda juga akan melihat sebuah pesawat helicopter yang dahulu digunakan oleh TNI AU.

Koleksi Alat Perang Museum Satria Mandala

Hal yang tidak kalah menariknya untuk anda lihat selain di dalam Museum Satria Mandala yaitu sebuah ruang pameran alat – alat berat seperti tank – tank berlapis baja yang terdapat di sebelah samping dan belakang museum. Sebagian besar tank – tank tersebut adalah kendaraan pertama yang dimiliki oleh bangsa Indonesia buatan luar negeri. Namun dari sekian banyak koleksi kendaraan tersebut, tank amphibi milik TNI AL adalah yang paling di sukai oleh para pengunjung.

Koleksi Alat Perang Museum Satria Mandala

Museum Satria Mandala juga terlihat sangat sepi sekali dari keramaian para pengunjung, jadi ketika anda berkunjung ke tempat wisata ini, anda akan dapat dengan mudah melakukan berbagai macam aktivitas dengan lebih fleksibel dan mudah seperti berfoto – foto dekat dengan kendaraan tempur yang terdapat di Museum Satria Mandala.

Objek wisata Museum Satria Mandala juga sangat cocok sekali di kunjungi oleh keluarga yang ingin mengenalkan tentang sejarah dan alat – alat tempur yang digunakan oleh bangsa Indonesia dalam memperjuangkan kemerdekaannya pada masa lampau. Dan untuk memasuki objek wisata ini, anda juga akan dikenakan biaya sebesar 2500 rupiah untuk anak – anak dan 5 ribu rupiah untuk orang dewasa, harga yang cukup murah bukan.

Take the Money and Run

The career criminals in genre novels don’t have money problems. If they need some, they just go out and steal it. But such financial transactions can backfire, which is what happened back in 2004 when the Texas gang in Michael

Negative View of U.S. Race Relations Grows, Poll Finds

Public perceptions of race relations in America have grown substantially more negative in the aftermath of the death of a young black man who was injured while in police custody in Baltimore and the subsequent unrest, far eclipsing the sentiment recorded in the wake of turmoil in Ferguson, Mo., last summer.

Americans are also increasingly likely to say that the police are more apt to use deadly force against a black person, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll finds.

The poll findings highlight the challenges for local leaders and police officials in trying to maintain order while sustaining faith in the criminal justice system in a racially polarized nation.

Sixty-one percent of Americans now say race relations in this country are generally bad. That figure is up sharply from 44 percent after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown and the unrest that followed in Ferguson in August, and 43 percent in December. In a CBS News poll just two months ago, 38 percent said race relations were generally bad. Current views are by far the worst of Barack Obama’s presidency.

The negative sentiment is echoed by broad majorities of blacks and whites alike, a stark change from earlier this year, when 58 percent of blacks thought race relations were bad, but just 35 percent of whites agreed. In August, 48 percent of blacks and 41 percent of whites said they felt that way.

Looking ahead, 44 percent of Americans think race relations are worsening, up from 36 percent in December. Forty-one percent of blacks and 46 percent of whites think so. Pessimism among whites has increased 10 points since December.

Continue reading the main story

Do you think race relations in the United States are generally good or generally bad?

60

40

20

0

White

Black

May '14

May '15

Generally bad

 

 

Continue reading the main story

Do you think race relations in the United States are getting better, getting worse or staying about the same?

Getting worse

Staying the same

Getting better

Don't know/No answer

All adults

Whites

Blacks

44%

37

17

46

36

16

41

42

15

 

 

The poll finds that profound racial divisions in views of how the police use deadly force remain. Blacks are more than twice as likely to say police in most communities are more apt to use deadly force against a black person — 79 percent of blacks say so compared with 37 percent of whites. A slim majority of whites say race is not a factor in a police officer’s decision to use deadly force.

Overall, 44 percent of Americans say deadly force is more likely to be used against a black person, up from 37 percent in August and 40 percent in December.

Blacks also remain far more likely than whites to say they feel mostly anxious about the police in their community. Forty-two percent say so, while 51 percent feel mostly safe. Among whites, 8 in 10 feel mostly safe.

One proposal to address the matter — having on-duty police officers wear body cameras — receives overwhelming support. More than 9 in 10 whites and blacks alike favor it.

Continue reading the main story

How would you describe your feelings about the police in your community? Would you say they make you feel mostly safe or mostly anxious?

