2000

by Staff Writer

The year:2001, young black males continue dying a few of suicides, gang related turf wars but death-by-cop-homicide seems to be going up its almost a repeat of the 1890’s.

When blacks were ‘Strange Fruit" hanging from trees and bridges – bullets replace ropes as law enforcement become"Blue Mobs" a legal killer gang.

What happened? For 14 misdemeanor warrants three for driving with an expired license, four for seat belt violations, five for driving without a driver's license and two for obstruction of official business.

That’s what the official police report says – What was he Mr. Thomas obstructing, was it really obstruction of official police affairs?

This situation must have been simmering, bubbling, boiling, until Mr. Timothy, Thomas’s shooting.

Now a curfew, calling in the National Guards is bad enough making citizens feel trapped, jailed in their own city with more guns aimed at everyone! Target practice anyone?

Chuch leaders pray fine and good except bullets shred flesh faster, how about emergency town meeting on all media from radio, TV, and Internet?

This may be the only way to offset smoldering resentment of law enforcement or at least get out in the open.

A sense of quiet! is a quiet the before the storm" is like saying "The
"natives" are calm let’s leave ‘em be for a bit."

People, Citizen’s of Cincinnati please form citizen cop watches, use video and Document everything police do from minor to major incidents, accidents, or other happenings in your city.

This is not the 1890’s, some police don’t serve and protect but prowl ready to attack anyone out of uniform ‘brother, sister cops especially know the deal – once out of their uniforms are likely to receive the same treatment.Ware double bullet proof vests, neck, shin, extra groin protection.

In PETERSBURG, Ky., 2:20 a.m. another death this time an unknown white female body in the Ohio River near a campground, Wednesday by
Boone County residents. Coroner Says Not To Draw Conclusions.

He or she is correct, get proper evidence then draw sane deductions and logical conclusions.

It probably is unrelated but too many young people are dying by cop or by means unknown.

In Cincinnati, 11:01 a.m. EDT April 13, 2001 Funeral Services for Timothy Thomas funeral has been scheduled for Saturday. A visitation will be held at 11:30 a.m. at the New Prospect Baptist Church, located at 1829 Elm Street in Cincinnati. The public is Invited.

The Funeral Service, which is open to the public, will begin at 1:30 p.m.

I hope and pray Mr. Timothy Thomas’s family, friends, and relatives find Mr. Thomas the Justice he and they deserve.

To CNN Correspondent Mr. Brian Palmer.
Original Contributor of this report and Channel Cincinnati

by Leroy F. Moore Jr

Welcome to Postcard City

Where everything is picturize

But don’t look for any substance

If you don’t like it sail across the Bay

We have mountains, rolling hills and bridges

Postcard City welcomes out-of-towners

A land of tourists kicking out residents

Postcard City is temporary

Hard to keep up the appearance

A utopia stiffling the other side of the story

Controlling with an iron fist

You can do anything

As long as it doesn’t go against our rules

No S R O’s

No studios

No section eight vouchers

No benches

No mattes in shelters

Playing musical chairs with no music

No more lodging in public

No sleeping in cars

No sitting at UN Plaza

No immigrants

No affirmative Action

No diversity leads to our ultimate goal, a utopia

No more artists

No more socialists

More and more
capitalists

No more free speech

No more Government cheese

No P G& E

Postcard City don’t care

About healthcare or welfare

Cause we got our share

No more liberals

No more homosexuals

No individuality

Follow the cat in the big hat

He is over seventy

Still making babies

Politics is dirty

In Postcard City

You wash my back i wash yours

A 20 cent stamp

And you can send this beautiful scenery

Across the country

The Grass is always greener

But what you see

Is man-made not Mothernature

Look beyond the window dressing

Unwrap the gift

Reality is more than a koack moment

Leroy F. Moore Jr.

5/01

by Lester the cat and Dee

Hands tells me secretly, “Why don’t we invite those pigeons over for
dinner sometime soon?”

“Good idea,” I tell him.

The reason I’m writing about pigeons is that this guy named Joe sent
me something that he wrote about pigeons taking over the world (not with
us cats around, someone should tell him). This Joe wrote to me and Hands:

“Pigeons and cats mostly run Planet Earth!” Human’s destructive
capacities are their own traits. Let the humans believe that they’re in
control, stumble on to discoveries that we drop in their minds. Their
hidden control continues: These are Birdview, Pigeon mind(s). Are
You Sure That What You Think Is You Or Are They P-Minds?”

And he also sent us some photos- I’m including a few. Don’t notice if
they’re a little spotty: me and Hands had a little trouble with our spit
the day that we looked at them. We had a drooling problem for
some reason.

As soon as I finish this column, which is now, I think I’ll send this
guy Joe a Hands-written invitation to dinner with me and Hands- for him
and for his pigeons. We’ll talk Joe (humor him) into going out
and taking many more rolls of film of many more pigeons, lots and lots
of pigeons. We’ll give him categories: most beautiful pigeon, most happiest
pigeon, and so on- whatever takes him the longest.

Meanwhile me and Hands will amuse ourselves, discussing with the pigeons
this plan for taking over the world, and how “Pigeons and cats mostly
run Planet Earth”, and the Delicious Dinner we will make OF, for,
I mean, the pigeons that this Joe guy leaves with us.

by Staff Writer

Cincinnati’s curfew is still in effect, people are angry, things are still smoldering over there, the National Guard has been called in too.

There are hotspots all over our world including asteroids, meteors flitting by or near earth, it only takes 'one' two or three miles across, no larger than half the size of Mount Fuji to make all of humanity have a worse day than a Three Mile Island – mishap multiplied a hundred times.

While walking 6th and Market Street in San Francisco the scream and honks of fire engines, police sirens, all from different directions converging somewhere between Mission and Market Streets.

My first reaction after hearing these loud sounds is to cover my ears with my palms or two fingers, plugging my ears drowning out most of the sounds, while walking or standing still.

But I’ve noticed that many people do not they keep walking, talking, ignoring the sounds.

A few times I listened not covering my ears regretting it and quickly covering my lobes.

It became horribly clear that the people are not ignoring those sounds "Their ears are so traumatized that they really do not hear the sounds. Music is soothing, relaxing, and a great way to relax how- ever when played too loud continuously at Concerts, or any venue where music is blasting so intense and loud that one feels it in their bones too; well its time to get those ears checked for hearing loss.

I wonder how many musicians, fans, or entertainment columnist that cover the ever changing music scene have significant hearing loss but don’t know it?

I saw a free concert once as an usher in Oakland and a Roller Derby game too somewhere else and in both cases it was too loud and most of the time speakers blared noise, people are shouting and screaming; I don’t how rock stars, wrestlers, roller derby players on skates, or holly- wood celebrities stand the loud, deafening, screaming adoration?

A young entertainment columnist and I had a recent conversation on the subject. I warned of hearing loss by age 50 or less; the columnist had a slight bug-eyed look then the eyes became normal.

I think this columnist will take better care of more sensitive assets than writing skills.

Helping one professional at a time. My job in done.

Please send donations to Poor Magazine C/0 Ask Joe at 255 9th St. Street,
San Francisco, CA. 94103 USA

For Joe only my snail mail:
PO Box 1230 #645
Market St.
San Francisco, CA 94102
Email: askjoe@poormagazine.org

by PNN Staff

PNN Courtwatch staff was disturbed by the recent story of a very poor mother accused of felony child neglect by Idaho county officials;

Excerpts from Associated Press Article

May 31, 2001

…SANDPOINT, Idaho – Six children, believed to be armed, refused to leave their rural home and instead released a pack of dogs on sheriff’s deputies who had arrested their mother, authorities said…

…Officers were concerned yesterday about a boy who had taken a leadership role at the house.

“It’s not worth a confrontation with a 15-year-old who believes he is protecting his family,” Jarvis said. “We are trying to talk him down.”

The children, ages 8 to 16, would not respond to calls from social workers or law enforcement officers. They were being told over a loudspeaker they would be fed, housed and taken to see their mother if they would come out, Jarvis said…

…“We know there are six children in there and guns in the house,” Jarvis said. “The kids are trained to use the guns.”

More than 20 dogs have been running free at the scene, he said.

“They hunt; they pack like wild animals,” he said. “They took down a moose a little while ago.”

The home lacks power, water and heat. The children essentially have been caring for themselves for the past year, Jarvis said.

The incident was set off by Tuesday’s arrest of the children’s mother, JoAnn McGuckin, on a warrant charging felony injury to a child. Authorities believe McGuckin, 46, is mentally ill. Her husband, Michael McGuckin, died May 12 after a long illness.

Deputies lured JoAnn McGuckin from the house with grocery money Tuesday. She was taken into custody after going to a store with a deputy who had brought the cash.
Deputies returned to the home to get the children and put them in state custody, but one of the boys ran to the house and yelled, “Get the guns,” Jarvis said. He said the children then let the dogs out of the basement…

Excerpts from New York Times Article

June 2, 2001

…[the family] had been living in squalor in recent months as their father lay dying in the house and their mother sank into what the authorities describe as paranoid schizophrenia…

…The mother, JoAnn McGuckin, 45, has a court-appointed lawyer representing her. In the meantime, a lawyer from Sandpoint, Edgar Steele, who represented the Aryan Nations in a trial last fall that resulted in a $6.3 million judgement against the northern Idaho white-supremacist group and its leader, Richard Butler, said he had been authorized by JoAnn McGuckin to speak out.

“These kids are not neglected, abused or unloved,” Steele said. “These are poor people. Their real crime is to happen to be poor and living in north Idaho.” Steele blamed the county government for having moved in to arrest the mother and for “harassing” them by pressing her to pay off a tax bill that had mounted to at least $5,400 over the years.

The McGuckins’ financial troubles date back as far as the 1980s, when the local sawmill owned by McGuckin went out of business. The family went into bankruptcy as well.

“This is a very close-knit family whose greatest nightmare for years has been that the government would come and take their property and take their kids,” Steele said. “And that’s what’s happening.”...

