October 2011 marks the 10th anniversary of the Patriot Act. In the days following 9/11, fear and shock dominated the public and domestic security issues rose to the top of our agenda. The state of emergency that began during the Bush administration has continued into the Obama administration. But how many of actions taken to keep Americans safe are effective and worthwhile? Are we, as Americans, giving up too much to employ many of the antiterrorism tactics in use?

Scrappin' Upstate Artist Reception, with Brenda Ann Kenneally and Upstate Girls, 6:00 p.m.
Presentation by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, 7:00 p.m.

Narrative journalist  Adrian Nicole LeBlanc will explore the issues addressed in Scrappin' Upstate, and the vital role of independent journalism, with a focus on marginalized members of society: adolescents living in poverty, prostitutes, women in prison, etc.

LeBlanc will respond to questions by photo journalist Brenda Ann Kenneally about the current Sanctuary exhibit, "Scrappin' Upstate." One of the central families in her book Random Family are residents of North Troy, and a focus of Upstate Girls. When Random Family was selected to be excerpted in the N.Y. Times Magazine, the N.Y. Times assigned Kenneally the task of photographing the people that LeBlanc had documented through her ten-year reportage.  This marks the beginning of Brenda Ann Kenneally's Upstate Girls project.

Author and activist Dr. Helen Caldicott will appear at 8 PM on Saturday, November 13, 2010 at The Sanctuary for Independent Media to talk about the past, present and future of anti-nuclear activism.  She is a pediatrician and an anti-nuclear activist, who opposes both nuclear weapons and nuclear power.

Helen Caldicott will be introduced by Lawrence Wittner, longtime historian at SUNY Albany who has written extensively about the impact of the worldwide nuclear disarmament movement upon nuclear weapons policies.

CHECK OUT THIS REVIEW!

Best Practices in Banana Time, Review: The Beginning of a New Age,  

The Free George

The Free George is the premiere online magazine of Upstate NY, from Albany to Lake Placid, covering the following counties: Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, Saratoga, Washington, Warren, Hamilton and Essex. It’s where you want to be, when you want to get up-to-date information, interviews, articles, reviews and listings on arts, entertainment, events, dining, local businesses, the great outdoors and so much more!

INTRODUCTION BY:

David Kaczynski 

David is the Executive Director of New Yorkers For Alternatives to the Death Penalty,  and the brother of the "Unabomber" Theordore Kaczynski.

CO-SPONSORS:

Amnesty International USA, Local Group 361

Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace

Capital Punishment Research Initiative of the University at Albany School of Criminal Justice

New York Civil Liberties Union, Capital District Chapter

Christopher Hedges, whose forthcoming book is "Death of the Liberal Class" (Perseus), is also the best-selling author of "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" (2003), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. A quote from the book was used as the opening title quotation in the critically-acclaimed and Academy Award-winning 2009 film, The Hurt Locker.  The quote reads: "The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug."

This event is co-sponsored by Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace.

Hedges, whose column is published Mondays on Truthdig, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years.

Just added!
Activists from the radical environmental group Earth First! will speak at The Sanctuary For Independent Media (3361 Sixth Avenue in North Troy) at 7 PM on Wednesday, June 30, 2010.  They will be presenting the Earth First! Journal Roadshow, featuring a program about the international ecodefense movement called “Earth Nightly News” followed by a multimedia presentation on the history of Earth First! (which is celebrating 30 years on the front lines of ecological defense).

Jeremy Scahill is an investigative journalist and author whose work focuses on global issues, most notably the use of private military companies. He is the author of the best-selling book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, winner of a George Polk Book Award. 

He also serves as a correspondent for the U.S. radio and TV program Democracy Now!. He is also a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute and a frequent contributor to The Nation.

Click here for a recent interview in which Jeremy Scahill discusses independent media and this critical moment in journalism, after winning the second annual Izzy Award, named after muckraking journalist I.F. Stone.

Former Black Panther, Mama Charlotte Hill O'Neal is an accomplished poet, musician and visual artist, and Founding Director of Tanzania's United African Alliance Community Center (UAACC), a community-based organization which promotes community development in rural Africa. The UAACC has a number of independent media projects as part of its powerful community work including hip hop, music production, photography, videography, poetry, theater and the development of an independent radio station. Four decades after leaving this country for exile in Tanzania, Mama Charlotte Hill O'Neal returns to share the inspirational story of how she and her husband's past as Black Panthers affects their work among the urban and village youth of East Africa and America.

Join the Sanctuary in welcoming author Scott Christianson for a multimedia presentation and spirited public discussion on the life and amazing rescue of captured fugitive slave, Charles Nalle. In an almost unimaginable act - and the most dramatic slave rescue in American history - Nalle was forcibly liberated by Harriet Tubman and hundreds of protesters on April 27, 1860 in our own Troy, New York.

(Update: Artist Mark Priest will no longer be able to attend this event. Sorry for the last-minute change!)

In his book, Christianson follows Nalle from his enslavement in Virginia through his escape via the Underground Railroad to his experiences in the North on the eve of the Civil War. Christianson also presents a richly detailed look at slavery culture in antebellum Virginia, and probes the deepest political and psychological aspects of this epic tale. His account underscores fundamental questions about racial inequality, the rule of law, civil disobedience, and violent resistance to slavery in the antebellum North and South.