Local Video Activist Arrested after RPD Officer claims Harassment
[April 4, 2004] David Vara, a.k.a. Davy V., a local video producer whose work includes RPD Exposed and Badges of Dishonor, was arrested after being charged with aggravated harassment on March 26. Rochester Police Officer Thomas Rodriguez filed the charge, after he received Vara's latest video in the mail. The video was mailed six weeks ago to the Patrol Section Office in which Rodriguez works. Currently Vara is out on $350 bail and will appear in city court Tuesday April 6th at 9:30am.
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Mayor Johnson Fields Concerns on Budget
[April 4, 2004] With six weeks to go until the Rochester city budget is due in Albany, Mayor William Johnson Jr. is holding a series of public forums to field feedback from city residents on this year’s budget process. The first of these forums was held Monday, March 29, at the Edgerton Community center in northwest Rochester.
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Comedian Al Franken: "George Bush is Going Down"
If the crowd present to hear comedian Al Franken at the Rochester Convention Center Sunday night has anything to say about it, President George W. Bush “is going down” to defeat in November.
“After 9/11, this country was the most united I have ever seen in my life,” Franken said. “The president had the opportunity to lead the country into a new American Century. He blew it. He hijacked 9/11 for his own political purposes and that’s why he is going down.”
Close to a thousand people cheered and clapped enthusiastically at those words, and the audience gave him a standing ovation when he concluded.
Ralph Nader Challenges Rochester to Build a Civic Society that combats Corporate Control
[March 25,2004] While most of Ralph Nader’s recent notoriety is focused around his 2004 independent campaign for the presidency, his talk at the University of Rochester Wednesday evening dealt primarily with the need for continued work in the field of consumer empowerment and stemming corporate crime. In fact, Nader only addressed his candidacy when members of the audience and press specifically asked questions about it. Nader was invited by the Outside Speakers Committee of the University of Rochester, and spoke to a packed audience of students, faculty and community members at Strong Auditorium. Underlying his entire discussion, including his challenge to the two party “duopoly” of American electoral politics, is a prophetic cry for a civic society that combats the model of “Growing up corporate."
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WNY Peace Activists Join with Millions around the Globe to Say No to US Occupation
[March 21, 2004] More than 300 people braved intermittent downpours and icy cold temperatures in Buffalo Saturday to join millions of others around the globe to protest the Iraq War and occupation.
The rally began at Lafayette Square -- directly across the street from the recruiting offices for all four branches of the U.S military. Led by a banner declaring "End the Occupations -- from Iraq to Haiti to Palestine -- Bring the Troops Home Now!" and carrying signs saying "Support U.S. Troops: Bring 'Em Home!", "Bush: the American Terrorist," "Power to the People," and "Halliburton and Bechtel Get Rich, Our Loved Ones Die," the protesters marched through pouring rain to the Erie County Sheriff's Holding Center, past F.B.I. Headquarters and the Immigration and Naturalization Service offices to the Federal Building.
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Rally to Free Ansar Mahmood
(3/14) Approximately 60 Activists gathered in Batavia yesterday to demand the release on Ansar Mahmood. Activists from Rochester joined others from New York City, Hudson Valley, Albany and Batavia. Check out the
Report on the Free Ansar Rally (with photos).
(3/12) Activists will hold a rally this Saturday to demand freedom for Ansar Mahmood, who has been detained for over two years now at the INS Detention Center in Batavia. Ansar was originally detained after he asked a security guard to take snapshots of him on top of a hill to send to his relatives back in Pakistan. The guards called the police, accusing him of terrorist activity because the hill happened to overlook a water treatment plant. Although the authorities found no connection to terrorism, Ansar has been detained ever since for "harboring an illegal immigrant" because he allegedly assisted a Pakistani couple with an expired visa find an apartment (background).
Public Forum: Media Consolidation Threatens Democracy
[March 10, 2004] The concentration of media ownership by an increasingly smaller number of global corporate conglomerates poses a threat to democracy, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter told a standing-room only audience at a Town Meeting on Media Ownership and the Pubic Airwaves held at St. John Fisher College Monday March 8.
Federal Communications Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein -- one of the two commissioners who opposed the ownership rules changes passed by the FCC last June -- agreed, noting that the major corporate media have done very little to make the public aware of the issues that these changes have raised.
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What you can do about Media Consolidation
Activists Force Edwards to Address AIDS Crisis
Rochester activists were pleased and very surprised when John Edwards addressed the global AIDS crisis in the opening moments of his speech here Sunday.
Members of the Student Global AIDS Campaign have been Bird Dogging Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards as he travels around the country, trying to get him to include the global AIDS crisis in his speeches. However, Edwards has, for the most part, avoided talking about the issue in depth.
A group of Rochesterians who had been following the student global AIDS campaign, decided to take action when they heard Edwards was coming to the area.
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RIT student returns from Baghdad with a call to action
RIT student Khury Peterson-Smith visited Baghdad over winter break. Now he is back to share with audiences some disturbing observations. "Let Iraqis run their own country," was the theme of his well-attended lecture on Jan. 28 at RIT.
Khury, pronounced ka-REE, emphasis being on the second syllable, is a 21-year old veteran of political activism. Outspoken against the war last winter Khury has made numerous speeches at anti-war rallies and other political events.
Tonight he told of the devastating socioeconomic and ideological toll the war/occupation has taken on average Iraqis.
"You hear of soldiers pointing guns at children, soldiers flipping the middle finger at crowds of Iraqi villagers who had assembled roadside to witness the parade of American tanks through their town. The students tell us about the cocky US soldiers sauntering through Baghdad University campus, with machine guns cocked to intimidating affect."
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Audio of Khury's Speech at RIT and interview with Traprock Peace Ctr
AIDS Activists Target Phamaceutical Greed
This weekend local AIDS/public health activists will hold organizing meetings to build the movement challenging the pharmaceutical industry's power to make enormous profits at the expense of deteriorating world public health conditions and human rights. Local efforts will be led by community activists, people living with HIV, college and medical students.
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