PNN Response to McGuckin Family

To: JoAnn McGuckin- PERSONAL

From: Dee @ POOR Magazine

Re: YOU ARE A MOTHER!!!YOU ARE A HERO - DUE TO THE SIMPLE FACT THAT YOU HAVE GIVEN LIFE TO SEVEN CHILDREN!!!!!

Dear Ms. McGuckin,

This is our second letter to you and your children. What we are hearing in the news about you is making us very angry.

The news reports say your children have been taken into “protective custody” and given to three families.

The children are reported to be healthy and well – yet you are in jail for “felony neglect” – FOR WHAT??

We as a society are guilty of “felony neglect”- we and your neighbors, townspeople, and the judge that handed down that charge.

Where was that judge and townfolk when you were struggling to care for your ill husband through his death while also caring for your children?

They are guilty of “neglect” for not supporting you emotionally when your husband passed away.

That judge is not aware of your struggle or is just a plain misogynist.

You are a mother!! Instead of a criminal sentence you should be receiving an award .

Seven children- all healthy; they are all so desirable that three families want them.

Well, how did those kids become so desirable – because you and your husband- and especially you- cared for them and raised them well.

County Social Workers in child Protective Services for the most part are trained to blame the parents and remove the children from the parents.

All you need is some time, crisis counseling and an in-home care provider and some financial support – food stamps, rent subsidy, an attorney that believes in parental rights and perhaps some training in computer technology or another field that you might like and could make some money in to help support your family.

You have been carrying a very heavy burden and yet your children are all well. I am a social worker and a therapist and I am giving you advice based on much experience in my field (and personal experience as a mother ).

DO NOT BE A VICTIM HERE- DO NOT LET THESE PEOPLE BLAME YOU– DON”T LET THEM BREAK UP YOUR FAMLY!!!

THEY want to care about your children- what about you?? They need to care for you!!

You are the children’s mother!! You gave life to 7 children. You are a HERO!!! These people did not help you in your struggle to raise these children, in your crisis, in your pain- they are the only ones guilty of felony neglect!!

Respectfully,

Dee Gray, M.S.W., M.F.T.

Co-editor, POOR Magazine

Lisa Gray-Garcia (daughter of Dee )

Co-editor, POOR Magazine

PS: We believe what you need first is a rest. Someone needs to donate a trip for you for 3 or 4 days to a resort. Then another trip for you and your children to Acapulco, Mexico, or any other place that has an ocean, for a week to swim, scuba dive, and build sand castles.

by KEN MOSHESH

‘“HEY LOOK AT THIS!” OUTFLYS THE FIRST SALVO FROM THE HERE-TO-FORE INVISIBLE NEIGHBOR OCCUPYING THE SEAT DIRECTLY BEHIND ME AS OUR SMOOTH SONOROUS FLYING LIMO SIGNALS THE LINGERING DESCENT TOWARDS THE WAITING STATION BELOW.

CAVALCADING HORIZONTALLY BY SMILE-STAINED PORT -OVALS, STREAM DAZZLING ARRAYS OF VERTICAL ILLUMINATED SNOW FLOWS EERILY TOPPING CHOCOLATED PRECIPITATIONS, DELICIOUSLY INTERSPERSED WITH ASCENDING MARSHMELLOWNG CLOUDS ALL WHIPPED TO PERFECTION AMIDST JETTISONING SOUNDS UNCURTAINING MUTED BRIGHTS AND TWINKLING LIGHTS DIMMING THROUGH THE NIGHTTIME DIN... WINKING BACK...MERRY CHRISTMAS!

THUS I BEGIN MY TRIP BACK EAST VIA AMERICA WEST AIRLINES
HOWEVER, THE RETURN TRIP WAS ANYTHING BUT TASTEFUL.....

FIRST OFF, I WAS ALMOST STRANDED IN AN AIRPORT (3000 MILES AWAY FROM HOME) WHEN AN AIRLINE TICKET COUNTER AGENT TOLD ME I COULDN’T BOARD THE PLANE BECAUSE A RESERVATION PERSON’S CONFIRMED CHANGE COULD NOT BE DONE AT THIS AIRPORT.

I HAD TO CALL RELATIVES WHO HAD JUST LEFT THE AIRPORT TO TAKE ME BACK TO A NEIGHBORING AIRPORT WHERE THE CHANGED DEPARTURE DATE COULD BE AFFECTED.

MY FAMILY AND I CHALKED IT ALL UP TO HOLIDAY VOLUME ETC., AND THE SEASONS SPIRITS STILL RULED THE DAY.

AT THE NEW AIRPORT, BALTIMORE-WASHINGTON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (BWI), MY FIRST SCHEDULED FLIGHT OUT (DEC 25) WAS DELAYED, THEN INTERRUPTED BY ANOTHER SCHEDULED FLIGHT, DELAYED AGAIN AND FINALLY CANCELLED LATE INTO THE EVENING.

ACCORDINGLY, AS IS CUSTOMARY THE AIRLINES HOUSED US IN A LOCAL MOTEL OVERNIGHT, TO BEGIN DEPARTURE PROCEDURES AGAIN THE NEXT DAY.

THE NEXT DAY I WAS GIVEN RESERVATIONS ON A ONE O’CLOCK FLIGHT IN THE CABIN SECTION AND A STANDBY POSITION IN FIRST CLASS, FOR WHICH I WAS TICKETED.

WHEN THIS FLIGHT TURNED OUT TO BE OVERBOOKED, COMPANY PERSONNEL SUGGESTED THAT I VOLUNTEER MY TICKETS ON THIS FLIGHT
IN RETURN FOR A FUTURE TRAVEL VOUCHER CONSIDERATION AND HAVE A BETTER CHANCE AT FLYING FIRST CLASS ON THE FIVE O’CLOCK FLIGHT.

STILL FULL OF THE HOLIDAY WARMTH AND SPIRIT ENGENDERED BY MY VISITS, AND NOTICING THE NUMBER OF FAMILIES TRYING TO GET ALL OF THEIR FAMILY MEMBERS ON THE SAME FLIGHT, IT SOUNDED GOOD TO ME.

UNFORTUNATELY THE FIVE O’CLOCK FLIGHT NOT ONLY HAD NO FIRST-CLASS SEATS, IT WAS ALSO EVENTUALLY CANCELLED.

WE FORM THE USUAL, HOLIDAY, TIME CONSUMING, SINGLE FILE, LONG LINE FOR REBOOKING. FEELINGS GET FRAYED, AND ALTERCATIONS ERUPT. (I HELP COOL DOWN ONE PARTICULARLY POINTED ALTERCATION INVOLVING AN ELDERLY, DISABLED, BLACK MALE, AIRLINE PERSONNEL, AND OTHER WAITING PASSENGERS THAT ULTIMATELY INVOLVES THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES).

AS THE LINE CREEPS UP TO MY PLACE, THE TICKET AGENT WHO IS IN THE PROCESS OF REBOOKING ME IS ORDERED (BY ONE OF THE AGENTS INVOLVED IN THE PREVIOUS POINTED ALTERCATION WITH THE BLACK MALE) TO STOP THE PROCESS AND BEGIN ONBOARDING THE PASSENGERS FOR THE NEXT SCHEDULED FLIGHT TO OUR DESTINATION, WHOSE DEPARTURE TIME HAD ARRIVED DURING OUR DELAY.

MY AGENT APOLOGETICALLY ASSURES ME AS SHE STOPS THE REBOOKING PROCESS THAT IF I STAY RIGHT NEXT TO THE COUNTER (THERE IS ALSO A BLACK FEMALE WITH ME SEEKING TO REBOOK),SHE WILL CONTINUE MY REBOOKING PROCESS AS SOON AS SHE FINISHES ONBOARDING THE NEWLY ARRIVED FLIGHT PASSENGERS.

FINALLY THE NEW PLANE BUSINESS IS COMPLETE, AND WE AGAIN BEGIN MY REBOOKING PROCESS. THE SAME AGENT WHO HALTED PROCEEDINGS BEFORE AGAIN INTERRUPTS WITH; “WE ARE NOW GOING TO FORM TWO LINES FOR REBOOKING”

SHE TELLS US TO FOLLOW HER TO THE OTHER END OF THE COUNTER BEHIND ANOTHER BLACK MALE TO START ANOTHER LINE. PORTIONS OF THE LINE ORIGINALLY BEHIND THE THREE OF US MOVE FORWARD TO WHERE WE WERE JUST ESCORTED FROM, TO BEGIN THE SECOND LINE.

THIS SAME TICKET AGENT REITERATES THAT IN SPITE OF WHAT I WAS JUST TOLD BY MY AGENT IN HER PRESENCE, SHE WILL NOT RESUME REBOOKING ME AND MY FRIEND, BUT WILL NOW SERVICE TWO OTHER LINES.

THE OTHER BLACK MALE WHO IS AT THE HEAD OF OUR NEW LINE (I’M SECOND, AND MY AFRICAN FEMALE FRIEND IS THIRD), WHO WAS THIRD IN THE ORIGINAL LINE, SUGGESTS THAT THE NEW AGENT IN CHARGE SHOULD, AT THE LEAST, TAKE ONE PERSON ALTERNATELY FROM EACH LINE.

TO MAKE A LONG WORSENING STORY SHORT, AFTER BOARDING SOME PASSENGERS WHO ARRIVED FROM PHILADELPHIA ON “OUR” FLIGHT, THE NEW AGENT REBOOKS AND BOARDS AT LEAST THREE CONSECUTIVE PEOPLE FROM THE OTHER LINE (NONE OF WHOM WERE BLACK) SAYING; “WE WILL COME BACK TO BOARD SOME MORE PEOPLE”.

HOWEVER, WHEN THE AIRLINE PERSONNEL RETURN FROM THE PLANE TO OUR BOARDING AREA, THEY REPORT THE PLANE HAS LEFT.

