by tiny/PNN

My three pound eyelids crashed down into their exhausted eye beds…"Whoo whooooo" My baby's fever-filled scream of need shatter them open……and then they drop once again for a sweet, guilt-inducing second of pseudo-sleep

"Whoo whooo" … only to be ripped from their just-about-but-not-quite sleep state once again by his desperate cry.

And that’s how it went last week… minute after dreadful minute. Me, unable to afford child care as a working poor mother and unable to get much work done with a sick child, I continued to try to get a very difficult data entry job completed that was one of many low wage jobs I struggle to complete each week just to get enough money together to feed my child, pay utilities and buy diapers in 21st century Amerikka. Crazy things like rent and gas a distant luxury. Mothering While Poor -MWP - an impossible state of being, a frightening state of being, an insurmountable economic injustice….

I reflected on this economic injustice as I heard about the recent case of Ophelia Vanider Hill, a 31 year old immigrant from South Africa who was charged two weeks ago with manslaughter and cruelty to a child for allegedly abandoning her infant in her Palo Alto apartment which she was evicted from in April for non-payment of rent.

Ms. Hill worked over time in Bay Area hotels as a concierge still not making enough to cover the rent before there was a child. As a poor immigrant woman with no resources, family or support systems, life with a child would be almost impossible.

"Where is the family support system? If someone is pregnant, most families come together to help the new mom. When someone is isolated, they don't have any of that." said Ken Borelli of the Santa Clara County Social Services Agency.

But Ms. Hill is not alone. In just the last four weeks 3 more poor immigrant women in the Bay Area have abandoned their infants, in shopping carts, in Porta Potties in a strawberry field, in a trash bag behind a Days Inn. Aside from being very low-income immigrant women, they are all low-wage workers; maids, hotel workers, and strawberry pickers or as Okwe, the African immigrant protaginist in the shocking 2003 anti-globalization movie DirtyPrettyThings said; "We are the people you don’t see.. the ones who clean your rooms, drive your cabs and suck your (cocks)

Although the numbers of American women abandoning their children have gone down nationally since 'don't ask don't tell laws' have been instituted, like they have in California which allow women to drop their infants at emergency rooms with no questions asked, the numbers of immigrant women abandoning their children has risen.

But this really doesn’t surprise me and no I do not blame these women , I blame an increasingly impossible Apartheid-like Amerikkan economy which does NOT support poor parents, promotes low wage corporate slave work and in fact, criminalizes the marginal parent for everything they do. Unlike economies like Canada which subsidizes child care for all parents for the first two years of the childs' life.

"Whooo Whoooo.. " My tired eyes are finally permanently open.I stagger over to the crib to comfort my sick child. I love my son and I love his screams, I am overwhelmed, I am exhausted and as I give him his nose drops, I pray for all the other poor mothers out there making frightening choices that will haunt them forever based on more insurmountable injustices.

by tiny/PNN

The new Diaspora

Africans Arriving in The cities by the Bay

450,000 strong

willing, ready

and able to get down

for ones daily bread

Sat Nan (truth and identity)

But now, again I must ask

Where's my forty acres and a mule?

Excerpt of Diaspora by Dharma, from the Houzin Project, Words, Art and Resources on Eviction, Gentrification, Displacement and Homelessness by POOR Magazine

"I have lived here for 60 years and as community residents we have the right to give input into what's gonna happen to this train station," Evonne Smith, life long resident of West Oakland who came to the Bay Area from Chicago with her family as part of a mass migration of thousands of African Descendent folks in search of jobs and economic opportunities in the 1940's, spoke to me over the soft sounds of children, elders and adults gathered at the corner of 16th and Wood streets in the heart of West Oakland. As she spoke I eyed the ancient elegance of the now faded Wood Street Train Station standing forlornly behind a high barb wire fence in the background. Ms. Smith concluded, "We are here to make sure that this place won't just be turned into more housing for the very rich" Ms. Smith was one of several hundred community residents and housing activists opposing a huge "market-rate" housing development planned for the Train station.

The planned development dubbed "Central Station" would produce up to 1,500 new housing units mostly for sale starting at $300,000 per unit. As PNN/Bayview readers will note this kind of Gentrification is in keeping with what POOR Magazine dubbed "Gerrification" in its 1999 Media Action on Oakland City Hall Plaza ,i.e., the master plan by the so-called" Strong" Mayor Jerry Brown to bring rich folks by the hundreds of thousands into Oakland as the answer to Oakland's "blight" which is another euphemism for poor folks, mostly of color, who supposedly people Oakland now. Of course the thing that is never talked about by the corporate media and the policy makers is that rather than "cleaning-up" an area, those kind of massive redevelopments of very poor areas that aren't rooted in the communities themselves lead to more homelessness or like Po' Poet Laureate A. Faye Hicks said in her piece on the Kkkolinization of San Francisco's Fillmore District, "when we (poor folks) are evicted and gentrified out of our homes and neighborhoods we don't leave we just go live in the sidewalk hotels."

"I started in West Oakland when I was nine years old, my family migrated here from Louisiana, during the time I was coming up, West Oakland was beautiful," Linnie Cobb, another OG resident of West Oakland rooted in the community was touching on the real roots of gentrification/colonization, i.e., the descimation of healthy communities through redlining and zoning laws, which in West Oakland happened when zoning laws were changed many years ago facilitating the plethora of liquor stores and bars, i.e., the ruin of a thriving Black community which now facilitated the current cheap land grabs by big developers like Central Stations Rick Holiday , also known for kick-starting loft development in San Francisco. After explaining her communities' interest in seeing a monument created to honor the Black folk who built up the area Linnie summed it up perfectly, "There is a history here, and its Black History.

"Its about this place becoming a Museum for the Pullman porters, they threw us on the army base, well we deserve a home here…,"After I spoke to Linnie I ran into the eloquent Monsa Nitoto, Economic justice activist from CWAR and West Oakland resident who was explaining the struggle to build a Museum for the Pullman Porters. " They are talking about building housing that most West Oakland residents will not be able to afford and they won't work with local developers like The Alliance of West Oakland Development that offered to buy 250 units that would go to affordable and subsidized housing, but they wouldn't sell it to them," Monsa went on to explain that one of the important things that need to happen to insure real local involvement is that the Board for the Central Station project needs to have community members that control it, rather than Rick Holidays'; yesmen

"I was a Pullman Porter for 46 years, my first trip to California was into this station"
After I spoke to Monsa, I had the honor of speaking to Herman Simmons, an African Descendent elder who was one of the original Pullman Porters who would be honored if there was a proper museum created for them in the Central Station project. The train station site has been seen for a long time by community members as the perfect location for a Pullman Porter Museum. The Porters West Coast Headquarters was in West Oakland and many West Oakland families, like Linnie Cobb, had family members who worked the trains coming through the Old Station. In fact most African Descendent families in Oakland originally arrived here via the 16th and Wood St Station. Ron Dellums Uncle C.L. Dellums was a local leader in the union which assisted in many other civil rights efforts.

"The train station was one of the original places that African -American folks came into and the developers are planning on building housing that noone in the neighborhood can afford" Adam Gold, one of the organizers from Just Cause spoke to the fight by the community and housing activists that is just beginning to insure that The train Station is community run, integrates 25%-30% affordable housing that is really affordable, and includes a community controlled Pullman Porter museum. So far their effort has gathered over 500 signatures calling for these demands to be met.

