Brian Avery spoke at the Resource Center for Nonviolence on Sunday, March 15.

Avery arrived in Jenin as a member of the International Solidarity Movement on April 5, 2003. He had been in the West Bank for two and a half months when, after spending six days in Jenin, there were gunshots outside of the apartment where he’d met with two Swedish activists. When the gunfire quieted down the three went out to check the streets. They were about two blocks from the apartment when two armored Israeli vehicles approached the roadside. At thirty meters the vehicle’s occupants opened fire with approximately 230 rounds. The two Swedes were unharmed but Avery was shot through the face.

The bullet entered the upper right side of his nose and blew out the bones of the left side of his nose, cheek and upper jaw. He lost most of his teeth and his left eye was permanently damaged.

Audio: Rockin' the Boat: Brian Avery Talk
>> Brian Avery Interviewed by George of FRSC

comments from Brian Avery: "There were some miscommunications going on in this string, I'd like to clarify that there were not 230 shots fired at myself and Tobias Carlsson but rather 20-30. Also the comments about there being a "fighting zone" at the border when the ambulance was trying to get through is false. There was no combat activity at the time and the detention of the ambulance is standard policy against Palestinian medical crews."

related article: Zionism, Nazism, and Radical Islam

Jeff Perlstein is the Executive Director of Media Alliance in San Francisco, a media resource and advocacy center for journalists, activists, nonprofits, and the community. Jeff initiated campaigns for Press Freedom during Wartime, greater community accountability at Clear Channel station KMEL-FM, and public hearings on the FCC's media ownership rules. He is also co-founder of the website Indymedia.org, which launched during the Seattle WTO protests in 1999 and now links over 120 Independent Media Centers in more than 22 countries.

You can listen to a presentation Jeff gave in Santa Cruz on March 4 titled, "The Real Media Indecency and What You Can Do About It."

Today five corporations control more than 80 percent of what the American people see and hear, down from fifty companies just ten years ago. At the urging of Chairman Michael Powell, the Federal Communications Commission voted last year to make it even easier for these five corporations to gobble up more local outlets.

Along with the opposition of millions of Americans and organizations across the political spectrum, Media Alliance has temporarily stopped the FCC give-away in the courts.

This spring, Chairman Powell is bringing his new FCC Localism Task Force to Monterey.
>> It is time to organize!

The next meeting to prepare for the FCC's visit to Monterey will take place on Tuesday, March 16, at 7:00 PM

Audio: Rockin' the Boat: Jeff Perlstein on Media Reform

* Free Radio Santa Cruz Needs and New Location NOW *

[ Jeff on the IMC and WTO I Clear Channel Stumbles I Day one as Executive Director of Media Alliance I Media Alliance I Writers' Roundtables for Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties ]

Brian Avery of the International Solidarity Movement will be speaking in Santa Cruz on Sunday, March 14, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM at the Resource Center for Nonviolence (515 Broadway at Ocean in Santa Cruz).

On April 5, 2003, Brian Avery was shot in the face by the Israeli Military while wearing a bright red jacket. When he raised himself from the ground, witnesses saw that his left cheek had almost been totally shot off.

Brian was in Jenin as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement. The ISM is a Palestinian-led movement of Palestinian and international activists working to raise awareness of the struggle for Palestinian freedom and an end to the Israeli occupation. ISM utilizes nonviolent, direct action to confront and challenge the illegal Israeli occupation forces and policies.

There will also be a showing of “Dispatches: The Killing Zone.� Filmmakers Sandra Jordan and producer Rodrigo Vasquez reveal the shocking level of daily violence in the Gaza Strip. They arrived in Rafah right after the murder of Rachel Corrie.

Tune in to Free Radio Santa Cruz on Sunday, March 14, at 3:00 PM for a live interview with Brian Avery.

[ Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions I Rabbis for Human Rights I Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories I Gush Shalom I Palestinian Monitor I Middle East Research and Information Project ]

This year, the month of February has an extra day - Leap Day, Sunday the 29th. This unclaimed, extra day allows a window for us to jump out of the runaway train of modern society. Let this day be a blank canvas, which we can transform into anything our hearts and minds desire for the world we most want to live in. Let us tap into our own wild, fearless creativity to turn the everyday grind of war, capitalism and inequality into a new society based on mutual aid, cooperation, freedom and love. In short, let us use Leap Day as a no-holds-barred day of action to break out of the mold we as activists have been stuck in for far too long.

The call for a day of action on Leap Day is completely open-ended, with nothing off-limits in terms of tactics, goals, or strategies. Some of us have already begun planning a party of sorts, which will take place on Leap Day and will feature creative resistance, anarchist fun and games, and much more. And everyone who wishes Santa Cruz and our society as a whole to become greater, fairer, more equal and free is invited. Bring yourself, any costumes, toys, music, art, and anything else that helps you create the new world within the dying shell of this one.

Converge at 1 PM on Sunday (2/29) at San Lorenzo Park

Pirates Reclaim The Streets at Haight & Ashbury On Valentine's Day

[ Background on Reclaim The Streets I RTS, San Francisco I A Modality of Resistance I Organizing Suggestions ]

'Audio mp3 of SCIMC Reporter Bradley reporting on Police abuse to himself and others during FTAA Protests in Miami.\n\n[ Rockin\' the Boat Interview of Local activists at FTAA ]'

Rosa Parks died yesterday at age 92. Over the days to come, we'll hear a lot of very-much deserved prasie for Parks' refusal to abide bigotry and her courage in the service of a cause. Unfortunately, we'll also hear a new round of recitations of the stubborn myth that Parks was an anonymous, apolitical woman who spontaneously refused to yield to authority and in so doing inspired a movement.

The truth, as Aldon Morris wrote in his book The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, is that a decade earlier in the 1940s Mrs. Parks had refused several times to comply with segregation rules on the buses. In the early 1940s Mrs. Parks was ejected from a bus for failing to comply. The very same bus driver who ejected her that time was the one who had her arrested on December 1, 1955...She began serving as secretary for the local NAACP in 1943 and still held that post when arrested in 1955...In the early 1940s Mrs. Parks organized the local NAACP Youth Council...During the 1950s the youth in this organization attempted to borrow books from a white library. They also took rides and sat in the front seats of segregated buses, then returned to the Youth Council to discuss their acts of defiance with Mrs. Parks.

This history is not hidden. But the Times' obituary describes Parks' arrest nonetheless as an event which "turned a very private woman into a reluctant symbol and torchbearer..." Parks was certainly reluctant to see too personal valoration of her as heroine distract from the broader movement. But she was not private about her politics. And her refusal to give up her bus seat was nothing new for her. As she would later tell an interviewer, "My resistance to being mistreated on the buses and anywhere else was just a regular thing with me and not just that day."

Tribute To Rosa on her 89th Birthday
portland.indymedia.org/en/2002/02/7131.shtml

The World Needs More Revolutionaries Like Rosa Parks!
portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/10/327364.shtml

Interview with Ed from Radio Free Petaluma an Unlicensed Microradio station at 95.5fm in California. Free The Air!!

audio: MP3 at 7.6 mebibytes
radio.indymedia.org/uploads/frsc_radio_free_petaluma102505.mp3

Since you weren't invited to the last First Night meeting...

"What are they doing? Why do they come here?" "Some kind of instinct, memory of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives."

Thanks to many of you voting no doubt as well as a growing amount of support in Oregon, Jeff 'Free' Luers won the category of "Best Activist" in the Eugene Weekly's Best of 2005 issue last week.