Submitted by T. Forsyth, S. Galloway, Rochester Indymedia on Sat, 2014-03-15 18:05
Jeremy Moule and 13WHAM's GM Chuck Samuels may want to dial it down when it comes to media consolidation, but the "shifting of voices" ploy and the reality of covert consolidation agreements doesn't fool Rochester Indymedia.
Statement on “Feminists for Non-Violent Choices” in Rochester
Rochester Red & Black stands in opposition to the anti-feminist agenda of the “Feminists for Non-Violent Choices.” Formerly known as “Feminists Choosing Life” and “Feminists for Life,” this organization seeks to present itself to the public as a friendly part of the local progressive community while in actuality working toward a single goal: revoking a woman’s right to choose!
K had a great IRL conversation with a friend recently about family, what a traditional family means, what queering a traditional family means. We realized that the idea of “shamelessly queering the traditional family” needed some…explanation. First of all, “traditional” should really have airquotes in our blog’s tagline. Why? Because there is no such thing. Families are diverse. Families are weird. Families are not static–they are always changing and growing. Families are unique–like special snowflakes. (Aww.) The idea of the “traditional family” is a myth and one that has no place here.
It's been almost exactly a year since I posted about sending postcards to the legislators. To briefly recap, I sent a postcard to every member of the House of Representatives, the Senate, to the President, Vice President, Governor of New York, and to my New York Assemblymember and Senator that said simply, "Killing people is always wrong."
In 2013 I gave myself a photo assignment. Pick 13 subjects, and take 13 snapshots of each… 13x13x13. At some point during the project I decided it’d be much more interesting to open this assignment to anyone who wants to participate. I’m glad I did. The following series of 13 comes from local photographer Arleen Hodge . These are portraits of 13 Rochesterians she’s met on the streets. Arleen says she is grateful to call these people her “friends.”
“They all have stories and they are truly a great bunch of men who are suffering another facet of the human condition,” Arleen reasons. “When I’m shooting underground for a night, these guys look out for me. There are those who are quick to judge… but these would be the guys to jump in and save your life.”
I can think of no better subject for this merry time of year – and less than a week after we were forced to face the facts; that Rochester stands as the fifth poorest city in the United States. It’s not just a city problem. According to that report by The Rochester Area Community Foundation, 160,000 people living within the nine-county region are living in poverty. These are our neighbors. Our friends. These could easily be portraits of you or me…
Pete Seeger died Monday. He was a great songwriter, musician and fighter for social justice, and a great example of a life of integrity.
He sang songs in support of the labor union movement in the 1940s. During the 1950s,, he was blacklisted for his Communist sympathies and nearly went to prison for contempt of Congress after refusing to answer questions by the House Un-American Activities Committee, but made a comeback in the 1960s.
I think his illusions about Communism and the Soviet Union were a serious thing to have been mistaken about, but they matter less than his great songs and his example of courage in standing up for what he thought was right.
The Flying Squirrel Community Space played host to investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill's Oscar-nominated documentary "Dirty Wars" on February 18 2014. The film chronicles the USA's expanding covert and proxy wars in the Mideast, Asia and Africa. While not explicitly mentioned in the film, the US engages in similar activities in Central and South America. The free screening was sponsored by Rochester Against War. About 40 people were in attendance. It was not the first time the film was shown in Rochester. The Cinema theater hosted it during its theatr
Submitted by Martha Laties, Chair of Monroe Citizens for Public Education and Religious Liberty(MCPEARL) on Sun, 2014-02-09 23:09
In January, an article in the Westchester Journal News reported that a set of very rich men have so far allocated more than $4.7 million dollars to promote S4099A, the Education Investment Incentives Act, a N.Y. Senate tuition tax credit bill.
Submitted by Dr. Grania Marcus on Sat, 2014-02-08 15:06
On January 8, 2014, Dr. Grania Marcus, who has spent more than 30 years involved with immigration issues in Florida, upstate New York, on the US-Mexico Border and in New York City, discussed US immigration history, the spread of border enforcement throughout the country and what we can do to help end the deportations and family separations that US immigration policy promotes. This was taped at the Downtown United Presbyterian Church in Rochester, NY at a meeting of the Rochester Committee on Latin America.
Submitted by T. Forsyth / video: Susan Galloway / Enough Is Enough on Sat, 2014-02-08 11:44
On Feb. 4, 2014, Dwayne Ivery and his attorney Charles F. Burkwit are announced the filing of a federal civil rights lawsuit against Rochester Police Department officers Alexander C. Baldauf and Rickey J. Harris, JR., former RPD police chief James Sheppard and the City of Rochester for excessive use of force. Enough Is Enough, an anti- police brutality organization, hosted the press conference in solidarity with Mr. Ivery.
These are the documents from the State making criminal allegations against Dwayne Ivery. Ivery relucatantly took a six month ACD to settle the criminal charges. This does not impact his federal civil rights lawsuit in any way.
Dwayne Ivery's federal civil rights lawsuit against Rochester Police Department officers Alexander C. Baldauf, Ricky J. Harris, JR., former chief of police James M. Sheppard, and the City of Rochester.
The City of Rochester Bureau of Planning and Zoning is in the process of updating Center City Master Plan. From the City’s website, “The intent is for this document to be a strategic plan [to] help the city measure and celebrate downtown progress, prioritize further research and analysis, prioritize projects, and help secure funding.”
A draft plan can be viewed online , and in a series of open houses the City is now gathering public input on that draft. The last open house is this Wednesday evening (details at the end of this story). [Ed.-This article is a little out of date, but still interesting.]
I had a chance to catch up with Jason Haremza, senior planner with the City of Rochester, to ask a few questions about the update…
We were in greater danger from nuclear weapons than we thought during the Cold War era, and that danger still exists.
That is what I learned from reading COMMAND AND CONTROL: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schosser, a history of nuclear weapons technology from World War Two to the present.
The danger was not so much that the USA or USSR would intentionally start a nuclear war. Deterrence did work. The danger was an accidentak discharge or launch of a nuclear missile. As Eric Schlosser documented, this nearly happened literally hundreds of times. Evidently nobody knows the actual number because the U.S. government doesn’t keep a list.
Even Robert Peurifoy of Sandia Laboratories, the leading advocate of safer nuclear technology within the government, didn’t know of all of them.
I’m adopted. I was born in South Korea and abandoned as a baby. On my official adoption paperwork, they wrote that I was a “foundling,” which means I was neither abandoned by family or taken from my family. I was left somewhere and luckily, found by someone who took me to an orphanage. It’s kind of interesting to be a “foundling,” but I’ll save the birth story thing for another post.
On January 12, 2014, I gave a talk at the Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester, NY, about “Islamophobia: the New Racism.”
Since I am a filmmaker, I like to add an audio-visual dimension to everything I do, so I started with a Ted Talk by Melissa Boigon and then proceeded to focus on certain aspects of Islamophobia and explore how they fit the definition of racism.
Melissa’s 10-minute talk is a great way to break the ice and get into the meaning and nature of Islamophobia:
![13 Rochesterians [PHOTOS BY: Arlene Hodge]](http://www.rochestersubway.com/images/photos/13-homeless-rochesterians.jpg)
![Rochester Center City [PHOTO: RocPx.com]](http://www.rochestersubway.com/images/photos/rochester-center-city-master-plan-01.jpg)