In some ways the life of developer Rick Holliday, reads like a horror story out of the pages of POOR Magazine's Houzin Project, a book released in 2003 on POOR Press focused on the root causes to homelessness and poverty. In the 80's he was a "good" developer, i.e., launching Bridge Housing in San Francisco, which originally created several hundred units of affordable housing. But in the 90's like so many of his yuppie forefathers, he took his privileged education and personal access and abandoned the non-profit development world to start his own development firm and in fact launched the entire gentrification effort on San Francisco's South of Market area. In the process almost single-handedly creating the notion of trendy lofts and forcing the eviction of hundreds of poor families from that previously low-income area of San Francisco. His rationale for not including affordable housing in the Central Station project is that West Oakland already has enough such housing.

To get involved in the effort to resist this massive gentrification project call Just Cause at (510)866-7105.

by Joe B.

Imperfections

I will talk about something deeply personal for me.

I’ve talked about my lazy left eye,how it could’ve been corrected by a flesh colored (tan brown) plastic eye patch worn over the good right eye to strengthen the weaker left one.

Not listening to my parents,peeking through the patch destroys what could have been two good eyes.

Ok,really messed up because no kid wants to seen as different, developmentally slow (then called retarded) and riding the yellow bus to school didn’t help.

Making up stories to spend the time that was fun because it opens up all our imaginations about the future and what we could do when we get older.

Trying athletics is a disaster like being hit in the right eye by a yellow plastic puck,too lightweight for foot ball.

Able to help girls with homework but not as a date or as a substitute one until someone else comes by,the third wheel of a couple as comic relief.

Bookworm, only swimming, weight training,and learning martial arts help build much needed confidence.

Skip all the fights, jokes about the lazy eyes and children wanting to look straight or scaring some.

The first few girls, women ignore that and have a pleasant surprise – listening to love instructions,retaining them,coming up with variations.
(reading Playboy,Oui,Gem, Gent,articles not only looking at the pictures of semi to fully nude women to helped in sex too).

Being publishing a poetry chap book Poetry Flash,helps build more confidence in myself over the years.

Swimming,Weight training,and Martial Arts became spotty then less and less as time went on and gaining employment looms as more important.

Different low wage, dead end,jobs,becoming houseless,travel to Los Angeles and back to Oakland then San Francisco.

During these desperate times a lazy eye is of no importance surviving, living through a houseless existence is.

Writing,losing it, learning black and white photography,getting publishing short stories, poems in transitional housing newsletter.

Getting off General Assistance and onto Work Fare in the mid 1990’s working for Goodwill Industries PC program brushing up on computer basics,programs and while working for Poor Magazine part time.
(I remember paying $90 to improve my writing skills.

It was difficult coming up with the $30 dollars 3 separate times for 3 months but I made a commitment and stuck with it.)

I had volunteered on and off for Poor M,sometimes got paid for work contributed by photography or writing food reviews, poems,or articles.

After Goodwill I had to find work a telemarketing job.

"Read the script if this doesn’t work,say this, and if not,then this."

It’s a disaster I considered it not selling but lying to make sell, make a sale,get a commission.

I didn’t last through the first or second practice call.

Luckily Poor Magazine is up and running and Mr. Shawn,the staff writer is there and he left for Oakland leaving an opening for me.

That was way back in 1998 now six year later I feel I’ve learned a lot and its my time to go and let someone else have a crack at this organization.

I go to work with time to stop off at the post office to see about a letter that’s been delayed for a few weeks.

While walking to my goal a young black girl and white guy walks in my direction.

The woman did a cringe of distaste which I see but did not acknowledge heading into the mailbox.

The letter has not arrived,I go out,the woman is talking to some other woman and I hear laughter as I pass.

I don’t know if it’s nervous laughter or derision but I have not had that happen to me for years.

I always wonder having a slightly scientific bent that someone has a great exterior look is the interior the same?

The letter didn’t show again today,I go out, see the woman talking to someone.

I want to speak to her about her reaction to me but thought better of it knowing it would look as if a crazy,cross eye,angry guy is attacking her verbally.

She’d look perfectly innocent as I stood next to her ranting at her.

It proves to me that fairy tales,TV shows about Beauty and the beast is that fiction.

The true reaction is what the woman showed in her cringing,startled reaction.

It’s not only that but afterwards the laughter which I don’t know is a nervous reaction or derision.

What galls me is that women who are supposedly more sensitive,emotive, almost empathic to others pain.

She proved not all are and can be as hurtful and anyone.

Also women know how to mask their feelings like chameleons changing colors against predators but not to me I was beneath her did it I was so under her contempt that she need not hide her revulsion or my repulsive look of imperfection.

I’ve too learned to hide my immediate reaction but she did not maybe she feels superior in looks and brain department but as you can see she’s does not write down her reaction she just reacts and kept walking – I could be wrong and it was an accidental hick up of emotional realism.

Human’s are not yet perfected beings some have perfect bodies,some minds, others,enhanced senses, but few have if perfect but clean uncorrupted by cosmic, organic human made radiated mutation.

For perfection to even begin we must see pristine genes,give them a protective coating,slowly build better ones and replace bad ones with good all with no self replicating protective shielding.

Find,reconstruct molecularly bone, skin, and muscle until all is connected,improved.

What I have describes is Gene Enhanced Cosmetic Beauty from the interior to interior.

Since it’s now known we many aspects and many standards of what beauty, handsome,cute,or what’s hot is.

Anyone can be beautiful, have physical flaws genetic in origin replaced and people made the way they should’ve been in spite of nature or genes conspiring with Kismet.

Who knows if I live long enough I might not only regain youthful vigor,but also have much better features of face and body than originally born with.

Even the body I’m might be an improved cloned version of my original or another body completely with my electro-chemical essence encased within soft brain tissue or on a silicon chip.

Ok,I really went far a field of imperfection but I know its coming if not in this country then in another.

I’m an American, and I’ll never betray my country but as thinking sentient being to preserved my unique identity I must do everything I can to seek,pull,break open that other door – the door to prolonged life span if not immortality.

Well,that’s my thoughts today,what have you to say readers?

1095 7th & Market Street,

S.F. Ca.94103

Snail or Email

Joe at:
1230
PO Box #204

S.F., Ca. 94102

by Dee/PNN

In January of 2003 San Francisco became the largest city to pass a resolution which "affirms that any efforts to end terrorism not be waged at the fundamental civil rights and liberties of the people of San Francisco"

On Thursday June 3rd at about 5 pm PNN co-editor tiny and I were driving up Larkin st. in San Francisco. As we approached the Federal Building we noticed a very large sparkling white van with the words Homeland Security in bold black letters written on the side. Tiny and I immediately started fumbling around the car desperately searching for a camera. Finding nothing we raced to Walgreens to buy one. When we returned minutes later the van was gone. However, we questioned why it was there. Tiny said it resembled a satelite spy vehicle and it was
probably parked in the garage of the federal bldg

I thought it must be here for the June 5th anti-war march or the June 8 bio-tech conference, especially since according to the wording of the act itself, " The Patriot act has removed legal barriers that prevented the law enforcement, intelligence and national defense communities from talking and coordinating their work to protect the American people and our national security".