Mostly safe

Mostly anxious

Don't know/No answer

All adults

Whites

Blacks

75%

21

3

81

16

3

51

42

7

 

 

Continue reading the main story

In general, do you think the police in most communities are more likely to use deadly force against a black person, or more likely to use it against a white person, or don’t you think race affects police use of deadly force?

Police more likely to use deadly force against a black person

Police more likely to use deadly force against a white person

Race DOES NOT affect police use of deadly force

Don't know/No answer

All adults

Whites

Blacks

44%

37%

79%

2%

2%

1%

46%

53%

16%

9%

8%

4%

 

 

Continue reading the main story

Do you favor or oppose on-duty police officers wearing video cameras that would record events and actions as they occur?

Favor

Oppose

Don't know/No answer

All adults

Whites

Blacks

92%

93%

93%

6%

5%

5%

2%

2%

2%

 

 

Asked specifically about the situation in Baltimore, most Americans expressed at least some confidence that the investigation by local authorities would be conducted fairly. But while nearly two-thirds of whites think so, fewer than half of blacks agree. Still, more blacks are confident now than were in August regarding the investigation in Ferguson. On Friday, six members of the police force involved in the arrest of Mr. Gray were charged with serious offenses, including manslaughter. The poll was conducted Thursday through Sunday; results from before charges were announced are similar to those from after.

Reaction to the recent turmoil in Baltimore, however, is similar among blacks and whites. Most Americans, 61 percent, say the unrest after Mr. Gray’s death was not justified. That includes 64 percent of whites and 57 percent of blacks.

Continue reading the main story

As you may know, a Baltimore man, Freddie Gray, recently died after being in the custody of the Baltimore police. How much confidence do you have that the investigation by local authorities into this matter will be conducted fairly?

A lot

Some

Not much

None at all

Don't know/No answer

All adults

Whites

Blacks

29%

31

22

14

5

31

33

20

11

5

20

26

30

22

 

 

In general, do you think the unrest in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray was justified, or do you think the unrest was not justified?

Justified

Not justified

Don't know/No answer

All adults

Whites

Blacks

28%

61

11

26

64

11

37

57

6

 

 

Ex-C.I.A. Official Rebuts Republican Claims on Benghazi Attack in ‘The Great War of Our Time’

WASHINGTON — The former deputy director of the C.I.A. asserts in a forthcoming book that Republicans, in their eagerness to politicize the killing of the American ambassador to Libya, repeatedly distorted the agency’s analysis of events. But he also argues that the C.I.A. should get out of the business of providing “talking points” for administration officials in national security events that quickly become partisan, as happened after the Benghazi attack in 2012.

The official, Michael J. Morell, dismisses the allegation that the United States military and C.I.A. officers “were ordered to stand down and not come to the rescue of their comrades,” and he says there is “no evidence” to support the charge that “there was a conspiracy between C.I.A. and the White House to spin the Benghazi story in a way that would protect the political interests of the president and Secretary Clinton,” referring to the secretary of state at the time, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But he also concludes that the White House itself embellished some of the talking points provided by the Central Intelligence Agency and had blocked him from sending an internal study of agency conclusions to Congress.

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“I finally did so without asking,” just before leaving government, he writes, and after the White House released internal emails to a committee investigating the State Department’s handling of the issue.

A lengthy congressional investigation remains underway, one that many Republicans hope to use against Mrs. Clinton in the 2016 election cycle.

In parts of the book, “The Great War of Our Time” (Twelve), Mr. Morell praises his C.I.A. colleagues for many successes in stopping terrorist attacks, but he is surprisingly critical of other C.I.A. failings — and those of the National Security Agency.

Soon after Mr. Morell retired in 2013 after 33 years in the agency, President Obama appointed him to a commission reviewing the actions of the National Security Agency after the disclosures of Edward J. Snowden, a former intelligence contractor who released classified documents about the government’s eavesdropping abilities. Mr. Morell writes that he was surprised by what he found.

“You would have thought that of all the government entities on the planet, the one least vulnerable to such grand theft would have been the N.S.A.,” he writes. “But it turned out that the N.S.A. had left itself vulnerable.”

He concludes that most Wall Street firms had better cybersecurity than the N.S.A. had when Mr. Snowden swept information from its systems in 2013. While he said he found himself “chagrined by how well the N.S.A. was doing” compared with the C.I.A. in stepping up its collection of data on intelligence targets, he also sensed that the N.S.A., which specializes in electronic spying, was operating without considering the implications of its methods.

