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News: Sounding
the News Longtime Eugene resident and man-about-town Curtis "Sunshine" William Hubbard Davis died of a heart attack Aug. 31 at the age of 76. A celebration of his life will be at 4 pm Sunday, Sept. 14 at Peterson Barn Community Center in Eugene.
He was well known at Saturday Market where he was friends with many of the vendors and regulars, and he also spent a lot of time on the UO campus, attending lectures and other activities open to the public. Davis lived in the neighborhood of 29th and High and often rode his bicycle around town. His hobbies included chess, photography, tinkering with cars and bikes, and his homemade "Universal Game of Cooperation," a non-competitive game using handballs and paddles. His extended family in Junction City says he was a devoted friend, father and grandfather. Davis was born in Hooks, Texas, and lived in Texas, California, Massachusetts and the Oregon Coast before moving to Eugene in 1988. He co-owned and operated Sunshine Cleaners and Laundromat here from 1988 to 1993, when he retired. — TJT
CREATIVE RESISTANCE BREWING IN CANCúN CANCÚN — Thousands of people have arrived in Cancún, Mexico, to mobilize in opposition to the World Trade Organization (WTO), which will open its fifth ministerial meeting here on Wednesday, Sept 10. The anti-WTO activists in Cancún include youth from Mexico and abroad, representatives from more than 100 non-governmental organizations, and farmers from across Latin America. They claim that the WTO's policies benefit transnational corporations while degrading labor rights, public health and the environment. Starhawk, a writer and veteran activist from the San Francisco Bay Area, has been in Cancún for several weeks assisting with the preparations for anti-WTO activists. "We believe that if there's enough opposition on the street, if we can basically cause enough disturbance to delay the meetings, that that's going to have an impact that will be amplified and reverberate inside the WTO," she said, "and that this ministerial will fail. And if this ministerial fails, that's a huge blow to the whole system of corporate globalization." The opposition events will come in many forms, from forums and teach-ins to marches and direct actions against the ministerial. A group of students from Mexico City is making giant puppets of Mayan deities, claiming that the gods are angry about destructive WTO policies. Other activists are demonstrating naked on the beach, spelling out "No WTO" with their bodies. Last weekend, environmental organizations and government representatives from around the world met at the Global Biodiversity Forum to discuss the effects of free trade on biological diversity, community sustainability, and intellectual property rights. This week's planned activities include a peasants' forum, a women's forum, a farmers' solidarity march, and a sustainable trade symposium. On Sunday night, a Big Noise Productions showed an emotionally evocative film entitled The Fourth World War at a public park in downtown Cancún. More than 500 people attended the showing, many of them locals. The film centered on popular resistance movements worldwide, tying together recent civil mobilizations from around the world. At the film's conclusion, a band from Seattle called the Infernal Noise Brigade marched around the plaza in silver and orange costumes, playing rhythmic music and singing. Afterward, a group of indigenous people from Chiapas known as Nuestra Voz talked about their long history of broken promises from the government. Though local media in Cancún have primed the population for violent protests, many residents support the anti-WTO activists. "I respect their ideas," said Mario Hernández, owner of Mario's Bar in downtown Cancún. "I can understand that they are struggling for the benefit of a lot of people and that's something that we can not do often. So at least I will respect them and support them as much as I can." — Kera Abraham
9/11 ANNIVERSARY BRINGS LOCAL EVENTS Several events are happening in Eugene on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. An interfaith service sponsored by Two Rivers Interfaith Ministries will begin at 7 pm at First Christian Church, 12th and Oak, in Eugene (see coverstory this week). And activists with the Justice Not War Coalition are gathering for a film series at 7 pm in Willamette 100 at the UO campus. Prior to these gatherings will be a 5:30 pm rally at the Federal Building downtown for music, poetry and some "facilitated community drumming" with Jill Sager. "Our intention with this (5:30) event is to create a forum for our diverse community members to express whatever they need to with signs, banners, fliers, etc," says a statement from Justice Not War. "Mostly, we'll let the poets and musicians speak for us; we've heard a lot of speeches over the last two years, and we'd like to use this occasion to engage a different way of communicating." For more information on the early event, e-mail jnotwar@efn.org or call 343-8548. The film series includes Aftermath: Unanswered Questions from 9-11, by Guerilla News Network, with nine experts addressing 11 key areas of inquiry, including the Bush administration's prior knowledge of the attacks, the failure of the military to follow well-established response procedures, connections and the impact of the USA PATRIOT and Homeland Security acts on our civil liberties. Another film to be shown is The Great Deception by Vision TV of Canada, a national non-profit television station. The film is the creation of Barrie Zwicker, a commentator, journalist and teacher.
BUSTED MUSICIANS NEED LEGAL FUNDS An August paramilitary police raid in Cheshire has left a popular area band with mounting legal bills and the possible confiscation of their rural property.
