Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, former Black Panther, We Need Help as Flood Waters Rise

Urgent Breaking News, Another New Orleans on thehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif Horizon?
Talk Nation Radio interview with former Black Panhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifther and Anarchist Activist Lorenzo Komboa Ervin calls out for help to evacuate as floodwater rises.

As of Monday morning May 2nd, both Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin and Jonina Ervin safe at a community shelter. Thanks to all those who expressed concern and helped to get this story out.

UPDATES for transport, evacuation and shelter in Shelby County Tennessee, by FEMA: 1-901-515-2525, Desoto County, 1-901-476-0222. For Tunica County, Mississippi, 1-622-363-4012.

The Mississippi is going to record flood stage, it's going to 50 feet, some 25 feet above flood stage. Americans cry out for help as they don't know where to find help evacuating to shelter.

Shelby Co. residents advised to take flood precautions

Rain forces evacuations in Tennessee. "They don't seem to have it together here at all just like they didn't in New Orleans, so we're asking anyone who has the resources to help us get out of here." -- Mr. Ervin is in White Haven, "This area is on the border with Mississippi. We're only about a mile away from the Mississippi border, and its South West, so if you were the of South Haven or Corn Lake, any of those areas around there, you would be real close to where we are and would be in a position to help us out a great deal. --Ten miles from down town, but we couldn't make it there, that's where the flooding is coming from".


TRT: 12:47
Download at Pacifica's Audioport here or at Radio4all.net and Archive.org
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
1:00 a.m. EDT May 1, 2011 Another New Orleans in Mississhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifppi as flood waters rise?

Download at Pacifica's Audioport here Or at Radio4all.net and Archive.org

Quote from interview: 'The Mississippi is going to 50 feet. Our area is predicted to be one of those areas that are going to be hit. So we are trying to get information from the county authorities who are not telling us anything. We can't get firm information about the danger that's involved here so that we can get out of harms way so we are trying to make some sort of an appeal to get out of this area.

We need transportation badly.Our car is only good enough for traveling around the city its not in that great a shape. We need someone to pick us up and get us out of here. We are in Memphis on the border with Mississippi, we need help, and we are asking people if you know people in the Memphis area or around here that are evacuating or are willing to evacuate us to please contact us. I can give our phone number, 901 907-0290, email is joninaervin@comcast.net. This storm is supposed to start in a few hours we are told. And we have no confidence in the local government, they don't seem to have it together here at all just like they didn't in New Orleans. And we are asking for help, so anyone who is already evacuating and who has the resources to help us get out of here, such as some of my political comrades in the anarchist movement, I'm very much appreciative of any help we can get. But we have to get out of here so I appreciate any help we can get'.

Copy: This is Dori Smith of Talk Nation Radio. We have received an urgent plea for help on our facebook page from residents of Tennessee in danger from raging flood waters.

The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency has released emergency procedures for residents of Tennessee who could be affected by flooding. Yet for most people in the South, there is no clear information as to how they can get help if they have no transportation. No word yet on shelters either, according to activist and former Black Panther Lorenzo Komboa Ervin.

Lorenzo Komboa Ervin is located in Tennessee, where he is now openly calling on the general public to help him. He says they are getting word that they should be considering evacuation but cannot get any information on any help that is available to them.

Again a growing number of residents of Tennessee are being told to consider evacuation. In Dyer County for example, Emergency Management Director James Medling said people west of the airstrip in Finley should consider evacuating the area. More warnings are expected through the night.

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Mother's Day in Japan, a poem

Mother's Day in Japan
April 30, 2011, Dori Smith

Did you hold her hand when the world was cracking and shifting beneath her feet?
When silence came and you thought it was over, did the scream of a siren make her run to you?

Caught up in the energy and power of a whole people fleeing a giant wave, did you reach down to help another mother and infant climb the mountain of stairs to higher ground and safety?