“The N.S.A. had largely been collecting information because it could, not necessarily in all cases because it should,” he says.

The book is to be released next week.

Mr. Morell was a career analyst who rose through the ranks of the agency, and he ended up in the No. 2 post. He served as President George W. Bush’s personal intelligence briefer in the first months of his presidency — in those days, he could often be spotted at the Starbucks in Waco, Tex., catching up on his reading — and was with him in the schoolhouse in Florida on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when the Bush presidency changed in an instant.

Mr. Morell twice took over as acting C.I.A. director, first when Leon E. Panetta was appointed secretary of defense and then when retired Gen. David H. Petraeus resigned over an extramarital affair with his biographer, a relationship that included his handing her classified notes of his time as America’s best-known military commander.

Mr. Morell says he first learned of the affair from Mr. Petraeus only the night before he resigned, and just as the Benghazi events were turning into a political firestorm. While praising Mr. Petraeus, who had told his deputy “I am very lucky” to run the C.I.A., Mr. Morell writes that “the organization did not feel the same way about him.” The former general “created the impression through the tone of his voice and his body language that he did not want people to disagree with him (which was not true in my own interaction with him),” he says.

But it is his account of the Benghazi attacks — and how the C.I.A. was drawn into the debate over whether the Obama White House deliberately distorted its account of the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens — that is bound to attract attention, at least partly because of its relevance to the coming presidential election. The initial assessments that the C.I.A. gave to the White House said demonstrations had preceded the attack. By the time analysts reversed their opinion, Susan E. Rice, now the national security adviser, had made a series of statements on Sunday talk shows describing the initial assessment. The controversy and other comments Ms. Rice made derailed Mr. Obama’s plan to appoint her as secretary of state.

The experience prompted Mr. Morell to write that the C.I.A. should stay out of the business of preparing talking points — especially on issues that are being seized upon for “political purposes.” He is critical of the State Department for not beefing up security in Libya for its diplomats, as the C.I.A., he said, did for its employees.

But he concludes that the assault in which the ambassador was killed took place “with little or no advance planning” and “was not well organized.” He says the attackers “did not appear to be looking for Americans to harm. They appeared intent on looting and conducting some vandalism,” setting fires that killed Mr. Stevens and a security official, Sean Smith.

Mr. Morell paints a picture of an agency that was struggling, largely unsuccessfully, to understand dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa when the Arab Spring broke out in late 2011 in Tunisia. The agency’s analysts failed to see the forces of revolution coming — and then failed again, he writes, when they told Mr. Obama that the uprisings would undercut Al Qaeda by showing there was a democratic pathway to change.

“There is no good explanation for our not being able to see the pressures growing to dangerous levels across the region,” he writes. The agency had again relied too heavily “on a handful of strong leaders in the countries of concern to help us understand what was going on in the Arab street,” he says, and those leaders themselves were clueless.

Moreover, an agency that has always overvalued secretly gathered intelligence and undervalued “open source” material “was not doing enough to mine the wealth of information available through social media,” he writes. “We thought and told policy makers that this outburst of popular revolt would damage Al Qaeda by undermining the group’s narrative,” he writes.

Instead, weak governments in Egypt, and the absence of governance from Libya to Yemen, were “a boon to Islamic extremists across both the Middle East and North Africa.”

Mr. Morell is gentle about most of the politicians he dealt with — he expresses admiration for both Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama, though he accuses former Vice President Dick Cheney of deliberately implying a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq that the C.I.A. had concluded probably did not exist. But when it comes to the events leading up to the Bush administration’s decision to go to war in Iraq, he is critical of his own agency.

Mr. Morell concludes that the Bush White House did not have to twist intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s alleged effort to rekindle the country’s work on weapons of mass destruction.

“The view that hard-liners in the Bush administration forced the intelligence community into its position on W.M.D. is just flat wrong,” he writes. “No one pushed. The analysts were already there and they had been there for years, long before Bush came to office.”

Ghostly Voices From Thomas Edison’s Dolls Can Now Be Heard

Though Robin and Joan Rolfs owned two rare talking dolls manufactured by Thomas Edison’s phonograph company in 1890, they did not dare play the wax cylinder records tucked inside each one.