Considering what occurred at the protests for the racial justice rally and the entire reclaim the commons protest of the bio-tech conference with so many people arrested and the extreme amount of unnecessary law enforcement that was present it seemed that if Homeland Security had "worked with" the SFPD in the arrests or the planning of the police action that it was in a direct contradiction to the resolution passed by the city against the Patriot act.

In order to find out just how much the Homeland security had been involved in the police action against the biotech protests I called the mayors office and asked the first person that answered why there was so much police presence at the biotech conference protests," Because the community wanted it" , was the answer. Then click.

I called back again only to talk to the same person who said, "are you just calling to fuss with me?" I said no I wouldn’t waste my time and that I would like to speak to someone who could answer some questions and was then transferred to an office manager who answered the same question by saying, " No comment and I mean no comment." This person gave me another number for the press person and I proceeded to leave a question on their voice mail which was, "What part did homeland security play in the police action against the protesters at the bio-tech conference?"

Two days passed and noone called back to answer the question. On Friday June 11th. "President" Reagen's holiday, I called and left the same question for the press persons for the supervisors, Matt Gonzalez, Chris Daly, and Jake McGoldricks own voice mail as well as another message for Gavin Newsom’s press person. None of them returned the call even though I said there was a deadline for the report for the Bayview paper and PNN

Because there were no return calls and no other information except our hunch and because we hadn’t seen the homeland security van again during the whole week of protests, we began to wonder if our hunch was correct. Then as I was trolling the internet for research I discovered a clever person had captured a photo of the same homeland security van on Friday June 11th parked in front of city hall with people boarding it.

There concentrated police/surveillance work completed, the Homeland Security Army could leave San Francisco and help other police departments in other protests attack the civil liberties of Americans who dare to disagree with the policies of the justice dept and the amerikkan government and perhaps undermine resolutions made by cities to help protect Americans in their city against the abuses of the Patriot act. Even though those cities have perhaps been promised by resolutions of their city governments to protect its citizens against those abuses, such as the resolution made by the SF Board of Supervisors, which it seems was a resolution with out any substance.

Dee is co-editor of POOR Magazine/PNN for more work on issues of poverty and racism go on-line to www.poormagazine.org

by TJ Johnston/PNN

After driving to Monterey, CA last Wednesday, July 21, I saw angels and there hadn't been that many since they were trendy in the early '90's.

They were not the celestial kind: these were more earthy angels from San Francisco's Media Alliance that were sighted at a rally before the only FCC localism hearing convening in the West Coast this year. They manifested themselves outside the Monterey Convention Center in response to Chairman Michael Powell's now famous query for "the angels of public interest" to speak out against media conglomeration. Had Chairman Powell not been AWOL, he would have seen the seraphim first hand.

Fellow Poor Magazine reporter Joe Bolden and I caught a ride and observed the town depicted in John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. Two hours away from San Francisco, we found it to be very touristy and yuppified. We also observed the military and Homeland Security facilities and concluded this was not a progressive hotbed.

The hearing is the fourth of six devoted to public input, or should I say outpouring, since last year's FCC ruling allowing corporations to concentrate more media outlets in fewer hands was stayed and eventually thwarted. Readers of PNN might remember the heretofore unheard uproar to our airwaves' regulators prior to the FCC commisioners' 3-2 vote. Three of those commissioners were present at the hearing, presumably to make up for Powell's absence. The Third Circuit Court in Philadelphia instructed the FCC to hear the vox populi (not just the Fox Network) before taking further action. Already, hearings took place in Charlotte, NC, Grand Rapids, SD, and San Antonio, TX (capital of the Clear Channel and SBC empires).

I took the occasion to give the FCC my two cents' worth in the almost-six hour meeting. I wore a new thrift-store shirt (Perry Ellis) and had a prepared statement for the open mic session. Long story short, a lottery was involved and I drew the wrong number. Attempts to log on to fcc.gov proved fruitless (I had to snail mail it).

On a panel which included Commissioners Kathleen Abernathy, Michael Copps and Michael Adelstein, big media's usual suspects (Hearst-Argyle, Telemundo) were represented. But Hard Knock Radio's Davey D drew applause for his remarks of corporate radio's "public service." Despite what he calls their smoke and mirror act of changing to more community-oriented broadcasting, "they're not institutionalized. They can't just be nice guys doing you a favor!" Davey D was done the favor by Clear Channel's KMEL by taking away his severance package after he spoke on his public firing in the wake of 9/11. He also spoke of recording artists' fear of intimidation and blacklisting if they interview with competing stations. Clear Channel not only owns 1200 stations in the US, but is also a leader in performing venues and outdoor promotion. Davey D also cited the dearth of community affairs programming, often relegated to 5:00am on Sundays. Despite advertising for the "Clear Channel Fund," their service does not include voter registration campaigns or election coverage. According to Davey D, Clear Channel also failed to credit members of the hip-hop audience for monitoring content and making recommendations to the stations once those changes were implemented.

"Distinct communities are ignored," said Hawaii Localism Coalition delegate Sean McLaughlin, when local coverage is de-emphasized. He urged for a "home rule" of community airwaves, including local, diverse ownership, mandatory set-asides for local media resources and more local oversight.

Heartened that the FCC got an earful at the meeting, I still feel obligated to make my position on corporate use of or common space known to the world. Here is the prepared statement I brought:

"My name is TJ Johnston, Community Journalist for poormagazine.org and Poor News Network.

"Poor Magazine is a grassroots, nonprofit, nonhierarchical organization dedicated to providing media access, education, and advocacy to very low- and no-income youth and adults as well as creating a radio show on KPFA-FM 94.1, an online news service and a training program in media and poverty. This is as 'public interest' an outlet could get.

"The communities which PNN serves find it impossible for media conglomerates to address our issues and include our voices. In their current State, the Clear channels, the Infinities and all the other multibillion dollar media corporations are out of touch with our communities and fail to act in the public interest."

Postscript: Sakura, one of the public-interest angels, also articulated our sentiment with a sign with a quote found in Howard Zinn's A History of The United States: "The cry of the poor might not always be just, but if you don't hear it you'll never know what justice is."

by Joe B.

Democrat Convention /New Org.

Usually,I’d be with Dee, Lisa,sometimes Mr. Leroy Moore,or other guests on PNN(Poor News Network) on KPFA’s FM 94.1 Morning show in Berkeley.

A serious health emergency involving Tiny’s child who’s high fever worried them combined with KPFA’s own internal problems caused the PNN segment to off the air at least temporarily.

I do enjoy the whole day off usually when time permits I write a script from an old or current column for radio production.

My very first script written work is about economics from the start of the great depression to the 1980’s.

It had introduction bumper music,which I had learned after a few weeks to time to begin, fade in, and fade out,talking under, over,and through it making fewer mistakes as I learned.

A mini tape-recorder, radio,and extra batteries helped a lot until it all went together seamlessly.

My voice would go dry, too high,low,it was difficult but after a few month its second nature I even wanted to try faking three voices in one paragraph for a column- turned-radio segment but it is nixed by tiny.