Later, as you steeled your nerves, and when it seemed as if earth and sea had done all they could to you,
did you hear the explosion, see the smoke, cover your mouth and rush your baby to shelter?

Fukushima Daiichi had turned the air into an enemy too,

So the children at the shelter begin weeping and forming a chorus of questions, "What will we do? How will we live, Who will help us, can we see our grandmother again? Where is Daddy? Have we no more food? Have we no more water? Can we ever go back to school?"

It is a powerful distraction, but you draw strength from it, until suddenly the fire department is sending a rescue crew in to try to cool Fukushima, and your husband tells you that he too, "Must go to the ruptured plant to save both of you and Japan,"

Now you cannot stop the tears,

After a series of sleepless nights you allow your daughter's needs to slowly overpower you, and you give her a weakening smile, as the waiting takes on rhythms, and you become a widening family, all trying to explain the strange news, that, "no, you can never go home because of radiation", and no, you cannot "see it" or "taste it" but it is there and it could hurt you",

On April 7th 2011 as you are standing in line for food a strange feeling comes over you and suddenly you know it is AFTERSHOCK, EARTHQUAKE, ANOTHER TSUNAMI WARNING, another scream, another moment of earth threatening gut wrenching terror,

But you both survive,

Exhausted into silence now you absent-mindedly roll the soft baby hair on your daughter's lovely head between your fingers, You gaze at the evening news, take in the information but do not really hear it,

"There is radiation on the farmland, and poison in the spinach and fish",

May 8, 2011, you are still waiting for news of what will happen, but happiness, a taste of joy, as the government says, "You can bring your daughter to the park again"... And you take her by the hand and run to the door, as she is laughing, and you are ignoring the rest of the news report,

Upon arriving at the beautiful park, your familiar friend, you see the sign, "Radiation level is 3.8 microsieverts per hour, all children are restricted to one hour of exposure per day,"

And you flee with her once again in terror,

Back inside again at the shelter now you shudder with fear as the pain and horror in your mind is finally unleashed, and helplessness catches up to you, and you let out a long fracturing yell,

Now another mother clutches your hand to comfort you, and another one comforts her, and so the chain of exhausted Mother’s join breaths and time hearts, as one.

See: Fukushima restricts park use

"Fukushima Prefecture is restricting the use of 5 of its public parks due to high levels of radiation, causing concerns among nearby residents and park visitors. -- The prefecture announced on Monday that it would limit the use of the parks to one hour a day, as radiation readings at the 5 facilities were at or above the safety limit set for outdoor activities in schools.--The safety limit set by the central government last week is 3.8 microsieverts per hour.
In Fukushima city, officials put up notices warning park users about the one-hour restriction at parks subject to the measure. They also covered children's sandboxes with plastic sheeting to prevent the spread of dust.

The prefectural government is urging visitors to prevent their children from putting sand or dirt in their mouths and to wash their hands and gargle after visiting the parks. A mother of a 4-year-old said that since small children love to play outdoors, she's worried about the affects of radiation on her daughter. Monday, April 25, 2011 15:16 +0900 (JST)"

Connecticut Tries to Raise Taxes on Millstone Nuclear, Environmentalists Speak Out against Aging Nuke Plant

Talk Nation Radio for April 28, 2011
Connecticut Tries to Raise Taxes on Millstone Nuchttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giflear

Judi Friedman of PACE, People's Action for Clean Energy
and Nancy Burton of Connecticut Coalition for Clean Energy



TRT: 29:18
Produced by Dori Smith, Storrs, CT
Download at Pacifica's Audioport here or at Radio4all.net and Archive.org

