community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
community-based, non-corporate, participatory media
Rustbelt Radio for September 18, 2006
by Indymedia Rustbelt Radio collective
Monday, Sep. 18, 2006 at 10:24 PM
radio@indypgh.org (email address validated) 412-923-3000 WRCT 88.3 FM
On this week's show... * A local woman is violently threatened by police * Updates on the political situation in Bolivia * Rustbelt Radio talks with Kathy Hall Martinez the co-executive director of Stop Prisoner Rape about the issue of sexual assault in U.S. prisons * we'll hear the founders of a new recycled-oil biodiesel manufacturing facility in New York discuss biodiesel's potential as a clean energy source * and more in our local and global headlines
audio link: 
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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.
On today's show...
Rustbelt Radio airs live every Monday from 6-7 PM and again Tuesday morning from 9-10 AM on WRCT 88.3FM from the Carnegie Mellon campus in Pittsburgh, PA. We're also on Pacifica affiliate WVJW Benwood, 94.1 FM in the Wheeling, West Virginia area, at a new time: Thursdays from 6-7 PM. And we're on at a new time on WPTS, 92.1FM from the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, Saturday mornings from 9-10 AM.
We're also available on the internet, both on WRCT'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.
We turn now to local headlines.
On Thursday the Pittsburgh Courier reported on a local woman’s story of being harassed by a Pittsburgh Police officer. On August 26th Pamela Lawton of the Hill District said she was driving through Shadyside with her two daughters and two other children when she was abruptly pulled over. According to Lawton, for the next 20 or 30 minutes Pittsburgh Police officer Eric Tatusko stood by the passenger side of the car, where Ms. Lawton’s young daughter was sitting, with his drawn weapon ordering Lawton to keep her hands up.
In a prepared statement, she wrote quote “The children were in the car screaming and crying...My hands were still in the air and I was screaming ‘Help, someone help!’ over and over again.”
Florence Williams, a resident at the Kitley House Senior Center on Kentucky Street, said she didn’t see what happened, but she heard the cries for help. Williams said. “I don’t know what the cop was doing because he was on the other side, but she had her arms out the door and she was hollering ‘Please, somebody help me.’”
A witness at the scene said Tatusko kept his gun drawn at the passenger side window until more officers came to the scene and told him to drop the weapon. “When I turned the corner, there were 10 police cars and (Lawton) was in the middle,” said Rick Hill, an employee of Shadyside Nursing Rehab on Kentucky Avenue. “I heard her hollering for help and she had her hands out the window and everything. The cop already had his gun, not on her, but on the other side. When I looked in there she had kids. One cop said ‘If the kids move again, we will shoot.’” In the end Lawton was cited for an insurance violation. She was fined and her car was towed. No one from the Pittsburgh Police has been available for comment.
On August 24, the Food and Drug Administration made the emergency contraceptive Plan B available without prescription to women 18 years of age and older.
To find out more about the effects of this legislation on movements for reproductive justice, Vani from Rustbelt spoke with Ericka Fricke from Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania.
When asked about the availability of Plan B to teens under the age of 18, who would still need a prescription to access it, here's what Ericka Fricke had to say:
Though some college and university health centers like Wellesley College have begun to offer it for $5 a dose, Plan B's cost normally ranges between $25 and $40 a dose. Ericka talked about some efforts to make Plan B more affordable to women.
Here's some advice for women planning to use Plan B:
Finally, Ericka shared some thoughts on the movement for reproductive rights in the US and in Pennsylvania and the significance of Plan B to these struggles.
Stay tuned to future Rustbelt Radio broadcasts for updates on reproductive health and reproductive justice news.
President Bush has nominated federal court Judge Thomas Hardiman to a lifetime position on the U.S. Third Circuit court of appeals which oversees cases from Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and the Virgin Islands. The Pittsbugh Tribune-Review notes that “Hardiman is the youngest district judge in Pittsburgh and has the least amount of experience” though he does have the support of Senators Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter as well as a long connection to local Republican politics including serving as co-chairman of Jim Roddey's 2003 re-election campaign. Former U.S. District Judge Robert Cindrich says of the appeals court [quote] “The issues are bigger... they're setting the law or the interpretation of the law.”
Hardiman's nomination continues the Bush administration's practice of filling vacancies with young judges, hoping for the judge to set legal precedent for as long as possible, even long after this administration has left office. When Judge Hardiman was nominated to the federal court in 2003, Senator Santorum advised him to skip an interview with the Allegheny County Bar Association-a local organization of judges and lawyers that rates nominees for regional appointments, and which had never been bypassed before. The ACBA still submitted a rating noting that Judge Hardiman was “not recommended at this time.”