ALL INQUIRING COMMENTS ARE STIFLED BY A CALL FOR ATTENTION BY OUR NEW AGENT WHO ANNOUNCED THAT WE WILL ALL BE HOUSED OVERNIGHT AGAIN IN THE LOCAL MOTEL AND A SPECIAL FERRY PLANE WILL BE CREATED (SINCE ALL OTHER FLIGHTS WERE FULL) AND MADE READY FOR US AT 3PM THE NEXT DAY. WE WERE THEN TOLD TO MAKE RESERVATIONS FOR THE 3 O’CLOCK FLIGHT “AROUND” EIGHT IN THE MORNING.

SO BACK TO THE LOCAL MOTEL MANY OF US GO. OTHERS ARRIVE LATER. THE THOUGHT OF MY COAST TO COAST DEPARTURE (WHICH BEGAN ON THE 25TH OF DECEMBER) PUT ME TO SLEEP QUICKLY THAT NIGHT, AND AWAKENED ME WITH A SMILE THE NEXT DAY.

WHEN I CALL TO MAKE RESERVATIONS AROUND 7:30AM AS PREVIOUSLY INSTRUCTED ON THE MORNING OF THE 27TH OF DECEMBER, I AM TOLD THAT A FLIGHT LEFT AT 6:30 A.M. THAT MORNING. I AM ALSO TOLD THAT THERE ARE NO OTHER FLIGHTS AVAILABLE FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS... AND, THERE IS NO 3 O’CLOCK FLIGHT!

“ NO WHAT??!!!”

AT THIS POINT I CONTACT THE OPERATIONS DEPARTMENT OF AMERICA WEST. I EXPLAIN MY SITUATION TO A VERY CORDIAL, EFFICIENT ADMINISTRATOR WHO FINDS TWO POSSIBLE FIRST CLASS SEATS DEPARTING LATER IN THE DAY, AND MAKES RESERVATIONS FOR ME ON A 6:40 P.M, FLIGHT OUT OF BWI.

SHE ALSO TELLS ME HER RECORDS SHOW ME AS BEING ON THE 6:30A.M FLIGHT EARLIER THAT MORNING!

WE BOTH REMARKED THAT IF THAT WERE IN FACT THE CASE (A DEPARTURE FROM THE STATED 3 0’CLOCK FLIGHT) IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE AND PROFESSIONAL IF THEY WOULD HAVE INFORMED ALL OF THE OTHER PASSENGERS AND MYSELF SENT TO THEIR DESIGNATED MOTEL WITH THE ERRONEOUS 3 O’CLOCK FERRY PLANE INFORMATION, RATHER THAN DISSEMINATE FALSE DEPARTURE INFORMATION TO INQUIRING RELATIVES.

I THANKED HER FOR HER HELP, AND SHE THANKED ME FOR MY PATIENCE.

WHEN I GOT TO THE TICKET COUNTER AT BWI TO SECURE MY GATE PASS FOR MY NEWLY CREATED RESERVATION, I WENT TO THE FIRST CLASS SECTION OF THE COUNTER AS INSTRUCTED.

AFTER BEING IGNORED BY AGENTS WHO ARE “TOO BUSY” OR “ON BREAKS” ETC. FOR APPROXIMATELY 30 MINUTES, ONE OF THE MANY PERSONS IN MY LINE UTTERS A TEARSE , “DAMN, FIRST CLASS DOESN”T MEAN S***AT THIS AIRLINE”.

HOWEVER, THE AGENT WHO IS SERVICING THE CABIN LINE, NOTICING MY CONTINUING DILEMMAS, COMES OVER FROM HER NON-FIRST CLASS STATION TO GIVE ME MY GATE/BOARDING PASS, AND HER CORDIAL APOLOGY.

AT THE BOARDING GATE (SINCE I’M VERY EARLY), NOW FAMILIAR, PERSONNEL SUGGEST I DISCUSS THE 6:30AM, 3 O’CLOCK SITUATION WITH A SUPERVISOR BACK AT THE TICKET COUNTER.

BACK AT THE TICKET COUNTER A PASSING SUPERVISOR IS FLAGGED DOWN TO SPEAK TO ME BY AN AIRLINES EMPLOYEE. CALMLY I EXPLAIN TO HER OCCURANCES LEADING UP TO MY NEW RESERVATIONS.

SUDDENLY, THE SUPERVISOR SNATCHES THE AIRLINES ISSUED ENVELOPE CONTAINING MY NOW EXTENSIVE TICKETING PAPERS (ALSO CONTAINING A PHONE NUMBER OF PERSONS TO CORRESPOND WITH AT A LATER DATE) THROWS IT AWAY, WHILE SAYING, “ YOU NEED A NEW ONE”.

DURING THIS TIRADE SHE MAKES COMMENTS LIKE, “ WHAT DO YOU WANT US TO DO”. “WE CAN’T TAKE CARE OF EVERY ONE” . SHE TAKES OUT THE “VOLUNTEER” TRAVEL VOUCHER FROM MY TICKETS ISSUED ON THE 25TH, HOLDS IT UP, AND SAYS, “ WE ALREADY GAVE YOU THIS, SO WE’RE NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING ELSE NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENED!”

SHE REITERATES” YOU DIDN’T PAY THE ITINERARY CHANGE FEE!” I AGAIN POINT OUT THE PERSON WHO I PAID IT TOO. SHE THEN CHANGES TO,” YOU MADE THE 6:30AM RESERVATION ! “ HER VOICE BECOMING LOUDER WITH EACH PROVOCATIVE FALSE ACCUSATION, AS THOUGH SHE RESENTED (AMONG OTHER THINGS) MY GOING OVER HER HEAD AND SECURING RESERVATIONS AFTER BEING TOLD EARLY THAT MORNING THAT NONE WERE POSSIBLE.

SHE AGAIN TELLS ME I SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE 6:30AM FLIGHT IN DIRECT CONTRADICTION TO THE 3PM ”OFFICIAL” INFORMATION I WAS GIVEN THE EVENING BEFORE.

REMEMBERING THE INSTIGATIONS, QUICKNESS, AND DURATION OF THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN THE ALTERCATION INVOLVING THE BLACK MALE ON THE EVENING OF THE 26TH, I RESPONDED TO HER CONTINUOUS ATTEMPTS TO GOAD ME INTO AN ARGUMENT THAT COULD RESEMBLE THAT SITUATION AND POSSIBLY CAUSE ME TO MISS MY NEW FLIGHT BY SUGGESTING CALMLY, “ THAT SHE CHECK HER RECORDS.”

WALKING BACK TO THE WELCOMED SANITY OF MY BOARDING GATE, I SMILED WRYLY AT THE ANCIENT RACIAL/CLASS NIGHTMARE THAT I WAS DETERMINED NOT TO LET MAR THE BEAUTY OF THE HOLIDAY VISIT, MY PERCEPTION OF THE PROGRESS MADE IN RACE/CLASS RELATIONS AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS NEW MILLENIUM, AS WELL AS THE OVERALL CORDIAL PROFESSIONALISM OF THIS AIRLINES.

LATER AS WE ARE PREPARING TO DEPART ON THE 6:40PM FLIGHT THE SAME SUPERVISOR ASKS FOR “VOLUNTEERS” WILLING TO GIVE UP THEIR SEATS FOR “FUTURE TRAVEL CONSIDERATIONS.”
AS HER VOLUNTEER PROCURING SMILE PAUSES AT MY EXPERIENCED EYES FOR THE SECOND TIME, THE DAY’S RECENT EVENTS LEAVE ME WHISTLING DIXIE TO MYSELF AT EVEN THE THOUGHT OF “VOLUNTEERING” TO GO THROUGH THIS AGAIN.

I DIDN’T KNOW I WASN’T SUPPOSE TO GO FIRST CLASS!

by Staff Writer

Last Friday in the San Francisco Chronicle I read independent booksellers didn’t do well in the Antitrust case against Borders, Barnes & Nobles Book stores.

I’m not going into details, lets say U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick saw the big chain’s view.

What can small independent book sellers do?
Yes. Barns, Borders, Crown, and other giants have blocks of room for volumes of new and popular works, large advertising budgets, and coffee shops for patrons wanting to slow down to sip their hot tan to black liquid with pastry, bagel, English muffin, French or American Toast.

Where did the coffee shop idea come from? It was originally from modest independent bookseller’s with innovative ways of thinking.

They had to compete against other shops for customers.

Most if not all big chains think:bottom-line, what will get people to buy and not browse, bigger=better is their notion and if coffee shops, bar and bakery combos will get the public in they’ll spend the money raising/cutting prices on food items for added cash revenue.

Big Book chains are Glitzy, posh, expensive, and slightly innovative. How can independent booksellers compete? They don’t; like successful Mom& Pop or one-owner bookstores of the past they can do-be innovative, different in ways huge chains cannot.

Remember "The Purple Onion" or "Hungry Eye" in the 1950’s and 60’s with poets, comedians individual stand-up or groups and of course authors of various works.

Then there is malt shops, PC, I-net spaces and independents joining for a better diversified customer base.

Not following the chain crowd could be what saves independents. It seems when chains have a successful model they don’t change they tend to look the same and if an ordinary behind-the-counter has an idea dumb or brilliant she/he may not be listened to because of the Chain-of-Command top-down structure of most chains.

in a small shop with four or less people one person with a dumb or brilliant idea can ask the boss too without c-o-c wait and his or her idea can be tried.

Think of chain bookstores as slow moving monoliths that may communicate swiftly with other monoliths but c-o-c’s make ‘em get in their own way.

Sometimes bigger is better and at other times what is wanted and needed is
a small nook for books not well known, like small diamonds and gems constantly overlooked.

remember all new books get old eventually and big chains have to move their products.

Small stores with combo café’s, author visits, PC-net services will always be an alternative to large chains because readers are interested in so many kinds of books that chain stores may disdain or dislike not taking the effort because of adverse publicity.

>p>The "If its not here its not anywhere" attitude will no longer be applied as long as independents say. "These ideas, works, authors, theories, whatever are here for readers, not for big chains to pick and choose what our tastes are to fill their already full coffers.