The nuclear industry holds a lot of power, but state legislators in Connecticut think a tax on nuclear power can be part of a push for lower energy rates and more green forms of energy. That was the idea when legislators asked for an additional 2 cents per kilowatt-hour, about 330 million from Millstone nuclear power. But Millstone (Dominion Resources Inc.) went on the offensive with paid ads, robo calls, and radio spots on even NPR. The NPR "underwriting" ads suggest that Millstone has been providing 1100 jobs while providing "emission free" energy to Connecticut. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. April, in fact, marks a month when Millstone has a planned release of radioactive material which will be the highest level release for the year.
Millstone has tried everything to fight the tax increase. They threatened to close the plant, charge ratepayers more, and even lay off workers so that the plant would be operating with fewer staff during shut down.
Despite the events at Fukushima nuclear plant, all of the safety issues that have been associated with Millstone for decades, were ignored by the media. They have helped Millstone, and operator Dominion Resources, frame the debate as just another tax increase on "the public".
In fact, Connecticut has a deeply problematic regulatory system on taxation for energy, and regardless of the economic climate for residents of the state, they are forced to accept high rates. Millstone argues this is due to taxes, in fact, its due to the law that forces the state to price all energy based on what the least cost effective provider is paying for production. They add ten percent to that and apply it across the board. Thus, Millstone charges the same rate that natural gas charges, and another loophole allows the nuclear company to pass along any tax increases to consumers.

ACCIDENTS: A history of terrifying plant failures leave Millstone's Plant 1 in shut down. Their spokesperson tries to claim this is due to the state's decision that it was not "cost effective" but residents remember the days after the crisis at the plant that left everyone wondering who would come in and at least maintain it in permanent shut down..Enter Dominion, though high costs of oil and other forms of energy have given them a golden opportunity to pull in soaring profits.

There have been multiple accidents at the Millstone Nuclear Power plants in Waterford Connecticut over years of operation since the 1970s when the plants were built. These include several hydrogen explosions at Plant 1, which is very similar to the plant in Fukushima that exploded after an earthquake. If anything Millstone's site is more dangerous since the fuel rods are stored directly above the reactor core. Given what is happening in Japan we can see why this was a terrible idea on GE's part when they built the system.

UPDATE: Under pressure due to the widespread media campaign, the Governor offered a "compromise" that would essentially return the problem to the table for the next legislature to deal with. He would have reduced the tax way down to a fraction of a cent per kilowatt hour, but the authors of 1176 stepped in with last minute amendments to correct the situation. Sen. Fonfara and Rep, Nardello begin another courageous challenge to tax Millstone, and free customers of a surcharge imposed on them by the industry. The results may come through in a matter of days.

GUESTS: Judi Friedman of PACE, has long been an opponent of nuclear power, and she is in favor of increased taxes for Millstone. At the web page, www.pace-cleanenergy.org are the words: Remember Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Japan.

For years Judi Friedman has been conducting workshops at the homes and businesses that have successfully used clean technology like solar, wind, and geothermal so that people interested in getting off the grid can learn from each other. Her organization has been encouraging state residents to contact the legislature and the governor to ask that they enforce Senate Bill 1176 to tax Millstone.

Connecticut lawyer, Nancy Burton, watched her lawsuits against the Millstone nuclear plant thrown out one after the other until the state Supreme Court ruled in her favor. It took a decade but Burton - who aims to shut Millstone down - won the right in June, 2009 to legal standing to sue the state of Connecticut for failure to enforce pollution standards under the Connecticut Environmental Protection Act. Burton has pointed out that the Millstone reactors pulverize billions of fish and eggs using the once-through cooling system (see her Gone Fission chapter in our 2001 report, Licensed to Kill). The reactors also pump out radioactive water, damaging to human health.

Background: In 2006, former Attorney Generhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifal Richard Blumenthal, said that while the earnings at most energy companies are about 10 percent, his conservative estimates of earnings at Millstone nuclear plants operated by Dominion Resources Inc., were 44% at one site and 53% percent profit at another. Blumenthal then called for a major tax overhaul that would lower energy rates for consumers and strengthen Connecticut agencies that oversee energy.