The Rolfses, longtime collectors of Edison phonographs, knew that if they turned the cranks on the dolls’ backs, the steel phonograph needle might damage or destroy the grooves of the hollow, ring-shaped cylinder. And so for years, the dolls sat side by side inside a display cabinet, bearers of a message from the dawn of sound recording that nobody could hear.

In 1890, Edison’s dolls were a flop; production lasted only six weeks. Children found them difficult to operate and more scary than cuddly. The recordings inside, which featured snippets of nursery rhymes, wore out quickly.

Yet sound historians say the cylinders were the first entertainment records ever made, and the young girls hired to recite the rhymes were the world’s first recording artists.

Year after year, the Rolfses asked experts if there might be a safe way to play the recordings. Then a government laboratory developed a method to play fragile records without touching them.

The technique relies on a microscope to create images of the grooves in exquisite detail. A computer approximates — with great accuracy — the sounds that would have been created by a needle moving through those grooves.

In 2014, the technology was made available for the first time outside the laboratory.

“The fear all along is that we don’t want to damage these records. We don’t want to put a stylus on them,” said Jerry Fabris, the curator of the Thomas Edison Historical Park in West Orange, N.J. “Now we have the technology to play them safely.”

Last month, the Historical Park posted online three never-before-heard Edison doll recordings, including the two from the Rolfses’ collection. “There are probably more out there, and we’re hoping people will now get them digitized,” Mr. Fabris said.

The technology, which is known as Irene (Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc.), was developed by the particle physicist Carl Haber and the engineer Earl Cornell at Lawrence Berkeley. Irene extracts sound from cylinder and disk records. It can also reconstruct audio from recordings so badly damaged they were deemed unplayable.

“We are now hearing sounds from history that I did not expect to hear in my lifetime,” Mr. Fabris said.

The Rolfses said they were not sure what to expect in August when they carefully packed their two Edison doll cylinders, still attached to their motors, and drove from their home in Hortonville, Wis., to the National Document Conservation Center in Andover, Mass. The center had recently acquired Irene technology.

Cylinders carry sound in a spiral groove cut by a phonograph recording needle that vibrates up and down, creating a surface made of tiny hills and valleys. In the Irene set-up, a microscope perched above the shaft takes thousands of high-resolution images of small sections of the grooves.

Stitched together, the images provide a topographic map of the cylinder’s surface, charting changes in depth as small as one five-hundredth the thickness of a human hair. Pitch, volume and timbre are all encoded in the hills and valleys and the speed at which the record is played.

At the conservation center, the preservation specialist Mason Vander Lugt attached one of the cylinders to the end of a rotating shaft. Huddled around a computer screen, the Rolfses first saw the wiggly waveform generated by Irene. Then came the digital audio. The words were at first indistinct, but as Mr. Lugt filtered out more of the noise, the rhyme became clearer.

“That was the Eureka moment,” Mr. Rolfs said.

In 1890, a girl in Edison’s laboratory had recited:

There was a little girl,

And she had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

She was very, very good.

But when she was bad, she was horrid.

Recently, the conservation center turned up another surprise.

In 2010, the Woody Guthrie Foundation received 18 oversize phonograph disks from an anonymous donor. No one knew if any of the dirt-stained recordings featured Guthrie, but Tiffany Colannino, then the foundation’s archivist, had stored them unplayed until she heard about Irene.

Last fall, the center extracted audio from one of the records, labeled “Jam Session 9” and emailed the digital file to Ms. Colannino.

“I was just sitting in my dining room, and the next thing I know, I’m hearing Woody,” she said. In between solo performances of “Ladies Auxiliary,” “Jesus Christ,” and “Dead or Alive,” Guthrie tells jokes, offers some back story, and makes the audience laugh. “It is quintessential Guthrie,” Ms. Colannino said.

The Rolfses’ dolls are back in the display cabinet in Wisconsin. But with audio stored on several computers, they now have a permanent voice.

ay 4, 2015 ‘Game of Thrones’ Q&A: Keisha Castle-Hughes on the Tao of the Sand Snakes

“It was really nice to play with other women and not have this underlying tone of being at each other’s throats.”

Baltimore Residents Away From Turmoil Consider Their Role

BALTIMORE — In the afternoons, the streets of Locust Point are clean and nearly silent. In front of the rowhouses, potted plants rest next to steps of brick or concrete. There is a shopping center nearby with restaurants, and a grocery store filled with fresh foods.