Please send donations to Poor Magazine
C/0 Ask Joe at 255 9th St. Street,
San Francisco, CA. 94103 USA

For Joe only my snail mail:
PO Box 1230 #645
Market St.
San Francisco, CA 94102
Email: askjoe@poormagazine.org

by Leroy Moore

It has been said that California and the rest of the nation are in an economic boom and many organizations and systems are feeding off of this boom. With help from legislators and governors, the prison system is getting fat from this booming economy. Many studies say that California operates the largest and most costly prison system in the nation. Activists like Angela Davis have staged protests and campaigns against the prison system and the political arena in California for the overwhelming number of people of color in the prison system. But, the voices of disabled prisoners have been left out or have been muddled.

Since the birth of the Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization (DAMO) in 1998, we have received many letters from disabled inmates begging for public recognition of the deadly environment that they are forced to live in. The latest letter came from the state of one of the candidates for US President, Texas. Closer to home, in February the Bayview newspaper had a letter from a disabled African American inmate. In both cases the inmates talked about the physical abuse they have experienced from guards or other inmates and how they are denied service and medical care. The inmates have looked for help for their cases but have not received any assistance.

Texas is known for its tough criminal system and has led the country in executions of inmates on death row. According to the December 19, 1999 issue of the Boston Globe, the number of prisoners in Texas has grown from 40,000 to 150,000 since Bush took office! He has also overseen the executions of 113 death row inmates, more than any other governor in any state has since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Many inmates on death row in Texas are or were inmates with mental illness and with developmental disabilities. To date, Bush has not spoken publicly about the Johnny Paul Penry case. Last Spring Bush voted against a bill that would ban executions of the mentally retarded. All of this is shocking because Bush’s father is remembered in the disabled community as the father of the American Disability Act of 1990.

Texas, like California, has poured money into the prison system. According to the Houston Chronicle of March 25, 2000 five years ago the Texas prison system completed the largest construction program in the nation’s history, but now top prison officials say they need as much as $3 billion more to fix up aging units. While the prison systems nationwide are enjoying the booming economy, there has been progressive work on the status of disabled prisoners. In the Houston Chronicle of February 16, 2000 the Senate Criminal Justice Committee heard testimony as they began to study the impact of mentally ill inmates on Texas prisoners and jails.

In 1998 Senator Paul Weelston (D), of Minnesota toured the privately run prisons and found conditions deplorable. Since receiving many allegations of the abuse of mentally disabled youth, Senator Weelston has introduced legislation designed to make sure youngsters with mental disabilities are not improperly locked away, and to end the mistreatment of those already behind bars. Weelston wants to set aside $2.5 billion over five years to help better train jail staff about mental illness, screen out youngsters with mental disorders before they are sent to prison, and build new facilities to house non-violent offenders with mental disabilities. Still, their voices have not reached mainstream mass media.

Although California prisons have been forced by a class action suit, Armstrong Vs. Pete Wilson in 1994, to follow the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, not discriminate against prisoners, DAMO’s prison files have been overflowing with stories of physical brutality. A 1996 survey by California state prison officials showed that at least 1,375 of the state’s 142,000 inmates are blind or deaf, use wheelchairs or need canes or other devices to walk. If we include prisoners with mental disabilities, HIV, mental illness and cancer, the number is overwhelming. The letter that appeared in the Bayview newspaper was from a disabled African American between and he described his reality in a local jail where he has been beaten and overmedicated. He says that he speaks for disabled people everywhere because, "We’re getting stepped on and not represented in a proper manner when we have legal issues that need to be addressed." This statement was echoed in the San Francisco Chronicle of March 14, 2000 by Senator Burton who blocked a Governor Davis appointee to the State Parole Board because the Board violated the ADA. According to Burton and Judge Claudia of Oakland, there have been some prisoners who used wheelchairs who have had to crawl up stairs to get to their hearings.

While California’s prisons are still trying to get in compliance with the ADA, Rogelio, a blind paraplegic man described the physical brutality he lives under the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. In his letter to DAMO, he details his experience as a disabled inmate. Rogelio was punched out of his wheelchair by a guard because he told the guard not to read his legal letters. When Rogelio was on the floor, two officers continued to kick and hit him causing fractures on his left elbow and on his right wrist. Because of these injuries Rogelio could not get back into his wheelchair. The officers did help offenders with mental disabilities. And in California a few disability organizations have been putting the heat on the correction system with help from Senator Burton.

In California, Jean Stewart, Founder of Disabled Prisoners Justice Fund and author has received letters from disabled prisoners for years and is in the process of writing a book on disabled prisoners. She has visited disabled prisoners and helped them get the service and legal representation they need. Disabled Prisoners Justice Fund is a legal defense fund established to protect the rights and meet the legal needs of prisoners with disabilities.

Disabled prisoners are only now getting visibility because of people and grass roots organizations like Jean Stewart and her Disabled Prisoners Justice Fund, Senator Burton, Senator Weelston, and Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization. Despite these voices though, cases of physical abuse and lack of access to prison programs and medical care are still common in a system that is booming under this current economy.

The rights of disabled prisoners is an unpopular issue in the political arena, prison systems, and the traditional disabled organizations but we can’t turn our heads; because if we don’t act now you or I could be caught in the booming prison system.

By Leroy F. Moore
Founder of Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization (DAMO)

by By JENNIFER STEINHAUER (reprinted from the NY Times, courtesy of The Emergency Coalition to Save Public Health)

The city's Health and Hospitals Corporation, strapped for cash and
desperate to find new income, has begun charging a universal fee for
prescription drugs at the pharmacies of all its public hospitals and
community clinics.

Under the new policy, which was quietly introduced last month,
patients are charged a $10 "processing fee" for each prescription
filled, with a cap of $40. There are also some exemptions.

The policy has already come under criticism from health care experts
and doctors, who say the fees will discourage the poor and uninsured -
the most frequent users of the pharmacies - from getting the drugs
they need. The critics say such patients will end up in the hospitals'
already overcrowded emergency rooms as their untreated conditions
become serious.

Previously, the corporation allowed its 11 hospitals and 6 clinics to
decide whether or not to set a fee, and what that amount should be.
Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, for example, charged $10 per
prescription with a cap of $30. At Gouverneur Diagnostic and Treatment
Center in Lower Manhattan, there were no fees at all.

Dr. Luis R. Marcos, president of the Health and Hospitals Corporation,
said the systemwide fee was just one of many measures being taken to
stave off the $313 million deficit the corporation expects to face
this fiscal year. "The corporation has reached its limit of providing
health services for which no one is willing to pick up the tab," he
said. "I believe it is fair to ask patients who can afford it to pay
for prescriptions."

The new policy does not affect those who obtain medication during
hospital stays or during an emergency room visit. Also exempt are
those in public programs for AIDS or prenatal care, those with
tuberculosis or teenagers who receive oral contraceptives.

Patients with insurance, including Medicaid, are to pay their
prescription program's lowest co-payment, which in many cases may be
lower than the $10 fee. Dr. Marcos said he hoped this would encourage
uninformed or reluctant patients to apply for Medicaid, which has
become the corporation's main source of steady income. Some patients
and advocates for the poor say there have been problems with the new
policy, including a shortage of financial counselors who are supposed
to help patients enroll for Medicaid or negotiate for lower fees.

"We did an observation at seven hospitals and two treatment centers
and observed long lines to see a counselor," said Judy Wessler,
director of the Commission on the Public's Health System, a health
care advocacy organization.

Several patients said they were told that they must pay amounts above
the $40 cap, and were turned away when they said they did not have the
money - even though the policy states that no patient is to leave
empty handed because of inability to pay.

Celeste Almonte, for instance, left Gouverneur a week ago without any
of her medications, including those for diabetes and asthma, because
she said she was told her fee was $50. Ms. Almonte, who is 55 and on
Medicare, has no pharmacy benefit. She has a month of drugs left and
said that she had no idea how she would get her next batch. "What a
pity," Ms. Almonte said. "It is too much money for me."

Confusion over the specifics may spring in part from the way hospitals
are informing patients about the policy. At the clinic at Gouverneur,
a sign in the waiting room explained that a $10 fee would be imposed
and that financial counselors would be available. But it did not
mention the medical conditions and drugs that are exempt from the
policy, or other payment options. Other patients learn of the policy
only at the systems' pharmacy counters.

The corporation said it was working to inform patients better. Each
hospital is now sending out explanatory letters, and is working to
improve waiting-room communication. Dr. Marcos said that he had not
heard about centers overcharging or turning patients away empty
handed. He also said that financial counselors were available during
all hours that clinics were open.

For the past five years, the corporation balanced its budget through
cost cuts and other moves, but has been hammered with an increasing
load of uninsured patients, coupled with reduced payments from
government and private insurance programs. In 2000, 564,476 uninsured
patients came through its health care centers, a 30 percent increase
from 1996. In the same period, Congress reduced Medicare
reimbursements to hospitals, while Medicaid reimbursements to primary
care clinics remained basically unchanged, and drug costs increased 16
percent between 1999 and 2001.

But others argue that the new policy may compromise public health,
citing studies that show that the poor often forgo medications and
health care when costs increase. "Almost all the research that has
been done suggests that the health impact of a drug co-payment policy,
particularly for poor and elderly people, is adverse," said Dr. Jan
Blustein, an associate professor of health policy and management at
New York University. Dr. David Stevens, a doctor at Gouverneur, said
that some patients with chronic illnesses have run out of medicine
since the policy was introduced, and may end up in emergency rooms as
their conditions worsen.

Some health care policy experts suggest that the corporation seek
other options, like drug formularies, which limit doctors to
lower-cost brands. Others believe payments should be made on a sliding
scale, as clinic visit fees are. Dr. Marcos said the corporation was
developing a formulary system, but added that doctors and drug
companies frequently put up considerable obstacles.

by by POOR staff

As part of our Media Studies Program at POOR, we provide extensive media and poverty training for visiting students and professional journalists. One such visitor is Jean McGeorge from New Zealand, who wrote to us to explain why she was interested in visiting POOR magazine. After she had visited our Community Newsroom, our Media Studies interns interviewed her to gain an understanding of her work and her dilemma with mainstream media coverage of poor communities in New Zealand.

