community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
Rustbelt Radio for October 17, 2005
by Pittsburgh Indymedia Radio Collective
Monday, Oct. 17, 2005 at 7:11 PM
radio@indypgh.org (email address validated)
On today's show... * we'll check out a new Documentary on the killing of Jonny Gammage, 10 years after his death at the hands of suburban Pittsburgh police officers * we'll talk with Pittsburgh's Industrial Workers of the World * Local and Global News
audio link: 
MP3 at 27.5 mebibytes
Welcome to this week's edition of Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of the news from the grassroots, news overlooked by the corporate media. The show airs live every Monday from 6-7pm on WRCT 88.3FM in Pittsburgh, PA, every Thursday from 11am to noon on WARC-Meadville from the campus of Allegheny College, and every Saturday from 5-6pm on WVJW Benwood, 94.1 FM in the Wheeling, West Virginia area. We're also available on the internet, both on W-R-C-T's live webstream at W-R-C-T dot ORG and for download, stream or podcast at radio dot I-N-D-Y-P-G-H dot org.
On today's show...
There is progress on plans to bring a grocery store to Pittsburgh's Hill District. The German-owned grocery chain ALDI is interested in opening a grocery store on Centre Avenue. The Hill District has not had a grocery store since the Nineteen-Eighties.
Advocacy groups like Philadelphia's Food Trust have reported the connections between lack of access to grocery stores and health problems, such as diabetes and heart disease. Last year, a Pennsylvania state consortium, the Fresh Food Financing Initiative, formed to bring food retailers to inner citiy neighborhoods in Pennsylvania. They give starter money to entice grocers to open stores in under-served communities.
On September 30, a Shop 'n Save opened in the Spring Garden community in Pittsburgh's North Side. This project received twenty-thousand dollars in grants and fifty-thousand dollars in loans from the Fresh Food Financing Initiative. The Spring Garden store is the first in the Pittsburgh region to receive support from the Fresh Food Financing Initiative. This group is interested in bringing a grocery store to the Hill District.
Earlier this year, a team of Carnegie Mellon students won a JP Morgan Chase Community Development competition for their plan to bring a non-profit grocery store to the Hill District. The prize provides twenty-five thousand dollars in seed money to pursue their plan to build a non-profit food store following a cooperative model. The store would be partnered with the nonprofit Hill House, which provides social services in the Hill District.
ALDI Incorporated already has more than twelve stores in the Pittsburgh region. They intend to build the Hill District store without government subsidies. Aldi employs cost-saving measures in its stores to keep prices low. For example, shopping bags are not free and customers must pay a deposit to use a shopping cart.
The Hill District Community Development Corporation would like resident input on plans to build a grocery store. They are holding a meeting at 6:00 PM on October 20th at the Weil Technology Elementary School, on Centre Avenue and Soho Street.
Last week, two human rights groups released reports on the frequency of life-without-parole sentences given to minors. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch found that over 2000 people incarcerated in the United States have been sentenced to spend their lives in prison for crimes they committed as children. The reports estimated that 59% of these people received their sentence for their first-ever criminal conviction.
Human Rights Watch researcher Allison Parker said [quote] "Kids who commit serious crimes shouldn't go scot-free, but if they are too young to vote or buy cigarettes, they are too young to spend the rest of their lives behind bars."
In Pennsylvania, there are 332 people serving life without parole for crimes they committed as children, the most in the nation. We have No minimum age for prosecution as an adult and No minimum age for sentencing a youth to life without parole. However, Pennsylvania does have mandatory life without parole sentencing for some crimes.
The West Virginia Department of Corrections would not provide the information on life-without-parole sentencing for the study.
Last Friday Health GAP and ACT UP Philadelphia held a teach-in in East Liberty to discuss the funding shortfalls for both the Global Fund to Fight AIDS and Medicaid. One of the local sponsors for the event was Prevention Point Pittsburgh, a community organization that Rustbelt radio featured earlier this year.
Participants in the teach-in first shared the latest statistics on AIDS. According to last year's UN-AIDS 2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, more than 20 million people have died of AIDS since 1981 and more than 40 million people worldwide are currently living with HIV/AIDS. Current projections are that 100 million people will be living with HIV/AIDS by the end of the decade. Of the 6.5 million people in developing and transitional countries who need life-saving AIDS drugs, fewer than 1 million are receiving them. That's where the Global Fund comes in.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria is a partnership formed by governments and civil society that provides grants to people directly affected by HIV and AIDS. Because of the fund, 130,000 people are receiving life-saving AIDS medication and millions more have been tested for HIV and received counseling.
Sabira Bushra from Prevention Point explains that because the Global Fund supports programs that are informed by science and are tailored to specific communities' needs, the Bush administration has stymied efforts to support the Global Fund.