And the National Guard and the police are largely absent. So, too, residents say, are worries about what happened a few miles away on April 27 when, in a space of hours, parts of this city became riot zones.

“They’re not our reality,” Ashley Fowler, 30, said on Monday at the restaurant where she works. “They’re not what we’re living right now. We live in, not to be racist, white America.”

As Baltimore considers its way forward after the violent unrest brought by the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died of injuries he suffered while in police custody, residents in its predominantly white neighborhoods acknowledge that they are sometimes struggling to understand what beyond Mr. Gray’s death spurred the turmoil here. For many, the poverty and troubled schools of gritty West Baltimore are distant troubles, glimpsed only when they pass through the area on their way somewhere else.

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And so neighborhoods of Baltimore are facing altogether different reckonings after Mr. Gray’s death. In mostly black communities like Sandtown-Winchester, where some of the most destructive rioting played out last week, residents are hoping businesses will reopen and that the police will change their strategies. But in mostly white areas like Canton and Locust Point, some residents wonder what role, if any, they should play in reimagining stretches of Baltimore where they do not live.

“Most of the people are kind of at a loss as to what they’re supposed to do,” said Dr. Richard Lamb, a dentist who has practiced in the same Locust Point office for nearly 39 years. “I listen to the news reports. I listen to the clergymen. I listen to the facts of the rampant unemployment and the lack of opportunities in the area. Listen, I pay my taxes. Exactly what can I do?”

And in Canton, where the restaurants have clever names like Nacho Mama’s and Holy Crepe Bakery and Café, Sara Bahr said solutions seemed out of reach for a proudly liberal city.

“I can only imagine how frustrated they must be,” said Ms. Bahr, 36, a nurse who was out with her 3-year-old daughter, Sally. “I just wish I knew how to solve poverty. I don’t know what to do to make it better.”

The day of unrest and the overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations that followed led to hundreds of arrests, often for violations of the curfew imposed on the city for five consecutive nights while National Guard soldiers patrolled the streets. Although there were isolated instances of trouble in Canton, the neighborhood association said on its website, many parts of southeast Baltimore were physically untouched by the tumult.

Tensions in the city bubbled anew on Monday after reports that the police had wounded a black man in Northwest Baltimore. The authorities denied those reports and sent officers to talk with the crowds that gathered while other officers clutching shields blocked traffic at Pennsylvania and West North Avenues.

Lt. Col. Melvin Russell, a community police officer, said officers had stopped a man suspected of carrying a handgun and that “one of those rounds was spent.”

Colonel Russell said officers had not opened fire, “so we couldn’t have shot him.”

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The colonel said the man had not been injured but was taken to a hospital as a precaution. Nearby, many people stood in disbelief, despite the efforts by the authorities to quash reports they described as “unfounded.”

Monday’s episode was a brief moment in a larger drama that has yielded anger and confusion. Although many people said they were familiar with accounts of the police harassing or intimidating residents, many in Canton and Locust Point said they had never experienced it themselves. When they watched the unrest, which many protesters said was fueled by feelings that they lived only on Baltimore’s margins, even those like Ms. Bahr who were pained by what they saw said they could scarcely comprehend the emotions associated with it.

But others, like Lambi Vasilakopoulos, who runs a casual restaurant in Canton, said they were incensed by what unfolded last week.

“What happened wasn’t called for. Protests are one thing; looting is another thing,” he said, adding, “We’re very frustrated because we’re the ones who are going to pay for this.”

There were pockets of optimism, though, that Baltimore would enter a period of reconciliation.

“I’m just hoping for peace,” Natalie Boies, 53, said in front of the Locust Point home where she has lived for 50 years. “Learn to love each other; be patient with each other; find justice; and care.”

A skeptical Mr. Vasilakopoulos predicted tensions would worsen.

“It cannot be fixed,” he said. “It’s going to get worse. Why? Because people don’t obey the laws. They don’t want to obey them.”

But there were few fears that the violence that plagued West Baltimore last week would play out on these relaxed streets. The authorities, Ms. Fowler said, would make sure of that.

“They kept us safe here,” she said. “I didn’t feel uncomfortable when I was in my house three blocks away from here. I knew I was going to be O.K. because I knew they weren’t going to let anyone come and loot our properties or our businesses or burn our cars.”

