Uptown Radio

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In Greenwich Village crowds gathered to mark the 100th anniversary of the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire, which killed 146 people. Many of the victims were young immigrant women who leapt to their deaths to escape the flames.

The rally was organized by labor unions. People at the event marched from Union Square to the 10-story building where the fire took place. New York University now owns the building.

New York City officials are contending the 2010 census figures only show part of the true growth in the city’s population.

Census figures say people living in New York grew by about 2 percent over the last ten years. Bloomberg city officials say that number is short. They estimate there are at least 250 thousand more residents in the city.

City officials say they look forward to the Census Bureau’s 2011 population estimate, which is used to calculate the city’s share of federal funding.

Upstate – Buffalo, New York lost more than ten percent of its population over the last ten years, according to census data. This continues a trend for the city. Between 1950 and 2000, Buffalo lost approximately half of its residents.

In Albany, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos says he expects New York’s budget to restore $250 million of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposed cuts to school funding.

Skelos said his after he emerged from closed-door talks with the governor. The legislative leader predicts an agreement on the budget could be reached on Friday.

Mayor Bloomberg spoke out against a bill today that would ban cars from the main loop in Central Park and all roads inside Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.

The goal is to make the parks safer for cyclists, runners, and skaters. But Bloomberg says these roads keep traffic moving. And has proposed reducing driving hours in the park instead.

An Andy Warhol portrait of Elizabeth Taylor is on it’s a way to New York City auction. Hedge fund manager Steven Cohen currently owns the 1963 silkscreen. It’s expected to fetch around $20 million, when it’s sold at Philips de Pury’s contemporary art sale on May 12^th.

The actress died on Wednesday at age 79.

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In Japan officials are encouraging evacuation from a wider area around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The reactors, damaged in the tsunami earlier this month, are showing signs of cracks,
or breaches. This could mean that toxic “mox fuel” made of uranium and plutonium could be released. Dr. Man-Sung Yim, an associate professor of nuclear engineering at the University of North Carolina, says the worst hasn’t happened yet. If it did, we would know.

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Government forces in Syria opened fire today on crowds of protesters chanting “Freedom.” Syria’s anti-government demonstrations erupted just a week ago and show no sign of letting up. I spoke with Joshua Landis, a Middle East expert at the University of Oklahoma who writes a daily newsletter on Syrian politics. He thinks it’s too soon to say whether the unrest in Syria will mirror what’s been happening in nearby Arab countries.

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People gather in Union Square on Friday, March 25 to commemorate the women who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire a century ago. Photo by Karla Zabludovsky/Columbia Radio News.

One hundred years ago today, a fire at a Shirtwaist Factory in Greenwich Village killed 146 workers—most of them young women, and almost all immigrants. A commemoration this morning honored the dead — and the progress of labor unions following the fire.

Shirtwaists with the names and ages of the Triangle Fire victims were seen in Union Square. A song of sorrow in Sicilian dialect filled the air. Ralph Prett’s great aunt, Rosie Wiener, died in the fire. She was 19 years old.

“Her sister survived the fire and we knew her pretty well,” Prett said. “She gave important testimony at the trial but of course the factory owners got off pretty quickly.”

The procession to honor the victims started to make its way down Broadway. Annie Lanzillotto is a member of the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition. She walked at the front of the group, shaking a stick with 146 keys dangled from it to the ground… A reminder of the locked doors that kept the workers from escaping the flames.

The crowd stopped at the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place, next to the 10-story building which housed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. It is now part of New York University. The fire is often cited as the beginning of the labor movement in the U.S. Hilda Solis is the Secretary of Labor. She says those that perished did not do so in vain.

“Today only steps away from the Triangle Factory we remember the lives of these workers,” Solis said. “And we honor them for the high price they paid for the protections that you and I enjoy today. Let us continue to honor the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

New York Senator Charles Schumer said we are haunted by a series of what-ifs…

“What If the owners hadn’t locked the doors to the exit, trapping the workers in a fiery prison,” Schumer said. “What if there had been a fire sprinkler system instead of a half a dozen buckets of water. What if there had been factory occupancy limits preventing the owners from shoehorning 450 workers into a crowded shop floor. And most of all, what if those workers had been allowed to organize to form a union?”