Related Links: This article by Snehasis Das notes the rise in cancer plus "an obvious and alarming threat to the lives and livestock of the Khasi tribal region". More deeply troubling news about the uranium mining industry that is expanding rapidly and not well regulated to protect human rights and property or farming rights. National Security or Development? Uranium Mining in Meghalaya by Snehasis Das

Doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish at Central Connecticut State University, I Shall Not Hate,

Talk Nation Radio for April 14, 2011
I Shall Not Hate, A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity
Doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish at Central Connecticut State University

Lecture in memory of his daughters Bissan, Mayar, and Aya, who died in 2009 during Israel’s invasion and bombardment of Gaza. An Israeli rocket hit the Abuelaish home in Gaza, killing three of the doctor's daughters. His niece, Noor, also died. He discusses his best selling book, “I Shall Not Hate” (Random House). It recounts his medical journey and efforts towards reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. See Globe and Mail review here.

TRT:29:01
Produced by Dori Smith, Storrs, CT, Recorded March 15, 2011 in New Britain, CT
Download at Pacifica's Audioport here or at Archive.org and Radio4all.net

Before his audience of students, professors, and community members, Dr. Abuelaish stood tall, sometimes walking a step forward, or back, occasional tears rolling down his face, as he told the heart breaking but inspirational story of his loss, and his commitment. In addition to working as a physician, and peace activist, he memorializes his daughters through a foundation set up to help other Gazan children achieve their dreams for education in health and other fields.



This week's show features a talk that was part of the well established, Middle East Studies Lecture Series, at CCSU, Central Connecticut State University, in New Britain, Connecticut. Their March 15, 2011 event featured a talk by Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish from Gaza.

A Palestinian physician, Dr. Abuelaish trained in Cairo, London and Cambridge, MA (Harvard). He talks about his life and his work of reaching a peaceful solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians with dignity. His conversation is also highly personal, and he speaks about the loss of his wife to cancer, then the horror of losing his children to artillery fire from the Israeli IDF as they bombed Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.

Immediately after their deaths, Dr. Abuelaish spoke on Israeli TV to a shocked audience who watched the tragedy unfold. He was scheduled to be interviewed, but viewers saw first hand the shock and pain he experienced at losing three of his children. In this inspirational talk he discusses the kids, the three girls who died and his remaining daughter and son who have rallied bravely to meet the challenge of life without their siblings. The family has thrown themselves into peace making, and working to help other people's children in Gaza. They have set up a foundation called, Daughters For Life. The web page serves as both a memorial to Dr. Abuelaish's daughters and a foundation site for fundraising for their program that provides university scholarships and scholarships for health and other education programs for young women in the Middle East.

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish grew up in poverty and has devoted his life to medicine and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. While Israel has confined 1.5 million Gazans into a few square miles, Dr. Abuelaish treats patients on both sides of the border. He is a humanitarian who sees the need for improved health and education for women as the way forward in the Middle East. His response to the killing of his daughters and niece made international news and won him humanitarian awards around the world. Dr. Abuelaish has been interviewed by many media outlets, including CNN with Christiane Amanpour and Anderson Cooper.

His most recent awards have been:

2010: Uncommon Courage Award; Center for Ethnic, Racial and Religious Understanding; Queens College, NY, and

2010: Mahatma Gandhi Peace Award of Canada

He is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine at the School of Public Health, University of Toronto

Co-sponsors for this event include: Center for International Education, Department of Political Science and Peace Studies at CCSU

Nuclear Issues: Fukushima, Connecticut, and Beyond

We again guest produce Pacifica's Sprouts, a Weekly show produced by network affiliate station members and independent producers.

This Week on Sprouts:
Nuclear Issues: Fukushima, Connecticut, and Beyond
Beyond Nuclear, Japan's Fukushima Daiichi and Connecticut's Millstone Bill




Produced by Dori Smith of Talk Nation Radio, Storrs, Connecticut

Left KU Channel
Thursday, April 14, 2011, 3PM EST
Total time 29:00 minutes
Download as broadcast quality .mp3 after Wednesday at 2PM EST:
http://www.audioport.org

Direct link here Or search Sprouts.

