December 5, 2005: Rustbelt Radio
Intro
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...
- We discuss the 1000th execution carried out in the United States this past week
- We review issues facing the Pittsburgh Public Schools and the Superintendent's proposed right-sizing plan
- and we learn about the current scandal in the Allegheny County Sheriff's Office.... but first, these headlines
Headlines
Local News
[1:30] Hill District Reading Center may close
The Board of Directors of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Reading and Cultural Center is appealing the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's decision to end its support of the Hill District educational enrichment facility at the close of the year. The Board is hoping for a show of support from residents, educators and others at a meeting to discuss a proposed consolidation.
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Reading & Educational Center was originally established in 1970 and moved in 1988 to its current location at Herron Avenue and Milwaukee Street.
The reading center offers an extensive collection of African-American literature, both fiction and non-fiction. It has been a safe haven for young people and other residents, and has provided reference and resource materials for school work and personal research.
The Carnegie Library plans to build a new library in the Middle Hill District, but has yet to determine a date for ground breaking at a location still to be determined. The MLK board has announced a meeting with Carnegie Library director Barbara K. Mistick on Dec. 15 at the Main Branch in Oakland.
In a letter to the MLK board, Ms. Mistick cites the Hill District as the only service area with two locations and both locations under-perform in comparison to other areas. In 2004, circulation at the Reading Center was the lowest system-wide with a steady-decline over the past few years. The near-by Hill District branch on Centre Avenue has also experienced a similar decline in circulation.
The board hopes Carnegie Library will reconsider its decision to cease support and keep the doors open until the proposed new library opens its doors. Concerned citizens worry that the uncertainties surrounding the exact location of the new library and the date of groundbreaking will leave them with a lack of services.
A life-long resident of the Hill District, Betty Jean Williams is the president of the Friends Organization that supports the MLK Reading & Cultural Center. She remarked: “What really concerns me is that they always come into our neighborhood and take away, when this is where you really need to be.”
If CLP does not reverse its decision, it intends to remove all books, computers, and furniture and to no longer staff the center as well as cease to fund maintenance costs of the center.
[1:00] Ohio Grocery store employees authorize strike
Negotiators representing employees at the five largest grocery-store chains in Ohio have a new hand to play heading into meetings with store representatives after workers overwhelmingly pledged to strike last week. Though union leaders stated they would prefer not to strike, the authorization, passed by more than 93 percent of those who voted, provides just that power should talks falter.
In a statement sent to The New Standard, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 880 emphasized that they expect to work through the issues peacefully. The statement echoes comments made to the Cleveland Plain Dealer last week by officials with the five stores, Tops Markets, Giant Eagle, Heinen’s, F.W. Albrecht and Fishers Foods.
The two sides have been in negotiations since August and have been operating under the terms of the previous contract, which expired in September. Terms and issues involved in the discussions are under a mutually agreed-upon media blackout, but both the Plain Dealer and Associated Press report that health care, wages and pensions are at stake. The media blackout came at the suggestion of a federal mediator, Local 880 spokesperson Mark A. Rock told TNS.
Last Tuesday’s vote involved around 4,000 of the 13,000 unionized workers at the five chains and took place at a closed meeting. Rock said the percentages released by the union, 93.3 percent for and 6.7 percent against, represent an amalgamated count of the vote for three separate contracts.
Thanks to The New Standard for that story.
[3:10] Paul Rusesabagina / "Hotel Rwanda"
Last week hundreds of people in Pittsburgh heard from a real-life hero from the Rwandan genocide. Rustbelt Radio brings you the story.
[1:00] Abortion clinic pickets
Anti-abortion picketters are a familiar sight outside of Planned Parenthood centers across the country. The pickets in Pittsburgh have grown increasingly agressive recently, however. This coincides with the decision of the cash-strapped Pittsburgh police department to stop regular police patrols which were stationed at the Planned Parenthood clinics Downtown and in East Liberty. Last week there was an altercation between picketters. Kim Evert of Planned Parenthood told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette [quote] "What it is is pushing and shoving. A lot of times what the protesters will do is move in very close to people, want to give them literature, crowd them and, particularly for protective parents, the reaction is to push them away. We've had times when somebody's punched somebody."
The Pittsburgh city council is considering legislation to calm the violence. A newly proposed law would require the anti-abortionists to keep their pickets 15 feet from any clinic entrance, and to keep 8 feet away from anyone near a clinic who asks the picketters to back off.
[0:25] 9th St Bridge might be named after Rachel Carson
The Pittsburgh City Council will consider naming the 9th Street Bridge after the famous environmentalist Rachel Carson this Tuesday. Rachel Carson grew up in western Pennsylvania and attended Chatham College in Pittsburgh. Her 1962 book
Silent Spring helped to launch the modern environmental movement. City council members seem supportive of the idea, which could become an early commemeration of the 100th anniversary of Rachael Carson's birth in 1907.