The Fire Department planned to raise a fire truck ladder to the 6th floor, the highest point it reached in 1911. The factory was on the 8th, 9th and 10th floors.

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On a Tuesday evening, around 25 people are gathered in a classroom at the One Spirit Interfaith Seminary, on the sixth floor or a nondescript building in Manhattan’s Garment District, near Penn Station. They’re studying the Dhammapada, one of the main Buddhist texts. About a dozen students around the world are also in class: via the webcam in one corner of the room.

The seminary offers a two year, part time degree that’s somewhere in between a Masters of Divinity from a traditional theological seminary and one of those instant online ordination certificates through the Universal Life Church.

The altar in the main classroom displays a Christian cross, a Buddha statue, a Jewish Torah scroll, and other religious objects. Reverend David Wallace leads the group. After class, he says the focus tonight was Buddhism, but it’s not always.

“I teach the Upanishads, I teach the Tao, I’ve taught the gospels, I’ve taught a course on the mystics,” Wallace said.

One Spirit is not alone in its approach. Union Theological Seminary in New York City, which is a traditional, historically Christian school, has explored interfaith territory in recent years. Some Union faculty have taken the lead on courses with names like “Buddhist Meditation and the Psyche,” “Christian-Muslim Dialogue,” and “Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations.”

David Wallace says one difference between a school like Union and One Spirit is that his students approach the scriptures less academically.

“Not as scholars, but as people trying to learn what those old messages were,” Wallace said.

One Spirit teaches that openness to different ideas is necessary in a society where faiths have become more blended.

In 2006, a national survey from the University of Chicago found that one in four U.S. households consider themselves mixed faith. Susan Turchin is the director of enrollment at One Spirit, a graduate, and an interfaith minister herself. She says that couples and families are less willing to choose one religion, like Judaism over Christianity or Buddhism. One Spirit grads like her work with a lot of gay and lesbian couples as well, who sometimes feel like outsiders when it comes to traditional religion. She offers wedding and commitment ceremonies custom-tailored to a couple’s spiritual needs.

“So there are several people that are making their living offering those, as well as blessing ceremonies for children that are born into interfaith families,” Turchin said.

She says most ministers keep their day jobs, doing ceremonies on the side. A few graduates have taken full-time positions in traditional congregations, and others are freelance ministers, like Reverend Andrew Harriott, who graduated in 2008.

“I speak at a Church called Sacred Light, volunteer at a home for the aged, I have individual clients from pastoral counseling, I do regular counseling,” Harriott said. “So we have to find a living where we can make a living….Recently we’ve been starting to look at ministry as an industry and as a business.”

One Spirit has enlisted the help of Sandy Fishman, a career consultant for JP Morgan Chase. She helps minsters like Harriott navigate the challenging job market, just like she helped Bear Stearns employees who lost their jobs when their company was absorbed by Chase. Fishman hosted the first One Spirit career panel last August.

“Within the first hour I think forty people signed up,” Fishman said, “because there was a tremendous hunger to come and listen to the people who had graduated, and see what they had done.”

She changed some of the vocabulary for the One Spirit sessions. Instead of “job target,” she talked about “personal vision.” But Fishman is teaching them the same career skills she teaches at corporations– setting goals, interviewing, and networking.

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Shots rang out in several cities in Syria today, as troops fired on crowds across the country. Tens of thousands of anti-government protestors took to the streets in the border city of Dara, as crowds defied the government’s use of lethal force.

Human rights groups are estimating that since the violence began a week ago, 38 people have been killed by government forces. It‘s greatest threat to the 40- year old regime since 10,000 protestors were massacred by late president Hafez al-Assad’s government in 1982.

It was after demonstrators in Dara set fire to a statue of President Assad that soldiers fired into crowd. Heavy gunfire could be heard in the city center and witnesses reported several casualties.

Video posted on You-Tube from the nearby city of Sanamyn showed at least 7 bodies lying bloodied on stretchers, some of obviously suffering from gunshot wounds. Eyewitness reports estimated as many as 20 dead.

