original article: http://davyv.blogspot.com/2014/03/east-rochester-ny-cops-and-monroe.html...

Photo by Davy V. Eric Smith's eye after being beaten by East Rochester, NY cops and Monroe County, NY Zone A Sheriff's deputies.

Eric Smith's girlfriend called 911 after her boyfriend passed out on the floor of their East Rochester, NY apartment, and became unresponsive.

 

Getting an early start on St. Patrick's Day festivities, Smith, a Warped music band tour manager who had not drank alcohol for some time, became sick after drinking for several hours.

 

Within minutes of his girlfriend's call to 911, four female EMS technicians arrived.

 

As they were tending to Eric Smith, several East Rochester Police officers, and Monroe County, NY Sheriff's deputies arrived on the scene, and entered Eric Smith's apartment.

 

According to Smith's girlfriend, by that time, Eric Smith was coherent and told the EMS technicians that he did not want to go to the hospital.

original article: http://www.rochestersubway.com/topics/2014/03/rochester-garbage-incinera...

Last week we looked at some photos of the Beebee Station power plant at High Falls. That post drew some comments about another interesting facility nearby which is sometimes confused with Beebee; the City’s old garbage incinerator plant on Falls Street .

Thanks to a group of intrepid urban explorers—Benjamin Colburn , Brandon Davis , Sean Galbraith , Andrew Hiltz , and Tom Maszerowski —we can take a look inside…

The original incinerator plant was built in 1911 by Decarie Incinerator Company of Minneapolis. The photo above shows the older facility which was demolished around 2012. The taller brick building and smoke stack that remain today (shown below) were built in the 1940s.

In an attempt to educate and increase support Workers’ Center of CNY and immigrant workers are traveling throughout NYS speaking about the injustices that the immigrant dairy farmworker are faced with.   NYS dairy farmworkers are facing issues like wage theft, hazardous working conditions, long hour shifts, no days off and substandard living conditions.  José Cañas shared his experiences of being a farmworker and the abhorrent conditions he has had to work and live under.

Check out the Indiegogo page (and the awesome incentives offered!): https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/let-s-build-p-o-w-e-r-a-workers-cente...

original article: http://www.countercurrents.org/ahmed300314.htm

On Tuesday February 18th, I went to Attica to visit Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony L. Bottom or Prisoner #77A4283) along with other activists. This was my first time at a maximum security prison. With its impossibly high walls and multiple turrets, it looked like a castle, albeit an ugly gray one, and I half expected to be intercepted by a moat.

The inside of the prison is coldly institutional, regulated, bland. The visiting room is large, furnished with tables and chairs, and an entire wall of vending machines. The walls are painted with dolphins and miscellaneous underwater scenes. I soon understood why. Many families visit with young children in tow and soon their noisy chatter began to reverberate throughout the carefully reinforced and supervised space we were in.

Jalil joined us after 15-20 minutes. Tall, affable, with a warm smile on his face and a taqiyah (Muslim skullcap) on his head, it was easy to fall into conversation with him. Jalil is interested in everything. He asked Diane about her work as a Rochester city high school teacher and discussed my films with me, including issues related to Islam and feminism and the Partition of India. His charm and lively intelligence make it hard to imagine that he’s spent more than 40 years of his life in prison. He was a young Black Panther when he was arrested in 1971. Since COINTELPRO, a secret FBI program aimed at sabotaging dissent and disrupting movements for self-determination within the US (from the 1950s to the 1970s) has now been exposed for its illegal activities, it’s incredible that political prisoners like Jalil continue to be locked up.

original article: http://rocredandblack.org/struggling-to-win-anarchists-building-popular-...

On February 1st, 2014, the “Struggling to Win: Anarchists Building Popular Power” nationwide speaking tour came to Rochester. The tour was organized by the Black Rose Anarchist Federation and will ultimately stop in 25 cities around the United States. Watch the video of their stop in Rochester here!

original article: http://www.rochestersubway.com/topics/2013/12/new-grocery-store-rumored-...

RocSubway was informed over the weekend by two separate and anonymous sources that a new independent grocer may be coming to downtown Rochester in 2014. Admittedly, this may be unsubstantiated and premature. But these sources have been very reliable in the past. And if true, this would be wildly good news for downtown.

And what the hell, this is a blog, not the Associate Press. I think I have the right to circulate some juicy gossip once in a while…

original article: http://www.freejalil.com/amotherscry.html

original article: http://janitorqueer.com/2014/01/24/bathroom-anxieties-a-genderqueer-janitors-perspective/

I spend a lot of time in both men’s and women’s public restrooms.  Or more accurately, girls’ and boys’ restrooms – I clean toilets, and I work at an elementary school.  There are also a few gender neutral bathrooms, for staff, which is pretty great.  For a tally, there are 3 girls’ gang bathrooms and 3 boys’ gang (That’s really how they are referred to, which totally conjures images of ruffians scribbling graffiti all over the walls and pulling all the toilet paper off the rolls.  Oh, and smoking and fighting and stuff.), 3 gender neutral bathrooms for staff, one women’s room, one men’s room, and 7 bathrooms within classrooms (also gender neutral).

For my first half-hour of work, kids are still in school.  I like to get a head start on some areas I can access before they leave for the day, and gang bathrooms are one of the places I can start.  But only if I’m sure no kids are in there, and they’re not likely to come in. Especially for the boys’, because technically I am female.  This is very serious.

Before I labor over that point, here’s a little back story about my take on which bathroom I personally should be in:  Over the holidays, I got to hang out with two out-of-town friends who are both trans*.  They were both describing dreams they’ve had where they went into an unaccommodating bathroom, like stalls were missing or it was more of an open locker-room vibe.  And they asked my partner and me if we’ve had public restroom anxieties, and we both replied, “No.”  And in that sense, it’s true.  I strongly feel myself to be non-binary and genderqueer (and my sense of self is closer to male than female), yet I really have no questions or reservations about which public restroom to use.  If a gender-neutral or family one is available, I will use that.  Otherwise, I will use the women’s room.  And if people are doing a double take or wondering if I should be there, that’s kinda their problem.  Because it’s the bathroom I feel more comfortable in.  I didn’t always feel this way.  I used to always feel very anxious about the whole endeavor of going into the women’s room.  Honestly, I’m not sure what changed, other than the fact that I’d rather be in there than in the men’s room, and I’d rather feel calm than anxious?