Jean first contacted POOR via e-mail:

"Hello, my name is Jean McGeorge and I am a journalist from New Zealand. I became really interested in the media portrayal of poverty while working as reporter on a community newspaper in one of New Zealand's poorest areas. I got sick of reading headlines (in other papers of course) like 'Welcome to the Underworld' and 'Otara as Bad as We Thought.'

I am now putting together a proposal for a research grant to put together guidelines to help improve mainstream media coverage of poverty and poverty-related issues in my country.

The grant I'm applying for allows for travel to go to media organisations overseas that could provide useful models.

I would love the opportunity to come and spend some time observing at Poor Magazine and to talk with you about ways in which these issues can be reframed and addressed better in New Zealand.

If I got the grant, I would probably be traveling in February or March next year and imagine I would need to spend a week or two with you.

Please get back to me, let me know what you think and I can tell you more about New Zealand and the work I would like to do."

In further correspondence, Jean discussed the multi-cultural, and often poor, communities of New Zealand:

"South Auckland, where I worked, has a reasonably large Maori population, and also a high immigrant population. There is a large Pacific Island population (Samoan and Tongan communities) and smaller communities of Indians, Asians and the country's refugee resettlement programme is based here."

POOR asked Jean, "What, if any, writing groups are in existence with low income folks in New Zealand?"

She replied, "Pretty much none, I'm afraid. The only thing I have found so far is a newspaper in Wellington, our capital, called the City Voice. This uses a large volunteer staff and focuses on issues affecting inner-city people. It also practices advocacy journalism and is run as a collective.

Unfortunately, New Zealand is so small ( 3.5 million people) there is not the market for many niche publications, and most of the smaller community papers which could serve this function have been bought up by the two large multi-national publishing companies operating in New Zealand. Plus, the main media writes ABOUT, very seldom FOR, low-income communities."

An Interview with Jean McGeorge

by Vlad Pogorelov

I remember when, still a romantic young man, I watched the Australian film ìCrocodile Dundeeî a number of times. I had a big world map on my study desk, underneath the Plexiglas. Instead of practicing Algebra or Russian Grammar I would sit there for hours, dreaming of traveling to all those exotic places of the world. New Zealand was definitely one of them. As in the Moody Blues song, ìthinking is the best way to travel,î and so I traveled in my imagination. New Zealand was a place of dangers and adventure, where the native tribes are ready to ambush you at any moment and exotic prehistoric animals are roaming free in the wilderness.

Twenty years later I still havenít made it to New Zealand or Australia, but I am much closer to that part of the world than I was before. Yet after living here in America for the last 8 years and even becoming an American citizen, I eventually had to say good-bye to my romantic notions of the ìNew Worldî that were shaped by the books of Maine Reed and Fenimore Cooper. California turned out not to be the place of Wild West cowboys or Gold Rush miners. It is more prosaic, more regulated and at times inhumane. Keeping that in mind, I prepared for the interview with Jean McGeorge, who came to POOR all the way from New Zealand.

A woman in her twenties, Jean embodies an air of ingrained intelligence and a calm, but firm, self-confidence. For a second she reminds me of portrait I have seen of Florence Nightingale, just arrived at the battlefield of the Crimean War. Jean is sitting in her wooden armchair in POOR’s conference room and is facing a crew of interns, staff writers and other prominent figures of the New Journalism movement. With quiet determination she withstands an assault of curiosity and thorough journalistic inquiry into her life and work.

Having heard so much about her from co-editors Dee and Lisa, I finally have a chance to ask her the questions that Iíd prepared the day before. Knowing that I will not have enough time to satisfy my curiosity about her work and New Zealand, I settle on two questions. As other members of the interviewing group have questions as well, I am confident that we will gather enough vital information to understand the motives behind her mission of reporting on New Zealand’s poor.

Jean, who graduated with a degree in Journalism, could have a bright future as a young and promising journalist of the mainstream media. Instead, ever since her days with Papatoe Toe Otahuhu, a small but influential community newspaper of South Auckland, Jean has reported news concerning poor and underprivileged people. According to Jean, she was “inspired to cover the poor because there was not enough coverage on them in New Zealandís mainstream press.”

Currently, Jean is on a fact-finding tour about news organizations that cover poverty issues here in the US. She received her scholarship to research the broad subject of poor coverage in press thanks to her own energy and enthusiasm as well as the support of some representatives of New Zealandís newspaper industry. After an extensive search on the net, looking through dozens of different organizations that advocate and inform on the subject of poverty, Jean chose POOR Magazine and POOR News Network as the main place where she would learn.

According to Jean, New Zealand has a population of 3 million people, with one million concentrated in South Auckland. The poor and indigenous people are concentrated in the suburbs of South Auckland, areas formerly populated by white working class. Jean tells us of the segments of the population which are most at risk: the Pacific Islanders, the Indians, the Africans and of course the recent immigrant arrivals from variety of countries. Jean writes about the oppression and neglect suffered by these people under New Zealandís conservative Government. “The poverty is portrayed here,î Jean says with a sad smile, ìas if it is because the poor are lazy. And thatís what made me interested in this subject, made me write about them.”

Jean thinks that her Government betrayed her people when it privatized healthcare, reduced welfare or dole, as they call it, and abolished the trade Unions. She tells us that a few years ago her Government started a campaign of harassment against poor people, calling it “daubing dole bludger.” As a result, many poor and disadvantaged people were pushed into even greater poverty. Yet despite obvious class oppression, New Zealand is an apolitical country. “We donít like to make a fuss. Somehow, we see it as embarrassing.” Jean says.

As I hear Jean talking about all the injustices done to the poor workers and indigenous people of New Zealand, I realize how much needs to be done in the US to revert the current situation of unjust welfare reform, reduced social spending and private healthcare. The way Jean describes her now ìindependentî country is so similar to what is happening hereóin Uncle Samís backyard. The fact that a majority of Americans are as apolitical as New Zealanders is not a surprise. It seems that it is very symptomatic for the English speaking post-British Empire worldóespecially if the people who are running the show are not the oppressed, the indigenous, the descendants of slaves or the minorities.

Describing her journalistic work, Jean tells us that big businesses recently evicted seventy families from their homes, in order to expand the motorways. The homes were demolished and the evicted families had no money or political influence to get proper compensation. Despite Jeanís involvement, she was unable to prevent it from happening. ìA lot of dirty dealing was going on,î she says, shaking her head. ìAnd unfortunately there was not enough feedback from the community.î I am wondering if Jean knows about the housing crisis here in the Bay Area, and how thousands of San Franciscans have been evicted due to influx of high-tech money and enormous greediness of the landlords. I personally know a number of people who have been evicted, including myself. And some of them have been thrown out on the street more than one time.

Jean explains she eventually left her newspaper because the company that owned it was uninvolved with the staff and did not provide benefits for the workers. It reminded me my last ìreal jobî as a part time case manager in a chain homecare agency. I was fired for talking about fair benefits for the employees and the possibility of organizing a Union.

I ask Jean if there are other alternative newspapers or magazines in New Zealand writing on the issues of poverty and class oppression. To my surprise, Jean admits that that there are not. Apparently, the subject of poverty and class oppression is not covered very well in New Zealand, and that is why Jean is on her fact-finding tour. “Youíve got a lot of facts to gather, sister,” I think. “And one of them is that you can organize against the System, even if your number is small and you have holes in your pockets. POOR Magazine is a good example of that.”

For more information on POOR's Media Studies/Poverty Scholarship Program, please call us at (415) 863-6306 or email, tiny@poormagazine.org

A Journalist from New Zealand

Takuya Arai

Recently, I broke my rib. Since I do not have a health insurance and cannot afford to have a doctor, I was unable to get a proper medical care for my broken bone. Although I saw a doctor once right after I broke my bone, high medical expense, which was just an astronomical figure to my monthly budget, disqualified me for further medical care. I just needed to stay calm and depend on the natural healing ability of my body. It seems that my bone is healing this time, but I get scared when I imagine myself in a situation that requires more serious medical care, which I basically do not deserve because of the lack of adequate financial resources.

"Pacific Islanders, like Maori, have pretty bad health statistics." Jean answered. "We have a huge problem of communicable disease, such as tuberculosis, diabetes, measles, etc." Issues concerning health are more serious than any other threat to the poor community.

Jean has the same perception as POOR News Network does with regard to the point that issues concerning poverty are only the subjects of the news for mainstream media, which helps create a "sense of isolation" of poor community from the rest of the society. She was a journalist writing for Maori community newspaper called "Papa Toe Toe Ota Huhu" in Auckland, New Zealand, where she became interested in issues of poverty. With her New Zealand English accent, which sounded very fresh to me, Jean willingly answered our questions about the situations surrounding poverty in her country.

"Are minority people organized?" Joe, one of the POOR media studies interviewers, asked.

"There are a number of ethnic communities in South Auckland and very few white people. Pacific islanders, such as Samoans, Tongans, Indians, Muslims, and other Asian Immigrants do not really have political or organized voice." Despite the seriousness of the issues, she never raised her voice or became emotional when she was answering our questions. Her calmness and concise language reflected a sense of intelligence to me.

However, more importantly, what she told us reminded me of my own experience when I first came to the United States 9 years ago. I was 19 years old with full of hope and anxiety (fuan). People, culture, food, climate, everything was new to me. Living in a small city in Ohio and being Asian at the same time introduced me to a lot of unique and eccentric experiences, which I enjoyed so much.

However, being different from everybody around me also caused a lot of difficulties and hardships. (Toriwake) More than anything, my inability to speak English affected me the most in every aspect of my life. Sometimes I was being culled from the community. Stress accumulated when I could not say what I wanted to say when I confronted mean racists who consistently tried to make me the target of public ridicule, and when the same type of things happened a number of times a week over the period of 1 to 2 years until I became relatively communicable and capable of verbally fighting them back.