While protests continued in Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh told hundreds of thousands of pro and anti government demonstrators that he would give up power, only if it could be handed into safe hands. But opponents say that they want Saleh’s immediate resignation.

In Japan, officials are encouraging expanding the evacuation area around the after Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after reports that attempts to control the contamination at the facility are failing.

Authorities are now suggesting voluntary evacuation for anyone 12-19 miles outside the plant.

Yesterday three workers were hospitalized after wading through water with critically elevated levels on Thursday. The workers are being monitored and, officials are encouraging residents, even those beyond the initial evacuation zone, to relocate.

This leak is a major setback in the governments attempt to control the radiation at the devastated nucluer plant.

NATO prepared to take over leadership of the Libyan Campaign from the United States and its allies today. After internal disagreements, NATO agreed late Thursday night to take over command and control of the no-fly zone; they also promised to protect civilians from air strikes aimed at Colonol Moammar Gadhafi’s ground troops.

Census data released yesterday from across the country shows a diversifying nation. But the make up of the New York City is also changing, with more Latino’s and for the first time since 1860, a drop inth African Americans population.

Elizabeth Taylor was laid to rest in a private ceremony this morning at Forest Lawn ceremony. The actress was remembered for many roles, including her iconic role as Maggie in Cat on a hot tin roof. The actress died on Wednesday of congestive heart failure.

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New York’s census numbers have just come out this week. And this year, new population numbers mean the lines of congressional districts need to be re-drawn. As the rules stand now, the state legislature is responsible for this so-called redistricting. But Democratic State Senator Mike Genarris has been working on legislation to change that. He says we need to form a non-partisan redistricting panel … made up of New Yorkers who aren’t politicians.

A bacon cheeseburgers like so many whose buns are wasted each year. Photo courtesy of Larry Crowe/AP

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We all feel a tinge of dismay, when we pull a rotting tomato out of the refrigerator, or pop open a foul smelling jar that might have held dinner. But for our commentator, Alex Alper, a returned peace corps volunteer, wasting food is more than a nuisance: it’s the cause of a crusade.
—
I started to notice it not long after returning to the states two years ago. I’d go out to dinner with friends. Everything would be going great, but as the meal would wind down, I would start to get a little nervous.

As everyone took their last sips of coffee or wine, I would stare at the leftovers: Some wilted bits of lettuce, a piece of hamburger bun, some cold French fries saturated in ketchup.

The waiter would come to clear the plates and I would pry the plates from his hand.

“We need just a few more minutes with that,” I’d say.

“Alex, we’re done,” my friends would say, as I frantically ate the rest.

“Me too, I’m stuffed.” I’d confess. “but I can’t help it.”

And I couldn’t.

After three years in Peace Corps West Africa, I’ve had this socially awkward affliction: I cannot let food go to waste.

It’s not impossible to manage: I can walk past an abandoned cheeseburger on an empty table. I can go to a lunch interview and not ask the interviewer if he wouldn’t mind me eating the olives he picked off his pizza. I’ve gotten so much better, I can even let a waiter take uneaten bread or rice from my own plate.

But it’s been a hard road back.

In Guinea, I watched my neighbors struggle through the rainy season. That’s when last year’s harvest of rice and manioc is almost gone. They call it “la saison du souffrance” or the season of suffering.

But suffering in Guinea is year-round: kids have bloated bellies and orange tinged hair: telltale signs of malnutrition.

And the way Guineans treat food is just what you would expect: without refrigerators, women prepare just enough for dinner and the following breakfast. Not a kernel of rice is left in the pot. If the unthinkable happens—a baby tips over a bowl of uneaten food—something will be nourished: a goat, a chicken, or a cow, itself a source of food.

But here, in the US things are really different.

The National Institute of Health says Americans waste 40 percent of their food-from from farm to table to landfill.

And I get it!

Thirty four percent of Americans are obese and the same number are overweight. In a land of supersized sodas and plates the size of trays, leaving food would almost seem healthy.

But on an individual level, I root for the middle ground: take the rest home, order a side, or giving the leftovers to your crazy returned peace corps volunteer friend.