In order to continue its work, the Global Fund needs an $840 million contribution from the U.S this year. Congress appears ready to offer less than one half of the needed funds.
Meanwhile, as the funding shortfall for the Global Fund threatens to endanger the lives of millions of people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa and the developing world, deep cuts in Medicaid continue to threaten the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS here in the U.S.
In the next few weeks, Congress is expected to make a decision about whether to cut $10 billion in health programs over the next five years. Medicaid is the main target of those cuts. As a consequence, people living with HIV/AIDS stand to lose their medicaid coverage and will be pushed in already overtaxed programs such as the AIDS Drug Assistance Program and other Ryan White CARE Act programs. 55% of all people living with HIV/AIDS in the US receive their medical care through Medicaid.
Activists at the teach-in urged people to contact Senators Santorum and Specter--two senators who have expressed compassion for people living with HIV/AIDS-- and encourage them to fully fund both the Global Fund and Medicaid.
Pittsburgh native Bill Strickland is working with the Contemporary Arts Center to create an arts education and job-training center in New Orleans.
Strickland is the president and CEO of Pittsburgh's Manchester Bidwell Corporation, a multimillion dollar umbrella organization that encompasses the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and Bidwell Training Center.
A ceramic artist and former public school teacher, Strickland opened the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in 1963 in a one-room ceramics studio with an open-door policy for youth. Today, MCG has grown into a vibrant community center with a wide range of arts-related skills, including photography and jazz, with after-school and weekend programs. About 85 percent of the program's students go on to college, and the jazz studio has turned out two Grammy Award-winning albums.
Strickland said the center (quote) "transformed a nearly bankrupt community."
Manchester's sister program, the Bidwell Training Center, is a vocational education program for adults that includes culinary arts and horticulture programs.
The New Orleans center initially would be a smaller version of the Pittsburgh operation. Exactly what programs would be replicated still is unknown. It will depend on the city and state's job needs, as well as on what the community can support, said Jay Weigel, executive director of the Contemporary Arts Center.
Though the center would probably include work force training programs, its main purpose would not be to turn out artists, but rather to create an all-around appreciation for the arts that, in turn, would help participants thrive.
A state-commissioned study released Thursday estimates that the arts sector in New Orleans generates 144,000 jobs, 7.6 percent of the state's employment. That's more than the 126,000 jobs generated by the tourism industry.
Weigel expects the program could be running in 12 to 18 months. The proposed center is the fourth of five such centers across the nation that use MCG as their model.
Brent Mickum, an attorney for detainees held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay, spoke in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University last Thursday. He discussed how detainees are apprehended and detained, often without charge, either at Guantanamo or at prisons in countries where they have been rendered by US authorities for torture and interrogation. In addition to describing conditions of torture, he also spoke to the way that the US Government has fought attempts to give prisoners there access to legal remedies like courts, even when many prisoners have not been accused of crimes and have no value to foreign intelligence operations.
He opened by reading a letter sent to him by men held at Guantanamo.
Brent Mickum, through the Center for Constitutional Rights, is the U.S. attorney for a number of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and has helped obtain the release of some of his clients. His whole lecture can be heard on WRCT on Tuesday, October 18th at 7PM or online at pittsburgh (dot) indymedia (dot) org.
For more independent local news and to submit your own report, visit pittsburgh dot I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot O-R-G.
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You are listening to Rust Belt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news overlooked by the corporate media. We turn now to headlines from Independent Media Centers around the world.
Last week, the Palm Beach County judge who oversaw the disputed 2000 presidential election got a promotion. Florida Governor Jeb Bush appointed Judge Charles Burton to the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, which is one of 55 new judicial positions in Florida. Last month former President Jimmy Carter said publicly that he believes the 2000 election was stolen.
That was former President Jimmy Carter. Thanks to Raw Story.com for that clip.
Last week the United States set up a new spy agency, the National Clandestine Service, which will be responsible for all traditional spying activities. The NCS is officially an office of the CIA, and the director of the NCS is said to be a high-ranking CIA officer. However, the identity of the director of the NCS is a secret and he or she is referred to only by the codename “Jose”.
National Intelligence Director John Negroponte wrote in a news release that [quote] "The NCS will serve as the national authority for the integration, coordination, de-confliction and evaluation of human intelligence operations across the entire intelligence community."
According to the Chicago Tribune, The CIA has lost a number of senior personnel since the arrival of the current director Porter Goss who took over in September 2004. The decision to make the NCS part of the CIA is seen as a vote of confidence in Goss and the CIA.
This weekend black activists held the Millions More March as the 10 year commemoration of Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March. This time around, the organizers attempted to make the march more inclusive, inviting non-men and non-blacks to take part.
However, the efforts for inclusion had mixed success. Many women addressed the crowds gathered at the Mall in Washington DC, but at the last minute gay activist Keith Boykin was not allowed to speak.