"In South Auckland, there are a lot of working class people. They do not have enough resources to fight. They have no money. Language barrier is a big factor." Jean explained. Their HAGAYUSA resonated in my mind. "Mainstream media like TV, radio and newspaper do not have consistent coverage of issues concerning poverty. People in poor communities are reluctant to open themselves up to the mainstream media because their experience with media was negative ones in the past." She added.

"How are minorities in New Zealand acting against threats from its government and society?" I asked this question because I was inspired by the news last week that Zapatista rebel leaders in Mexico are calling on the Mexican government to pass the Indian rights law. "A lot of people want their lands back." Jean answered. "Because of the land occupation, minorities are claiming compensation from the government."

by Kaponda

I sit in the nerve center of an underground movement in America that has created more talk than the wireless telephone. I observe the strategically placed compact disc turn and compact disc change, along with other elaborate broadcasting equipment, as gurgling sounds from the aquarium swim past my ears. The voice of the late El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcom X) permeates the airwaves with the legendary “Words from the Front Lines,” as he echoes the difference between the house and field niggers on plantations in the South. I see a man garbed in a brown dashiki come into the room, wearing a warm smile. He is Michael X, the latest person to join the micro radio movement, and the founder of Bayview Hunters Point Radio, 103.3 FM.

Bayview Hunters Point Radio, 103.3 FM, is the wings on which the voice of Michael X soars through the airwaves of his beloved community, urging the masses to escape the slave mentality seared in their psyche. As Michael X prepares to communicate with the only community he has ever known, I ask him what forces in his life brought him to the front lines of community activism and emboldened him to step out of the conventional outreach box into broadcasting without the sanction of the Federal Communication Commission or a license therefrom?

“Basically, I’ve always had the urge to do good in the Bayview Hunters Point community, where I was born and raised. I dabbled in micro radio five years ago with Stephen Dunifer in Berkeley. I had an opportunity to do a radio show. During that show, I thought to myself, ‘Hey! I can do this, too. I need to bring this back to the neighborhood.’ It was not until the death of my 16-year-old son, who was killed in a drug-related incident, that I was inspired to do something, you know, to honor him,” the 50-year-old revolutionary concludes.

Stephen Dunifer, to whom Michael X refers, is one of the first disciples of Mbanna Kantako, the sighted black man whom many people refer to as the father of micropower radio. In 1987, Mbanna Kantako set up a radio station in his home in the projects in Springfield, Illinois. Mbanna Kantako justified his right to set up a micro radio station as his right based on the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights and its guaranteed right for ordinary citizens to communicate with their fellow citizens. Today, 13 years later, Mbanna Kantako still broadcasts in Springfield, Illinois, and he is the benchmark by which over 1000 other members of the micro radio movement across America are measured. Stephen Dunifer later brought the knowledge he acquired from Mbanna Kantako to Berkeley and launched Free Radio Berkeley, the radio show from which Michael X acquired his insight into community radio.

As he burrows his body into the chair he reaches for one of the two microphones to began a passionate petition to the community residents. “You were listening to words from the late El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz...,” states the voice of the spiritual-minded Michael X who now embraces in his hands as if it were one of the many youth of the Bayview district to whom he cries out. He talks about the change that needs to occur in his community, and how its incumbent upon each individual to assume responsibility to effect change. As I sit beside him and listen to his broadcast, I can see how a slight shudder seizes him as he discusses the horrors visited on people in his community by forces within and without, horrors that linger in the mind like the swish of a basketball net from a flawless shot by an opponent that brought the crowd to its feet. His micro radio is a device that he uses to address those horrors. But it is like trying to even the score with a jigsaw.

As he honors his community with a selection from the album of Sly and the Family Stones, I ask him to explain some of the horrors that plague the Bayview Hunters Point district?

“The southeastern section, in particular, and most Black neighborhoods, in general, in San Francisco have long been neglected by City Hall,” begins Michael X as he ponders which of a litany of examples of governmental, environmental, and political abuses to begin. “There have been more than 20 deaths of young people in shoot outs, drive-bys and walkups within the last couple of years. There is a lot of children killing children in the Bayview and many of those deaths remain unsolved. In addition, the jails and prisons have become residents for more and more Black brothers and sisters, clear examples of political neglect,” states Michael X.

While the fact remains that African Americans make up only seven percent of the population of the state of California; in truth, the concerns of Michael X that an astounding 38 percent of the prison population is African American are worth examining. To get this disproportionate number of representation is like trying to draw a thousand aces in a single-deck pinochle game. The cards have to be stacked to defy these laws of probability. Michael X and others will argue that the hand dealt to the Black community in the Bayview district has been stacked. Or, another way to explain the disproportionate number of African Americans in prisons throughout California is that members of the African American race are evil savages, not unlike a Timothy McVeigh, who deserve wholesale incarceration -- or worse. A more logical explanation, of course, of why Blacks are disproportionately incarcerated is that the sentencing laws in California are stacked against African Americans. Rather than apply rigid sentencing laws to people who harm others through gross imprudence, the California legislature has targeted a particular drug and declared war on it.

I was one inmate, for example, out of over 2000 inmates in San Bruno Jail in the year of 1996. A startling 75 percent of the African American population of San Bruno Jail was incarcerated for drug-related offenses -- like possession of rock cocaine, the equivalent of a nuisance crime. Furthermore, these laws are framed to lock African Americans out of sight, forever, by including mandatory sentencing for a third felony, possession of a rock of cocaine, for example.

Conversely, while there are 12 percent of African Americans in America, there are less than three percent of Black owned and operated radio stations. Again, this disproportionate lack of ownership of Black radio stations in America has to be a result of a strategy designed by the Federal Communication Commission and National Association of Broadcasters to lock the voices of people of color out of the airwaves.

So, with the knowledge that there are less than three percent of programming by people of color, I ask Michael X How it feels to be a part of the micro radio movement and why has he taken on this mammoth responsibility?

“I am the Clint Eastwood of the Bayview community. I have ridden into a town of desperadoes. This is a town of outlaws and outcasts. Its a town where the imaginations of its residents are unrestrained It is a town that is besieged by a corrupt government that sells the land of the community to the highest bidder to empty its bowels and devour it with hazardous waste. Like Clint Eastwood rode through town and corrected the corruption, I’m riding through town to clean it up. My goal is to restore peace to the town of Bayview, and I’ll ride into the sunset after my job is completed,” concluded Michael X.

Michael X may successfully curry favor with the residents of the Bayview district, but he may find it very difficult to ingratiate the Federal Communication Commission, who recently shut down three micro radio stations in Berkeley for broadcasting without a license. The FCC has been inconsistent in terms of its eligibility guidelines for obtaining broadcasting licensing for less than 100 watts of power. For example, in January of 2000, it was legal to broadcast with less than 100 watts of power. “Now,” according to Michael X, who broadcast with 40 watts of power, “It is illegal, again,” states Michael X, as he continues. “A person can get a license from the FCC if the radio station broadcasts in rural areas, only. The FCC is not issuing licenses in urban areas because, according to the FCC, ‘there are no available frequencies.’”

I ask Michael X if he thinks the FCC will eventually upset his applecart?

“Yes,” utters the undauntable Michael X, as he prepares to surrender the airwaves to prepare for the next show.

On this Sunday, however, there was no FCC to fear. A special guest, who hosts a radio show on 103.3 FM every Sunday, Marie Harrison, of the San Francisco Bayview Newspaper, enters the room and prepares to take over the airwaves for the “Marie Harrison Show.

Clad in a soft white blouse with denim jacket and pants, Marie assumes control of the airwaves and begins her interplay with the community. Marie wastes no time with her report on the recent discovery of the black beauty sand and environmental issues in Bayview, issues on which she is versed. She continues her diatribe with an appeal to the community members to reach out to young people.

“I think we need to work with a lot of our young folks,” stated Marie. “They’ve got a lot of good ideas. We need to bring them up to par. We need to let them know that we are there for them. When I keel over the day after tomorrow or the day after that, somebody has got to be in my place, and somebody has to be there after that person. It is a never-ending battle for education, knowledge and the sheer will-power to get up and do something worth doing. We need to have me. We need to have you. We need to have your next door neighbor, and the folks across the bay to bring all of their knowledge to help us resolve some of these issues,” Marie continues as I prepare to walk out into the streets of the Bayview Hunters Point district.

by Leroy Moore

Leroy discusses the lack of financial
support and recogniton for small
grassroots non-profit organization.

Warning! Warning! To My Black disabled brothers
and sisters: Black traditional organizations from the
NAACP to the Urban League are trying to fix our
problems, empower us and protest in our name without learning
from us!

Only a Couple of years ago, Black traditional
organizations such as the NAACP, the Urban League,
ASPIRA and more made a commitment to work with
the President’s Committee on Employment of People
with Disabilities on the status of African Americans
with disabilities, and especially the issue of the high
unemployment rate. On April 6th the NAACP and the
President Committee hosted a conference titled "Employment
of Persons with Disabilities" in Milwaukee.

What is shocking about the new attention from Black
traditional organizations on African Americans with
disabilities is that it took a federal agency to get traditional
Black organizations on board when it comes to African
Americans with disabilities. For years many people,
parents, advocates and grassroots organizations
(including my parents and myself) have approached these
organizations, but received nothing. For example, in 1998 I
was working at the Youth Department of the Center
for Independent Living, and I and my supervisor, a
Black disabled lawyer, talked to the NAACP Oakland
Chapter about Black youth with disabilities, and how we
could work together. We never received a response.

ain the same year the Co-founder of DAMO, Gary
Gray, wrote to the NAACP National office about his work
and the lack of organizations run by and for disabled
people of color and their parents. This is why today you
have grassroots multi-cultural and Black disabled organizations

like Disability Advocates of Minorities Organizations,
Harambee Education Council and African Americans with
Disabilities Advocacy/Support Organization, to name a
few.