I admit, I’m as embarrassed to be that crazy returned peace corps volunteer on a mission, as I am about the neurosis itself.

But one of the three Peace Corps goals is to share what you learned abroad with other Americans.

So I‘m grateful for that knowledge, and grateful for the opportunity to share it, even if it makes me a somewhat awkward dinner guest.
–
That was Alex Alper, who is currently accepting dinner invitations.

Commentator Sandhya Dirks, playing with her younger brother Ishan. Photo by their father, Nicholas Dirks.

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My little brother is probably the most important person in my life. That’s kind of strange, because I grew up as an only child. But then again, so did he. You see, he was born when I was already 20, to a different mom. We are similar in that we share a father, and we share a culture: both of our mothers are Indian. This is why he calls me Didi; it’s Hindi for older sister.

Last year, at the age of 32, I moved back in with my father, his wife and my brother. I officially became a real, full time sibling…

My brother, Ishan turns twelve this year. He’s entered into that strange in between space when the sweet little boy becomes the awkward, hormone infested TWEEN. He’s still the sweet little boy, he’s just got a little more attitude. But then again, my brother has long enjoyed being the straight man to my loud, crazy and clumsy self.

Like the day after his first middle school dance, I asked him about it, and he said, “I went around and started talking to chickens… Of course I danced!”

So the kid can always make me laugh. But I do think our relationship is affected by the fact that now I am living with him…

I asked him what his least favorite thing about living with me was. His answer was short: “The bathroom.”

“The bathroom?… Why is that?” I asked.

“Because there is hair everywhere,” Ishan said. “Usually there is hair in the sink and in the tub. Didi the bathroom is gross!”

“The bathroom is not that gross,” I shot back.

“That’s why I moved out,” he said.

By gross he means—filled with girl cooties. Still even though he thinks Im gross, I love the kid.

When my brother was 5 days old, just home from the hospital—he turned suddenly blue. His body couldn’t regulate sugar and he became dangerously hypoglycemic. He was in the ICU for six devastating days. And then at 8 months old he had a cyst in his head, fatty tissue growing there, and he had to have brain surgery. Until he was four, every three months my brother had an MRI.

We don’t know if this caused some of the problems later— but my brother grew up with difficulties adjusting. At one point we thought it might be Asperger’s syndrome, later he was diagnosed with sensory integration disorder.

Whatever the technical name—he had problems with his motor skills, he had to be taught to write—to hold a pen in his hand. He would spend twenty minutes washing his hands, getting stuck obsessively repeating a single simple task. He hung back from other people, both kids and adults. He was always removed from social interaction. Sometimes it would seem like he was in his own isolation chamber; he wouldn’t listen to what other people said; often he just didn’t understand what other people said. My brother and I had an instant and deep bond. For some reason, I could always reach him.

Perhaps this was because while he was going through all this, there was something wrong with me too. In my twenties I was diagnosed and re-diagnosed: bipolar disorder and then clinical depression. Just like my brother, sometimes I found myself in an isolation chamber of my own making. But Ishan and I built a bridge between us. And as I grew up and learnt basic coping skills… he did too.

You wouldn’t know his struggles to see him now– the tallest boy in his class, with his sarcastic sense of humor. Our bond is still there, it’s just thathe gets annoyed with me now.  And sometimes I get annoyed with him too. We find each other exasperating and sometimes obnoxious. Just like– just like regular siblings.

Even if I do have cooties, I like to think he still looks up to me. Even if he only does so in third person…. Here he is talking about me:

“You know I once said, every third of her life when that brain of hers is working you could almost see the fumes from her head puffing out from the top of her skull,” he said. “It’s incredible, I mean there it is… it’s going right now.”

In response I said, “But most of the time what you’re actually trying to say is that my brain isn’t working.”

“I didn’t say that,” Ishan said. He paused and then added, “It may have been implied but I didn’t actually say that.”

Okay, so the respect is irreverent. VERY irreverent. But my brother is big on implication these days. Ishan will no longer tell me that he loves me—well not in so many words.

Instead when I tell him “I love you” – he says “you too.” Just “you too.” Its become a code between us, a brother sister lingo. So that’s what we say to each other now: “You too.” And you know what? They’re the best words I hear all day.