We speak with Youki Mikami and Tony Boys in Japan, and ask them what its like living in proximity to the leaking Fukushima Daichi plant. The two are becoming increasingly active in the growing anti nuclear movement in post Fukushima melt down Japan. After reading about his own country in reports written in America, Tony Boys became active with the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center. [See Earth Beat radio page for more on the man whose reports he was finding, Arnie Gundersen here.] A food and energy researcher, he blogs at (We) Can Do Better We asked him to describe the climate in Japan where more than 17,500 thousand people turned out for protests against nuclear power in Tokyo.

An independent documentary film maker, Youki Mikami says working with non-governmental organizations interested in the environment has led him to believe in the power of citizen’s movements. He has recently been on location East of Russia to film a nearly extinct tiger in the Primeordeal forest. He too reached out to Americans online, talking with staff at the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center and other organizations. His environmental consciousness he says, was raised on March 11th, and he is now angry over the lack of accurate information about the radiation leaking from Fukushima plant.

Then Paul Gunter of Beyond Nuclear, in Maryland, joins us to talk about a new battle shaping up over America's aging nuclear power plants including Millstone in Connecticut over Senate Bill 1176, a tax increase on instate energy. The bill would charge Dominion 2 cents per kilowatt hour more for nuclear power provided by Connecticut's Millstone reactor as a tax. The amount is based on estimates of Millstone's income. But Dominion is running an expensive PR campaign to fight the new tax. They took out newspaper ads, held a town meeting to complain about the tax, called customers, and donated to NPR, so that NPR news casts about the nuclear industry in the US, aging plants here, or Fukushima disaster, end with their thanking Dominion, which operates Millstone power plant, employing more than 1,000 people in Waterford, Connecticut.

It's become a fight over jobs rather than safety, and Connecticut's corporate press has not been mentioning the human errors that led to several expensive accidents at Millstone during 1977 through 1999. Company spokesman Ken Holt seems unaware of the problems.

Ken Holt is spokesman for Dominion Resources Inc., of Virginia, the company that operates Connecticut's aging Millstone Nuclear Power plant.. We press him on his further threat that if the tax increase goes through, Millstone would lay off workers and operate with fewer staff during shut down. Doesn't this pose a health risk? Are they threatening Connecticut safety? Spokesman for Connecticut's DEP, Dennis Schain explains that the more clean and safe your energy is, the better your tax advantage for operating in Connecticut will be.

This week's Sprouts edition is produced at Talk Nation Radio studios, Storrs, Connecticut
Music by: David Rovics, Minami Sanriku, Song for an orphan, dedicated to people of Japan, and The Radiation Blues, sung by singer/songwriter Courtney Dowe

Sprouts is a weekly program that features local radio production and stories from many radio stations and local media groups around the world. It is produced in collaboration with community radio stations and independent producers across the country. The program is coordinated and distributed by Pacifica Radio and offered free of charge to all radio stations. For information, or if you would like to feature your work on Sprouts, contact Ursula Ruedenberg at ursula@pacifica.org.

Intro: It’s not your father’s Chernobyl, that’s the headline of an article featured at Market Watch April 12th by Lisa Twaronite). The intent was to calm the nerves of investors by claiming things are not so bad. But scientists around the globe were insisting that Japan raise the threat level to a category 7, like Chernobyl, weeks ago, as they studied the reports on radiation fallout from Japan. There is now potentially more of a threat due to bio-accumulation, bio-magnification, and the fact that the radioactive isotopes pouring into the ocean near Japan are water soluble. We will be hearing more about this from Paul Gunter of Beyond Nuclear in further broadcasts.