[1:00] Scandal in Allegheny Sheriff's Office
The first of three deputies of the Allegheny County Sheriff
charged in a corruption investigation may be facing an even
longer prison sentence. Last week prosecutors argued to increase
the sentence for former sheriff's captain Frank
Schiralli to about three years of jail time.
Schiralli was convicted of purjury in September for lying
to a grand jury when he said he didn't keep lists of deputies
who donated to Sheriff Pete
DeFazio?'s election campaign.
The grand jury was convened to investigate illegal campaign
activity in DeFazio's office. Though Schiralli faces a jail sentence,
he is now receiving a $42,000 annual retirement pension from the county.
In May a Lieutennant commander of
DeFazio? was also indicted for lying to
the grand jury. And two weeks ago the grand jury indicted DeFazio's
number two man, Dennis Skosnik, on twelve felony charges including
fraud, bribery, money laundering, and tampering with a witness.
Later in this show, Bad Cop No Donut will give us an update on the
Skosnik case.
Wrapup
For more on local news, you can visit pittsburgh dot I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot org.
[ HMB BREAK RUSTBELT - 0:20 (fades down 0:10 in to start global intro) ]
Global News
Intro
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 news from other independent media sources around the world.
[1:45] FGM practitioners in Ivory Coast publicly denounce female circumcision
Thirty practitioners of female circumcision in the Ivory Coast’s financial capital, Abidjan, have publicly laid aside their blades, knives and scissors. This is the result of an ongoing campaign in the West African country to eradicate the practice, estimated by UNICEF to affect 40 percent of women living there.
The campaign, underway for a decade now, is led by the National Organisation for the Child, the Woman and the Family , or ONEF, a non-governmental group.
The decision by the 30 women to renounce their trade during a ceremony in Abidjan earlier in November marked the first instance in which ONEF had managed to convince some of the 75 identified circumcisors working in Abidjan to quit the profession. They had been circumcising girls and women despite the fact that circumcision, also known as female genital mutilation, or FGM was banned by a 1998 law.
A study by ONEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that circumcision is on the rise in western Ivory Coast. Seventy percent of girls and women in this region had undergone FGM in 1995, a figure that has now increased to 80 percent.
Although it was once restricted to villages and remote locations, FGM has since developed into an urban phenomenon as well; men have become involved in the practice, and different excision techniques have evolved.
UNICEF says FGM in the Ivory Coast is most often carried out on teenagers before they get married -- although girls as young as five may also undergo the procedure. The agency also estimates that 13,000 new circumcisions are carried out annually. According to a representative of the WHO's Abidjan office, 130 million girls and women in Africa have undergone some form of genital mutilation.
The 30 circumcisors who abandoned their profession say they realise they have done wrong to those around them, as well as themselves.
ONEF says it has made funds available so that loans can be extended to the former circumcisors, enabling them to embark on other revenue-generating activities. Each has received about 130 dollars, under flexible terms of repayment.
[2:10] South Central farmer update
Last week, Rustbelt Radio reported on the South Central Los Angeles Farmers who are fighting to save their 14 acre urban farm. The City of Los Angeles, who owned the land, sold it in a secretive backroom meeting to Ralph Horowitz, who now plans to destroy the 13 year old farm and build a warehouse in its place.
The South Central Farmers are building momentum in their campaign against the city of Los Angeles, and against Horowitz's real estate company. This past Wednesday November 30th, activists in Boston conducted an action in solidarity with the farmers. Students and activists confronted the newly elected LA Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, as he addressed the national New Mayors Conference at Harvard University.
As the mayor addressed the crowd, one student stood up and demanded to know what he would do to help save the farm. Villaraigosa appeared surprised that the struggle had followed him all the way to the East Coast.
He replied, "the South Central Farm really is a jewel, and I want to see what we can do to save it." The mayor's staff also echoed his statements about saving the farm.
Friday in Los Angeles, 50 protesters from various organizations gathered outside Ralph Horowitz's office in Beverly Hills. Representatives from the group tried to meet with Horowitz, but were told that he was not in the office. LA Indymedia brings us more from the rally:
[1:00] Rampant abuse of women in Guatemala
Hundreds of people marched through the streets of Guatemala City on Nov. 25 to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, painting X’s on judicial buildings and security agencies to protest the failure to protect women and bring the perpetrators to justice.
According to human rights prosecutor Sergio Morales, an average of 14 or 15 murders a day are committed in Guatemala; he also noted that so far this year 560 women have been slain, and not a single murderer has been convicted.
Guatemala’s homicide rate is among the highest in Latin America.Civil society groups, meanwhile, complain about the justice system’s failure to investigate the murders of women. The report, released by Amnesty International in June, states that the alarming increase in the number of killings of women is compounded by impunity, weak laws, and a firmly entrenched machista or sexist mindset. (IPS)
[2:00] CA Congressman confronted by military family member
Bill Mitchell, father of a soldier slain in Iraq, confronted California
House Representative William Thomas last week at the annual Military
Academy showcase of military college careers. Along with Code
Pink and other constituents, he denounced Thomas's refusal to meet with
him to discuss the cost of the war on his family.