These organizations are grassroots, but are consistently
looked over when it comes to support, funding and
providing input.

I challenge the President’s Committee, a federal agency that has
little connection and knowledge what goes on every day
in the communit,. to contract out to
grassroots organizations that are for and by disabled
African Americans and their parents to conduct technical
education and disability awareness training to Black
traditional organizations.

by Ken Moshesh

UNSEEN
ARE THE DIVERSE FACES
OF MY HOMELESS AND AT-RISK
PEOPLE
STILL CLOAKED IN INVISIBILITIES
OF
SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL, COLD
WAR
DENIALS AND FEARS
PASSED DOWN THROUGH
PAEENTINGS AND NIGHTMARES
OF PAST AND POSSIBLE
DEPRESSIONS
VEILED IN PRESENT
INSECURITIES AND OBLIGATIONS
DEEMED NECESSARY TO PREVENT
THE NON-BEHOLDER FROM
BECOMING THE BEHELD.
STEEPED IN SELF-SERVING
NEGATIVE STEREOTYPES DEMOCRATIC PROCLAMATIONS
RATIONALIZING
LOFTY, POSITIVE,
FOR WHICH WE HAVE KILLED.

AND NOW, FAR TOO MANY
WHO RISKED ALL TO KILL
FOR THE CAUSE
ARE ALSO RENDERED
HOMELESSSLY MISSING IN
ACTION
BY THE UNNECESSARY
UNREGULATED GREED
OF A FEW.
BLIND ARE THE TUNNELED EYES
OF THE ABUNDANT SOLUTIONS
TO THE BEAUTIFUL HUMAN FACES OF
MY HOMELESS AND AT-RISK PEOPLE
WHO ALSO
BARELY SEE EACH OTHER
AS THE NATION STRUGGLES
TOWARD HOMELESSNESS RECOVERY

K MOSHESH 3/00

by Tom Gomez

Sunday morning I went out the door of my shelter at 6:30 am. I intended to go to sit on a bench in U.N Plaza and read my Sunday Times while waiting for the Quaker services I regularly attend to begin at 11:00 am. Sitting on those benches and reading my morning paper is a daily ritual for me. If I have an extra dollar I also like to enjoy coffee with my paper. My job (yes, I have a job, and so do most homeless people I know) doesn’t start until 3:00 pm and nothing opens until 9:00 am. I would stay in and sleep late like most of you probably do, but I live in a shelter. So I occupy a bench at my local park, reading my paper and watching the sunrise while sipping my coffee.

The city is offended by that. Channel 4 is outraged by it. On Saturday the City removed the benches. A bench removal that had been planned for several months. Channel 4, I’m told, portrayed the park as an open sewer where homeless people sell and use drugs flagrantly. I don’t have a television. I missed the report. I miss the benches too.

Does the city expect me to believe that with literally thousands of officers they are powerless to prevent a few dozen criminals from selling and using drugs in broad daylight? The crime the city has targeted here has nothing to do with drugs being sold or used. The city wants to purge its downtown of poor people and especially men of color. Throughout the whole weekend after the removal of the benches I observed police stopping black men exclusively, for no apparent reasons, demanding they produce identification and conducting random searches.

I am tired of being victimized for no better reason than my inability to pay $2,300.00 a month rent on my income from a $9.00hr catering job! Being a man of color is not a crime, and should not constitute “probable cause” nor invite forced warrant checks and random searches.

No one supports urban blight. But in this case the city is responsible for failing to enforce existing laws for years, thus creating public outrage, and then mounting an outright attack on the poor in response. If the city is tired of seeing desperately poor people littering the streets of this city, I have a fine suggestion: BUILD AFFORDABLE HOUSING! And instead of punishing all of us, forcing us off public benches and into the streets at dawn, how about the innovative solution of curbing crime by arresting criminals? What a concept. Someone should suggest it to Chief Lau and Mayor Brown.

A coalition of groups and individuals is organizing to oppose the city’s racial profiling and its attack on the poor and public space. Persons interested in getting involved in fighting this injustice should contact Adam Arms at the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, 468 Turk, San Francisco CA 94102. (415) 346-3740

The Camera’ s gaze panned across the landscape at San Francisco’s United Nations Plaza lingering at discarded bottles, crumpled paper bags, empty beer cans...and then....a face... a man...An African-American man....smoking something...a cigarette, perhaps.. we’re not sure..then another African-American man.. then an African-American woman...then an African-American child...then another....then another and..another..and another and...until one would believe that the entire population of homeless folks in UN Plaza was African-American and then a voice, the voice of truth, the voice of.....authority?..

“At the United Nations Plaza our hidden cameras uncovered the rampant drug use of Homeless People in UN Plaza...” This so-called “undercover” report by KRON-channel 4 (which incidently is owned by the Hearst Corporation) was followed by a “shocked” interview with Mayor Brown - who after viewing the tape I just described, commented that he “would have his office look into it and see what could be done”

Several hours later the Benches at UN Plaza were removed, or rather

by Joe B.

While looking a the last two hour Xena[Warrior Princess]
the emergency broadcast broke into the show explaining

that a major 7.9 earthquake off the coast of Peru, Chile,
and Bolivia killing many people and destroying buildings
is heading to toward
San Francisco
after hitting Los Angeles taking an hour to
get here at 2:39 am Sunday.

The show resumes as I watch it thinking of what
a
Tsumami looks like. Aside from a disaster show where
I saw people actually looking at one up close getting swept
into the sea as it hit them with terrifying force.

"Now that was a stupid thing to do" is my thinking when
it suddenly came to me, "I could check it out forgetting
what I just said about people doing the exact same thing.

When Xena ended I set my alarm for 1 am watching

"Saturday Night Live" with two Hilarious skits on the Bush Presidency
and later if Nader was President as pink pigs flew, devils playing with
snowballs with Nader shaking hands with them.

I awake before the 1 am alarm.
quickly washing up, get dressed, wore two shirts, a black sweatshirt
with a zippered front pouch inside is a notepad, pen, and taperecorder.
Its not cold but breezy, on the way I hear sirens, see police cars
people gather outside a bar as two more sit on the pavement
while three police write notes.

A purple van rode by inside are two pretty women,

both are well formed black woman. They call out "We're Prostitutes."

My peripheral vision saw them but being
so intent on not missing a rare natural event I say
"I have something else to see." I thought immediately what
they’d think, another gay guy walking up Polk Street.

I hadn’t walked up Polk Street to Fisherman’s Wharf
in years but I still walk all over the city so I’m
not out of shape.

Endurance seems to be my natural Wild Card power
however intelligence or plain mother wit
may not have been hardwired into my wetware.

The closer I get to the 900 beach and The Natural Historical Park
and Maritime Marine Museum I’m thinking what have I done?

"Going to the site of a Pacific Tsunami, in dawn’s dark,
without friends or a floatation device is nuts.

I go to check the water by the lit lamps I do not see much beach sand.

The wait is long when arriving at 2 am on a quiet
Fisherman’s Wharf and a few people walking the Wharf or

in the curved apartment building looking out at the waters.

When 2:39 am arrived there is a sigh of relief
from me as I now know if the
Tsunami had been a been heading at me I’d wouldn’t
be able to out run and having no bus fare only adds to my inspired idiocy.

I’m walking back home craning my neck just in case I might have to run away.

By 3:19 am. safe at home the minor non adventure over
I sleep thinking how stupid-curious I am and if we as a global civilization
can balance these and other drives
we as a species might survive our searchings and wonderlust to learn
from nature maybe all those horrible deaths will have meaning.

And as for myself on Sunday Gay Pride Day.
I am at my office sending a quick Darwin Award Story

to Art Bell because I must laugh at my gene defect and yet.

If there was a circular rip in time’s continuum that appeared in
front of me I’d probably jump in for the adventure of it
but that's just me.

I know we all do dumb things, but I
actually heard the warning and still went out to see what a Tsunami really looks like.

My adventure done,
I’ll go home and fix up my one room apartment.

Please send donations to
Poor Magazine C/0 Ask
Joe at 255 9th St.
Street, San Francisco, CA. 94103 USA

For Joe only my snail mail: PO Box 1230 #645

Market St.San Francisco, CA 94102

Email:
askjoe@poormagazine.org

by Vlad Pogorelov

I stayed up all night before the eviction, listening to Beethoven’s 5th symphony - “Ta-da-da!....” The sheriffs were supposed to come at 6 am. By 8 am I said to myself: “Fuck it”, and went to sleep. I woke up in a couple of hours, fixed myself a breakfast, had two cups of coffee. It was promising to be another decent day. I unlocked the gate and went outside.

There were 3 cars sitting in front of the house. A big sport utility vehicle, a locksmith’s van and a smaller car. A sport utility was occupied by a Filipino couple. The locksmith was in his van. When I walked out into the front stairs they all stared at me and stopped talking. There was something in their eyes, in their expressions which reminded me of vultures waiting for the dying animal to expire.

I came up to the SUV and asked the man if he was a landlord. He confirmed that. “Fuck you”, I said, “you gonna make me homeless. Fuck you”.

Then the locksmith came and asked me for the key. “Fuck you both”, I said and went back to the house.

My roommate Rob started to fantasize: “If sheriffs don’t come today then maybe they won’t at all, at least not before Thanksgiving...”
Poor Rob. He has been living in this little house for almost seven years. A long time , long enough to fill almost every square inch of it with hundreds, and hundreds of pieces of junk he found on the street -— TV’s, old record players, broken computers...you name it. And now he was about to loose his treasures. I saw this incredible sadness in his eyes. Just yesterday, upon learning about the inevitability of the eviction he threatened to commit suicide., and sheriffs department sent him to a mental hospital. They let him out ,however, so they can evict him properly.

“Maybe I can talk them out of it”, I told him. I went outside and locked the gate behind me. There was some commotion on the block — a few white official looking cars rolled in. Half a dozen of sheriffs with guns came out and joined the vultures. They all looked tense.