With Iran Talks, a Tangled Path to Ending Syria’s War

UNITED NATIONS — Wearing pinstripes and a pince-nez, Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations envoy for Syria, arrived at the Security Council one Tuesday afternoon in February and announced that President Bashar al-Assad had agreed to halt airstrikes over Aleppo. Would the rebels, Mr. de Mistura suggested, agree to halt their shelling?

What he did not announce, but everyone knew by then, was that the Assad government had begun a military offensive to encircle opposition-held enclaves in Aleppo and that fierce fighting was underway. It would take only a few days for rebel leaders, having pushed back Syrian government forces, to outright reject Mr. de Mistura’s proposed freeze in the fighting, dooming the latest diplomatic overture on Syria.

Diplomacy is often about appearing to be doing something until the time is ripe for a deal to be done.

Now, with Mr. Assad’s forces having suffered a string of losses on the battlefield and the United States reaching at least a partial rapprochement with Mr. Assad’s main backer, Iran, Mr. de Mistura is changing course. Starting Monday, he is set to hold a series of closed talks in Geneva with the warring sides and their main supporters. Iran will be among them.

In an interview at United Nations headquarters last week, Mr. de Mistura hinted that the changing circumstances, both military and diplomatic, may have prompted various backers of the war to question how much longer the bloodshed could go on.

“Will that have an impact in accelerating the willingness for a political solution? We need to test it,” he said. “The Geneva consultations may be a good umbrella for testing that. It’s an occasion for asking everyone, including the government, if there is any new way that they are looking at a political solution, as they too claim they want.”

He said he would have a better assessment at the end of June, when he expects to wrap up his consultations. That coincides with the deadline for a final agreement in the Iran nuclear talks.

Whether a nuclear deal with Iran will pave the way for a new opening on peace talks in Syria remains to be seen. Increasingly, though, world leaders are explicitly linking the two, with the European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, suggesting last week that a nuclear agreement could spur Tehran to play “a major but positive role in Syria.”

It could hardly come soon enough. Now in its fifth year, the Syrian war has claimed 220,000 lives, prompted an exodus of more than three million refugees and unleashed jihadist groups across the region. “This conflict is producing a question mark in many — where is it leading and whether this can be sustained,” Mr. de Mistura said.

Part Italian, part Swedish, Mr. de Mistura has worked with the United Nations for more than 40 years, but he is more widely known for his dapper style than for any diplomatic coups. Syria is by far the toughest assignment of his career — indeed, two of the organization’s most seasoned diplomats, Lakhdar Brahimi and Kofi Annan, tried to do the job and gave up — and critics have wondered aloud whether Mr. de Mistura is up to the task.

He served as a United Nations envoy in Afghanistan and Iraq, and before that in Lebanon, where a former minister recalled, with some scorn, that he spent many hours sunbathing at a private club in the hills above Beirut. Those who know him say he has a taste for fine suits and can sometimes speak too soon and too much, just as they point to his diplomatic missteps and hyperbole.

They cite, for instance, a news conference in October, when he raised the specter of Srebrenica, where thousands of Muslims were massacred in 1995 during the Balkans war, in warning that the Syrian border town of Kobani could fall to the Islamic State. In February, he was photographed at a party in Damascus, the Syrian capital, celebrating the anniversary of the Iranian revolution just as Syrian forces, aided by Iran, were pummeling rebel-held suburbs of Damascus; critics seized on that as evidence of his coziness with the government.

Mouin Rabbani, who served briefly as the head of Mr. de Mistura’s political affairs unit and has since emerged as one of his most outspoken critics, said Mr. de Mistura did not have the background necessary for the job. “This isn’t someone well known for his political vision or political imagination, and his closest confidants lack the requisite knowledge and experience,” Mr. Rabbani said.

As a deputy foreign minister in the Italian government, Mr. de Mistura was tasked in 2012 with freeing two Italian marines detained in India for shooting at Indian fishermen. He made 19 trips to India, to little effect. One marine was allowed to return to Italy for medical reasons; the other remains in India.

He said he initially turned down the Syria job when the United Nations secretary general approached him last August, only to change his mind the next day, after a sleepless, guilt-ridden night.

Mr. de Mistura compared his role in Syria to that of a doctor faced with a terminally ill patient. His goal in brokering a freeze in the fighting, he said, was to alleviate suffering. He settled on Aleppo as the location for its “fame,” he said, a decision that some questioned, considering that Aleppo was far trickier than the many other lesser-known towns where activists had negotiated temporary local cease-fires.