A Geiger counter at a dairy farm featured in a Reuters Report April 13th, showed radioactive particles arriving at a level of 0.41 microsieverts per hour. The farm is about 50 Kilometers from the crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture, in northern Japan, Even as we were reading that report, news was arriving of several more earthquakes in the same region, one of them registering 5.8 around East Fukushima. Another 5.0 aftershock in Ibaraki, and a 3.0 in Tokyo.

The Japanese government continues to say there is nothing to worry about, they claim the plant has stabilized, but Tony Boys, who lives about 120 kilometers south of the leaking plant, says he has not been kept informed about the threat.

Even as we were contacting Tony Boys for an interview April 12th there was even more serious quake activity near the damaged Fukushima plant, and near his home. On the one month anniversary of the major quake, thousands of protesters turned out in Tokyo, and then faced another major quake and another tsunami warning which fortunately did not materialize. But on the following day, quake activity caused landslides and some deaths, horrifyingly, much of the serious activity was in Fukushima prefecture, within 30 kilometers of the nuclear plant.

On NHK TV a government health official was filmed eating a piece of fruit grown near the damaged reactor. But Tokyo Electric Power, TEPCO, has also just admitted that they are still working on a blueprint to stop the radiation leak and cool the reactors and fuel rod storage pools. When earthquakes have not been occurring, they have been able to keep on injecting nitrogen into the plant to try to prevent more hydrogen explosions. Pressure levels are not rising as much as they feared, which is both good and bad. Bad because it suggests continued leaking, good as more damage might be staved off.

Even so, these same officials have also told the world that the leak represents just one tenth of the radiation leaked at Chernobyl, or 1 percent of the total radiation contained at the plant site. Just last week there was news of radiation levels up to ten million times the so-called safe limits in seawater off Japan’s coast near the plant.
After reading about his own country in reports written in America, Tony Boys became active with the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center. A food and energy researcher, he blogs at http://candobetter.net/blog/89
We asked him to describe the climate in Japan where more than 17 thousand people turned out for protests against nuclear power. Tony Boys says he may leave his home with his family or not depending on what happens next, and what he hears from media reports.

Mazin Qumsiyeh on Popular Resistance in Palestine

Talk Nation Radio for April 7, 2011
Mazin Qumsiyeh on Popular Resistance in Palestine
US Media Overlooks Peaceful Palestinian Protest Movement amid so-called Arab Spring

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh teaches at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in Palestine. This week's show is a recording of his talk delivered at the University of Connecticut March 23rd at UCONN, Storrs, CT COOP, bookstore.



TRT: 29:13
Produced by, Dori Smith, Storrs, CT
Download at Pacifica's Audioport here or at Radio4all.net and Archive.org

Professor Mazin B. Qumsiyeh visited his Alma mater, the University of Connecticut, in Storrs, CT, as one stop on his US book tour with his latest work, Popular Resistance in Palestine, A History of Hope and Empowerment. (Available here)He studied as an undergraduate at the UCONN campus and was well received there. There is also a tape with audience questions available for interested broadcast outlets.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Professor Mazin B. Qumsiyeh serves as chairman of the board of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour. He described his personal history of activism and also that of his ancestors in Palestine. Dr. Qumsiyeh is also author of, Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle. (Still available here) He was arrested in March of 2011 for protesting the Israeli occupation, the separation wall, new illegal settlement building by Israel, and ongoing repression of Palestinians. He described his commitment to non-violence as founded in the principles of Mahatma Gandhi.

Despite the so called Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa, Palestinian activists working non violently for their democratic rights have gotten little or no media coverage in American corporate press outlets.

Palestinians have in fact a very long history of non-violent protest, and had Professor Qumsiyeh been an activist working for peace and democratic rights in Tripoli, Libya, rather than Jerusalem, Palestine, his name might be more widely recognized in America. Had he been active in working to fight repression in Egypt, Yemen, Syria, or even China, Prof. Qumsiyeh's work might be under discussion at major US universities. He nevertheless continues to tell the history of Israel, Palestine, the US and UK, to all who are willing to listen.