media

After 10 years of tactical begging, cajoling, harassing and embarassing DC politicians to pass the Local Community Radio Act, the Prometheus Radio Project took to desperate hip oscillating measures in their quest for community radio. Targetting the National Association of Broadcasters (nab), whose own lobbying efforts upheld the bill's passage, Prometheus and other low power radio extremists took out their hula hoops in protest.

WikiLeaks has struggled to stay online after initiating the slow release of over 250,000 leaked US diplomatic cables on 28th November 2010. The releases, dubbed “Cablegate,” have been carried in newspapers around the world. The four-year-old WikiLeaks organisation has been under constant political attack, especially from the conservative side of politics, whilst its website has been subjected to a series of sophisticated cyber-attacks. Reporters Without Borders condemned this hounding of WikiLeaks.

Spokesperson for WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, was put on Interpol's most wanted list for detention and extradition to Sweden in relation to two allegations of sexual abuse against him which had previously been dropped. The Swedish prosecutor is described as “overzealous” in the mainstream German weekly, Die Zeit. Assange surrendered his passport to British police and offered sureties of £180,000, but a Westminster Court denied his bail application. The courts later reversed this decision, allowing Assange out on £200,000 bail on the condition that he stay at a known residence, observe a curfew, be tagged, and report daily to police.

Do you ever get tired of listening to the barrage of constant male voices on the radio? Sure men dominate everything but isn't is supposed to be “girly” to be in a band and sing? Two local women are doing their best to battle this injustice, every Sunday on Voltaradio.com at 1pm.

an interview with Renee McBride-Williams, interim station manager

What is WPEB?

WPEB stands for West Philadelphia Educational Broadcasting. It's a community radio station and its intention is to educate and to bridge the voices of West Philadelphia, so that we have a clearer understanding of people's specific purpose and help to represent their voice and their concerns. Also, we're open for volunteerism—people to come in and work with one another, and hopefully we can achieve a greater understanding of the place we live in and the people around us.

On the night of July 10th, a few of us from defenestrator hung out at Tattooed Mom's, tossing back beers and making plans for insurrection, like we usually do. It was a good time. When we left the bar around midnight, however, we stumbled onto a  chaotic scene on South Street that dissolved our good spirits. Groups of black youth were walking very quickly westward. There was a lot of shouting. There was almost no car traffic. We saw the rows of cops marching toward us. They were shutting down South Street.

by Pete Tridish

A Ruckus I Couldn’t Miss

I first heard about the Seattle Protests at a Ruckus Society training camp about 6 months before the WTO was scheduled to come to town. Ruckus is a group famous for the dramatic and daring banners they hang from cranes and buildings and towers; they focus on human rights and environmental issues. The speaker there representing the anti-WTO organizers, after making an eloquent case for the connections between all the globalization issues and for a coalition of activists of all stripes, said “We will lie down on the airstrips and stop the delegates planes from landing.  If they get past that, we will block the highways leading from the airport to the city. If they get past that, we will block the hotels they are staying in, we will block the streets, and we will block the doors of the convention center and we will not let them make another another free trade deal that week in Seattle.” How could I not help with such a plan? In that moment I committed to go.

By Hans Bennett

Some things have come out that deserve a plug:

Promissory Notes: from Crisis to Commons

A pamphlet on the crisis by Midnight Notes and Friends

After five hundred years of existence, capitalists are once again announcing to us that their system is in crisis. They are urging everyone to make sacrifices to save its life. We are told that if we do not make these sacrifices, we together face the prospect of a mutual shipwreck. Such threats should be taken seriously. Already in every part of the planet, workers are paying the price of the crisis in retrenchment, mass unemployment, lost pensions, foreclosures, and death."

CALLING ALL DORKS -- spread the word!

Now is your time to SHINE – for the 1st annual WEST PHILADELPHIA SPELLING BEEEeeeeeee.

Join us May 8th for a showdown knockdown that will knock your socks off, while raising money for Philly travel to the kickass Allied Media conference in Detroit, Michigan!

Ice cream bar and alcohol so you can get your drink and sugar on in between rounds.

by Andalusia Knoll

When you tune in the radio dial across this country you will rarely find news that matches the issues and opinions of this here newspaper.  And why is that?  Is it because there aren't enough people reporting on grassroots issues and social justice struggles or is it because the the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and powerful media conglomerates have made it extremely difficult for educational institutions, labor unions, religious groups, and community organizations to have their own radio stations? Restrictive laws that do not allow Low Power FM (LPFM) radio stations to acquire broadcast licenses show that it is the latter.  Our public airwaves have essentially been privatized by large corporations that don't allow diverse programming on the airwaves.  However, there is hope! The Local Community Radio Act (HR 1174), if passed by Congress, should ease these restrictions and allow for hundreds of new non-commercial stations.