“Everybody, at least in Europe, are very familiar with the value of Aleppo,” Mr. de Mistura said. “So I was using that as an icebreaker.”

The cease-fire negotiations, to which he had devoted six months, fell apart quickly because of the government’s military offensive in Aleppo the very day of his announcement at the Security Council. Privately, United Nations diplomats said Mr. de Mistura had been manipulated. To this, Mr. de Mistura said only that he was “disappointed and concerned.”

Tarek Fares, a former rebel fighter, said after a recent visit to Aleppo that no Syrian would admit publicly to supporting Mr. de Mistura’s cease-fire proposal. “If anyone said they went to a de Mistura meeting in Gaziantep, they would be arrested,” is how he put it, referring to the Turkish city where negotiations between the two sides were held.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon remains staunchly behind Mr. de Mistura’s efforts. His defenders point out that he is at the center of one of the world’s toughest diplomatic problems, charged with mediating a conflict in which two of the world’s most powerful nations — Russia, which supports Mr. Assad, and the United States, which has called for his ouster — remain deadlocked.

R. Nicholas Burns, a former State Department official who now teaches at Harvard, credited Mr. de Mistura for trying to negotiate a cease-fire even when the chances of success were exceedingly small — and the chances of a political deal even smaller. For his efforts to work, Professor Burns argued, the world powers will first have to come to an agreement of their own.

“He needs the help of outside powers,” he said. “It starts with backers of Assad. That’s Russia and Iran. De Mistura is there, waiting.”

Suzanne Crough, Actress in ‘The Partridge Family,’ Dies at 52

Ms. Crough played the youngest daughter on the hit ’70s sitcom starring David Cassidy and Shirley Jones.

Nepal’s Young Men, Lost to Migration, Then a Quake

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KATHMANDU, Nepal — When the dense pillar of smoke from cremations by the Bagmati River was thinning late last week, the bodies were all coming from Gongabu, a common stopover for Nepali migrant workers headed overseas, and they were all of young men.

Hindu custom dictates that funeral pyres should be lighted by the oldest son of the deceased, but these men were too young to have sons, so they were burned by their brothers or fathers. Sukla Lal, a maize farmer, made a 14-hour journey by bus to retrieve the body of his 19-year-old son, who had been on his way to the Persian Gulf to work as a laborer.

“He wanted to live in the countryside, but he was compelled to leave by poverty,” Mr. Lal said, gazing ahead steadily as his son’s remains smoldered. “He told me, ‘You can live on your land, and I will come up with money, and we will have a happy family.’ ”

Weeks will pass before the authorities can give a complete accounting of who died in the April 25 earthquake, but it is already clear that Nepal cannot afford the losses. The countryside was largely stripped of its healthy young men even before the quake, as they migrated in great waves — 1,500 a day by some estimates — to work as laborers in India, Malaysia or one of the gulf nations, leaving many small communities populated only by elderly parents, women and children. Economists say that at some times of the year, one-quarter of Nepal’s population is working outside the country.

Cher and Marc Jacobs

Ruth Rendell, Novelist Who Thrilled and Educated, Dies at 85

Ms. Rendell was a prolific writer of intricately plotted mystery novels that combined psychological insight, social conscience and teeth-chattering terror.

Betsy von Furstenberg, Baroness and Versatile Actress, Dies at 83

Ms. von Furstenberg made her debut in the movies and on the Broadway stage in the early 1950s as a teenager and later reinvented herself as a television actress, writer and philanthropist.

Gilbert Haroche, Builder of an Economy Travel Empire, Dies at 87

Mr. Haroche was a founder of Liberty Travel, which grew from a two-man operation to the largest leisure travel operation in the United States.

Tribute for a Roller Hockey Warrior

Hockey is not exactly known as a city game, but played on roller skates, it once held sway as the sport of choice in many New York neighborhoods.

“City kids had no rinks, no ice, but they would do anything to play hockey,” said Edward Moffett, former director of the Long Island City Y.M.C.A. Roller Hockey League, in Queens, whose games were played in city playgrounds going back to the 1940s.

From the 1960s through the 1980s, the league had more than 60 teams, he said. Players included the Mullen brothers of Hell’s Kitchen and Dan Dorion of Astoria, Queens, who would later play on ice for the National Hockey League.