San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia spoke to Mitchell at the event.
Congressman Thomas managed to avoid the anti-war group upon entering. During the event, an Iraq Veteran Against the War stood and shouted "Stop the War Now!" The demonstrators were quickly removed from the building.
Wrapup
You can read more independent global news stories by visting indymedia: I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot O-R-G.
[ Musical Break? ]
Bad Cop No Donut
On this week's Bad Cop No Donut, Ron Anicich brings us an update on the corruption case of Allegheny County Chief Deputy Dennis Skosnik, and this week's taser news.
Features
Intro
Welcome back to Rust Belt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news from the grassroots.
[10:00] 1000th death penalty execution in the US
On December 2nd, 2005, at 2 AM, Kenneth Boyd, a prisoner in North Carolina, became the 1000th person to be executed, since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.
Since that year, 122 people have been exonerated from death row, after their innocence has been proven. That means, for every 8 prisoners killed by the state, one has been exonerated. In some cases, proof of wrongful conviction does not occur until after nearly 20 years spent in jail. Citing these statistics, death-penalty opponents ask the questions: how many other innocent people are in jail; are waiting on death row; or have already been executed by the state. Opponents of the death penalty maintain that it is a system which will always be subject to human error, and it should never be allowed to exist in the US or any other part of the world.
Prior to the 1000th execution, protests and actions were held across the country in order to prevent the killing and draw attention to the flaws of the criminal justice system. These flaws include the racial and class bias of death penalty sentencing.
Members of PA-Abolitionists United Against the Death Penalty, Amnesty International, and other community members held a rally last Monday November 28th, in downtown Pittsburgh to support the abolition of state sponsored killing. Ray Crone, a citizen of Pennsylvania, is the 100th exoneree from death row. He spoke to Rustbelt Radio about his thoughts on the death penalty.
The 1005th (one thousand fifth) execution is scheduled to occur Thursday December 8th in Pennsylvania. The prisoner is a man named Leroy Fears. If this execution is carried out, Fears will be the 4th prisoner in Pennsylvania killed since 1976. Meanwhile, since 1986, seven innocent people have been discovered on death row in Pennsylvania. According to the Central Pennsylvanians Against the Death Penalty website: in this state, 69% of those sentenced to death are minorities. This rate of minorities on death row is second only to Loiusiana, which has the highest rate in the country. Pennsylvania’s rate of minorities on death row is nearly 15 percentage points higher than the national average.
In March, 2003, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Criminal Justice System published a report that recommended a moratorium on executions. The committee, which was composed of prosecutors, defense attorneys, a judge, a police officer, and an investigator, raised concerns about bias against minorities and the poor in its report. The governor and legislature have yet to act on this recommendation.
Grassroots activists are organizing around this issue statewide. The prison program coordinator for the NAACP is a local woman by the name of Adrienne Young. Ms. Young works on providing support for death row inmates, and also the children of murder victims. At the rally in Pittsburgh, she shared her own personal experience with the death penalty.
Working tirelessly since the seventies, death penalty abolition activists have seen progress on this issue. In the state of Pennsylvania, death sentences have dropped. In 1994, state juries dispensed 21 capital convictions, compared to five in 2004. Death sentences have declined in the Commonwealth in four of the last five years.
Nationally, death sentences are down by more than 50% since the late 1990s and executions are down by 40% since 1999.
Despite their inability to prevent the gruesome milestone of 1000 executions, activists against the death penalty continue their work throughout the country, hoping that the United States will join all other western and industrialized nations in abolishing this barbaric practice.
For more information about the death penalty and recent executions, log on to www. 1000executions. org
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You're listening to Rust Belt Radio.
[20:00] School Board
- audio clip (introduces itself)
Ending
[1:00] Calendar of events
And now we present the Indymedia calendar of events:
- On display through December 15th at the Thomas Merton Center is the photo exhibit entitled: " It’s a Matter of Life or Death." The photographs were captured at an October vigil calling for a moratorium on the death penalty in Pennsylvania. The Merton Center is located in Garfield at 5125 Penn Avenue and is open Monday thru Friday from 9-5.
- This Sunday December 11th, the film "Rights on the Line: Vigilantes at the Border will be screened from 3:00 to 4:30 pm at the University of Pittsburgh Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, which is located across the street from the Carnegie Library. This documentary film tells the story of the Minutemen, and the increasing militarization of the U.S. border patrol, from the point of view of those affected. For more info contact 412-371-3607 or peace.seeds @ verizon.net
Outro
[ Outro music ]
Thanks for tuning in to Rust Belt Radio here on WRCT Pittsburgh, WARC Meadville and WVJW Benwood.
Our hosts this week are Carlin Christy and Matt Toups with additional contributions from Andalusia Knoll, Jessica McPherson, Matt Toups and Abie Flaxman. This week's show was produced by Andalusia Knoll. Special thanks to all of our hosts, producers, and contributors.
You can get involved with Rustbelt Radio! To contact us, 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.
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