The Anti-Defamation League president Abe Foxman urged black leaders not to support the Millions More Movement because he that it is led by [quote] “unrepentant anti-Semites and racists”.
Russell Simmons wrote to Abe Foxman [quote] “The planned Millions More Movement commemoration this year is about the mutual love and respect of all people and the encouragement of taking personal responsibility to uplift African Americans and others out of the devastation of poverty and ignorance.”
Neither the march organizers nor police would not offer an estimate on the size of the crowd. But AP photos suggest that it was smaller than the original Million Man March in 1995.
Many speakers expressed their outrage about the events following Hurricane Katrina. Farrakhan told the marchers that he believes the US government is guilty of [quote] "criminal neglect of the people of New Orleans."
This follows results of a poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal conducted last week, which found that President Bush's job-approval rating among African Americans has dropped to 2 percent. Six months ago, it was at 19 percent.
A state of emergency was declared in Toledo, Ohio on Saturday following rioting that resulted in over 100 arrests. The riots followed a demonstration by 10 to 20 members of a neo-nazi group, which was met by hundreds of counter-protestors. The Associated Press reports that the Toledo police expected gang members to turn out in force, presumably to oppose the march. The nazis billed the march as a National Socialist march against gang violence.
According to the radio station WTOL, the Toledo police chief canceled the march and the nazis left in their cars when counter-protesters took over several streets. Toledo Mayor Jack Ford tried to diffuse the crowd but was confronted by gang members who had [quote] “long standing grievances.”
Community groups attempted to avoid just this type of confrontation by organizing a diversity celebration called Erase-the-Hate. Diversity celebrations are a popular community response to hate group demonstrations, but this time the coalition of 20 community organizations did not succeed in drawing the spotlight away from the hate group.
Five regional chapters of Anti-racist Action and other antifascist groups joined with large numbers of community members, and at least 500 counter-demonstrators met the nazis. The Lucas County Sheriff said he is unsure how the rioting started. But the weblog account by the One People’s Project has a different story. It attributes the start of the riot to the aggressive methods used by police against the anti-fascists. A firsthand account posted to Pittsburgh Indymedia asserts that none of the out-of-town anti-fascists played an escalating role in the violence, and only supported the activities of the community members.
Following the riot, 200 police officers patrolled the neighborhood overnight, which was locked down with an 8 PM curfew. Another 8 PM curfew was enforced on Sunday night.
The people of Panama firmly opposed closing the Darién Gap in the Pan-American Highway, a jungle inhabited by Wounaan and other indigenous communities. This roadless area is considered important for regional biodiversity. Colombian President Uribe (oo-ree-bay) has pushed for building a highway which crosses the Darién Gap, and this was refused by Panama’s President Martin Torrijos (tore-ee-hos). Although some politicians believe a road will eventually be built here in the future, the president’s opposition is matched in public opinion polls. Panamanians fear that drug trafficking and violence will escalate if a road is built to complete the overland artery of the Americas.
You can read more about our global news stories by visting I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot O-R-G.
[ Musical Break --- [1:53] Hombre Secreto (The Plugz) ]
On this week's edition of Bad Cop, No Donut, Ron Anicich reports on police brutality and misconduct in post-hurricane Louisiana and in the Pittsburgh area.
Welcome back to Rust Belt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news from the grassroots.
( If there's time we can use the record that is under hip hop elix with keystone cops )
You're listening to Rust Belt Radio.
The details on the IWW centenary are coming up next in tonight's calendar of events.
Tune in to Rustbelt Radio next week to hear from Students in Solidarity at Pitt.
And now we present the Indymedia calendar of events:
[ Outro music ]
Thanks for tuning in to Rust Belt Radio here on WRCT Pittsburgh, WARC Meadville and WVJW Benwood.
Our hosts this week are Abie Flaxman and Jessie Buckner with contributions from Jessi Berkelhammer, Abie Flaxman, David Meiran, Lora Gordon, Matt Toups, Carlin Joy, Andalusia Knoll, and Andy Mulkerin. This week's show was produced by Matt Toups. Special thanks to all of our hosts, producers, and contributors.
Your story submissions are welcome! To get involved with Rust Belt Radio, or to send us your comments, email RADIO at I-N-D-Y-P-G-H dot ORG. All of our shows are available for download or podcast on our website at RADIO dot INDY-P-G-H dot ORG and this show can be heard again Tuesday morning on WRCT at 9 AM after Democracy Now
Tune in next week at this time for another edition of Rust Belt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news from the grassroots.
Rustbelt Radio for October 17 2005
by Pittsburgh Indymedia Radio Collective
Monday, Oct. 17, 2005 at 7:11 PM
radio@indypgh.org
audio: ogg vorbis at 24.4 mebibytesaudio: ogg vorbis at 24.4 mebibytes
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