A year or two past I had story of going to a nude beach that went wrong though the most exciting part is cut out that I wanted but again told not to use even though I’m able to cut out other words to keep them in.

After that I rarely place anything of my own on the show only announcing the Berkeley radio stations call letters and PNN’s mission statement.

So,I’ve learned how to speak on the radio though sometimes still nervous its no longer alien and when given a script to read on a day (more often hours notice) I do a job learning professionalism in the process.

Listening to the Democratic Convention after work,on my days off is rare for me though this time its really important to get the current white house residents out and gone somewhere else.

I won’t name drop but all our votes counting, founding father’s and mother’s wisdom,working poor,houseless issues, and stem cells by one of the son’s of a 1980’s President made me really listen and look at what will change if a new administration is voted in.

All I’ll do is vote for the candidates and avoid certain political debates with a dear friend on hiatus this summer.

Lunchtime on my day off I’m standing in a food line
(formally houseless, steady job,in transitional housing) there are still thin times when going to the dollar stores in the Mission District off Valencia,frequenting inexpensive stores is a must to stretch non profit dollar salary I work for.

Anyway,at a food line at Glide Memorial Church near 12 noon I see young and older adults in new what t shirts with black lettering on them which reads "Project Connected"

I didn’t think about it my stomach growling, churning a bit. What The Fuck Is Project Connect?
some loud mouth says.

Following the line I go into the church,downstairs like everyone else and soon eating a hot nutritious meal of potato’s,loose corn,turkey,light dressing over lettuce and tomatoes, also cranberry sauce and water.

I would’ve gone for a second helping but the line is too long.

While hurrying to St. Anthony's for a possible first serving and a second helping of lunch I see a group of t shirted young folks walking in my direction.

I asked "How old is Project Connect?"

One of them said it’s a new organization finding out what people need in the communities of San Francisco."

Then a young woman hands me a blue piece of paper.
PROJECT CONNECT TENDERLOIN Its from the Mayor’s Office of Community Development.

Well,fresh new troops on the ongoing war to help feed,protect,and house whomever wants and needs the help.

I do wish them all the best,maybe from some of these folks the next Youth Commissioner’s and politically savvy political career minded adults will come from.

Food is on my brain along with Stem Cells, Therapeutic Cloning, automated robot technology, rejuvenation,regeneration, and ways to trick,slow, reverse,retard,and stop the aging process.

Just because I’m on the lower economic scale for not does mean I’ll be here forever.

That is if I figure out ways to finagle myself into a prolonged, extended life span.

People have their plans for life and I have mines, I just hope my plans last longer.

To everyone who has rarely or never voted, whether your young,old,its time to do your civic duty and vote for better times, years ahead – We’ve have a chance lets not blow it.

Please send what you can be they Palm Pilots, or working laptops minus full hard drives,and digital or web camera’s if you can (need both money-MOs,tech help bad!)
To

Poor Magazine

1095 7th & Market Street,

S.F. Ca.94103

Snail or Email Joe at:

PO Box #204

1230 S.F. 94102

by David Rosenzweig LA Times Staff Writer

Dessie Robinson, a 55-year-old welfare recipient who suffers from a heart ailment, diabetes and ulcers, had just finished showering in her room at a
downtown homeless shelter early one morning in July when she heard a loud knock at the door.

Throwing on some clothes, she opened the door and was confronted by half a
dozen armed federal agents who proceeded to arrest her on a misdemeanor
charge of cheating the government out of $746.10, the monthly payment she
receives under the federal program to aid the blind, disabled or elderly
poor.

Robinson was among 21 people arrested at gunpoint that week during a sweep
targeting individuals who said they hadn't received their monthly
Supplemental Security Income checks, but who allegedly cashed the original and the duplicate checks, according to prosecutors.

Most of those taken into custody were physically or mentally disabled and
frightened out of their wits as they were handcuffed and hauled off to
court, according to lawyers from the federal public defender's office.

Several were schizophrenic. One was blind and in a wheelchair. Another had given birth the previous week. One man was taken to court dressed only in his undershorts. All those arrested, with one exception, were freed several hours later after being arraigned by a magistrate judge.

Federal public defenders, who represent most of the 21 defendants, have denounced the arrests by agents from the Social Security Administration's inspector general's office as an outrageous abuse of authority.

Lara Bazelon, a public defender, said the agents who carried out the arrests "acted like they were on some kind of glorified mission, like they
were arresting terrorists from Al Qaeda instead of frightened physically
and mentally disabled people, none of whom reasonably could be perceived as posing a threat to anyone."

The arrests were a departure from standard procedure at the U.S. attorney's
office. Normally, prosecutors send a summons to a defendant accused of a
nonviolent misdemeanor, but that practice was scrapped during this
operation.

More puzzling, many of those arrested had previously reached accommodations
with the Social Security Administration and were making restitution by
having money deducted from future SSI checks, according to court papers.

All were African Americans, a fact that public defenders cited as an
indication of possible racial discrimination.

In a gesture considered rare for a prosecutorial agency, U.S. Atty. Debra
W. Yang two weeks ago apologized for the arrests in a letter to Christopher
Prince, president of the John M. Langston Bar Assn., an African American
lawyers group. Prince had written her expressing concern about the roundup.

Summonses were not sent, Yang said, because some defendants had criminal
records and Social Security Administration investigators believed they would not appear in court voluntarily.

"All this aside," she wrote, "I agree with you that, in retrospect, in some
of these cases we made a mistake and should not have proceeded as we did."

Though the arrests were legally valid, she added, prosecutors should have
allowed defendants who did not pose a flight risk to appear voluntarily.
She promised to return to the standard practice in future cases.

On Friday, Robinson's public defender filed a motion to dismiss the
criminal charge against her, contending that she and the others were victims of selective enforcement, a violation of the U.S. Constitution's
equal protection clause.

The motion by Deputy Federal Public Defender Reuven Cohen accused
prosecutors of acting with "an evil eye and an unequal hand" by threatening
to ratchet up the charge against Robinson to a felony unless she agreed to plead guilty on their terms.

"Like other African Americans caught up in the government's sweep," he wrote, "she has been told in no uncertain terms" that she will face felony charges in the event that she exercises her right to a public trial, files
any pretrial motions or pleads without accepting a plea agreement dictated
by the prosecution.

Under that proposed agreement, the prosecution would not ask for any jail
time provided that Robinson offered to perform 500 hours of community
service, something that white defendants in similar circumstances have not
been required to do, according to Cohen. He said the prosecution's terms
were "condescending and paternalistic" and that Robinson and many of the others would not be able to perform community service because of their disabilities.

Except for the 21 defendants, Cohen wrote, his office has been unable to identify any other defendants who have been arrested and prosecuted in the same fashion in the federal judicial district that includes Los Angeles.

Though not specifically accusing the government of singling out the defendants because they were black, the motion said that race was a likely factor. The defense reserved the right to raise the issue as it gathers more evidence in the case.

Responding to the allegation of selective enforcement, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office said Friday that "race never plays any role in our
charging decisions, and that certainly applies to the case against Ms.Robinson and the others."