Protesters marching in support of a gang prevention program in New York based on Chicago's Ceasefire. Photo by Sandhya Dirks.

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New statistics just released by the New York City Police Department show that murders are down across the city, except in one group: young African American men.

Last year New York State launched a new gang and gun violence prevention program. It’s based on a model called Ceasefire that began in Chicago, and has been tried in other cities, including Newark and Pittsburgh. In New York it’s called SNUG, that’s guns spelled backwards, and it uses outreach workers to go directly into gang territory and diffuse violent situations.

But Operation SNUG is in danger of losing its funding.

On one of the first almost warm nights of the year, a group of six men and women dressed in dark clothing are walking the streets of East New York, Brooklyn in a tight knit group.

They are patrolling the 75^th precinct, the Cities largest. In 2010 there were 33 murders here, more than anywhere else in the 5 boroughs.

Team supervisor Minyarn Johnson says that in the last few months, this group has become a regular presence here.

“When we first started this, everybody was like, ‘Who is this — is that the cops or is that a gang?’” Johnson said. “No, we’re ceasefire, we’re here to help. So as you can see, we are all in uniform, we all look alike. This is our uniform everyday.”

The uniforms are bulky black jackets—on the back– in bold white print– the words “operation SNUG” reflect out into the dark night.

The SNUG team is trying to engage young men hanging out on the corners. Tonight there’s a likely candidate; he has a thick black ponytail, nervously smoking a cigarette. The team hangs back—while one of the outreach workers goes over to talk.  Team supervisor Johnson says he’s what’s called a possible.

“Because we have to make sure that he’s serious about wanting change, so today it’s just the first step,” Johnson said.

The SNUG team knows this first conversation can’t be the last. But this kind of constant presence is expensive. A total of ten ceasefire programs across New York are costing the state 4 million dollars this year. And because of budget cuts the state has not earmarked funding for SNUG next year.

But Outreach worker Tiz Mack says that you can’t do this program half way—

“They got a million other people that’s in their ear so we gotta stay in constant contact with them,” Mach said. “So I gotta call them two times a day, see them six times a month. Sometimes I feel like I am talking in one ear and out the other, but I know it’s one block at a time, one person at a time.”

Mack knows this first hand.

“I went upstate for a robbery when I was 17,” Mack said. “I used to do robberies when I was little. I mean, you can’t be ashamed of what you’ve done. You just got to look at it, you got to learn from it, and you gotta use it as a tool to teach others.”

And that’s exactly what he does.

“You know I can walk inside apartments where people are selling drugs, guns is out,” Mack said. “I know them, they know me, they trust me. So when I come with my snug operation jacket, they know I’m not coming to hurt them.”

The jacket that Tiz Mack and the rest of the team wears also says “Ceasefire” – that’s because they were trained by members of the Chicago program, where Ceasefire began. It was created by an epidemiologist who was trying to stop the spread of deadly diseases like cholera in Africa, says journalist Alex Kotlowitz.

“He began to sort of think about violence as an infectious disease, and began to wonder if you thought about violence as an infectious disease if you couldn’t treat it,” Kotlowitz said.

Kotlowitz has been writing about Ceasefire for over a decade. He says its goal is to end the transmission of violence. But that has deeper roots, and Kotlowitz says it is hard to know how much Ceasefire can do about them.

“The place of outreach workers is also to try and get people back on their feet, to get them back into school to get them jobs,” Kotlowitz said. “But what if there aren’t good schools out there or if there aren’t jobs? Again to borrow from the public health analogy, it’s not unlike treating cholera, in that case provide clean drinking water.”

To continue the metaphor, the water has been dirtied in East New York by decades of institutionalized poverty. Chicago has many of the same issues, and Ceasefire made real inroads there. But New York State is close to broke. State Senator Malcolm Smith brought the program here, and his office says in an economy like this, it’s almost impossible to convince politicians to spend money on a something that hasn’t been locally tested.

Outreach workers say that test is coming soon—they’ve spent the winter making connections and earning trust. They’ll find out if it worked this summer, when the cycle of violence traditionally spikes.