Angry Birds Battle NYPD Drones + Other News (original) (raw)
Indypendent News Hour co-hosts John Tarleton and Ariana Orozco.
This Week’s Indy Radio: Angry Birds Battle NYPD Drones, Rev Billy on a Roll, Downtown Dance Theater Gets Unionized
By Indypendent Staff Sep 1
To listen to the full version of the August 27 Indypendent News Hour, click here.
Angry Birds Battle NYPD Drones
An American Oystercatcher inspects its egg/ Wikimedia Commons
An aerial battle has been raging over Rockaway Beach this summer between endangered shorebirds intent on defending their nests and a new fleet of NYPD surveillance drones that they are not happy about. On this week’s Indypendent News Hour on WBAI-99.5 FM, we explored this confrontation between an ever-expanding police force and the natural world with Jesse McLaughlin of the NYC Bird Alliance. New York City is a bird hot spot with 350 species of birds calling it home for some or all of the year. McLaughlin filled us in on the many big city dangers faced by our feathered friends, the legislative initiatives being pushed by the NYC Bird Alliance and why taking the necessary steps to protect birds from crashing into buildings – a leading cause of avian fatalities – has the real estate industry on edge.
Reverend Billy Talen of the Earth Church
On Tuesday’s show, we also caught up with Reverend Billy Talen of the Earth Church which has been on a roll recently. Reverend Billy and the Earth Church Gospel Choir recently performed in sold-out arenas as the warm-up act for Neil Young & Crazy Horse in their latest nationwide tour. Reverend Billy and the Choir were also featured earlier this month in The New York Times and have released a new album, The Sun Is a Star That Keeps Me Warm. Their homebase, a storefront performance space on Avenue C in the East Village, continues to serve as a community center and language schoolon weekdays for West African migrants. Rev Billy has been the advice columnist for The Indy’s monthly print edition since 2016. To check out his advice columns, see here.
The Emergency workplace Organizing Committee celebrating a summer of organizing/ EWOC Blog
In our final segment, we spoke with Artie Thikdor, a worker-organizer with the New York Live Arts Union which recently won a union recognition vote at the premier downtown New York dance theater. Organizing began last fall with an assist from the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC), and brought together everyone from dancers to production workers to front-of-the house workers, which as Thikdor recounts, took a lot of hard work and one-on-one conversations.
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