David Butler, special agent in charge of the inspector general's Western regional office, declined to comment, referring all questions to the prosecutor's office.

by Anna Kirsch/POOR Magazine

In 2003 POOR Magazine launched a new branch to its ever expanding web of media resistance, POOR Press and its education arm; Digital Resistance. In this program, very low and no income adults and youth are given the opportunity to create a book from start to finish, beginning with creative writing, narrative essays and poetry and then progressing to graphic design and layout publishing and promotion. Since its inception, POOR Press has allowed over 46 youth and adult poverty scholars to publish books of artwork, poetry and short stories, sharing their extremely valuable, but all too often ignored, experiences, views and opinions with the world.

This semester, POOR Press is releasing ten amazing, insightful books addressing issues ranging from child abuse and police brutality to homelessness and poverty. Each author in this year’s class has overcome many extremely difficult obstacles and dedicated numerous hours to learning the computer programs necessary to publish their books. These authors have all persevered to share their stories and scholarship.

Written honestly and from the heart, these pieces of writing and artwork are truly unlike anything else found in the corporate world of publishing today. These books allow the reader to experience and learn about the very personal struggles and resistance of the authors

The artists, essayists and poets coming from different positions of poverty, oppression, survival and resistance will be reading, performing and spitting scholarship at a bookstore, club, café or jail near you as part of the Race, Poverty and Resistance Book Tour in tandem with POOR Magazine editor, welfareQUEEN, daughter of dee and poverty scholar Lisa Gray-Garcia aka tiny, whose memoir; Criminal of Poverty; Growing Up Homeless in America will be released on City Lights Press in December. Tiny paints a vivid, intense portrait of her and her mother’s struggle with poverty , homelessness and the growing criminalization of poverty and poor folks in America as well as the fascinating story of the development of the highly innovative grassroots, organization, POOR Magazine and publication of the same name.

The following is the powerful list of POOR Press Publications and the poverty scholars that shared their knowledge and scholarship in each.

Selected Wordz

Jewnbug

Poverty scholar, welfare QUEEN, mother, arts educator and co-founder of the F.A.M.I.L.Y. Project, Jewnbug has authored a collection of metaphorical texts as well as drawn, painted and graphically designed images to raise a new level of consciousness in her readers. Selected Wordz uses speech in a new, inventive way to address spiritual and emotional issues. A self-proclaimed wordsmith, Jewnbug says she is sharing these writings to heal and to encourage consciousness on an extremely deep level. She does not fail in her task to challenge her readers and provide a new, unique perspective on life, language and spirituality. This book has the power to change its readers way of thinking and living.

Why Can't We Play In Our Own Backyard?

Byron Gafford

Another poverty scholar and child abuse survivor, Byron Gafford has taken his own painful experiences and shared them through poetry to educate the public about the numerous problems surrounding the system of foster care and the child protective services. In his third book of poetry, Why Can't We Play in Our Own Backyard? Gafford uniquely addresses the problem of child abuse through simple, eloquent poems told through not just the eyes of a child, but also the voice of an adult survivor. These 34 poems are powerful and open the readers’ eyes extremely wide to the painful reality of child abuse that’s occurring in our own communities everyday.

El Viaje de Una Madre Immigrante

Ingrid De Leon

Ingrid De Leon is an immigrant mother, artist, writer and POOR poverty scholar. Her first POOR Press Publication, El Viaje is a first hand account chronicling her own journey on foot from Guatemala through Mexico and finally into the United States. De Leon shares her own story of struggle, pain and sacrifice. Published in both English and Spanish El Viaje is an extremely powerful, poignant and meaningful story that takes the reader on a journey to a new awareness of the immigrant struggle and the connection that all impoverished humans share.

System Bitch

Ecsta Scene

In the first edition of her zine called System Bitch , poverty scholar, welfare QUEEN and mother, Ecsta Scene has published a collection of what she calls witness statements. Authored by a variety of different people, these witness statements are first hand accounts of people’s interactions with systems in today’s modern world. System Bitch is unlimited in the scope of systems its authors confront, including but not limited to jail, child abuse, work, love, religion and politics. Ecsta Scene has put together a truly insightful collection of work, which begs for further evaluation.

Paradise Ventures II

Marvin Crutchfield

In his second book of poetry, Paradise Ventures II , Marvin Crutchfield shares his strong belief in God, knowledge and newfound peace with the reader. In this collection of 28 poems, Crutchfield boldly and directly states his beliefs and views about the role of Jesus in life. Although direct, his poems don't simply preach about his passionate beliefs, but also tell the story of his own life experiences since finding God in his struggle to come up and out of poverty. Simple and eloquent all at the same time, these poems address the importance of finding peace in the struggle for survival.

Dream Owls

Janie Dickens

A new POOR Press author, Janie Dickens is not only a poverty scholar and digital resistor but also a poet and artist. Her first publication, Dream Owls proves her engaging artistic talent and insightful writing skills. A colorful and playful book, Dream Owls , is a collection of poetry and art about why people are poor. Dream Owls has an enjoyable touch of playfulness while still engaging the reader in challenging subjects such as the environment, homelessness, childhood, and love. Dickens' poetry is full of life and reads to a nice rhythm that flows easily from one poem to the next.

My Life X 4

Jasmine Hain

Twelve-year old Jasmine Hain and her mother Vivian Hain are co-authors of My Life X 4 , which chronicles the four years their family spent living in a store front window during the dot-com boom. The book includes stories, poems, artwork, quotes and reflections of Jasmine, which highlight her remarkable social consciousness and incredible talent. Vivian and Jasmine's collaboration on the book emphasize the unique and sacred bond the mother and daughter share. My Life X 4 provides a new perspective on poverty, one that is not heard in traditional media today and should be read by all.

Citizens, Civilians Over Corruption:Savagely Removed Occupant (S.R.O)

Marlon Crump

Marlon Crump is a poverty scholar, digital resistor and extremely talented author whose debut book, Citizen, Civilians Over Corruption: Savagely Removed Occupant (S.R.O.) appears as a fictionalized account of a future where poverty and injustice run rampant in the wake of police corruption The story, however, was inspired by Crump's own experience with police, who illegally stormed his S.R.O. and arrested him for a crime he did not commit. Using his unique first-hand experience with police brutality, Crump, through this thoroughly interesting story, sheds light on the barriers that exist between race, poverty, and law enforcement. A truly enjoyable, informative and educational, novel, Citizen, Civilians Over Corruption: Savagely Removed Occupant is a shinning first novel.

Reflections of Unknown Artists

Dharma

Dharma, welfareQUEEN, poet, musician, artist and graphic designer, has created a visual and literary montage of poetry, art and essay focused on the struggle, survival and resistance of a African Queen living and trying to thrive in the Bay Area in 2006, with her book; Reflections of Unknown Artists

Ask Joe Holding Up the Sky

Joseph Bolden

Poverty scholar, digital resistor, founding member of POOR Magazine and SRO tenant, Joseph Bolden provides his readers with a funny, insightful collection of his POOR Magazine columns. Bolden shares the dreams, thoughts and desires of a very low-income man living in a 21st century media-informed universe. He explores relationships, gender differences, technology and much more, disclosing his brutally honest opinions, views and experiences.

To purchase any of these books for innovative, revolutionary holiday gifts, please call 415.863.6306

To book a reading, workshop or performance with the artists on the Race, Poverty and Resistance Tour please email deeandtiny@poormagazine.org or call POOR at 415-863-6306. Another aspect of the tour is a series of talks, symposiums and workshops focused specifically on the increasing trend of criminalizing poor communities of color locally and globally, for more information on this national tour please email anna@poormagazine.org

See below for the current calendar of readings and performances

Upcoming Book Tour Events

Wed Jan 10th, 6-7:30 p.m. San Francisco Public Library Civic Center See Tiny read and speak from her new book, Criminal of Poverty at the Radar Reading Series, which features emerging and underground writers performing new work. Hosted by Michelle Tea FREE

Thurs Jan 11th, 7 p.m. City Lights Bookstore @ 261 Columbus Ave. & Broadway, SF FREE

Thurs, Feb. 8th 6 p.m. Modern Times Bookstore @ 888 Valencia St, SF FREE

Wed, April 11th Intersection for the Arts @446 Valencia (bet. 14th & 15th St.) SF FREE

For more information on tickets or to book a date, Call POOR Magazine at 415-863-6306

You can also catch the POOR Mag Poverty and Race Scholars on their monthly radio show on KPFA�s morning show at 94.1 F.M.

by Lynda Carson

Oakland CA--The Bush Administration has recently
shattered America's 30 year commitment to assist
low-income families in keeping a roof over their heads
through the HUD funded Section 8 housing voucher
programs that assist the disabled, elderly and the
poor.

Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) across the nation have
been informed that reimbursements from HUD for fiscal
year 2004 would not be based on actual current voucher
costs, and instead the payments would be based on the
cost of vouchers under lease on August 1, 2003,
adjusted for inflation.

The announcement sent shockwaves throughout the
country when the PHAs discovered that the regulatory
changes created huge budget shortfalls for fiscal year
2004, because they would only receive funding at the
fiscal year 2003 level.

These disastrous changes went into effect when
President Bush signed the current budget into law in
January, 2004. On April 22, HUD issued the guidelines
spelling out details of the new budget and, public
housing agencies across the nation have quickly fallen
into a crisis due to the funding shortfalls.

THE CRISIS SPREADS

The crisis has already spread from coast to coast. New
York City faces a $55 million shortfall to fully fund
118,000 housing vouchers that are already in use for
fiscal year 2004.

A housing agency in Warrenton, Oregon, had to cut off
funding for 110 families during the first week of May,
2004. The agency is presently short of $59,000 or
more, and another 50 families could be cut from the
voucher programs by June 1.

The PHA of Alameda, California, sent out letters on
May 14, to 1,659 families and over 600 landlords to
inform them that the new regulations created a $3
million shortfall and that there may not be any rent
money for the month of June. Tenants and landlords are
being advised to use the security deposits to pay the
rent and to negotiate a way for the renters to repay
back the spent security deposits.

Massachusetts housing officials are set to mail
termination notices to about 650 tenants due to a
shortage of $550,000, and are working with state and
federal officials to come up with a solution to avoid
the termination of many housing vouchers in their
state.

Minnesota has a voucher crisis and 2,000 families may
lose their assistance by June. According to John
Gutzmann, an executive of the St. Paul, PHA, his
agency alone faces a $30,000 shortfall or more.

The PHA of Fargo, North Dakota, has indicated that
they may have to terminate the housing vouchers for 46
out of 1,100 families from their existing housing
voucher programs.

Under the current Bush administration's budget
proposals, estimates already have been calculated by
the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities for fiscal
years 2005 through 2009, and it appears that the
current disaster taking place is only the tip of an
iceberg.

The proposed reductions in voucher subsidies for
fiscal year 2005 may result in a huge source of
homelessness locally and across the nation for years
ahead if the Bush administration's proposals are not
reversed.

On a local level, during fiscal year 2005, it's
estimated that reductions to Berkeley's housing
voucher programs may result in the elimination of 223
families out of 1,841 families unless the city imposes
an annual rent increase of $1,545 spread across the
board to each of the families using the existing
housing vouchers.

Oakland faces a reduction of $17,380,757 for fiscal
year 2005 under the current budget proposals, and may
be forced to eliminate 1,303 families out of 10,754
families from their voucher programs or raise the
rents annually for all by as much as $1,582 per
family.

For fiscal year 2005, San Francisco faces a reduction
by as much as $15,257,319, and may have to eliminate
876 families out of 7,229 families from it's voucher
programs or raise the rents on all families by as much
as $2,066 annually.

Outrage Across The Nation

From across the nation, Congressional Democrats claim
that thousands of families could be either forced to
pay more money out of their own pockets or lose their
housing, and according to House Minority Leader, Nancy
Pelosi, she says, "The Bush administration is breaking
a 30-year promise to help low-income families, the
elderly and the disabled to afford decent, safe
housing."

Democrats, housing activists, and advocacy groups
argue that HUD is misinterpreting the budget and that
voucher costs should be updated every three months so
that the cost-of-living increases may be assessed on a
continual basis.

In a statement released by the National Leased Housing
Association, it reads, "NLHA has voiced its opposition
to HUD’s interpretation of the FY04 formula and along
with other industry groups is pressing Congress to
affirm its intention that all vouchers in use (and
authorized) be funded at their current cost."

In a different statement released by the Consortium
for Citizens with Disabilities, it reads, "The Bush
Administration’s FY 2005 HUD Budget proposal calls for
deep cuts in the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher
Program. The budget also would radically alter the
fundamental design of the program by converting it to
a block grant administered by Public Housing Agencies
(PHAs) for the benefit of higher income households.
The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Housing
Task Force (CCD Housing Task Force) is strongly
opposed to the Administrations budget proposal which
would cut more than $1 billion from current funding
levels. We are also strongly opposed to the
Administration’s ill-conceived proposal to convert the
program to the Flexible Voucher Program a
block-grant type approach which would eliminate many
of the critical protections people with disabilities
have under the current Section 8 program."

In response to the Bush administration's budget cuts,
Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) has introduced H.R.
4263 in an effort to resolve the situation, and he
already has 85 cosponsors or more supporting the bill.
The intention of the bill is to amend the FY04 VA-HUD
Appropriations Act, in order to fully fund the Section
8 vouchers as based upon the agency's per unit cost,
as originally intended by Congress.

Housing activists are calling on as many people as
possible to call their member of Congress at the
Capital Switchboard (toll free number) to insist that
the cuts to the housing vouchers are totally
unacceptable.

Dial 1-888-818-6641 to reach your Congressional
Representative.

Housing activists request that you;
1) Insist that HUD must withdraw the April 22 notice
changing the way housing vouchers are funded, because
the change is leading to funding cuts across the
country.
2) Insist that HUD must fully fund all housing
vouchers in 2004, as Congress intended.
3) Insist that vouchers are based on their actual cost
according to the latest available data.

************

SECTION 8 -THE NATIONAL REPORT

The Bush Administration's Proposals To Cut The Section
8 Programs By 40% Is Wreaking Havoc Across The Nation!

Officials Fight Planned Housing Aid Cuts

Los Angeles officials joined Wednesday in protesting
proposals to change the federal government's Section 8
housing program, which they said could result in
13,000 Los Angeles families being without homes.

At a City Hall rally, Hahn urged people to call on
Congress to resist efforts to change the Section 8
program, which provides rental vouchers to 44,000
households a year in the city and 2 million
nationwide.

http://www.knowledgeplex.org/news/26447.html

**********

Voucher Shortfall Concerns

It is estimated that more than one third of the 2,600
PHAs that administer Section 8 vouchers will face
funding shortfalls as a result of this policy change.
According to the CBPP, the national funding shortfall
for FY 2004 could total hundreds of millions of
dollars. PHAs have until July 15 to file appeals with
HUD.

In a letter to HUD expressing concern over the new
policy, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) estimated that 2,000
voucher holders could be terminated as early as June.
According to Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), a shortfall of
$550,000 in Massachusetts may lead to 600 voucher
holders losing their vouchers.

http://www.ucp.org/ucp_generaldoc.cfm/1/8/33/33-12227/5511

**********

Alameda Ca, Housing Authority still short $700,000 for
June Section 8 rents.

In order to make the June Housing Assistance Payments
(HAP), the Housing Authority will have to use its own
reserves. In spite of this, the Housing Authority is
still about $700,000 short. As such, the Housing
Authority does not know if we can pay the full HAP on
June 1. We know that we can pay at least 50% and we
would commit to paying the balance within 90 to 120
days.

http://www.alamedahsg.org/public_notice.htm

**********

Portland protests voucher shortfalls/see comments at
end of story.

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/288707.shtml

**********

Voucher Shortfalls In Vermont

May 21, 2004/Vermont

Sanders made this comment in reaction to proposed cuts
in Section 8 administration by HUD between 13 and 19
percent. For the Vermont State Housing Authority, the
cuts represent 14.4 percent of their Section 8
administration budget or $262,000.

The voucher cuts would have had a wide ranging effect.
Funding for the vouchers could have been cut by 12
percent, impacting more than 700 families in Vermont
and thousands more nationwide.

Vermont has almost 6,100 voucher holders, representing
almost 13,000 household members. The average voucher
payment nationwide is about $ 500. In Vermont, the
average voucher payment to landlords is $ 348, with
the average tenant contribution at $ 270.

Seventy percent of Vermont voucher holders have an
average income of $ 11,000 a year.

Roll Back The Rents, urges that the Public Housing
Agencies "roll back the rents on the landlords,"
rather than raise the rents on poor tenants where
funding shortfalls occur.

The funding shortfalls can be resolved by rolling back
the rents!

For Updates On The Section 8 Housing Voucher Crisis
And Other Tenant/Housing News, Join Roll Back the
Rents! Post Housing News From Your Area!

To Join, Just Send an e-mail to:
rollbacktherents-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

by Joe B.

Low Carbs & Women Friends

Years before the low Carbohydrate trend my mother began to eat hamburgers,chicken,tuna and other sandwiches minus the bread.

Most café’s, restaurants,and fast food people dread her coming but complied because few people asked or demanded no bread.

Now it seems to have caught on for when I asked for a low carb burger and chicken sandwich my surprise it’s without bread and is replaced with lettuce covering the meat or poultry with most of the condiments in between.

At first I’m thinking "What Happened to My Bread?" before realizing bread is a starch and mom’s been eating this way for years.

It takes time getting use to though it’s a healthier way of eating.

Speaking of healthy life style changes platonic relationships between men and women for me as a man is tricky for once we’re able to be ourselves minus the sex its easier to communicate.

My problem as with most guys is when being a true friend with a woman or women as we go through our lives to be careful when women ask questions of a personal nature.

It may not be about themselves and their relationships that’s touchy,dangerous territory because if you care more than its appropriate than a friendship you may cause more problems than solve.

Another thing, women don’t want you to come up with solutions,answers,or way to deal with their problems.

They just want you to listen; even if you know the answer you keep your own council until she really wants to hear it.

Even then she may not be psychologically ready.

Someone to talk,walk, tell secrets to knowing you will not betray that trust.

A platonic relationship is most difficult when your friend is in emotional turmoil especially before, during,and after break–ups it’s a precarious for two straight platonic friends either for the guy or woman to comfort each other.

That is,its alright to show you care,be strong for the other but never take advantage of the other’s vulnerable state.

In a few I’ve had to brake contact because it became to physical and a few time when too weak I admit my need plus another’s passion fueled a broken platonic relationship.

Though afterwards we remained friends our consummation beyond platonic friendship made us wary of ever being alone with each other.

Glad I learned this lesson long before moving to San Francisco.

Anyway, having a few platonic fem friends to other men and some women always seems gayish.

For women with either guys or gal pals no stigma’s attaches I guess because society is use to women being friends with males or females while guys are so called hard wired to get women in bed before thinking them friends.

My idea is make as many platonic girlfriends as possible.

Think nothing of it as you go on with your life.

Sometime,it may or may not take years but sooner than not one or more of your female friends will either think you of as gay.

[let her go,you’ve nothing to prove trying to prove otherwise weirdly proves her case against you true or not]

Your fem friends will discuss you in secret to each other and outside of your group.

Ever so subtly some will try easing out of the land of Platonia and into the Bad Lands of more-than- friend.

Face it guys,women as good P-friends works when one has lots of female friends who will find each other and talk about qualities that drew them to you.

Each will actively try do deliberately destroy their platonic relationship and as you blame yourself for being a weak,evil, sleaze ball of man.

Your sweat,nice feminine friends(at least some) will take turns having you.

Whoever gets you too the hallowed halls of matrimony has won out over her friends.

Pregnancy by eyedropper, test tube,or cloning doesn’t count though it’s called a family; you have next to the original. [the original is extended families]

So,guys with too many platonic women don’t worry they only want proof that sexless friendship with men minus being gay is possible and afterwards you’re a hunted male endangered species (a good man)

Me,I have to buildup girlfriends,show I’m a great platonic straight man without his horn aimed at them.

Know they can trust me when they’re alone at their most fragile emotive states.

It raises my self-esteem showing there is character and grace within.

My fuzzy math says out of 20 or more women a few are lesbian,BI sexual, asexual,and the rest regular straight women in or out of relationships but still wanting a male to hang with.

I figure out of the 20 or more females (bringing their friends to enlarge the network) at least 5 or 9 will begin rethinking their bargain – it’s a woman’s prerogative to change their minds.

I know this much about the ladies once they have something the way they absolutely want it or not they’ll want to change their minds because they can.

Their own libertarian standards will force ‘em to make a good straight guy who isn’t chasing,asking, begging,or trying seduction methods,who is not after them in anyway.

Wonder about him, himself they will in small ways tempt him and if he does not fall he’s labeled gay,odd,or strange.

If he falls under her spell he’s her tracked down trophy.

What do you think of platonic relationships?

Have you,either men/ women or other orientations in between been in a platonic relation and you or your friend broke it?


Please tell me by snail or email me questions or answers. (Joe)

Poor Magazine

1095 7th & Market Street,

S.F. Ca.94103

Snail or Email

Joe at:

PO Box #204

S.F. 94102

by DEE and Joshua McVeigh-Schultz/PNN

In October of 2003, wildfires raged across Southern California. Nearly 800,000 acres were destroyed causing upwards of $2 billion in damage. As winter approached, things seemed to be reaching apocalyptic proportions. Things got so bad in San Diego County that rats were eating cars.