“What are you doing here?”, they asked me.

“I am here to watch you”, I told them.

“Do you live here?”. One of them pointed at the house.

“I was”, I told them,” until today”.

“Give us the key”, they demanded.

“I paid a dollar for my key. Have you got a dollar?”

None of them had a dollar. Greedy bastards. Or maybe they wanted to see the locksmith in action. Who knows...

A smooth voiced sheriff who called himself supervisor got on the phone and called Rob. “Come out Rob. We are not going to hurt you. We just want to do this eviction. It’s lunch time. The boys are hungry”, he said while looking at his troops.

“Come out with your hands up”, I joked.

The supervisor gave me a dirty look. “I would advise you to stay away”, he told me.

“Don’t do it Rob”, I screamed.

They negotiated with Rob for about half hour. Then I saw him emerging behind the gate. The sheriffs moved against the door. Skinny, little Rob—a strange Jewish guy who made his living by collecting junk—against 6 well fed, fat sheriffs with guns. He did not stand a chance. Suddenly, he became even smaller, as if he shrunk suddenly. He unlocked the gate. The sheriffs rushed in. “You have five minutes to get your papers, medications, etc. We will supervise you while you doing this.”

I went into my room and grabbed a female mannequin and a few books. I came out carrying the mannequin in my arms as I would carry a wounded comrade. “This guy is crazy”, somebody said. Then I saw Rob coming out of the house. He had a scarred cat in his arms. The cat really hated to be evicted. The sheriffs stood there in a circle, laughing. Fat, ugly bastards who are just doing their job and will go back to their families just like the Nazis did after torturing Jews at the camps.

Me and Rob shook hands. “Where would you go?”, I asked him.

“I don’t know”

“And you...?”

“I have no idea. Probably will sleep in my car”.

The sun just came out from behind the clouds. “A beautiful day to start a new life as a homeless person”, I thought as I was leaving a little white house in Potrero Hill— my home for the past 4 month.

Part Two

It’s only a few weeks later and I am already feeling like it was a few light years ago. My lifestyle has completely changed since I became an individual without address. For the first three weeks I had to sleep in my car, and later, thanks to a friend, I was able to move into a broken motorhome parked on a dead end street by the San Francisco Bay. Sometimes, I wonder if I am at a “dead end” myself. I was literally driven almost into the water and there is nowhere else to go but out of town.

Bad news for Rob—it is his last day to remove his belongings from “our house” as he calls it. And then almost immediately he would correct himself: ”Our former house”. It seems that he just can’t get over being evicted. Last night he started discussion about Sylvia Plath and her suicide. “I was thinking a lot about this subject”, Rob told me.

“You know Rob, I have a propane leak in my motorhome. You can smell it a block away. So, if you are contemplating to follow Sylvia—welcome to my place.” He only laughs: “I am too old for this kind of solution. After all I am almost 50. And Sylvia was this adolescent girl who never grew up.”

“It’s never to late Rob”, I am telling him while watching his reaction. But he only shook his head and doesn’t say much.

We drove to “our house” in Rob’s beat up van and started loading it in somewhat chaotic manner trying to save Rob’s treasures but he still had to loose almost ninety percent of his possessions after the deadline. About 4pm we decided to get some food and “recharge our batteries” for the final push. I volunteered to make a run to the local store and get us sandwiches. It took me about fifteen minutes. On my way back to the house I noticed that something was very wrong over there, There was a police car sitting outside the house and Rob was in the back seat of a cruiser, looking like a caged rabbit waiting to be used for some bizarre scientific experiment. I noticed two policemen and the landlords drugging a heavy garage door and trying to put it back on hinges. (We had to take the door off the hinges in order to move out some large objects.) After a collective of “real estate and law enforcement forces” finally succeeded in putting the door back in place they let Rob out. “You have thirty minutes to clear out”, the cops told Rob.
“We’ll check on you soon. If you are still here with your stuff on the sidewalk then you gonna loose it to the Street Cleaning Department.”

“You don’t have to do that”, he replied. “The landlord will call them for you.”

I saw landlords walking back towards their SUV and smiling with relief. Finally, they succeeded in shutting the doors of the house for good.

I helped Rob to load the remaining belongings into the van. “Why did they detained you?”, I asked him.

“They said, I was trespassing.”

“But you were not! You had until 5 pm. They cheated you of almost an hour, man!”

“They sure did. But I don’t feel like fighting anymore. I am about to give up and move far away from this nightmare, my friend. Maybe, even to the countryside...you see I am fed up with this city. This city is being sold to the highest bidder on a daily basis and I don’t want to be a part of this Sodom anymore. Count me out. I quit.” Rob was sounding tired and depressed.
“You see, I just was inside the house packing my stuff”, he continued,” and then the cops came and ordered me to come out immediately. Well, I invited them to come inside since I wasn’t trespassing but they only got angry and drugged me out of the house, searched me and took away my “Leatherman” tool.”

“Did you get it back?”

“No. But I am about to call Bayview Police Station and ask for it”. He got on the phone and called the police station. “...what do you mean, you don’t know who you send to harass people?...you mean you don’t keep records of which car was dispatched?...”, I overheard the pieces of conversation. “It is hopeless”, Rob conceded. “They told me, they have no idea who these policemen were.”

We sat on the curb for sometime, not talking much, contemplating our dim future. It was getting dark. We both looked at the house again as if saying last “Good bye” to the ordeal of the last two months, got in to the heavily loaded van and drove away towards even greater uncertainty.

by Ken Moshesh

THE TWO MILLIONTH PERSON
WAS INCARCERATED
THIS BLACK HISTORY MONTH,
WHICH IS SO MANY MORE
THAN COMPARABLE SOCIETIES...
AND HOMELESSNESS,
INCLUDING SO MANY WAR VETERANS
AND INCREASING NUMBERS OF
FAMILIES AND JOB HOLDERS,
IS RISING
IN APPARENT INVERSE SOCIAL PROPORTION
TO THE NATIONAL ECONOMY
WHICH IS SOARING TO RECORD HEIGHTS
PRAYTHEE
WHITHER "DOST" THE EAGLE FLY?

by Husayn Sayfuddiyn

To the poor - a

mobile home

has new meaning

Life’s Blood on Wheels

Fancier than the

shopping carts

of the ne’er do wells

until SFPD stopped me

as unlicensed to live

illegal necessities

unwanted baggage

to Tow Away

and I saw in his steel eyes

that I was next

on the Tow Away list.

by Staff Writer

To you, Mr. Stelley

a doomed young San Franciscan

Who is now one of my ancestors from Life

Taken down in your Prime

Before you could make your woman your wife.

Before you could procreate a child

Graduate from college

who had made no comittment to create a Crime.

To you who are now a memory

A bad boy memory to the coppers

who shot you down

without a cold-bloodied frown.

Who emptied their holsters

without a breath of hesitation.

Shot down, Like the animals you loved.

But you were her sacred Son.

I Salute You! Mr. Stelley

-Ms. A Faye

by NJ WOLLMAN

We are continuing our battle to get the TIAA-CREF (TC) higher education
pension system to do "positive investing" with a small portion of its
socially responsible "Social Choice Account" (SCA). It can mean up to $300
million going toward such things as loans for low-income area housing and
business start-ups, and venture capital for companies championing a new
socially/environmentally responsible product. Companies thus supported can
become stronger models for other new companies and the very prominent TC
could become a model for other institutional investors. A survey taken by
T-C revealed that 81% of SCA participants want this proactive, positive
approach for the fund.

TC does token low-income housing investment in a different fund of theirs,
and are using that as an excuse for not doing so in the SCA. But, first of
all, the Social Investment Forum (trade association) recommends putting 1%
of a fund's assets in such investment, while the Methodist pension fund
puts in 3-5%. TC's investment in low-income housing is pitifully below such
levels and you might ask them why. And there is no reason they can't do
such investing in the SCA, where it certainly belongs. Additionally, there
are other things we propose that are not being done at all in any of their
funds. A number of socially responsible funds are already doing what we
suggest, so why can't TIAA-CREF. ASK THEM WHY THEY REFUSE TO CONTACT THOSE
IN THE SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT FIELD WHO HAVE VOLUNTEERED TO TALK
TO THEM..

Our original effort to get the SCA started took five years, so, after four
years, "We have just begun to fight." We have a long list of prominent
group/individual endorsers and media stories keep coming--Wall Street
Journal, L.A. Times, etc.. But with a group as large as TC ($300 billion in
assets; 2 million participants, etc.), the inertia and paternalism is
strong. We started a tactic that takes a few minutes weekly-- and your
involvement could really help. THANKS, Neil (mark your calendar or ask if
you want brief bi-weekly campaign updates and reminders about
calls--njwollman@manchester.edu)

PLEASE TAKE THREE MINUTES A WEEK TO LEND YOUR VOICE in support of the
proposal for "Positive Investing" for the Social Choice Account: (a)
positive screening looking for more socially responsible companies, such as
those with good labor practices (b) low-income area housing and business
startups, and (c) venture capital for companies championing a new
socially/environmentally responsible product. And ask them to dramatically
increase investment in low-income housing in their TIAA Account, where they
now do a token amount out of $100 billion.

Call John Biggs, their CEO, at.1-800-TIA-CREF (842-2733), ext. 4280.; or
212-490-9000. You'll likely have to leave a message with his secretary, but
do ask for a response if you can. We are creating a weekly "presence" that
will continually remind him of our concerns! And email Mr. Biggs, as well,
or instead of, if you can't make a call:(WWW.TIAA-CREF.ORG, then click
"Contact TIAA-CREF", then "General Information")

If you are interested in getting further involved in the effort, we do
everything from gather signatures for petitions, to "visiting" TC trustees
around the country, to demonstrating at TC headquarters in NYC or at their
local offices around the country. Contact us if you want to get further
involved at your local level or in national strategizing and organizing
(219-982-5346).

--more info:
http://ARES.manchester.edu/department/PeaceStudies/njw/disclaim.html
-PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD