2001

pstrongOne woman's journey through government fraud and homelessness /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/456/photo_1_feature.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Judith M. Hansel/p pThe United States federal government caused me to become homeless. I purchased, for cash, a 985 square foot house on two acres in Waushara County, Wisconsin. The previous owner had purchased the house from the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Title 7 USCS C.F.R. 1955.116 program./p pI returned to Wisconsin in 1988 when my sons were grown and my marriage over. My great-grandfather had received 250 acres from the government in the 19th Century. He passed the farm on to his son, my grandfather, who farmed the land and raised nine children, including my father. My father left the farm in 1917 to join the Navy and chose to live in Milwaukee instead of farming when he returned from the war./p pDuring my childhood and adolescence, I loved visiting the farm. I considered it, particularly after my father died, to be my real home. There was a 22-acre lake called Hansel Lake. The vegetables served at mealtime were always fresh from the garden. I enjoyed seeing the farm dog round up the cows at milking time, herding them into the barnyard. My Uncle Clarence taught me about raising pigs. If there was to be chicken for dinner, I watched one of my uncles pick a chicken up by its feet, lay it across a tree stump, and chop the chicken’s head off. The chicken would then get up and run around flapping its wings. My grandmother took the feathers off the bird and cleaned out its insides. I felt privileged./p pIn 1988, my mother had a stroke that she could not survive. I flew to Wisconsin from Maryland and visited her before she lost consciousness. A few days later, my brother, my sister, and I planned her funeral. In the interim, I took a one-day trip to visit relatives. My Aunt Emily still lived in the farmhouse. It was in the farm kitchen there that I decided to return to Wisconsin. /p pThree months later, after the Maryland house was sold and the profits divided, I arrived in Waushara County. One of my dreams was coming true. A two-bedroom house was advertised in the newspaper. I called a realtor, made an appointment, saw the house, and made a down payment of $600./p pI hired a lawyer to search the title to see if it was free and clear. His written opinion told me that there were restrictive covenants on the Quit Claim Deed. These restrictive covenants, placed by the United States Department of Agriculture, could not be removed until all the repairs listed on the restrictive covenants were made. The Farmers Home Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, had to ensure that the property was “decent, safe, and sanitary.”/p pI called the realtor and explained that I wanted my deposit returned and that I did not want to purchase the property. The seller’s realtor phoned me at the motel where I was staying. He told me that he could get the restrictive covenants removed. He suggested that I put my $23,900 into my attorney’s trust account and if the restrictive covenants were not removed, the money would not be released and the sale would not go through./p pI saw no reason not to trust the federal government or the Farmers Home Administration agent who was a federal employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. I agreed to the plan./p pOn August 16, the papers were signed. I drove out to the house with Bernie, my mixed Saint Bernard. I couldn’t believe that I now owned a house in Waushara County. I felt very grateful and happy./p pA few days later, the seller’s realtor phoned me and told me that the restrictive covenants had been released by the U.S.D.A., but that it would take a week or two to get the paperwork processed./p pMy washing machine arrived and was installed two days later. I threw a load of wash into the machine and went back to watching TV. Later, when I used the bathroom, the water didn’t flush, but just kept rising. I immediately called the plumber who had inspected the septic system and who had submitted a certificate to the seller stating that the system was working.br / /pPThe plumber inspected the plumbing in the house and the septic system. He informed me that the system could not handle all the water from the washing machine. When I mentioned the report he said he never guaranteed the system. He told me that I should not use the washing machine since it flooded the system./p pMy attorney phoned me later that same day to tell me that the Release of Restrictive Covenants document had been received and that he was transferring my money to the seller’s account. When I mentioned the problem with the septic system, he told me that if I thought he had misrepresented something then I should hire another attorney and sue him.br / /pPThe TV antenna installer told me my roof was leaking in places. And, when I was gone for a weekend, the water pump in the well became unseated. I called another plumber and he informed me that I needed a new water pump. /p pAnd so my long nightmare began./p piThis is the first installment in a series Judith is writing on her long nightmare with government-backed fraud which lead to her current state of homelessness. She is also writing a book entitled Escape from America: An Expose of International Treachery, which will be completed by September 15 of this year.br / Email: a href="mailto:judy1hansel@hotmail.com"judy1hansel@hotmail.com/abr / /i/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongDoctor Leroy Reveals His Heart: Relationships and Disability /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/441/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Dr. Leroy, ha,ha,ha/p pI'm a man who grew up in a houseful of women , but when it comes to relationships I still can't understand them. In college my door stayed open for friends to talk, most of them were women. I should have charged them for all of the times I stopped and listened to their problems. Many of them talked about their boyfriends. Wow, what stories I had a chance to listen to! I don't know why I was the one chosen to listen to their relationship problems. Did they just feel comfortable with me or was I no threat to them because of my disability?/p pCheck this out! A couple friends that I liked more than friends can't get over my disability, but they continue to stay in an abusive relationships with jerks, and keep me around so they can do things like talk and go shopping which they can't do with their own boyfriends. Why do they put themselves in that situation?/p pWomen are very complex individuals when it comes to relationships. Although many of my friends wanted a relationship with a nice guy, they found themselves in my room crying on my shoulder about their boyfriends. Although I'm a straight man, some women think I am gay because I don't act like their boyfriends. /p pI like putting a woman to the test. The real person she is comes out when I like her and when I ask her out. I can see it in her eyes, the confusion. I can feel the instant tension when I let a woman know how I feel. It is like looking into a cracked mirror, you see different images, different reactions. Right then I've stripped them down to their bare skin and they are trying to hide their bodies like I can see their nakedness. Although I have the power to revel the true person, it hurts me to see their nakedness. After I've exposed her, things are never the same. From there I would receive three kinds of reactions: pity, shame or guilt. That is the part I hate! They are stuck in the moment and every time they see me they can't get over that moment./p pOn the other side of the story, men are not angels. After listening to my friends talk about their boyfriends and seeing my male friends with their girlfriends, I wonder how they even get a date. I might be old fashioned, but I can't understand how a man can really expect to have sex on the first, second or third date. But they do! From experiences I've had with my friends, it appears that they don't care how the woman feels or what is on her mind. What happened to getting to know one other? Some women say that men don't talk and I can say that yes, this is true. But when they meet a man like me then they don't know what they want./p pI'm not a relationship professional. Hell! I have only had two intimate relationships in my thirty-three years on this earth, but I'm a great listener and thinker. Relationships can be easier, if each person stops and really thinks about what it is they want and is honest with themselves. I think talking and listening are the main elements in making or breaking a relationship. /p pI also found that there is a give and take in a relationship, but that some people give so much that they try to change 100 percent for their mate. I see this element of relationships a lot in my friends—they changed drastically because their boyfriends tell them to. I witnessed my male friends disconnecting themselves from their female origin because they have a girlfriend. /p pIf you take what I'm saying about relationships and add the term “disabled”, then you're opening a whole new can of worms. As a disabled Black man, I've noticed that 80 percent of my women friends are White and I have never had a Black disabled or a Black non-disabled girlfriend. /p pA good friend talked about this subject and she had the same story. We are both Black and disabled and we noticed that most of our friends were White. She agreed that her close relationships were with White, non-disabled men. She could count on one hand all the boyfriends she had had and all of them were White. I wonder if Black women and men are frightened of getting involved with a person with a disability or do they lack experience being with individuals with disabilities?/p pLike I mentioned above, I have this worried magic of revealing the true person when it comes to having a relationship. From reading disabled , feminist authors, I learned that they have almost the same experience in establishing a relationship with a non-disabled man and some times with a disabled man. Although I learned a lot from disabled, feminist authors, I am still waiting for a Black, disabled, feminist author to shared some light from a Black, disabled woman point of view./p pOne friend told me that I should look for a person like myself! “You know DISABLED!” Wow, what a stupid comment. But I thought about it for a while and how it relates to other oppressions. Even today some Black women and men are upset when they see interracial couples. Many people feed into stereotypical views that you're better off with your own. Today we know that some times your “own kind” is more oppressive than the main oppressor. Some Black men have a hard time with the Black, feminist movement and the Black, gay movement. When Bell Hooks wrote Ain't I a Women, she received complaints from all varieties of women but she couldn't believe how resistant the Black community was about the book. /p pEvery group in society has a higher standard to measure up to. Many times these standards are stereotypical and oppressive. In relationships some people look to the dominant cultural as the ultimate goal. For example, if you are a Black, disabled, heterosexual man than the standard is a Black, non-disabled, heterosexual woman. Or if you break through the first layer of oppression, the real prize is a White, non-disabled, heterosexual woman. Being with your “own kind”, if you're not part of the dominant culture, smacks the dominant culture in the face and they don't understand it in some situations, especially if you're disabled./p pOne story that has been locked in my brain for years came from a disabled feminist. The author wrote about how a family of a young, disabled woman reacted to her many accomplishments. The disabled young lady got into college, graduated with honors, got into graduate school and landed a great job, but received no reaction from her family. However, when she brought her non-disabled boyfriend home, her family was overjoyed and celebrated by throwing her an all-night party. /p pOn the other side is the famous movie "Guess Who Is Coming to Dinner" with Sidney Poitier. The movie was based on an interracial couple. The Black, soon-to-be husband surprises his girlfriend's White parents. Her parents are shocked to see "what" her daughter brought home. Do you see the two examples I'm playing with and how people from the dominant culture react when they get into a relationship with the "Other?" /p pI tossed this concept around in my brain for a long time and I wrote a short story entitled At Dinner. The story follows the main theme of "Guess Who is Coming to Dinner" but the main obstacles in At Dinner are disablism and classism. A Black, non- disabled , wealthy woman brings her disabled, middle class, Black boyfriend home to announced their engagement to her parents. To make the story short the parents were shocked and talked their daughter out of the marriage because they couldn’t related to their daughter's boyfriend. Her parents also told her that she could have brought a White man into their house but not this inner city cripple. /p pThe media and literature are only one avenue that sheds light (negative or positive) on the concept of relationships with the "Other”. Let's go back to the early nineteenth and twentieth century and examine the laws this country wrote and enforced on who could and couldn’t marry. Black slaves couldn't get married by law and couldn't think about marrying a White person. Slaves had their own secret way to get married. With the birth of the eugenics movement, racial separation to improve the CHOSEN RACE was the law of the land. Whites were the chosen people who had the brains, physical stamina and beauty and everyone else was sub-human, with nothing to offer except their weakness. /p pAs we all know the eugenics movement’s first experiments were conducted on persons with disabilities, especially people with mental retardation. Although the two groups followed the same path in the eugenic movement, people with disabilities went beyond separation. What is sad is that even today a handful of states still have laws on their books prohibiting marriages of disabled people and interracial marriages. /p pSome disabled individuals are also discouraged from marriage because of the rules of the federal benefits they receive. In certain cases when two disabled persons get together and decide to marry and move in together their benefits are cut in half. /p pWhen I think about my high school years, I can pin point what was important to my peers—your looks and the opposite sex. As a Black, physically disabled student in a mainstream high school, I realized that my opportunities with the opposite sex were nil. I've noticed that girls were experimenting with makeup and sexy clothes. The boys went out of their way to look cool but I couldn't hide my walker, leg braces and the way I walked. Thank God times have changed since I was in high school. From my involvement with youths with disabilities, I've noticed that today’s disabled youth and young adults have girlfriends and boyfriends,but the peer pressure is still there. /p pThe concept of sex and relationships is always hard for parents to talk to their children about, but nowadays children know more than their parents do. I realized that many times parents with disabled children close their eyes and ears to sex and relationships. Finally, today women with disabilities are writing and talking about the public’s view on the concept of sexuality and disability in society and the family. However, there is very little out there from a viewpoint of men with disabilities on the subject of sex and relationship./p pNo wonder relationships are so complex and take a lifetime to perfect. With all the oppression from the dominate culture, internal oppression from the “Other” assumptions, history, laws, the social structure and the media's misrepresentation of the "Other", men and women are on opposite poles even when they are in relationships. There is no river between the sexes. If only people would stop, think, talk and listen to each others’ histories and lifestyles without judgment, this relationship thing would be a piece of cake. Yes, I’m still single, but hopeful./p pDr. Leroy, ha,ha,habr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrong pbWhy do we Menbr / love sharp, pointy,br / objects ang multicolorbr / Mushroom explosions?/b/p/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Joe. B./p pThe Selected President with his mythical mandate hasbr / overspent the so called “People’s Money” in a $600“ or more “give back to working folks and family” thing. /pp$158 billion Surplus $157 from Social Security and by September 30 the $153 billion with a $9 billion deficit.br / b information from S.F. Chronicle Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2001./b/p pWhat is this high spending buy out of tons ofbr / br / low grade plutoniumbr / b['dirty, spent radiation]br / /b in the billions from Russia?/p p I heard the figure 16 thousand nuclear bombs can be made from such material.br / br /The Japanese has the same material and is able to turn ‘dirty’ Plutonium into resuable reactor fuelbr /if the President wants to help our ‘energy crisis’ wouldn't a breeder reactor turning ‘nuke garbage’ into electrical energy be the goal not extra bombs?/p pOr melting asteriods with the same spent fuel getting more valuable elements from smelting it./p pOn the other hands at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Bostonbr / Researchers say the secret of human longevity may be in our genesbr / a group of genes found in a single chrommsone./p pthere's more but back to our guy the the white house.br / br /Do 'ya think this should be one thosebr /thousand points of light to see by hmmm? /p pWhat is it with this guybr / br / He is President, the most powerfull human on the planet except the br /Heavenly Father/Mother./p pThis Church and State combined in White House is not working correctly./p pOur male penchant for brinkmanship is dangerous macho stupidity plain and simplebr /we’re short sighted, stuborn, and blind to some realities sometime./p p As a black male in Americabr /I’m aware of so many tripwires that can get me hurt, maimed, or killed that br /wouldn’t mean much to society at large, its still that way./p pIn this country Mother’s, girlfriends, wive’s, or even protective daughter’s sometime must hold br /back their men’s natural inclination to speak, and fight for their own and other’s dignity./p pA Catholic, Priest is seen as a none sexual being as are uns closer to Godbr / both are suppose to have a higher relationship./p pI understand the concept of nuns married to God br / but I could not see Priest as married to the trinitybr / br /maybe brother, son, friend, or ultimate father figure./p pBut in the Black Church a preacher especially males have a sexual allure to womenbr /I wonder if young Black men thought of being preachers with their own private haremsbr / 'um choir of willing women?/p pOh, the secrets if pews could speak about the power of the br /"laying of hands" to heal ladies in distress. /p pMyself as a regular black guy in this country of contradiction have always tried to keep a low profile because we are so visible only when it’s time to beat, hurt, frame, place us in jail we’re negatively seen but that’s changing slowly. /ppBlack women being locked up as much as men creates a dangerous situation of more broken families br /however people are rising from zero to become business moguls, writers, scientists, Tv, and movie stars./p pAll I want to do is live a long and varied life without lots of dramabr /have a good woman, some children, and eventually be a ‘grandpabr / in other words a very long regular, dull life./p pMost women want exciting, hansome, strong, tough guysbr / and yet there is a time when maturity awakens in men and women to just be themselves. /p pAs I’ve said before speed is not me but patience, endurance, and seeing the long view is what think I do bestbr /I just don’t have the time and energy to be part of every new breaking fashion be it hi tech, people, and politics is onlybr / for self protection when rights and choices are affected. /ppIf any readers think about this stuff you might have alternative anwers to give me./p pbrPlease donate what can to Poor Magazine orbr / br /C/0 Ask Joe at 255 9th St. Street,br / br /San Francisco, CA. 94103 USA/brplease/p pbr /For Joe only my snail mail:br / br /PO Box 1230 #645br / br /Market St. San Francisco, CA 94102br / br /Email: a href="mailto:askjoe@poormagazine.org"askjoe@poormagazine.org/abr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongPOOR Magazine gives the Bay Area's needy a forum. Its "formerlybr / homeless" mother-daughter editors have also created a journalismbr / welfare-to-work program. /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/444/photo_1_feature.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby LA Times/p pHome Editionbr / br /Section: Southern California Livingbr / br /Page: E-1/p pSAN FRANCISCO—Dee Gray would probably want this story to start with the word "I". Dee thinks the best stories are told in the first person. Her daughter, Tiny, doesn't always agree.br / /pPThis is what it might look like, if Dee had her way:br / /pPI first heard from Lisa Gray-Garcia, also known as Tiny, in a long, long message on my voicemail machine about living poor in America's most expensive city. "A lot of us are affected by gentrification and poverty and how that translates to having to leave this area," she said, in a voice somewhere between nasal and squeaky. "Oftentimes, poor families arebr / the ones who are leaving."br / /pPOther mothers and daughters may wrangle over literary license, currentbr / events and how the media shape the news, but their ruminations don't oftenbr / make it into print. Dee's and Tiny's usually do. You can read them onlinebr / at Abr / href="http://www.poornewsnetwork.org/"http://www.poornewsnetwork.org/,br / a weekly news service with the motto: "All the news that doesn't fit."br / POr in the pages of POOR Magazine, where they write under headings likebr / "Editors' Statement by Dee and Tiny." You can catch them on the lastbr / Monday of every month on the Bay Area's KPFA radio, if you wake up reallybr / early.br / /pPOr, if you are on welfare in the San Francisco area and fortunate inbr / your misfortune, you can listen to them in person as part of their Newbr / Journalism/Media Studies Program. Many media and public-policy expertsbr / believe the program, which receives some funding from San Franciscobr / County, is the only journalism welfare-to-work effort operating today.br / /pPTiny and Dee—30 and "I'd rather not say," who describe themselves asbr / "formerly homeless, currently at risk"—have a few goals. They want tobr / change how the mainstream media portray poor and homeless people. Theybr / want to give voice to those who have long been silent, or at the verybr / least not been heard. They want to change how the government gets peoplebr / off of public assistance and into jobs. And they'd like to make the rent.br / /pPThey are as likely to march in a demonstration as cover it. Theybr / regularly lash out at the institutions that they feel harm poor people inbr / the name of helping; Child Protective Services is Dee's current favoritebr / target, although Pacific Gas Electric, the welfare system, thebr / California penal code, most police departments, and City Halls on bothbr / sides of the bay come under regular attack too.br / /pPTheir work—and articles by other PoorNewsNetwork reporters—appears inbr / other alternative publications and has graced the op-ed pages of thisbr / city's two mainstream newspapers. The star graduate of their first year inbr / welfare-to-work has a job writing regularly for the San Francisco Baybr / View, a small community paper covering the region's African Americanbr / population.br / /pPTheir brand of journalism favors advocacy over explanation. But ifbr / there is a place in the american media for the likes of conservativebr / commentator William Kristol and his iWeekly Standard/i, there's a place forbr / Tiny, Dee and POOR.br / /pPThe question, of course, is whether taxpayers should foot the bill forbr / teaching poor and homeless people to be writers, when most welfare-to-workbr / programs stress far more basic job skills. Not surprisingly, Tiny and Deebr / say yes. And San Francisco County agrees.br / /pPWith funding from the county Department of Human Services, whichbr / administers welfare benefits here, the Media Studies Program trained eightbr / people over the last year and will likely train another eight in the nextbr / fiscal year, says Amanda Feinstein, the agency's project director forbr / work-force development.br / /pP"They're tutoring and mentoring one person at a time," Feinstein says.br / "It's small. We expect it to be—small and intensive for the right type ofbr / person." /p pMother, Daughter Spiral Into Homelessnessbr / /pPBerkeley, 1993. Tiny spent three days in jail for driving without abr / license, having too many unpaid parking tickets, no registration for thebr / car in which she and Dee were living, and failure to appear on similarbr / earlier charges—what she now refers to as crimes of poverty.br / /pPShe was eventually sentenced to hundreds of hours of community service,br / which she worked off at a small nonprofit called Community Defense Inc.br / Osha Neumann, who runs the organization, asked her what she wanted to do.br / Survive. He asked her what she knew how to do. Write. Had there been abr / Media Studies Program at the time, Tiny would have been a perfectbr / candidate.br / /pP"She was struggling at that point to just keep it together and needingbr / every moment of her time to try and survive with her mom," Neumannbr / recalls. "I said, 'I tell you what. Why don't you do that writing as yourbr / community service for us?" We do advocacy for homeless people. She wrotebr / this article. I read it and realized that this is a really good writer."br / /pPA surprisingly good writer for a young woman who had dropped out ofbr / school in the sixth grade as she and her mother spiraled intobr / homelessness. Dee was a social worker who lost her job, became disabledbr / and then couldn't work. Their savings ran out in three to four months. Deebr / was an orphan who had been raised in a series of foster homes andbr / institutions. Tiny's father was long gone. They had no money and nobr / family.br / /pPThey were evicted 21 times in Los Angeles and Oakland, Dee says,br / recalling a time in which they had just enough money to get an apartmentbr / but never enough to pay the rent for long. Each time their welcome wouldbr / wear out, they would look for another temporary home. Lisa, too young tobr / have a bad credit rating, would do the hard part. "I would dress Lisa in abr / dress and gloves at 13, say she was 18 or 20, and she'd get us anbr / apartment," Dee says. "We'd stay as long as we could and save enough moneybr / to get another apartment. We moved up here, and it wasn't much better."br / /pPTiny's first article was about being poor, and it was published in anbr / East Bay alternative paper, an event that became a turning point. "Notbr / only was I heard as a writer and an artist," she says, "but I was heardbr / about this."br / /pPStanding in front of the magazine rack at Cody's Books in Berkeley onebr / day, she realized there were no publications that talked about the livesbr / of poor people—the kind of revelation that would happen only to a personbr / with little interest in advertising revenues.br / /pPSo, Tiny got together a small group of financially stressed people withbr / artistic or literary bents to meet each month and figure out "how to makebr / literary art out of our lives." With the help of a group of artistbr / friends, she raised some seed money and POOR was born. One Theme Per Issuebr / /pPVol. 1 of the intentionally glossy, almost-annual magazine came out inbr / 1996.br / /pPVol. 4 hit bookstores in April. Each edition explores a singlebr / theme—"Homefulness", "Hellthcare", "Work", "Mothers"—through art,br / fiction, poetry and first-person narrative. Each is an effort to define,br / and suggest solutions for, the obstacles facing poor people. The writersbr / are poor people. The artists are poor people. The experts are poor people.br / /pPLike the Web site, which is updated weekly, the magazine has a mix ofbr / harrowing accounts of life on the street and sad tales about the lengthsbr / to which men and women are pushed simply to "Survive." In these pages, thebr / word is often capitalized, a sacred verb, a statement.br / /pPThe journalism training program for welfare recipients evolved out ofbr / the "Work" issue and Tiny's own experiences on welfare in the years afterbr / the Clinton administration passed welfare reform legislation. It was 1998,br / and San Francisco had implemented its Personally Assisted Employmentbr / Specialist program to move men and women from welfare to work in partbr / through skills assessment and counseling.br / /pPTiny was told on several occasions that she would make a fabulousbr / receptionist. She had told various job counselors that she really wantedbr / to be a reporter or writer and that, although she lacked formal education,br / she would be interested in pursuing a college degree program. Thebr / response, she wrote in an article eventually published onbr / Poor-NewsNetwork, was that given her lack of education, earning a degreebr / would take too long.br / /pP"'And besides, is that really a practical career choice for someone inbr / your position?' I don't know ... was it?" she wrote. "My mother and I werebr / endlessly battling homelessness—we were deeply entrenched in thebr / so-called cycle of poverty ... one crisis snowballing into the next untilbr / you are never really able to fix any one problem, because you are justbr / catching the last one, barely."br / /pPWhile still receiving welfare herself and working on POOR Magazine,br / Tiny dreamed up her own welfare-to-work program, which eventually wasbr / funded by the San Francisco Department of Human Services. At its heart arebr / the mother-daughter team's strong beliefs about what is wrong with welfarebr / today.br / /pPIt is impossible, they say, for extremely poor people--especially thosebr / grappling with homelessness, substance abuse, mental illness—to learn anybr / really useful skill in the short time most government training programsbr / allow. That same government, they say, shoves poor people into any jobbr / that comes along just to get them off of welfare, whether there's a futurebr / in it or not.br / /pPTheir welfare-to-work program includes a lot of basics: reporting,br / writing, grammar, graphic arts, Internet design, desktop publishing. Andbr / some more advanced skills, such as investigative and advocacy journalismbr / with a focus on race and class.br / /pPAlong the way, they lecture daily on what they call "povertybr / scholarship"—the belief that poor people who have lived it are experts inbr / it. And they insist that their students write from their own experiences,br / acknowledge their own homelessness, banish their own shame.br / /pPFor Dee, this means using the word "I".br / /pP"Some write in the third person," she complains. "They don't have thebr / confidence to tell their story. They write about poor people as if theybr / weren't one of them. We want to hear their voice.... We teach first-personbr / narrative rather than poverty voyeurism—people from the outside writingbr / about being poor." 'Povery Voyeurism' by Mainstream Pressbr / /pPAlan Weil of the Urban Institute, a liberal Washington think tank,br / believes that the folks at POOR and the Media Studies Program are rightbr / about a lot of things, among them that most states emphasize moving peoplebr / from welfare to work as quickly as possible, "which means [take] the firstbr / job you can find."br / /pP"I think they're right in a different way, which is that our society'sbr / attention to the reality of life for poor people is very shallow," Weilbr / says. "If they can offer a more complete picture of that life, then theybr / are doing something that not really anyone else is doing."br / /pPMost publications put out by poor and homeless people—among them thebr / 40 members of the North American Street Newspaper Assn.—share a single,br / central goal: reframing the news, because their staff members believe thatbr / the mainstream media either patronize or ignore poor people.br / /pPTo Dee, it is "poverty voyeurism". Chance Martin, editor of iStreetbr / Sheet/i in San Francisco, argues that stories about poor and homeless peoplebr / in the traditional press tend to be formulaic, with the ones that actuallybr / talk to the homeless as "the most offensive".br / /pP"They serve to reinforce the personal deficit model," which says thatbr / poor people are broken and need to be fixed, argues Martin, who is on thebr / executive committee of the newspaper association.br / /pPGray, Gray-Garcia and Martin argue that such a model ignores thebr / complexities of lives lived in poverty. The mainstream media, they say,br / have a responsibility to report those lives fully—whether or not poorbr / people vote, shop or take vacations—and that everyone from employers andbr / teachers to legislators would benefit.br / /pPThe personal deficit model, they say, emphasizes the failures in poorbr / people's lives, instead of their tenacious coping. It ignores the factbr / that those living on the edge might be late for work because old carsbr / break down and buses are unreliable, not because of slovenliness. Thatbr / poor parents might not show up for parent-teacher conferences because theybr / have multiple minimum-wage jobs, not because they don't care.br / /pPWhat about the stories that don't talk to the poor but simply talkbr / about them? In a January report, the Harvard Family Research Projectbr / evaluated more than 2,000 articles on health care and welfare issues frombr / 29 electronic and print sources between 1999 and 2000.br / /pPThe most frequent welfare issues discussed included job training andbr / declining caseloads. The media's most common sources were researchers andbr / policymakers, the project reported, but current and former welfarebr / recipients were among the "sources rarely or not used".br / /pPShawn Fremstad, a senior policy analyst with the Center on Budget andbr / Policy Priorities in Washington, looks at the Harvard report as evidencebr / that the media need to improve their coverage of poverty. If POOR's Mediabr / Studies Program succeeds, he figures, it can be only a positive thing bothbr / for its students and American readers.br / /pP"The tricky part," he says, "is to what extent can this deliver inbr / terms of someone ending up in a job in the journalism field?" /p pManybr / Struggles for Program Participantsbr / /pPOn a purely philosophical level, the people in the program believe thatbr / any time a poor person speaks out in print, it is a small success in itsbr / own way. On a more practical level, the program is probably too young tobr / judge. It has been funded for only one full year, and its students facebr / many hurdles. Some are struggling with homelessness, some mental illness,br / some substance abuse and past incarceration. They have a lot to learnbr / about work and journalism.br / /pPIn this second year of their publicly funded effort, Dee and Tiny wantbr / taxpayers to shell out $8,600 to cover training costs for each futurebr / journalist in the program. And then they want those fledgling reporters,br / photographers and graphic artists to get paid $15 an hour, 40 hours abr / week, for a year as apprentices.br / /pPFeinstein didn't bite for the whole package; it is, after all, abr / Cadillac request from a government with a used-Hyundai budget. But Sanbr / Francisco funded them once and will likely fund them again at some level.br / Feinstein believes the Media Studies Program offers "just the start somebr / people may need."br / /pPBenny Joyner, 51, pen name Kaponda, was the star graduate of the Mediabr / Studies Program's maiden year. POOR taught this former legal secretary andbr / former prison inmate how to write a story, and he learned well.br / /pPFor various POOR publications, Joyner has written about California'sbr / "three strikes" law and covered a recent demonstration against lodgingbr / laws that forbid sleeping outside in public places.br / /pPAnd now he has job writing for the iSan Francisco Bay View/i, a smallbr / community paper focusing on the Bay Area's African American population. Hebr / has written about environmental justice, police issues and a local blackbr / micro-radio station. His biggest accomplishment? Probably the story, basedbr / on recent census data, about how San Francisco's black population hasbr / dropped 23% in the last decade. Joyner's story came out May 29. The Sanbr / Francisco Chronicle followed Joyner two weeks later.br / /pPJoyner is happy; his new boss is delighted.br / /pP"This is not fluff, not society news, not feel-good news," says Marybr / Ratcliff, editor of the iBay View/i. "This is real, important hard news, andbr / we're just thrilled.... We really need good news coverage. Benny is ourbr / lifeline." /p pBy: Maria L. LA Gangabr / br /TIMES STAFF WRITER/p p/p/abr/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongHow providing a valuable service to the community got one woman blacklisted/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/459/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Verena Haemmig/p pI am a licensed family childcare provider and this is my story of discrimination while searching for rental housing in San Francisco, where I’ve lived and worked for over 30 years. It is written out of frustration./p pIt was many weeks ago when my son and I were served with an eviction notice to vacate the lovely home we had been living in for five years—the owner’s daughter was getting married and wanted to move in. It’s a fairly typical scenario these days. Of course it came as a shock, but then again, the same exact thing had happened to us in 1989, when times were different, and so was the rental market. I let the bad news sink in, cried a few tears, and calmed myself down. I told myself that we would surely find a new home since we were given plenty of time to look. We were excellent tenants with impeccable credit and references./p pThe despair set in as I began our search in the rental section of the paper, realizing that our rent would double. I would have to increase my childcare fees to top levels in order to cover housing expenses. The parents understood because after all, we are partners in this business of taking care of children. Nothing however, could prepare me for the hostile and negative responses I would receive from landlords and rental agencies./p pFor landlords, the word “daycare” often conjures up images of an illegal operation resulting in damaged property at the hands of screaming children running wild. I however, along with many other daycare providers, maintain a very clean and organized daycare that is licensed and fully insured. I have been trained as a pediatric nurse and have provided quality daycare to infants and their families in my home for more than 15 years, not to mention having raised two grown children. I have yet to be given the opportunity to share these facts with potential landlords before they shut the door in my face./p pI have been snapped at by a rental agent who condescendingly told me, “You need a license for that!” before I could get the word “daycare” out of my mouth. I have gotten a verbal agreement from a landlord who initially wanted to rent his house to me, only to have him apologetically retract his offer for some vague reason. Most of them do not return my calls, even after I carefully explain my credentials. More than simply being at the mercy of exploitative rental fees, I am blacklisted because I engage in the essential and honorable profession of caring for children./p pThe last straw came recently when a spacious flat was shown to us in the same neighborhood where I raised my own children. It had everything we were looking for. We handed in our application and credit report on the spot. Instead of calling our present landlord as a reference, the owner called his lawyer. I received a phone call in the evening that went something like this:/p p “I am sorry, but I can’t rent the flat to you. My lawyer advised me against it because of zoning laws regarding childcare and using the flat for commercial purposes.”/p p“Sir, I am not operating a commercial enterprise. I take care of children and want you to be aware that you are prohibited by law* from discriminating against family childcare providers.” My voice was firm./p p“Do not say that, “he said angrily. “You are accusing me. I made the effort to consult my lawyer and as you know, lawyers are paid by the minute!”/p p“Did you have a chance to call our present landlord?” I asked./p p“No,” he said. “I called my lawyer.”/p pI felt like suing him and his lawyer! An article in a recent publication by the California Association for Family Childcare states that close to one fourth of states have enacted legislation that allows daycare providers to use homes (caring for 6 or fewer children) as “residential use of property,” thus superceding local zoning laws*. California happens to be one of those states. A lawyer at the Childcare Law Center confirmed this and informed me that I am not even required to disclose to the landlord that I take care of children in my home. How do I fill out the rental application without directly mentioning my profession as a family childcare provider? I will have to use my imagination!/p pFinally, why is it that childcare, provided in homes, is viewed in such a negative light? We family childcare providers provide an invaluable service to the community. Many of us are educated in the field of Early Childhood Education. It is a fact that family childcare is the preferred choice of care by families for infants and toddlers. Times have changed and we view ourselves as professionals running a small business—the business of caring for children so that their parents can work./p pThe fact that the rental market is competitive does not give landlords the right to discriminate against family daycare providers or anyone based on their identity or profession. We deserve to be equally considered for housing./p pIn the meantime, we are still looking for housing and time is running out. I wrote this so that the general public and landlords in particular are informed and enlightened and may change their attitudes towards licensed family childcare providers./p p* This is covered in the State Department of Social Services Health Safety Code Section 1597.40 (b)br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrong pI'm no journalist./p pIts this "Hit A cop,br / Pay The Price Storybr / that made me write this. /p/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Joe. B./p pA person goes “Tilt” on sixth and Market Street. /p pWednesday, August, 15, 2001. I was returning from Henry George School of Social Science at 55 New Montgomery.br / br /Guess its the wrong day or the classes met earier, I don’t know./p pWhile walking back up Market Street toward my home there is another protest about mistreatmentbr / of women in Columbia./p p A yellow flyer is given to me while walking. /p pSoon as my Apartment buildingbr / looms near my eyes br /silently record images, sights, sounds in a rapid jumble./p pTwo people on the ground under my building one lay unmoving in the street.br / br /A third person in the street roughly assisted into a police van, as police sirens scream past the area where the incident happened coming from every direction. /p pI don’t know if its a shooting or a traffic accident?/p pPolice in controlled panic on foot, in cars not exactly blocking people’s way but br /their strong presence make me pause./p pCops swarm like angry hornets hovering over and near one of their own. /p pMumblings, loud, low talk, whispers, and traffic jams in a frenetic mix of concern, constination, awe, anger, curiosity, and fear. /p pI hear from br /a bystander or street folk and on what happened.br / br /B:“HE WALKED UP TO HER AND PUNCHED HER!”br / br /POOR Magazine:“WHAT?”br / B:“He walked up there and just punched her.”br / br /PM:”Nothing-just...” br /br / B:“Nothin’, that’s what all these cops are here for, that’s what’s this is about?” br /br / B:“NO REASON.”br / br /PM:“You mean he went off-just nuts?br / br /B:“And That’s a Woman Too, They (police) was running people with those sticks. (police baton’s, or night stick)./p pA few black women talk about the incident have lots to say until a young, blond cop in his blue uniform asked br /“Did you see or hear what happened, because you were talking about it a lot.”/p pThe women clam up moving away as the cop goes back to fellow officers. Meanwhile in this socalled reporters on words “I’m tryin’to git home but the cop asking the two black women what they’ve seen or heard changed that./p pI take this as a signal crossing the street then rethink ”Typing this up is what should be done even if I don’t have all the facts. /p pPM:I don’t know what happened yet. br /All I know is somebody hit a cop and the cops went nuts,br / or someone hit a lady, br /then hit a cop, and the cops went nuts. /p pbAll I know is... br /looks like a lot-a’ cops went nuts./b/p pWhile waiting for a bus to write up this story another person looking like a tourist, or an a born ‘n raised San Franciscan spoke up. /p pbr /T/SF:“It was a lady cop, some guy on the street hit her.br / br /PM:"A lady cop.”br / T/SF:“Yeah, and her partner, a guy had a billybr / br / club or night stick and and beat him down.” br //p pPM:“That’s why the cops went nuts - one of their own... ok.br /” T/SF: “Exactly, did you see ‘em they all went right past here, they didn’tbr / stop right here, fifteen cop cars came zooming by.”br / br /PM:“Well, thank you." I said to the man as I got on the bus heading to Ninth and Mission Street to file this report./p pIn POOR Magazine’s office turned on the radio to a KCBS news to hear about a female police officer punched in the face was being taken to General Hospital. /p pPolice have arrested a suspect in the attack.br / She is said to have suffered facial and nasal injuries./p pI know its a jumble of mistakes but it’ll be on the web before br / midnight I just hope other folks on the web who were at the scene can supply POOR Magazine with all the missingbr / bits and beware other law enforcement entities are probably webchecking too./p pI couldn’t think for a few minutes letting it sink in. Random, irrational violence on a police officer. The fact the officer is female makes no difference except by a marginal nuance. /p pIf this person hates both police and woman and had a misogynist two-for one punch out this could seen as a larger problem. /p pThe random brutality is a question that must be dealt with and thisbr / doesn’t mean lock ‘em up-throw-away-key if that happens this could be the tip of br /an angry melting iceburg of more random acts of violence./p pThen again I'm John Shmoo public, what do I know?/p pThis is one confused, tired socalled reporter sayingbr / stay alert, be safe and keep your soft and wetware fluidic. good night./p pPlease donate what can to Poor Magazine orbr / C/0 Ask Joe at 255 9th St. Street,br / San Francisco, CA. 94103 USA/p pFor Joe only my snail mail:br / PO Box 1230 #645br / Market St.br / San Francisco, CA 94102br / Email: a href="mailto:askjoe@poormagazine.org"askjoe@poormagazine.org/abr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongPart #3 An Apology of Sorts /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/461/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Michael Lea Morgan/PNN shelter beat reporter/p pLast week’s installment of “Shelter Beat” came out of chaos and created chaos. But not bad chaos. It was good chaos. Good and bad chaos? Man, that is chaotic thinking. But it’s true, there are different kinds of turmoil and confusion. So maybe I should use those words instead, as chaos has come to be a very deep kind of word, even gaining scientific useage (as in Chaos Theory). Okay, so I put some ideas into a folder on the POOR computer (oh, poor little computer, it works so hard) and, because I was really late in getting over to Poor to write last week’s article, POOR’s copyeditors put together an article from those writings and chaos (oh yes, I’m not using that word) resulted. It’s all the copyeditor’s fault!! I never wrote that. Well, maybe I wrote some of it. Okay, I wrote it. But, they put it together and caused all the trouble. Okay, I caused the trouble. And now I feel like journalism is too hard for me; I’m just a simple Louisiana boy. Boy? Yea, right./p pWhat happened was that someone I wrote about last week in the PAES office at DHS read the article, printed it, and showed it to me Then another PAES person came out and talked to me about my characterization of the PAES program. So, I had my first experience of having to be accountable for my writings—being confronted by someone I had writen about in a less than flattering fashion./p pWhat I learned from the experience of having made a written statement of opinion was that no subject or issue is completely black or white, nor can we perfectly present our own viewpoint. So, I will always be careful when putting into writing an opinion which effects the life of another person./p pAn employee of PAES told me that their program is manned by people who care (which, in my opinion is generally true), as though I had written a piece putting PAES in a bad light, which I did not. A GA worker of mine told me she was involved with the design of a new program called PAES and, when I heard what the program entailed, and her high hopes for its success in providing people with access to jobs, training, and housing, I was impressed./p pJust for the record, my PAES specialist apologized for having gotten angry with me; she is a person working under the constraints of DHS guidelines and pressure from clients./p pThere is always a negative side to being positive, because both forces are necessary in a universe based on polarity, like the Milky Way; people working for a utopian world are probably conjuring memories from a universe they recently came from where “It’s all one.” But here there is good and bad in everyone, and that includes not only politicians but also activists and people who claim to be on the side of the poor./p pThe results of publishing last week’s opening lines is a great example of my point: when I went in to see my PAES specialist, she had a print-out of my piece #2 which started out saying that she, “ yelled the words ‘you have no choice, you have no choice,’" at me. A positive became a negative for her when I took a positive action and published her words, and this became a negative for me when a man in a suit came out to talk to me about journalists who make blanket assesments of programs based on the actions of one or two employees (my specialist, by the way, apologized to me later and is, in fact, normally a very polite person). This conversation then became a positive when he went on to reveal to me the positive intentions of the PAES workers who just work under the negatives of guidelines and restrictions placed on them. /p pI agree with him and so had mixed feelings (positive and negative) about the piece I wrote. Not that I had in any way misconstrued the facts, which I did not. Nor were there any overt blanket statements about the PAES program. But I had mixed feelings because of the nature of this universe and how a simple positive action can be turned into a complex negative reaction by bureaucrats seeking only to avoid negative publicity (which means that they want to maintain a positive iimage [whether their programs are truly positive or not])br / /i/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongAbuse of Deaf Women and Children/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/390/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Greg Paroff/p pWomen often find themselves homeless when escaping situations of domestic violence. As difficult as such violence is for hearing women, Deaf women face additional challenges dealing with abuse./p pJulie Rems-Smario founded Deaf Women Against Violence (DWAV) to serve Deaf women and their children residing in the Bay Area. Rems-Smario, who has been Deaf since birth, taught at the California School for the Deaf in Fremont and saw the profound impact domestic violence has on the children of Deaf women. /p pSome of the Deaf children, Rems-Smario writes, were coming to school on Mondays, relieved to be on safe premises. These children started “acting out” on Fridays as they prepared to go home for the weekend. Rems-Smario realized these children were being abused at home./p pUntil the late 1990’s, there was only one organization in the U.S. dealing with Deaf battered women and their children, the Abused Deaf Women Advocacy Services (ADWS) of Seattle, WA. In 1998, Rems-Smario was five months pregnant with her third child when she was invited, along with representatives from four other cities, to attend an ADWS training seminar on how to organize a similar group in the Bay Area./p pIn March 2001, with the support of the Deaf Counseling, Advocacy and Referral Agency (DCARA) and three years of grassroots fundraising, DWAV opened an office in Hayward, California, with Rems-Smario as executive director. Since the California School for the Deaf is located in Fremont, Alameda County has an especially populous Deaf community./p pDWAV provides services to Deaf survivors of domestic violence through its advocacy in medical and legal arenas. DWAV not only advocates for Deaf women and their children, it also trains public officials how to best serve the special needs of Deaf women and children./p pWhen abused, Deaf women seeking help from police and staffs of hospitals and shelters are often forced to deal with people who do not understand Deaf culture. Police seldom avail themselves of interpreters when called to scenes of domestic violence, wrongly assuming all deaf people can lip-read. This renders communication impossible./p pPeople working in shelters often misinterpret the behaviors of Deaf women and their children. For example, when hearing children want to get the attention of their Deaf parent, they stomp on the floor to create vibrations. At home, these children are used to speaking very loudly. These behaviors are often interpreted as acting-out, and women are asked to leave the shelters, which may return them to the cycle of violence./p pIn August, DWAV will be expanding its services and opening its 24-hour hotline for Deaf battered women. In order for the organization to thrive and further extend its services, it needs support from the community./p pCheck out DWAV’s website at a href="http://www.dwav.org" title="www.dwav.org"www.dwav.org/a. They can be reached by TTY at (510) 538-0107. Hearing people can reach them via California Relay Services by calling (888)877-5378 or (800) 735-2922 and giving the TTY number to the operator./p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongMUMIA ABU-JAMAL'S 'LEGAL BOMBSHELL'br / Man Confesses to Cop Slaying, says Mumia is innocent. "I have personal knowledge that Mumia Abu-Jamal did not shoot police officer Faulkner..." /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/408/photo_2_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Teishan Latner,International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal /p pRevolutionary journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal is now in his twentieth year on Pennsylvania's death row, fighting for his life despite a mountain of evidence that he was framed for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia cop. Coerced witnesses, police lies, faulty ballistics evidence, inadequate and conniving legal defense, political card-playing and the denial of basic Constitutional rights are just a few of the ways that Mumia was railroaded to prison, but on May 4, 2001 his new legal team filed five new affidavits in federal court which further elucidate his case. Included are long-awaited statements from Mumia and his brother William Cook and, adding another roller-coaster dimension to the case, the confession of a man who claims he was the real killer of officer Daniel Faulkner, the cop whom Mumia is falsely accused of killing./p pAffidavit of Arnold Beverly: "I shot Faulkner in the face..." /p pWrites Beverly: "I was hired, along with another guy, and paid to shoot and kill Faulkner. I had heard that Faulkner was a problem for the Mob and corrupt policemen because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made to allow illegal activity including prostitution, gambling and drugs without prosecution in the Center City area...I shot Faulkner in the face at close range. Jamal was shot shortly after by a uniformed police officer who arrived on the scene..."/p pBeverly has since passed a lie-detector test administered by eminent polygraph expert Charles Hontson. Beverly has also asked for the opportunity to make a court deposition (confess in court) but the Philadelphia District Attorney's office has opposed it in a virtually unprecedented decision, claiming the confession is "ridiculous." The International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal cannot yet guarantee the validity of Beverly's statement but is continuing its investigation. If admitted in court, the confession will likely be the most powerful evidential weapon yet in the struggle to release Mumia./p pAffidavit of Mumia Abu-Jamal: "I heard what sounded like gunshots..." /p pMumia Abu-Jamal was parked in his cab at 13th and Locust streets filling out his trip sheet when he heard gun shots, he writes in his affidavit. Recognizing his injured brother in the street behind him, he left the cab and ran toward him. "As I came across the street I saw a uniformed cop turn toward me gun in hand, saw a flash and went down to my knees...I had nothing to do with the killing of Faulkner." Mumia also explains his reasons for not issuing this account publicly until now. "At my trial I was denied the right to defend myself. I had no confidence in my court-appointed attorney, who never even asked me what happened that night...since I was denied all my rights at my trial I did not testify. I would not be used to make it look like I had a fair trial..."/p pAffidavit of William Cook: "When I first saw my brother, he was running..." /p pThose clamoring for Mumia's execution have long claimed that his pleas of innocence are undermined by the absence of court testimony from his brother, William Cook. Cook was indeed present at the scene, having just been beaten by officer Faulkner, but his affidavit maintains that Mumia had nothing to do with the shooting. However, Cook's silence until now was apparently motivated by a very legitimate concern: police retaliation. "When they had me in the police station they threatened to kill me and throw me in the river [if I involved myself in Mumia's trial]. I have been afraid for my life ever since that night. I have been afraid to tell anything about what happened" Cook also writes that he wanted to testify at the Post Conviction Relief hearings in 1995 but did not because of conflicting opinions from Mumia's lawyers, and because he did not receive protection from possible police retaliation. He disappeared immediately after and went into hiding, where he remains. /p pAffidavit of Donald Hersing: "I provided monetary payoffs and other considerations to various Philadelphia police officers..." /p pIn 1981 Hersing was an undercover FBI agent who was part of an investigation into the Philadelphia Police Department, the only federal corruption investigation of a police department in U.S. history. Hersing's testimony helped convict five Philadelphia cops of corruption of exactly the nature mentioned by Arnold Beverly in his confession to the Faulkner killing, and during the same time period. Hersing says that while working as an undercover FBI agent, Philadelphia police accepted his payoffs for the purpose of allowing prostitution and other activities to flourish in the Center City area. Hersing's testimony corroborates Beverly's claim of police corruption, something many in Philadelphia today say was "common knowledge" at the time. /p pAffidavit of Linn Washington: "The first thing that struck me was the absolute absence of any police"/p pCurrently a professor of journalism at Temple University in Philadelphia and an outspoken voice against police injustice, Linn Washington is also a former journalist colleague and personal friend of Mumia's. Washington says he inspected the scene of the shootings shortly after the incident and found it completely unguarded, enabling any bystander or cop to meddle with sensitive evidence. It was a circumstance he found "highly unusual," although not unprecedented: Washington had observed that Philadelphia police also suspiciously demolished the scene of the August 8, 1978 police attack on the MOVE organization, making investigations into the shooting death of a police officer there impossible, a killing that MOVE members were charged with. /p pThe affidavits are extremely compelling reading and should be reviewed by anyone concerned with the outcome of the struggle for Mumia's freedom. They are viewable on-line at a href="http://www.mumia.org" title="www.mumia.org"www.mumia.org/a, wwwfreemumia.org or by calling the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal at 215-476-5416. Organizations are encouraged to begin mobilizing now for the December 8, 2001 demonstration for Mumia in Philadelphia, as well as other actions. Contact the ICFFMAJ for more information.br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongMumia Abu-Jamal comments on the shooting of the Italian protestor/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/429/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Mumia Abu-Jamal /p pThe recent police shooting of 23-year-old Carlo Giulianibr / in the riotous streets of Genoa has sent shock waves aroundbr / the globe./p pGiuliani, son of a Rome labor leader, was one of tens ofbr / thousands of anti-globalist demonstrators who fell on thebr / latest place where politicians and corporate representativesbr / gathered to insure their continued dominance of the world'sbr / economy. Carlo was part of a growing movement, unitingbr / the youth of many so-called first world countries with thebr / aspirations of many in the so-called third world. It was thisbr / movement that shook Seattle, and made the anagram, WTO,br / known throughout the earth./p pFor opposing the rule of capital, for opposing the Empirebr / of Wealth, Carlo Giuliani was shot by the hit-men of capital,br / and, as if this were not enough, a police vehicle rolled overbr / his prone, wounded body./p pWith the brutal state slaughter of Carlo Giuliani, thebr / message goes forth that anti-globalism is a capital crime.br / This is but the latest escalation by the armed forces ofbr / capital, which has utilized increasing levels of state violencebr / to intimidate the swelling hordes of anti-globalists./p pThe blood on the asphalt of Genoa did not begin whenbr / a cop pointed his semi-automatic into the face of a maskedbr / Roman anarchist. The blood of Genoa flows from thebr / streets of Goteborg, in Sweden, when the European Unionbr / was holding its summit meeting. There, police fired livebr / rounds at protestors, wounding three, one seriously./p pNow, an anarchist, anti-globalist lies dead./p pAs soon as the news hit the wire, came the wordsbr / of the Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw, who oncebr / quipped, "Anarchism is a game at which the police canbr / beat you." Shaw, an ardent socialist, would perhapsbr / amend his comments in light of recent events (if hebr / could)./p pWhat is most telling is how the representatives ofbr / the state and their propaganda arm, the media, hasbr / reacted to this vicious tragedy./p pWhile politicians uniformly spoke with forked tonguesbr / about the "tragedy," not a single syllable was utteredbr / in criticism of the police, was it?/p pFor the media, however, a different game wasbr / played. In virtually every report, the coverage told ofbr / violent protestors -- and suggested that they werebr / uninformed, or simply stupid for daring to care aboutbr / the poor in Africa, Asia or Latin America. Examinebr / their biased, corporate-centered coverage, andbr / ask yourself one, simple question:/p pWhat would they have written if a Genoan copbr / had been shot, and run over with a Land Roverbr / driven by anarchists? Every corporate outletbr / would've blared about how "vicious" and "violent"br / the anti-globalist "terrorists" were. Of this therebr / is no question!/p pInstead, a muted silence./p pSilence, when the terrorists are the cops./p pSilence, when the killers are the cops./p pSilence, when the hitmen for the corporationsbr / act out./p pYou hear the fractured lectures of politiciansbr / talking about "assaults on the democraticbr / process," and the like./p pYet, how democratic is the G-8 (Group of 8)?/p pThis group, which is self-selected, is sevenbr / of the wealthiest nations on earth (plus Russia)./p pIf there are about 193 nations in the world,br / what's "democratic" about 4% of that numberbr / making all of the rules governing the rest ofbr / the world's economy?/p pLook at it another way: The G-8 consists ofbr / representatives for Canada, Japan, Germany,br / France, Italy, the United Kingdom, the Unitedbr / States -- and Russia. If you were to count allbr / of the people in each nation, and add them up,br / you'd come up with around 824 million people.br / That's a lot of folks./p p But there are 6,000,000,000+ people onbr / earth! /p pHow can 14% of the world's population setbr / down the rules for 86% of the rest of the peoplebr / of the world?/p pCarlo Giuliani wasn't "assaulting thebr / democratic process." He was protesting abr / profoundly anti-democratic process. /p pHe was fighting on behalf of most of thebr / people in the world./p pCopyright 2001 Mumia Abu-Jamalbr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrong pbAs a global species,br / do we have the will to br /br / meld A.I. Technologies?br / /b/p/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Joe B./p pWhat does Artificial Intelligence, Human Genome Project, br /Working poor families, Sheltered folk, or Homeless people have in common?/p pIt’s getting harder to ignore "them."/p pNot only that, but people who have nothing to lose tend to br / do whatever is possible to rise up be it legal, illegal, or quasi legal. /p pIts always a surprise to the general populace that the most br / downwardly mobile of us have the same aspirations, moral imperatives, forthrightness, br /spiritual, mental, strengths, and weaknesses as everyone else. /p pThe very idea of our own personal integrity, br / incorruptability doesn’t sound or feel right even to those with higher paying jobs, living in secure homes with their morgages paid off. /p pThough we all br /bleed red blood out of blue veins this logic is put on hold. /p pBecause we go against a so-called stereotypical roll of helpless, confused,br / drug/drinking, bums‘n hobo's called "the homeless" and "working poor." /p pHave people looked in the mirror lately? br / The real fear: that anybody can suddenly become "The Other" by jobloss or homeless./p p More individuals and families are not drunks, dopers, or anti socialbr / misfits but people with jobs, following the governments rules, went to school earned degrees, in college, and universities, also /ppin high tech businesses.br /Many are out of work through no fault of their own br /and are blamed doubly for their situation. /p pFirst by co-workers, family, friends, and finally themselvesbr / who could not have forseen orbr / prevented the situation only until after the facts./p pLots of these highly trainned, intelligentbr / people are out of work situations they never imagined or expected. br //p pTrapped in low pay, dead end jobs with homelessness looming ever closer./p pOn a lighter and more imaginative note.br / br /Scientists and researchers work on improving br /artificial intelligence made inroads there and the H.G. Project./p pPeople, are leery about intelligent appliances, homes, or the old upgraded talking toasters. /p pAs for genetically modified foods, its good to knowbr / which engineered microorganisms good or bad is in our food./p p We have qualms about Biotech foods, Pro Choice/Abortion, br /Artificial Intelligence, Stem Cell Research, Human Genome Project br /and Nanotechnology, Electronics also Cloning. /p pFolks will really be besides themselves (no pun intended) onbr / Life Extension to Immortality which churches have had abr / br /lock on for hundreds of years./p pThey held sway literally over our lives./p pIt was a dull deadly time, they may have delayed br /the age of Enlightenment by a few centuries!/p pThis is a time when all the se technologies begin to merge and blur.br //p pWhile we have our unique imageneering minds there are ways not br /to be surplanted by human created A.I.’s.bArtificial Intellegent Humanoid Machines./b/p pBuild them with a kill switch for instant off if they self-evolve too quick./p pDon’t build them.br /If you don’t build them,br / they won’t evolve and suplant us./p pUltimately we'll merge A.I. and our genesbr / creating self evolving humans./p pAlong with help from virus sized nanites or bacteria andbr / other formerly dangerous microbesbr / br /now used in the service upkeep, regeneration,br /br / rejuvenation and constant self-analyzing of itself and us bybr / every gene, cell, and brain in human’s./p pImagine, these ultra small nanites and chemical/gene modifed biochips br / not made of metal unless its amalgamated ones in fluid forms br /(there are no transistors, silicon circuitry),br / but liquid molecular watch dogs thatbr / oversee maintain, and improve our health./p pWe humans self evolve along with Artificial Intelligent systems br / rapidly shrinking A.I. into bacteria and viruses./p pTo molecular quantum strands that actually make it possible forbr / humans to further self evolve on their own asb Quantum Humans./b/p pIn the brain other modified systems may increase the intelligence by thinking or changing our very form, color of hair to whatever we choose./p pMorality is a changing construct take heedbr / in your life's choices, be flexible and open./p pThis is the place where, how and what we think can instantly br /translate our being into whatever improvements wanted or needed.br / br /Your own brain becomes a wish machine, its up to you on how far youbr / want to evolveb to better bodies and beyond or hover near pure mentality keeping your improved body. /b/p pFantasy, maybe but I no longer say what is possible and what’s not./p p It's not survival of the fittest but of those willing br /to go or at least visit a new world of AI-Humanity./p pIt begins from how we eat to what we think and other choices./p pAs individuals chose to live longer or die of tradtional old age./p pTo be an Immortal is the ultimate right to life/death br /choice each person will choose either type of eternity./p pIts all coming down the pike fasterbr / than most of us expect but on the lighter side we’re alreadybr / in the future, go figure./p pOnly some kind of mass Ebola, AIDS genetic mishap or gray bio-goobr /with no cures, prevention or human immune factors will wipe us out now./p pNext time I’d like to ponder what personality isbr / br /best suited to Immortality, just thinking out loud. br //p pAny pro or con ideas folks?/p pbr /Please donate what canbr / br /to Poor Magazine orbr / br /C/0 Ask Joe at 255 9thbr / br /St. Street,br / br /San Francisco, CA. 94103 USA/p pbr /For Joe only my snail mail:br / br /PO Box 1230 #645br / br /Market St.br / br /San Francisco, CA 94102br / br /Email:br / br /askjoe@poormagazine.org/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongHundreds testify at Police Review Commission hearing about the shooting by the police of a young African-American man who suffered from mental illness . /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/409/photo_1_feature.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Kaponda/p pHer tears were hastened away by the gentle winds as warm rays from the sun dried the eyes of a weeping mother. The crowd whose hands were clasped ringed Mesha Monge Irizarry during a moment of silence to observe the senseless death of her beloved son. The spirit of Idriss Stelley had infused the people with the strength to walk into the presence of The Police Commission and demand that the five members stop the cover-up of his death, request an independent criminal investigation, and a top to bottom review of related police policies as well as concrete changes in police practice./p p “My son is having a party with his ancestors and the angels, so I know he is all right,” stated the courageous mother of Idriss Stelley before a standing-room only crowd and the commissioners at The Police Commission hearing. “But this is no longer about my son. I am not doing this for Idriss. I will now be the voice of the voiceless. I am going to do this for the community. I am not afraid,” stated Irizarry of her plans to enlist in the rank and file of activists who regularly protest civil and human rights violations./p pVan Jones, an attorney with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights requested the venue of the hearing be moved because the room lacked the capacity to accommodate the swell of activists from community-based organizations, friends and residents of the Bayview Hunters Point District where Idriss Stelley had resided, and many other concerned citizens of the Bay Area. But his request was immediately rejected by Sidney Chan, the president of The Police Commission because “logistics” makes a change of venue difficult. This verbal interplay between Jones and Chan set the stage for a long and emotional evening at The Police Commission./p p “We are here to put the command staff [of the San Francisco Police Department] on notice that the people here today will be joined by more people in the future [to protest civil and human rights violations by police],” stated Jones as Chan asked him to restrain the clamorous crowd which he led through the doors of the Hall of Justice to the threshold of open rebellion. “The people from the Bay Area community have come here to express outrage at the way Idriss Stelley was brutally murdered by the San Francisco Police Department,” added Jones amid the mean mugs of commissioners, police and activists that expressed the degree of hostility between the crusaders of justice and the San Francisco Police Department./p p “We are talking about the Metreon shooting,” stated a cordial Inspector Sherman Ackerson, Public Information Officer for the San Francisco Police Department, during an in-depth discussion about the death of Idriss Stelley. “Obviously, a very tragic incident, I think we all agree, about a person with some mental illness in a theater. I understand he was with his girlfriend and father-in-law, and, obviously, he was suffering with some sort of emotional problem. I understand he had a history of mental illness,” continued Ackerson./p pInspector Akerson stated that “we had heard [that Idriss Stelley had a history of mental illness] in the media,” when he was asked to explain the source of his information. “I am not releasing it from the San Francisco Police Department. I understand from the media that he had a history of some problems or maybe the family had mentioned it,” stated Inspector Ackerson./p pWhile in a theater on Wednesday, June 13th, Summer Galbreath, the girlfriend of Idriss Stelley called the police because Idriss Stelley had undergone a mental health episode or, as his girlfriend explained to the police dispatcher, a “5150.” Eight police officers arrived at the theater and shot Idriss Stelley to death, as he waved a two-inch knife./p p “The police investigator told me he might have been shot ‘to protect the community,’” stated the mother of Idriss Stelley. “Protect the community from whom?” Is the community in need of protection from a tutor at the San Francisco Day Labor Program, or a AIDS volunteer at San Francisco General Hospital? Is the community in need of protection from a chess instructor who taught kids the game, or a tutor at City College? Is the community in need of a graphic artist at the Fillmore Center or a spiritual teacher?” concluded Mesha Monge Irizarry./p p “I know there has been some talk about the size of the knife. I don’t know how big the knife was,” stated Inspector Ackerson when asked if the response by police officers was unusual when confronted by someone waving a small knife. “I think we should wait until all the facts are in. Wait until we find out exactly how big the knife is. Our officers are trained and it is the policy of the San Francisco Police Department to react when they feel that there is a danger of serious bodily injury or death to themselves or to another person, stated Inspector Ackerson.”/p pBut, opinions about the death of Idriss Stelley have already been formed by officers of the San Francisco Police Department./p p “It was a legitimate knife on a full-blown chain used as a weapon to kill,” stated a sergeant of the San Francisco Police Department who spoke with me on condition of anonymity. “This knife posed a threat to the police officers despite their bullet-proof bullets. I was not at the Metreon and did not see the knife, but I absolutely think that he posed a direct threat,” stated the sergeant./p pNinety two percent of the San Francisco police force are not trained to recognize a mental health episode. In fact, the San Francisco Police Department fought fiercely for years against any notion of a police crisis intervention training. The San Francisco Police Department was never clear on specific reasons why a police crisis intervention training was needed. The Department simply did not think training to recognize mental health episodes was necessary, even though one out of every four persons officers come in contact with a person that suffers with mental illness. In fact, a person who has a mental episode has a better chance of winning the Super Lottery than having a police officer dispatched to the scene of the episode because only 24 police out of 2,200 San Francisco Police Officers have completed the training program which was shoved down the throat of the Department by the Board of Supervisors. /p p “My son was diagnosed with depression and was seeking help. He was in therapy at Mission Health, located in the Portreo District,” stated Irizarry./p pThe value of the impact of the contributions that Idriss Stelley brought to his community may never be measured, since his life was denigrated by the bullets of overzealous police officers. But, the death of Idriss Stelley has already put the importance of recognition of mental illness in the spotlight and has begun to affect decisions of further funding of police crisis intervention training./p p “What I am saying is, Yes. We have problems,” stated Inspector Ackerson. “Every time an officer discharges a weapon. Every time an officer kills someone, that is a tragic incident. It is regrettable that officers have to discharge their weapons when they do. And we certainly don’t take any glee in this,” stated Inspector Ackerson. /p p “There is a pattern of abuse and, in this case, killings of persons with mental disabilities by the San Francisco Police Department. It is a long-standing pattern. We are out here because Our organization for the past four years has been working diligently to try to get the Department to deal differently with people who are mentally distressed. We had s huge uphill battle. We knew that what happened to Idriss Stelley could happen given the way that the San Francisco Police Department responds to people who have mental health issues. They respond with violence. Time after time after time,” stated Van Jones when asked about the attitude of the San Francisco Police Department./p pEven the stolid faces of the commissioners were softened during an emotional spoken-word tribute, titled “It was a Warm Night,” to Idriss Stelley by Lisa Gray-Garcia of POOR Magazine’s Po Poets Project . The commissioners sat on the edge of their seats as they listened to a successive stream of representatives from many, many organizations who testified into the night and reminded them of their duty to provide an impartial investigation into the cover-up by the police department of the death of Idriss Stelley and the brutality that usually characterizes police response to a situation. Thaddeus Bordofsky, a medical doctor at the Alameda County Hospital spoke about victims of police officers after they are brought to him./p p“I’ve personally seen at least two or three patients who I felt were brutally beaten by police and qualified as victims of police brutality,” stated Dr. Bordofsky when asked to be more specific. “In particular, there was one patient that I saw who had been brutalized. He was in the custody of another police officer who stated to the patient, ‘You are lucky that I wasn’t there because you would not be able to speak.’ The persons who I have seen have suffered numerous injuries from police officers, including severe pain and emotionally from the terror,” concluded Dr. Bordofsky./p p “This is legalized terrorism as far as I’m concerned,” stated Mesha Monge Irizarry as she prepared to demand an end to the cover-up of the death of her son./p pThe circumstances of the two-inch knife blade, and the bullet-proof vests worn by the officers of the San Francisco Police Department are sufficient to support the claim by Mesha Monge Irizarry made to the commissioners that her son was “gunned down like a pig.”/p pThe testimony by residents and activists went on and on as the spirit of Idriss Stelley lingered in the room like the swish from a flawless shot that brings the crowd to its feet. The commissioners had finally begun to understand that they were no longer listening to the voices of mere mortal people, but the expressions of victims of years and years of police misconduct.br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongA Former Cocaine Addict’s journey back to life and jazz/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/430/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Gordon Hilgers/Endless Choices PNN (Dallas Affiliate)/p pFrom all appearances, it’s the sheer, unmitigated sway of jazz. The way it soothes the heart like a mother’s touch and stills the soul which defines, rules and embellishes Victor Cager’s life. It’s an irremediable situation, he says, but at least it feels good. Real good. /p pIf you believe what Victor says, in fact, jazz literally swims in his blood. He claims he’d be nothing without it. It’s indescribable and odd, this feel, like noodling trout around your toes in an ice-cold mountain brook. It’s both ticklish and scary. Some of those staggering fish apparently just can’t stop dancing, wiggling, and cavorting, the sum of which, he says, transports him to a place where nobody does anyone any harm./p pYes, he’s played and sang with many of Dallas’ most precious musical legends: pianist Cornelius "Red King" drummer Saul Samuels, singer James Belk, and even Willie McDuff and the Jive Five. At the age of six, he began playing saxophone. Now forty, he unequivocally states, "I was a child prodigy." He’s probably right./p pIt’s Thursday night, here in the small universe of Dallas Jazz, and Victor is about to sing to both the knowing and the innocent. A murmuring crowd of some of Dallas’ most well-heeled socialites and avid jazz fans gathers to listen closely, as many of them do each week, as the Dallas Museum of Art’s "Jazz in the Atrium" gets underway./p pThe sound of wineglasses tinkles under the atrium’s high ceilings as the band pauses between tunes, waiting for Victor to reach the stage for another of many guest appearances. Yellow sunlight can’t help but streambr / through Dave Chihuly’s window installation, hugely delicate glass blossomsbr / that mirror flowers on a lake’s glassy surface. One woman hushes her table. It seems she’s heard Victor sing before. As the group strikes up another tune, it’s probably the last thing on anyone’s mind that this man, vocalizing the parameters that make jazz an exquisitely arcane experience only a few can truly fathom, spent the better part of a decade living on the streets of downtown./p p"Sometimes when I’m up there on stage, I’m thinking, God, look at how far you’ve brought me. Man, sometimes I just can’t believe it. All these people with diamonds on their fingers. They’ll probably never know I was a homeless crack-head. Whenever I sing, people come up to talk to me, and congratulate me," Victor says. "Yet, back then, when I was using crack, I remember when I didn’t bathe for a week. The contrast is really interesting."/p pVictor Cager’s tale of a journey from the sickening circumstances of an addict’s lifestyle to singing in prestigious nightspots like the Crescent Hotel’s Beau Nash may be an unusual one in the Dallas homeless community, but through Victor’s eyes, it doesn’t seem so strange. He wants people to know where he’s coming from. He wants his friends on the streets to know if he can make it off the streets, they can too. Also, he wants strangers to know that you really can’t make the measure of a man by his circumstances./p p"I don’t really go over my life that much, you know," Victor says.br / "But, I’ll tell you, I’ve really been blessed. I go around all day long, knowing that I’ve been given God’s extreme grace and favor. God’s grace would have to be extreme to free me from that ditch."/p pVictor knows he isn’t alone. In fact, it’s a small secret that Dallas’ homeless community is "home" to several present and former jazz musicians. Victor’s one of a much smaller group that has made if off the streets alive. /p pBy every measure, Victor knows he’s been on a long, difficult journey through the hardest circumstances. He’s known times when his voice wouldn’t work because of the effect crack cocaine had on his vocal chords. He’s seen things that he says numbed him to the spirit of jazz. He remembers moments when he smoked crack rather than eat. Even now, he says, there is always temptation to go back to that life. But, he says he remembers the gift he’s been given and his childhood, a blessed time./p pAlthough Victor is currently a jazz vocalist, singing to growing audiences in a number of clubs and lounges around Dallas, as a musician he actually started out as a saxophonist. He started early: He was already playing in churches at six years old./p pVictor credits his musical family for fostering his childhood abilities.br / "My grandmother was a vocal teacher. Although she was already dead before I was born, she left a musical legacy in our home. People still talk about her, about how great a vocalist she was."/p pAside from leaving behind a spiritual legacy, Victor’s grandmother also left one relic that really whet his appetite and his feel for jazz: the piano in the living room./p p"That piano got lots of use. All the big cats in the Dallas jazz scene in the 1960’s practiced at my house. My parents had opened their door to these guys. Through my dad was a barber, he owned a saxophone. Those cats would borrow his sax, the first sax I ever touched./p p"Listening to these great jazzmen was like being in Heaven," Victor says. "The way those guys would create jazz was something you can’t describe. I was listening to the masters. These cats loved what they did. It was also obvious many of them were involved with drugs."/p pVictor’s mother and stepfather, a man he came to call Uncle Jim, were deeply involved in a burgeoning, and relatively underground, West Dallas social scene. A vibrant confluence of neighbors that, while it didn’t make the social pages, left an impression on people, especially the children.br / Live music at every party./p p"I had to be only about four. I clung to those jazzmen. They were my heroes. Roger Boykins, Claude Johnson. Still living, and still my heroes. When they wasn’t playing, they’d tell stories about the real jazz giants. When those guys would get up from the keyboards, the keys were still warm from their fingers. I’d put my hands where theirs had been and play what they’d just played. It never worked."/p p"Music was already inside me," Victor says. "Like any kid, I wanted to play foot ball. I’ll never forget my old man coming up to the school and whipping me because I’d quit the band and joined the football team."/p pVictor’s Uncle Jim also left a musical mark on him. "He listened to the big bands: Jimmy Dorsey, and Woody Herman. He also knew the lyrics to every standard jazz tune. His singing was my first inspiration. Back then we listened to KFJZ, a big band station back in the Sixties, so even when I was a teenager I was steeped in jazz."/p pAnd so was the neighborhood. "There were some bootleg houses, but we were’t used to being prisoners in our own homes like people in some West Dallas neighborhoods are these days. In fact, back then, people used to sleep with their doors wide open. When I was playing in the street, I could hear music coming from those houses, mostly blues stuff: Lightning Hopkins and John Lee Hooker. The neighborhood might have been poor in some ways, but we weren’t poor."/p pLike many musicians who were born in South Dallas, Oak Cliff and West Dallas, Victor credits the church for much of his early training and inspiration. "Oh, yes. I remember the church," he says. "Sweet Home Baptist./p p"Reverend S.A. Armstrong. He was crippled in one leg, but man! He could really sing. He could tear a church up. I don’t know how many programs they had me playing in."/p pVictor remembers school, he skipped plenty of class, but for unique reasons. "Us guys who really loved music all skipped class to listen to Charlie Parker, Wes Montgomery, Stan Kenton. We’d sit around the record player and commune with the really great ones." Even after his Uncle Jim transferred him from Pinkston to Thomas Jefferson, thinking the boy needed discipline, Victor continued playing jazz. "On weekends, I played with James Belk, a vocalist who imitated Nat King Cole, and with Willie McDuff and the Jive Five, the hottest RB outfit in the city. I also had a soul band, The Power House of Soul."/p pHe was smoking pot, too. "All the guys in the Pinkston band did it. I was 14 when I started smoking it. I didn’t know it would escalate into something serious." /p pAfter a brief stint in the Navy, Victor returned to Dallas and to jazz.br / "I played with Benois King at the Judge’s Chamber, a spot in Wynnewood Shopping Center. I also played The Main Event. I played at The Sunday Jam Session, too, at Tim Ballard’s club at Lemmon and Inwood. That’s where I hit my first home run. I was playing baritone sax at the time. I played ‘Misty’- Ion barry sax, man/i! I don’t think that crowd had ever heard something like ‘Misty’ on a baritone sax. They went crazy."/p pVictor tells us that anyone could see he had a rising star in the 1970’s. He was playing lots of the big clubs around town. But then, an incident he believes shot down that rising star turned all the good times around./p p"In 1985, the most traumatic thing that ever happened in my life happened. My mother had a stroke. Today I cringe whenever I think about it. Over the next eight months, I watched her deteriorate right before my eyes. She was the family matriarch. To see her completely depleted was devastating. She lost her mind right before she died. The family was just never the same. We stopped having gatherings at the house. People stopped visiting. Most important was the money I got after she died: with it, I bought and used my first crack cocaine./p pEven as late as 1985, Victor claims, very few in Dallas had learned the devastating consequences of crack use. Crack, he says, doesn’t just destroy an individual, it destroys entire communities. And when the cloud of cocaine rolled over West Dallas, not only neighborhoods were destroyed and turned into the haunts of criminals, an entire way of life vanished with them./p p"Initially," he says, "there was no crack in West Dallas. We had to go to South Dallas to score crack. There were these two streets down there: Myers and Jefferies. Down there was the first time I ever saw people stand right there on the street, selling dope. It was also the first time I saw someone carrying something called an Uzi. That was when the Jamaican drug possies were running the dope show down there. Those folks were treacherous. A lot of people fell victim to the crack they were selling. God always seemed to have a hedge around me because I’ve never been busted for drugs. But I did see people get shot and beat up. I saw young girls, not even out of junior high, going into prostitution. I have seen a lot of terrible things because of crack."/p pAnyone who has been involved in hard drugs like crack cocaine will tell you that, for awhile, it’s not all that difficult to maintain the pretense of a normal life. Before the compulsion to smoke the glass pipe gets so strong that you’ll do anything to keep your ears ringing, things seem relatively normal. In his fall from a life of relative happiness, Victor’s story isn’t all that unlike the stories of many men and women who have been reduced to homelessness because of crack cocaine. "Before I hit the streets, I was bingeing regularly, spending all my money. The biggest binge I ever had was a $1000 binge. When you’re smoking crack cocaine, you just keep on spending until you don’t have any money. It wasn’t uncommon to be in the dope house, smoking crack right alongside professional businesspeople. Some of the guys I got high with were lawyers, engineers and one of them was a minister. A minister, free-basing cocaine!"/p pAt one point during this slide down the dusty trail, I did get married," he says. "I even had two children. But because of crack, it just didn’t work out. When things got bad, my wife saw that it was obvious I wasn’t going to be the breadwinner she’d hoped I’d become. I was still in West Dallas, living with my wife’s family spending all my money on crack. But there’s one side to crack that I can’t forget: Crack teaches you who loves you and who doesn’t."/p pAs Victor sees it, the determining factor in love is need. He doesn’t refer to this observation as wisdom, possibly because he’s still so close to the realization that having a very real, tangible need tends to alter your relationships in odd ways. Once you’re in need, the fair weather friends simply vanish. If people can’t get anything from you, he adds, if they’re still for you, ready to go to bat for you, willing to do anything for you, then you can rest assured that they love you. "Like my father," he says. "My father never gave up on me. Some people might say my real father was crazy. But because he hung in there with me, I’m a better person for it."/p p"But, you know, my wife walked out. Other family members walked out. Friends walked out. I couldn’t even go back to the family house, either. My brother lived there, and he didn’t want me there. I remember I came downtown one day. Where else? I found the Stewpot. There was this guy named Big John. He was a police officer. He was one of the nicest people I ever met. He would always talk nice to people. He didn’t ever down you. When he laughed, you could see he didn’t have any teeth."/p pFrom there, the details of Victor’s life are all too familiar to those who really know the streets of Dallas. Like many men and women strung-up and strangled by addiction to crack, he rode the merry-go-round of moving from one emergency shelter to another. He lived in The Dallas Life Foundation. He livced in Union Gospel Mission. Even during this period of almost complete and utter poverty, Victor says he used crack cocaine./p p"I used, but it was off and on. I really didn’t have a lot of money passing through my hands. I wasn’t going on the $200 binges that put me on the streets. Still, many times, the dope house was the closest thing I had to a home. You ever hear the term ‘den of iniquity?’ You see a lot of lost souls in a crack house. You see every kind of immorality. You see people being beaten. People getting robbed. People selling their shoes. One cold day, I sold my own shoes so I could get a piece of rock, man. You see people selling the coats off their backs. You see prostitution, by both men and women. I’ve seen people whose skin turns to a pasty gray or a real dark black, and it tears women down faster than anything. It’s really sick. It’s not a glamour trip. Believe me."/p pOnce, Victor says, he was looking out the window of the Newland Hotel, a fleabag motel on South Akard, when he noticed a man running. "Suddenly, I heard gunshots. I mean, I’d seed guns. Anybody who uses crack sees guns. But I’d never seen them being used to try and kill someone. I don’t know what the guy had done, but he was really running hard. Thank God, he got away."/p pSlowly, surely Victor wound down to the very bottom of the barrel. Even if the only direction to go from there was up, he says, he wasn’t all that sure which way ‘up’ was. He was pretty turned around. /p p "Nobody wanted to have anything to do with me," Victor says , referring of course, to his slow approach to what addicts and alcoholicsbr / call hitting "bottom" Even old friends didn’t want to have their possessionsbr / stolen. "I had already been reduced to being broke most of the time. even when I was working." Victor decribes that, just as the most experienced "low bottom" alcoholics and addict will attest. At the bottom, he had a single, lucidbr / moment of utter clarity. Sometimes, he says, he wonders if that moment was a miracle. /p p I was at the Burger King on MockingBird Lane. I’d gotten my paycheck for the umpteenth time. I was on veteran’s disability because I fell off an aircraft carrier in the Navy., " he laughs, " and I’d already spent it all on crack. I was sitting outside when I was when I started crying. I started crying out to God, " If I’m going to have to go on living like this, go on and take me. Just take me" Then I got an answer. It seems like God was talking to me. He said, "No, I’m not going to take you" Then something really weird happened./p p"This guy walked up. He was an older guy. He sat down and when he saw me crying, he asked, "Hey. You got a quarter I can get?" All I had was a dollar. "Here. Take it" I said. He said, " Thanks, Victor" Man, I’d never even met him in my life. I still can’t figure out how he knew my name./p p "That really woke me up. I stopped crying. In fact, I started laughing. I slept that night at the Mockingbird train station. I never did crack again. Of course, that wasn’t an easy ride. There were a lot of hard times."/p p"When I got my disability check, I used it to rent an apartment. I slept on the floor for the longest time. My sister sent me a little food now and then. But once I got clean, I just sort of started to prosper" /p pAbout that time, Victor heard about the Dallas Museum’s "Jazz in the Atrium" programs. Feeling steadier than he had in a long time, he got a change of nice clothes from his sister, and simply walked into the museum’s atrium. Doubtless, after everything he’d been through, simply walking through that door took a lot of guts./p p" I heard about Roger Boykin playing there. Once the show got started, Roger saw me in the audience and invited me on stage to sit in with the band. Isn’t that weird? It all seems so easy. Since that Thursday evening about a year ago, I’ve been off and running"/p pVictor Cager, a really fine jazz singer, isn’t all that shy. When I asked him to put on an impromptu performance Victor began to sing what could easily be a signature song. "I’m just a lucky so and so" , he roars out, "The birds in the trees …they seem so neighborly…they sing to me wherever I go.." Jazz, he says, is his personal anti-drug. It’s a kind of feel inside the beat that keeps you alive.br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/392/photo_4_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Staff Writer/p pCan you hear himbr / br /Still Readingbr / br /His oval smooth brown facebr / br /In a square bookbr / br /Squirming through the pages of lifebr / br /His mother called him a bookworm/p pThere is no ending to his bookbr / br /To be continuedbr / br /Cause nobody can kill an angelbr / br /But they tried but Shhhh!!!br / br /Can you hear him/p pHis voice attracts animalsbr / br /It also tames the beast in humansbr / br /He is speaking and we need to listen/p pHe stood in an empty theaterbr / br /As they pulled their triggersbr / br /Picking up twenty eight bullets with his tearsbr / br /Smiling with no fearbr / br /Cause he knows he is bigger/p pIdris Stelley leading his people up in heavenbr / br /Margaret L. Mitchell and Errol Shaw have been br /waiting for a leaderbr / br /Now they are an army of spiritsbr / br /Returning to earth to organize the massesbr / br /To tell their stories that are shared by many/p pahoooo ahooo, the animal kingdom is howlingbr / br /Cause they can smell Idris Stelleybr / br /Exchanging messages with his girlfriend, family andbr / br /communitybr / br /He shouts, "IT IS NOT US Vs THEM BUT ONLY US!"br / br /Idris can't rest cause he sees no justice/p pSo his life begins todaybr / br /And he is reading along with usbr / br /But this is not a bookbr / br /It is real lifebr / br /That will never end/p pHe needs us to comprehendbr / br /The pain that lies in manbr / br /Makes them fear their own brothersbr / br /His enemies and comrades are cryingbr / br /They know that fear and hatred has blindedbr / br /Our hearts and clouded our minds/p pSo we react without thinkingbr / br /Causing death and injuries to many/p pEmotions are boilingbr / br /Shhhhhhhhhhhh do you hear thatbr / br /Buried voices are speakingbr / br /Idris is telling us /p pToday is a new beginning butbr / br /Don't get swept up in the momentbr / br /You got to see the big picture!br / br /Shhhhhhhhhh.. what Idris?br / br /People, the solution is in the silence!/p pBy Leroy F. Moore Jr.br / br /For Idris Stelley, my Black disabled brother I feelbr / br /you!br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongVehicularily housed beat reporter chronicles police harassment, citations and the struggles of people who live in their cars./strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/410/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Vlad Pogorelov/Vehicularily Housed Beat Reporter/p pI woke up this morning to the sound of someone banging on the walls and windows of my house. My dog Marina did not like it, of course, and started barking violently at the intruder. I got dressed and walked outside, ready to face a teenage prankster, a street hoodlum or worse. To my surprise, I saw a policeman in a white motorcycle helmet writing down my license plate number. “How can I help you?” I asked him. /p p“You’ve got to move,” he replied angrily, and proceeded in filling out a “red tag”—a notice informing me I was parked illegally and would have to move or risk a $53 fine as well as having my motorhome towed. /p p“But I just moved here yesterday,” I told him. /p p“Too bad,” said the policeman. “The captain wants everyone out of here. You’ve got to move,” he repeated, marking my tires with yellow chalk. Then he slapped a pink sheet of paper on my windshield, got into his police car and drove away. /p pI had a sour taste in my mouth as I studied the official document issued by Bayview Police Station. Despite beautiful spring weather, my mood was low. I had a new headache now, as I needed to find a new parking space for my 25-foot motorhome./p pTo be clear, I am not a stranger to those “red tags” which can be issued by the Police Department and DPT to any vehicle which, in their opinion, appears abandoned or broken down, or is not moving for an extensive amount of time. /p pHowever, there is another category of vehicles being systematically targeted by police, regardless of how often they move or change parking spots on the streets of San Francisco. These are vehicles that serve as houses. Such are the motorhomes, the RV’s, the school buses, the trailers and other vehicles which have been converted to mobile residences. These types of vehicles are considered enemies by police, and every effort is being made by the city to ticket and tow vehicular houses making it impossible for those who live in them to remain in San Francisco. /p pDespite police efforts to chase the vehicularily housed away, many more such citizens continue to arrive. And it’s not surprising.br / I am a vehicularily housed resident of San Francisco. I started living in a motorhome about a year ago after being evicted from my home on Potrero Hill by the Sheriff’s Department. Unable to find any suitable living space that I could afford, I had no other way of remaining in San Francisco except living in my car. Since then I have been parking my house mainly in the China Basin area. /p pSince the 1960’s, vehicular housing has been an established tradition in China Basin and Central Basin. According to Joe Ann, a construction worker who has lived in her motorhome in the Dog Patch area of Bayview District for the last 20 years, and raised two daughters on the street, there were hundreds if not thousands of vehicularly housed residents living in that area. Jack, a writer, is another vehicular resident of Dog Patch, there since the late 60’s, had the same opinion. “It was really easy to be here. It was such a funky neighborhood back then!”, he recalls, a nostalgic look in his eyes. /p pBecause of massive gentrification of Potrero Hill, Dog Patch and surrounding light industrial areas of Central Basin, the habitat of vehicularily housed residents is being destroyed. Within the last 2 months I have been “red tagged” more than 10 times, sometimes receiving an official threat of “house expropriation” immediately upon arrival to my new parking spot. /p pThe threat of being towed by the police is not an empty one. On a daily basis I see police towing away motorhomes, school buses, trailers and vans for a variety of bogus charges. Frequently, there is an anonymous complainer from the nearby neighborhood of expensive live-work lofts which sprang-up during the dot-com boom. It seems that the dot-com era has gone by, yet many of those live-work lofts are still under construction. The transformation of a semi-industrial area, which had many streets available for parking of vehicularly housed , into an upscale neighborhood for the rich is progressing at full speed. /p pAnd it’s not just an issue of Bayview Police Station versus vehicularly house residents. Because of increasingly gentrified environment the poor people who live in their run down vehicles end up situated next to the luxury Porsches and Alfa Romeos that belong to new loft residents. As a result, vehicularly housed people are being targeted by those who inhibit expensive lofts as well. /p pRecently a neighbor of mine who lives in his van and works on the ferry which transports people across the San Francisco Bay brought me a big poster which he pulled off a nearby electric poll on 23rd and Indiana. A 2x3 ft sheet of paper stated “Homeless people have more rights than you do!”. And then it accused those of us who live in vehicles in being a nuisance and encouraged everyone to call Bayview Police Station and complain. /p p An aim of such an attack against vehicularly housed is clear—it takes only one anonymous complaint to displace dozens of people from the neighborhood in which many of them lived for years, if not decades, without any due process. The gentrification of Dog Patch and Central Basin area is a clear cause of it. Developers have invested millions of dollars there, and now in order to attract the tenants into the expensive lofts they would like to eradicate the poor from the area. A number of loft buildings were built along 3rd Street and a few more are being built on Indiana, Mississippi Streets, as well as along other streets in that area. /p pIt seems that the opposite process of what is happening in the Mission is taking place. I would call such practices the “Vehicularly Housed Eradication Project”. A division has been drawn and the opposing forces, though completely unequal are facing each other before the final battle. While thinking of this sad situation, I remembered the words which were said by a Russian soldier facing the Nazi tanks during the battle of Moscow, “Russia is big. But we have nowhere to retreat — Moscow is behind us!” To paraphrase it is to say, “The Bay Area is big. But here, we have nowhere to go as we are being pushed over into the Bay.” We have to fight for our right to stay here or to disappear and let the forces global markets defeat us to the point of non-existent”./p p This week, a number of vehicles used as residences were “red-tagged” on 24th Street near Illinois Street. The inhabitants of those vehicles appeared to be very poor with very little resources to gas or a replacement tire which frequently needed in order to move to a new location. It is possible that some of them will not be able to move and will loose their houses to the City Tow which is located only two blocks away./p pRecently, I was driving by one of the lofts in Dog Patch near 3rd Street. I saw a message spray painted on the wall: “Bust the live work racket!” Well, not everyone is passively accepting the current situation, I thought. Some people are ready to fight back. It’s made me hopeful about the future, the fate of those who call our vehicles — home. Our struggles were the inspiration for this new beat report on PNN and column b They towed my home.. /b./p p PS: I would appreciate your feedback, your thoughts, suggestions, questions and stories. The struggle of vehicularly housed people is not limited to San Francisco. So, please e-mail your comments to: a href="mailto:nuthamsun@onebox.com"nuthamsun@onebox.com/a or contact POOR magazine: (415)863-6306. Peace and Love to you all!br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrong pA Complete Cloning Banbr / br / Tuesday, July, 30, 2001,br / Is a really bad idea.br / /p/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Joe B./p pFor the 162 House Reps. voting against Stem Cell Cloning ban./p pYou are not alone... This isn't over./p pIn Washington, D.C., between Select ‘Preident Bush, the House of Representatives vote 265 for - 162 against a Cloning Ban Tuesday night onbr /July 30, 2001 for me represents a continuing split in humanity./p pFirst five supreme court judges bSelect a president, women's right over their own reproductive lives is at risk,br / then oil and coal are new again,br / /b now banning all human cloning including limitedbr / br / Therapeutic cloning for research b[to gain knowledge of this "embryonic" science.]/b /p pThroughout human history there has been the activist,br / the conservative, and a third group looking at these two extremesbr / trying to choose which group to join./p pThank whatever divine spark Mr. Bush has to make a compromise Friday, August 10. 2001 that gives scientists and researchers a chance under federal guidelines to be proceed with extreme caution. /p pBut a complete ban should make one choose up sides, either we br / evolve further improving our species or die out./p pIts serious when Mr. Roger Pedersen, professor of biology, Stem Cell expert and UCSF researcher may leaves for Britain becausebr / br /of America’s br /political strangle hold over Federalbr / Funds for cloning research. /pp His work: using stem cells from human embryos andbr / learning to br /control their development into nerves, organs, or other internal organs is too hostile a work place here./p pOther research scientists are leaving or thinking of doing so. br /Didier Stainier, who’s recent discovered how stem cells develop in internal organs. /p p America has benefited from international brain drains from the past lets not reverse that process./p pAmerica’s Puritan streak and fear of change even as inventors improve our lives has br /always been diametrically opposed to each other./p p A growing schism of past and future is colliding,br / br / No congress, judges, should dictate how long we’ll live!/p p Folks, we have dodged a huge bulletbr / which target could have been another dark age!/p pI for one tell you now,br / br /its time to begin choosing how we want to live and not br /people in power fearing change. /p pWe cannot obey every law from on high especially br /if they are not in our best interests. /p pReady for a new kind of revolution?br / where the longer one lives br /the more you learn, the better your chances of survival?/p pWe cannot go through another near 10 year moratorium like President R. Reagan did in the 1980’s for Genetic Engineering - Not This Time!/p pUnless its no nukes, biochemical warfare or ethnic cleansing prevention.br / /p pI can understand safeguards, guidelines for cloning and other life saving, improving technologies, its not quite Aldous, Huxley’s "Brave New World" however if we speed to quick it could be./p pIn every era or epoch there is a moment when people make a stand br / in this one, it means literally a longer, healthier life span, going out among the stars or fall back into a evolutionary dead end./p pShould we continue on orbr / go back tobr /the socalled ‘good old days? br / Am I slightly paranoid, if I am then write me tell me what’s best. /p pWe are at a crossroad either direction is full of peril and promise. /p pI’ll take a few steps into a murky abyss; but having friends along the road will make this new journey less bleak and dangerous. /p pHow about you… readers - what fears, joys, dangers, safety awaits us?/p pI’ve many questions and would like to know a few answers, how about you? ... Bye./p pPlease donate what you can to br /Poor Magazine or C/0 Ask br /Joe at 255 9th St.Street,br /San Francisco, CA.94103 USA/p pbr /For Joe only my snail mail:br / br /PO Box 1230 #645br / Market St.br / br /San Francisco, CA 94102br / br /Email: askjoe@poormagazine.org/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/392/photo_3_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Staff Writer/p pI couldn’t rite bout br /madness, da sadness.br / br /Until I cried, outloudbr / br /shoutin WHY?br / br /How can 8 cops go free br /after brutaly killinbr / br /23 years of Afrikan br /royalitybr / br /Basque resistance to br /Spain and France.br / br /Da devils wit a blue br /dress on, Idriss dancedbr / br /tango, modern, tapbr / br /in sweat shop slavery pants.br / br /But it ain’t his last br /dancebr / br /hís dancin hip hopbr / br /on da top of our domesbr / br /his spirit iz still in br /da homes of our heartsbr / br /he will not part./p pHe struggled 2 manifest br /his life.br / br /He wuz gonna take mi br /cousin Summer fo his wife.br / br /It ain’t ritebr / br /robbin him of wut he had br /2 sweat, slave fo 2 git.br / br /Killin people wit a br /badge on or not ain’t legit.br / br /Pump my blood 2 a boilbr / br /I go mad can’t stop bein br /sad.br / br /just wanna git high on bombbr / br /fight da pigs 2 da fatbr / ladeez laugh.br / br /Cuz dis shit ain’t gonna br /lastbr / br /Mi Comrade, Mi Frend br /wanted 2 stop da blood br /shedbr / br /he’s now dead in fleshbr / br /not in spirit./p pHis dream lives on mo den br /thru hearin itbr / br /We steerin dis car ( bout 2 crash)br / br /on 2 a new road, new br /approachbr / br /of police watch, cop br /watchbr / br /I am tired of watchinbr / br /we gotta du mo den br /marchin.br / br /Cuz marchin in October every yearbr / br /wit permission from City br /Hall iz notbr / br /combatin against da LAWbr / br /ordinances, policiesbr / br /dats compromisin yo br /beliefs/p pneed sum relief fo his br /mamabr / br /can’t close her eyes br /can’t sleepbr / br /she continues 2 weepbr / br /salty tears seeped down deepbr / br /in 2 canals no one dares gobr / br /not even "u" but intrigued br /"u" dubr / br /It’s mo den cigarette bein br /litbr / br /its mo den da movie br /"swordfish"br / br /symbolic meaninzbr / br /warnin signsbr / br /danger signsbr / br /symtoms of not bein able 2 br /restbr / br /cuz da oppressors pressin br /hard on skullsbr / br /childhood troublesbr / br /daily frustrationsbr / br /global crisis connected 2 da br /local newzbr / br /"Young man shot ova 20 tymes br /bi 8 cops"br / br /trained 2 kill 2 lock "u" upbr / br /Expandable mentalitybr / br /How many lives gotta go till br /da realitybr / br /helps us grip down titebr / br /git a handlebr / br /dey view us like we da br /vandlebr / light a candle fo b.dayz br /graduationsbr / br /light a candle fo da dead br /souljahsbr / br /dat we will continue 2 c br /mo clearlybr / br /cuz I luv all mi bradas br / sistahs dearly./p pComrades.. Warriors br /Attention:br / br /change up battle plan 2 b mo br /effectivebr / br /take it 2 a new levelbr / br /Cuz we gotta score 2 settle.br / br /1 luv 2 Idriss all his br /familybr / br /We will git justice!br / br /We will git FREE!/p pPeace, Jewnbug /p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongThe "People" Protest for the right to be heard about a city budget that was created by the People, for the People..br / /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/412/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Dave McGuire (Observant Participant Project/PNN)/p pThe San Francisco Board of Supervisors got a shock at 2:30pm on Monday July 16 whenbr / chants from several hundred demonstrators (myself included) disrupted the weekly Board meeting /p pThe demonstration shut down the Board of Supervisors chamber for aboutbr / an hour while sheriffs deputies conferred with Board Pre. Tom Ammiano andbr / city fixer Bill Lee (Chief Admin. Officer) on what to do./p pThe protest was against the failure of the Board to pass the People'sbr / Budget which includes funding for health care, homeless services, housingbr / and jobs for poor folks These will now have to be funded by "addbacks"br / which is at the discretion of each supervisor./p pThe fifteen people arrested included representatives from PODER, Mission SRObr / Collaborative, Homeless Prenatal Program and other community based organization who are members of the Peoples Budget Collaborative. Including Rebecca Vilkomerson,br / Bill Sorro, Rene Saucedo, representatives from from St. Peters Housingbr / Committee, David McGuire of Mission Agenda, Carl Kramer of the Living Wage Coalition, comic Bruce Allison,br / Riva Enteen of the National Lawyers Guild.Several other grassroots organizations were present in solidarity with the protest, such as POOR Magazine, POWER, PODER, Network Ministries and many more./p p Five men and ten women weretaken away by sheriff's deputies with their hands behind them tied verybr / tightly with tie-wraps/p pProtesters had whistles and blew them. Most of the press was kept out ofbr / the actual chamber, but there was some press in the chamber, as well asbr / community videoactivists whose work can be seen at: a href="http://www.videoactivism.org" title="www.videoactivism.org"www.videoactivism.org/a/p pThe fifteen protesters were transported to 850 Bryant (Hall of Justice)br / and held for about five hours. The women were held an extra two hoursbr / because they were singing organizing songs. They were booked,br / fingerprinted, photographed, given an American cheese sandwich andbr / released; at 9 p.m. for the men, 11pm. for the women. Tuesday morning,allbr / but one of the protestors returned to 850 Bryant for arraignment andthebr / charges were dropped at about 11:30 a.m./p pThis was the first CD (civil disobedience) inside the main Board ofbr / Supervisors chamber since about 1955 when the House Un-American Activitiesbr / Committee held hearings there during the McCarthy era, and anti-HUACbr / protestors were washed down the main steps of the City Hall withbr / firehouses, in a famous tableau./p pSupervisor Gavin Newsom sat writing a letter during the one-hourbr / interruption while other Supervisors looked on with curiosity and apparentbr / disbelief./p pi editor's note: It is interesting to me that after 3 years ofbr / tireless press advisories, press conferences and media events , it took civil disobedience to get the two words;br / People's Budget, actually said together and reported on in mainstream print, radio and television media/i/p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/392/photo_5_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Staff Writer/p p/pPIt was a warm night -br / br /the kind that drips with pain/p p/pPIt was a warm night filled with whispers and screamsbr / br /you can peel that kind of night away with your fingernails -br / br /you can cry into that kind of night and noone will hear youbr / br /it was a warm night filled with you Idris... /p p/pPhe was depressed they say-br / br /I’ve been depressed like that- Idris-br / br /so dpressed that only hollywood can fix it/p p/pPthey say he said “i’m gonna die tonite”- -br / br /i’ve said that Idris-br / br /many times..many timesbr / br /poverty, conflict, confusion, and distress- it drips too...br / br /onto our collective foreheads...br / br /when we’re trying to thinkbr / br /it fogs our minds -/p p/pP “I just need to finish school - -everything will be ok - I can get through this... but I br /can’t” - I heard your silent screams Idris - I heard you being tired of feeling that pain br /and I heard it whispered in the halls of that gentrified palace that palace of mirrored br /glass and the blood of a thousand of poor elders who once lived on that earth - who br /died trying to stay there./p p/pP I heard you Idris through all that burgundy carpet, popcorn and glass-br / br / I heard you idriss - cause I’ve been there..I am there.../p p/pPand I don’t know you but I do cause I know that kind of pain - I know that kind of conflict-/p p/pPbut poverty and conflict don’t carry guns-br / br /confusion and distress don’t shoot you/p p/pP8 Big men who are hired to gentrify us out of theatres and concerts, houses and br /neighborhoods. .who are paid to not understand - 8 white men who have the blood of br /other brown men on their hands and the agenda of other white ones in their pockets- br /these people shoot us and take away our life and our breath and our throughts and our br /laughs and our time and our painbr / br /and and take it away...br / br /... forever- /p p/pp- Tinybr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p