For more on local news, you can visit pittsburgh dot I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot org.
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You are listening to Rustbelt 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.
Four Iraq War veterans and one member of Chicago Students for a Democratic Society were arrested at the Pentagon on September 9th after they attended an open house and left behind flyers providing information about the lethal effects of depleted uranium. Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the enriching of natural uranium that is being used in ammunition and armor in Iraq.
The arrestees were charged with "posting materials" and "disobeying a lawful order." One of the vets had placed an informational card about depleted uranium on a literature table in the Pentagon's chapel, which is at the site of the 9-11 plane crash. The other literature on the table included camouflage-covered copies of the New Testament and brochures about being a Christian in the military. The five were part of a larger group of veterans and activists attending a month-long peace encampment on the National Mall called "Camp Democracy."
Last Monday the arrestees, joined by members of Veterans for Peace and Gold Star Families for Peace, held a press conference at Camp Democracy.
Army Col. Ann Wright, who resigned from the military in protest of the Iraq War, described a similar encounter with the military's attack on free speech.
For the past two weeks, vets, military families and other peace activists have maintained a highly visible presence near the Capitol Building as part of Camp Democracy, which is also the setting for daily workshops, trainings, concerts, and screenings around a gamut of peace and justice issues. Camp Democracy is expected to continue until at least October 1st.
With widespread grassroots support Evo Morales became the first indigenous president of Bolivia in January 2006. His campaign promises included nationalizing the country's rich gas reserves and rewriting the nation's constitution. Much to the chagrin of transnational corporations, Morales partially nationalized the gas on May 1. On August 6th, 255 recently-elected assembly members congregated as the Constituent Assembly to rewrite the Constitution. The assembly has one year to draft and agree upon a social pact aimed at establishing a more egalitarian and just society in a country where two-thirds of the population has indigenous ancestry, but has always been treated by the ruling elite as second class.
Zulema Oviedo a student and media activist in Sucre discusses the significance of the constitutent assembly.
Many Bolivians view the constituent assembly as an opportunity to "create a new Bolivia." For supporters of Morales's party MAS, this means a country free of neoliberalism, and the economic policies of privatization, deregulation and free trade mandated by financial institutions such as the World Bank and IMF. During the past two decades, Bolivia was pressured into selling off all of the nation's key assets to foreign investors, who have failed to generate the prosperity and employment they promised the sales would bring.
Now Bolivians are clamouring for an alternative economic model based on cooperation, fair trade, and support for small producers rather than more corporate-led globalization. Many are hopeful that the new constitution will codify not just political rights, but also economic rights guaranteeing all citizens the right to land, clean water, healthcare, housing, education and dignified livelihoods as well.
These high expectations for the constituent assembly may very well crash into the hard right's steadfast defense of the status quo and threaten to unleash a new round of instability. The country is already deeply divided. Four of the country's nine districts voted recently to require the assembly to draft a proposal for autonomy which will grant these natural resource-rich regions in the eastern part of the country greater control and limit the national government's involvement in what they view as "local matters."
A number of political experts, such as Jubenal Quispe (prounounced Who-Bey-Nal Key-spay), professor at the Catholic University in Cochabamba, have noted that the constituent assembly is really just the beginning of a comprehensive, long-term process to decolonize a society that has been controlled by outside forces since the arrival of the Spanish colonists in the 15th century. "We can change the laws, but until we transform ourselves and emerge as new political subjects of a pluri-cultural society, nothing will change," said Quispe.
Lifelong Bolivian human rights activist Anna Laura Duran adds, "After 500 years of colonization, in which indigenous people were thrown aside and not even allowed to enter the plazas of the towns they live in, and [where] we were told that only white, educated people could govern, Bolivian society needs to go through a process of transforming discriminatory beliefs and practices. We have to show that indigenous people can govern so that we can truly live as equals... It will be a long process, [and] it will be uniquely Bolivian..."
Most of this story is excerpted from an article that was originally published in upsidedownworld. org, a website uncovering activism and politics in Latin America.
The International Middle East Media Center will now bring us this week's news from Palestine:
You can read more independent global news stories by visting indymedia: I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot O-R-G.
You're listening to Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news from the grassroots.
“When photos of the United States military personnel sexually abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners hit the newsstands in April 2004, the American public was appalled. In testimony before Congress, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld described what happened at Abu Ghraib as ‘fundamentally un-American” Sadly, Mr. Rumsfeld was wrong.”