The David Woods family, the musical group Abakadubi and their supporters are putting on a series of fund-raising events beginning with a concert at 7:30 pm Friday, Sept. 12 at the WOW Hall. The event is billed as a "Freedom for All, Freedom of Choice" benefit concert with The Radar Angels, Bloody Castles, Samba Ja, and Abakadubi. "I am stunned by heavy handed police tactics used on the thinnest pretexts against people who are widely known to be peaceful, and followed by the threat of enormous and disproportionate punishment," says a neighbor identified only as Larry, on the band's website. "If we don't speak out, sooner or later it is our turn. The truth is, anything we can do to help the Woods right now will help us all." More details on the raid, upcoming events, and how to contribute to the Woods Defense Fund can be found at www.abakadubi.com —TJT
Union members from across the state gathered this week at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis to join SEIU Local 49 to pressure for settlement on a first contract with hospital workers. The 330 health care workers, including CNAs, phebotomists, surgery assistants and physical therapy aides, joined SEIU a year ago and have been bargaining with management for their first contract for about eight months. The workers are seeking a stronger voice in patient care, lower turnover rates and affordable health insurance for their families, according to Rob Nosse of the bargaining team. The informational picketing and rally this week corresponds with the Oregon AFL-CIO convention in Albany Sept. 7-10.
The fifth annual Trek for Trees pledge bike ride for Cascadia Forest Defenders is now scheduled for Sept. 13-14, and the bikers will be leaving Eugene at 9 am. The event was originally scheduled for Aug 2-3 but was postponed due to logging at Straw Devil. This year's event is called the "Winberry Victory Ride" in honor of the recent success at Winberry following a four-plus year tree-sit and public outreach campaign, say organizers. "We are now focused on defending Straw Devil where we are maintaining multiple tree-sits, as well as Pryor, East Devil, and the Upper North/Warm Springs timber sales." The 70-mile ride and camping trip begins at EWEB Plaza Fountain and winds along scenic waterways and into the forests of the Winberry Creek watershed. Most of the ride will be on the bike path and back roads, but busy roads will be included in the route where necessary. Pledge forms are available at 454 Willamette St., #205 or next door at Morning Glory Cafe. For more information, call 684-8977.
Robert Canaga Gallery is inviting local folks to send in digital image self-portraits for an on-going web show called "Look at Me! Look at Me!" Canaga says he did a Polaroid self-portrait show at his old gallery in 2001 and "it was very well received, so I figured we could do it on the web for fun." He says there are no prizes, no fees, "just a chance to show your face to the world and get a link." The images can be in any medium (painting, photography, sculpture, etc.) and should be e-mailed to rcg@robertcanagagallery.com or visit http://robertcanagagallery.com "I really want this to grow out of control," he says.
Sounding
the News
Can you read this page? Then you're luckier than some. What will you do next — rifle through the Calendar section of Eugene Weekly? Pick up today's Emerald to check sports scores? Skim the editorials in The Register-Guard? While you're catching up with local events, maybe you could also sign up to volunteer at Eugene Sounds (ES), the new web-based radio service by the Lane Independent Living Alliance (LILA). As a volunteer, you could read articles like this one aloud on the radio for blind, disabled or senior citizens — people who can't glance at local printed news as easily as you can. Passersby may have seen the hand-written sign asking for radio volunteers in the window of LILA's office at 10th and Olive. The green Magic Marker of the sign appears a little faded by the sun, but ES is only just getting ready to burst forth in living color — uh, air — at the end of September. "We want to provide a source of community information
to people who are limited in their ability to read print," says Carole
Patterson, LILA organizer and board member for the last two years. EW
caught up with her and Eugene Organ, the LILA board president, at LILA's
spacious downtown office. An organization by and for the disabled community,
LILA operated out of people's homes before a rare state seed grant allowed
it to move to this office in April. With no other state funding, LILA
relies on grassroots, church, private and corporate support for the
disabled Many of the people closely involved in planning ES know firsthand the experience of its intended listeners. Organ, who chairs LILA's Eugene Sounds Committee, is blind, as is Rob Cook, its previous chair. And Jerry DeLaunay, a key supporter of ES and program director of Golden Hours, an OPB radio reading and information service in Portland, is blind as well. A 28-year-old radio service for the blind that served as the inspiration for ES, Golden Hours broadcasts over the web and through the SAP channel on TV. Much of the reason ES is poised to launch so soon is the partnership set up between LILA, Golden Hours, and OMNI, a nonprofit media network established by DeLaunay. Organ proposed the idea for such a radio service in Eugene to DeLaunay many years ago, but it was only recently that serious planning began. A UO journalism intern, Molly Wolfsehr, worked closely with Rob Cook at LILA during the early stages, learning about other web-based radio services, discussing programming, finding donations, and preparing fliers. A senior, she graduated and moved to Portland, and Organ took over from Cook in heading ES in July. Throughout, there was DeLaunay. "If you've got Jerry (DeLaunay) working with you, you're in good hands," says Bev Rushing, president of the American Council for the Blind in Oregon. Rushing supports the idea for such a radio service in Eugene. She knows many blind people interested in newspaper readings done by Golden Hours, and especially in hearing the local grocery ads, "because we can't read them." LILA's Patterson explains that ES tackles a similar purpose. "There's a wide variety of materials that aren't open to people who can't read — the Torch, the Emerald, Eugene Weekly, The Register-Guard, voter pamphlets, and local business newspapers," Patterson says. Eugene's radio service would initially include reading community newspapers, articles of local interest, and even volunteers' favorite books on the air. Later plans include broadcasting the work of local writers and poets in their own voices, highlighting area musicians, and covering local events live. With a tiny studio nestled inside LILA's office, ES is gearing up for its inaugural broadcast with equipment donated by OPB and OMNI. Despite its own budget issues (Golden Hours is broadcasting fewer hours starting this September for lack of funding), OPB scraped up enough funds to pay for the basic streaming service from Live365.com for ES. It also donated a mixing board. OMNI provided the rest of the equipment — an assortment of streaming and monitoring computers, a CD changer, and mini-disk CD units. Although this equipment is really on loan to LILA, DeLaunay says that the loan "is not the issue" and will not be taken back. He explains that future plans, like for any other nonprofit group, aim at raising the funds to buy new studio equipment for ES. "Eugene Sounds' needs will change in time, and it's best to try to fund-raise from that point of view," DeLaunay says. "Will you need a CD burner? A broadcast board? There are many different ways to do this job. The goal is to come up with the best way to tailor it for Eugene Sounds." However, he admits that funding may remain tight. "Ideally, we should have a grant going in to this project. But the reality is that they're scrounging, we're scrounging. But we have a good basic setup." OMNI will help LILA raise funds to support ES, and will give technical support and advice. But it will not direct content, DeLaunay emphasizes. "We're not here to tell folks in Eugene how to do things. This is Eugene's service." EW met DeLaunay at his cluttered Portland office, his staff running in and out, several computers blinking around him and his guide dog stretched in front of his desk. Legally blind, he has headed Golden Hours for the last six years. DeLaunay plans to train Eugene volunteers on broadcasting techniques next week. Accompanying him from Portland to provide technical training will be OPB contractor and computer engineer Larry Bently. People can help ES both by reading on air and working on broadcast production, says Cook, who chaired LILA's ES committee until July. Volunteer training is scheduled for Sept. 16, 17 and 18 at LILA's office. Interested people can visit the LILA office or call 607-7020.
But is it legal? With the ongoing controversy over digital copyrights, web-based radio services have seen their share of litigation. However, reading services for the disabled, like Golden Hours and ES, are safe from the controversy. That's because materials read on air are already available in print. "We are only translating (them) into a different medium," says Patterson. "Technically," says DeLaunay, "Golden Hours and Eugene Sounds are exempt from copyrights because they're targeted to the blind and disabled. There's no money that changes hands, and we're not paid to read anything." However, DeLaunay acknowledges the strict conditions under which the copyright exemptions exist. Any volunteer reading must follow certain rules: The material must have been previously published; it must be read exactly as published, without editorializing or changing in any way; and the material must be credited to the writer, original publication and publisher. So when you read a book, you read the front cover, inside flap, and back cover as well. "You can't just read one favorite story out of a whole book of short stories. You have to present the whole package in the interest of copyright," says DeLaunay.
So how do you tune in? Of course, the whole purpose of a radio reading service is to work around the limitations of blindness. So how does someone with poor or no vision easily access the Internet to listen to ES? One has to understand, says DeLaunay, that "there is blind, and then there is blind." DeLaunay is still able to read and write large print at very close range. For such individuals, the easiest way to access ES is to go through the specially designed OMNI website www.omnimedianetworks.org It's a text-only site with high contrast colors and large white print on a black background to make screen reading as easy as possible. The link to ES would appear directly on the site. LILA's own large-text website www.lilaoregon.org is under construction but should feature an ES link by October. Screen reading software is also available to convert written web pages into spoken words. Organ and DeLaunay both use software called JAWS by Freedom Scientific, which allows them to surf the web with the help of a speech synthesizer. However, such screen reading software can be prohibitively expensive. Someone unable to read extra large print or afford software will probably need a sighted person's help to navigate to the link to ES.
What's next for ES? Several opportunities are coming up for ES to practice its reporting skills as well. The Oregon chapters of the American Council of the Blind and the National Federation of the Blind will be holding separate annual conventions in Eugene in October, providing a chance for the fledgling radio service to stream live coverage of important events to the blind community. "You can do pioneering things on the web," says DeLaunay, who feels this is the golden age of the Internet, like radio's 60 years ago. With traditional radio, "you have to look at the bottom line. But with web-based radio, you have a way of reaching more people without restrictions, of trying different things that you'd be afraid of otherwise on the air. There's more freedom that way." And so with a few computers, a tiny downtown studio, and some volunteer help, ES will soon be in business.
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