One street legend from the heyday of New York roller hockey was Craig Allen, who lived in the Woodside Houses projects and became one of the city’s hardest hitters and top scorers.

“Craig was a warrior, one of the best roller hockey players in the city in the ’70s,” said Dave Garmendia, 60, a retired New York police officer who grew up playing with Mr. Allen. “His teammates loved him and his opponents feared him.”

Young Craig took up hockey on the streets of Queens in the 1960s, playing pickup games between sewer covers, wearing steel-wheeled skates clamped onto school shoes and using a roll of electrical tape as the puck.

His skill and ferocity drew attention, Mr. Garmendia said, but so did his skin color. He was black, in a sport made up almost entirely by white players.

“Roller hockey was a white kid’s game, plain and simple, but Craig broke the color barrier,” Mr. Garmendia said. “We used to say Craig did more for race relations than the N.A.A.C.P.”

Mr. Allen went on to coach and referee roller hockey in New York before moving several years ago to South Carolina. But he continued to organize an annual alumni game at Dutch Kills Playground in Long Island City, the same site that held the local championship games.

The reunion this year was on Saturday, but Mr. Allen never made it. On April 26, just before boarding the bus to New York, he died of an asthma attack at age 61.

Word of his death spread rapidly among hundreds of his old hockey colleagues who resolved to continue with the event, now renamed the Craig Allen Memorial Roller Hockey Reunion.

The turnout on Saturday was the largest ever, with players pulling on their old equipment, choosing sides and taking once again to the rink of cracked blacktop with faded lines and circles. They wore no helmets, although one player wore a fedora.

Another, Vinnie Juliano, 77, of Long Island City, wore his hearing aids, along with his 50-year-old taped-up quads, or four-wheeled skates with a leather boot. Many players here never converted to in-line skates, and neither did Mr. Allen, whose photograph appeared on a poster hanging behind the players’ bench.

“I’m seeing people walking by wondering why all these rusty, grizzly old guys are here playing hockey,” one player, Tommy Dominguez, said. “We’re here for Craig, and let me tell you, these old guys still play hard.”

Everyone seemed to have a Craig Allen story, from his earliest teams at Public School 151 to the Bryant Rangers, the Woodside Wings, the Woodside Blues and more.

Mr. Allen, who became a yellow-cab driver, was always recruiting new talent. He gained the nickname Cabby for his habit of stopping at playgrounds all over the city to scout players.

Teams were organized around neighborhoods and churches, and often sponsored by local bars. Mr. Allen, for one, played for bars, including Garry Owen’s and on the Fiddler’s Green Jokers team in Inwood, Manhattan.

Play was tough and fights were frequent.

“We were basically street gangs on skates,” said Steve Rogg, 56, a mail clerk who grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens, and who on Saturday wore his Riedell Classic quads from 1972. “If another team caught up with you the night before a game, they tossed you a beating so you couldn’t play the next day.”

Mr. Garmendia said Mr. Allen’s skin color provoked many fights.

“When we’d go to some ignorant neighborhoods, a lot of players would use slurs,” Mr. Garmendia said, recalling a game in Ozone Park, Queens, where local fans parked motorcycles in a lineup next to the blacktop and taunted Mr. Allen. Mr. Garmendia said he checked a player into the motorcycles, “and the bikes went down like dominoes, which started a serious brawl.”

A group of fans at a game in Brooklyn once stuck a pole through the rink fence as Mr. Allen skated by and broke his jaw, Mr. Garmendia said, adding that carloads of reinforcements soon arrived to defend Mr. Allen.

And at another racially incited brawl, the police responded with six patrol cars and a helicopter.

Before play began on Saturday, the players gathered at center rink to honor Mr. Allen. Billy Barnwell, 59, of Woodside, recalled once how an all-white, all-star squad snubbed Mr. Allen by playing him third string. He scored seven goals in the first game and made first string immediately.

“He’d always hear racial stuff before the game, and I’d ask him, ‘How do you put up with that?’” Mr. Barnwell recalled. “Craig would say, ‘We’ll take care of it,’ and by the end of the game, he’d win guys over. They’d say, ‘This guy’s good.’”

Gene Fullmer, a Brawling Middleweight Champion, Dies at 83

Fullmer, who reigned when fight clubs abounded and Friday night fights were a television staple, was known for his title bouts with Sugar Ray Robinson and Carmen Basilio.