That was the introduction to “In the Shadows: Sexual Violence in U.S. detention facilities” a report conducted by Stop Prisoner Rape, an advocacy group based in Los Angeles. Stop Prisoner Rape focuses on what is believed to be the widespread problem of sexual assault in American prisons.
The sexual assault of prisoners is not only physically and psychologically traumatic for victims, it can also be life threatening. A recent New York Times article suggested that in America, the HIV virus is spread five times faster in prisons than it is in the outside world.
Rustbelt Radio spoke with Kathy Hall Martinez, the co-executive director of Stop Prisoner Rape about the organization and about the issue of sexual assault in the American prison system.
One barrier that Stop Prisoner Rape works to combat is the tacit if not explicit public perception that prisoner rape is not a priority because prisoners have committed serious crimes which somehow make them deserving of degrading treatment:
Many of the reasons prisoner rape continues to be such a problem are systemic and almost inherently a part of the contemporary conditions in American prisons. Hall Martinez explains some of the issues that contribute to high instances of prisoner rape:
There is a legal framework both in the constitution and on the statutes put in place to protect prisoners from sexual assault, but it is oftentimes difficult for prisoners to actually benefit from these supposed protections:
As difficult as it is to do advocacy for prisoners in standard American prisons, the existence of special “detention centers” for immigrants facing deportation or for terror suspects threatens to make the work of groups like Stop Prisoner Rape even harder:
The possibility of the privatization of certain prisons also promises to bring challenges similar to the ones involving “detention centers” in which it is difficult or impossible for advocacy groups to really know what is going on.
You have been listening to Kathy Hall Martinez speaking on behalf of the organization Stop Prisoner Rape. For more information about their work, log on to www.spr.org.
Biodiesel is a liquid fuel made from vegetable oils or animal fats that can be used equivalently with petrochemically derived diesel. Last Friday, September 15th, Brent Baker and Chris Frank , CEO and CTO of the New York-based company Tristate Biofuels, spoke in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University about their new venture to create a biodiesel generation facility in Brooklyn. Their factory will eventually produce 5 million gallons of biodiesel per year. Currently, most industrial biodiesel production facilities use virgin vegetable oil produced directly from a single seed source, such as crushed soybeans or mustard seeds. Brent describes how their plant will be different:
Brent listed the environmental benefits of biodiesel:
Brent quoted figures from the EPA, the U.S. department of Energy, and the National Renawable Energy Laboratories showing that all other major categories of pollutants are greatly reduced as well, except for Nitrous oxides. Initial lab tests showed an increase in nitrous oxide emissions with biodiesel, but new real-world tests now show a slight decrease. Tristate Biofuels intends to try to bring this reduction in toxic emissions to communities where it’s needed most:
Brent also described the economic benefits of biodiesel:
He maintains their project is particularly relevant for urban areas in today’s economy:
The biodiesel industry has grown rapidly in the last 15 years. Before 2000, biodiesel was used almost exclusively in experimental settings; Brent describes how it went mainstream:
Biodiesel production also opens up the possibility of a very different economic structure for the fuel industry than today’s market controlled by a small handful of wealthy oil cartels and multinational corporations.
Many issues will need to be addressed as biodiesel production grows. The use of biodiesel in personal vehicles is today limited by the predominance of gasoline engines, and a lack of widespread retail availability. Biodiesel production today can only meet a tiny fraction of the United States’ total diesel usage, and diesel is only 1/3 of our total petroleum consumption. To produce biodiesel anywhere near the scale of current energy demands, a much greater supply of feedstock will be required, that recycled oils alone cannot meet. Some fear that cultivation of oil crops would compete with cultivation of food crops. Some of this demand might be met by using a diversity of different plant sources appropriate to various regions of the world.
He addressed the question of food or fuel:
Another potential biodiesel source that shows great promise is algae, some strains of which are composed of up to 50% oil.
For more information about Tristate Biofuels, visit their website at: www.tristatebiodiesel.com.
You're listening to Rust Belt Radio.
And now we present the Indymedia calendar of events:
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Thanks for tuning in to Rustbelt Radio here on WRCT Pittsburgh, WVJW Benwood and WPTS Pittsburgh.
Our hosts this week are Ellen and Jessica with contributions from [ ______ , ______ ]. This week's show was produced by [ ______ ]. 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 Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news from the grassroots.
Rustbelt Radio for September 18, 2005 [ogg vorbis]
by Indymedia Rustbelt Radio collective
Monday, Sep. 18, 2006 at 10:24 PM
radio@indypgh.org 412-923-3000 WRCT 88.3 FM
audio: ogg vorbis at 23.2 mebibytesaudio: ogg vorbis at 23.2 mebibytes
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