That’s right. In February rats were running rampant through Rancho Bernardo—a community that lay just beyond the raging flames of the Cedar fire. The Union-Tribune reported that residents were complaining of rodents invading their homes and vehicles. Faith Halterman reported $1,500 in damage to her Honda Civic.

"It sounds comical, but it’s not, really. We were astonished at how much damage they could do," Halterman said.

No, nothing was comical about those rats in Rancho Bernardo, and nothing was comical about the devastation of Scripps Ranch some five miles away where hundreds of houses burned last October.

And nothing was comical about the 3,000-plus houses that were destroyed as the wildfires raged across five counties. A total of 20 people lost their lives and more than 100,000 people were displaced from their houses. Humans and animals alike were forced to relocate as their homes ignited.

One can hardly blame the rats for trying to escape incineration. But then… who is to blame for all that destruction?

Not Gray Davis, who begged Bush to declare a federal emergency in the dying forests of Southern California six months before the fires started. According to indymedia’s Mike Davis, "the diseased dead trees of the San Bernardinos have virtually no commercial value, and no wood products corporation was interested in removing them." So the White House delayed allocating any fuels reduction money where it was actually needed, because, according to M. Davis: "in reality it only wants to provide reactionary and politically powerful lumber companies with access to old-growth forests and millions of healthy trees"—trees which are few and far between in the Southern Californian landscape.

George Bush likes to blame the Southern California wildfires on environmentalists. According to Lisa Dix of the American Lands Alliance, republicans "blamed the fires on environmental appeals and litigation, which they claimed had caused ‘analysis paralysis.’ The corporate media fed public and political hysteria by showing dramatic footage of burning homes and calling for something to be done."

However, Dix explains that "in reality, no fuels reduction projects in southern California’s national forests had been held up by environmental appeals or litigation in the past three years. Fuel reduction projects had only been the subject of one administrative appeal in the last six years."

But the wildfires became an extremely useful political weapon for Republicans who wanted to rid themselves of those pesky environmentalists. On December 4th, 2003, President Bush signed the "Healthy Forest Restoration Act." He spoke after the ceremony, joined by firefighters who fought the Southern California blazes. Railing against "misguided forest policy," Bush argued that "a lot of people have been well intentioned. They saved the trees. But they lost the forest. We want to save the forest."

According to CNN "For three years, a deadlock in the Senate had prevented the passage of legislation [similar to the Healthy Forest Initiative]. But 15 raging fires driven by Santa Ana winds through Southern California prompted Democrats to compromise on the bill."

Perhaps the more useful question, then, is not "who is to blame?"… but rather, who has benefited?

In retrospect, last years wildfires triggered a breakthrough for Republicans trying to pass the Healthy Forest Initiative.

The Healthy Forest Initiative (HFI) was the first major stand-alone forest management legislation passed by congress since 1976. But it passed only after a heated and controversial debate with environmentalists staunchly opposed to its language.

According to Lisa Dix of the American Lands Alliance, "The Bush logging law undermines the bedrock environmental laws and changes the standards in which the federal judiciary reviews logging cases, tilting the balance to favor timber interests."

Dix argues that the new law is really a huge gift to the timber industry:

The new law allows projects up to 1,000 acres to be categorically excluded from all environmental review if the agencies claim that insects (including native insects) pose a threat to these forests. This has long been an excuse for inappropriate and illegal logging.

Since the commercial timber sales are a money loser for the federal treasury, the administration plans to pay logging companies in large commercially valuable trees instead of cash for their "services". The timber industry will now receive timber as their payment for building roads to cut down forests and if roads can’t be built, logging companies will be given a subsidy to cover the cost of removing trees by helicopter.

HFI’s purported rationale is to protect communities from forest fires by encouraging thinning. The official line is that public forests have become so dense that they are more or less catastrophes in waiting.

But Dix argues that the logic of the bill is deceptive. "While more than 85 percent of the communities that need fire-work done directly around them are on private, not public land, the bill focuses funds on remote public lands…. It is highly likely that homes will continue to burn due to the fact that agencies have no incentive to spend money to protect communities or even to prioritize this needed community protection work…. In fact, commercial logging and associated road building, activities known to increase the risk and severity of fire, [will] increase dramatically under the legislation thanks to the new powers granted to the USFS and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)."

Like many other current Bush administration bills, HFI utilizes a bizarre form of Orwellian doublespeak. As Dix puts it, HFI has no "substantive measures to protect forests and make them ‘healthy.’"

But if the bill was so obviously flawed, why did it pass so resoundingly through both the House and the Senate?

During initial stages of debate, with many Senators opposed the bill, and for months republicans were not able to overcome a filibuster. However, after backdoor deals with republican Senators, Tom Daschle (D-SD) urged the Senate to act on the legislation, thereby challenging the filibuster and offering a tremendous gift to the Bush administration.

But despite these moves, the bill continued to meet with opposition. As Dix puts it: "due to sustained public pressure, it appeared that the deal still would not get enough votes to break the filibuster in the Senate, and it remained stalled. In fact, it was highly likely that the deal would not have gained enough political support to pass the Senate—that is until Southern California started burning."

One of the ways that republicans were able to challenge opposition to HFI was by pitting environmentalists as scapegoats for the forest fires. The effect on the democratic Senators was dramatic. Daschle’s deal passed the Senate on October 30—two days after the fires began. The conference bill on HR.1904, which contained even fewer protections for old growth trees, passed on November 21. Then on December 3, Bush signed the HFI into law.

And with that, Bush finally made good on the $3.4 million the timber industry gave to his 2000 campaign.

The new law will affect forest policy in areas far beyond the wildfires of Southern California. Mark Rey, Bush’s chief architect for forest policy, has long wanted to go after the coveted forest reserves in Alaska. Rey’s connections to the timber industry are well documented. In a recent Rolling Stone article, Osha Gray describes his career before he became the undersecretary for national resources and the environment:

Before joining the Bush administration, Rey worked for two decades as a lobbyist for the timber industry, making it easier for his clients to cut down national forests. In the past four years, Rey’s old employers have given more than $11 million to Bush and other Republican candidates. International Paper contributed $2.1 million, Georgia-Pacific kicked in $863,000, Weyerhaeuser gave $666,000 and the American Forest and Paper Association donated $365,000.

Rey has done his best to repay the favor. In December 2001, only two months after taking office, he personally authorized a massive "salvage" timber sale in Bitterroot National Forest in Montana following a fire—sidestepping the normal process, which requires approval by a local forest supervisor and provides the public forty-five days to appeal the decision. A District Court judge halted the sale and chastised Rey for his "extralegal effort to circumvent the law."

But with the passage of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, such "extralegal efforts" will be effectively legal.

Editors note; Why is it said in every Corporate news broadcast, "heat wave expected to
Increase fire danger"?? And why is it Mexico which has a similar climate to California,
In many places, has very few large forest fires?
Could it be that Mexico has no money to pay the fire industry like we do in the United States?

by ABBY GOODNOUGH

MIAMI, May 18 - At 16, Yusimil Herrera won a suit against Florida's child welfare agency for churning her through foster homes where she said she was beaten, slapped, kicked and sexually abused from the time she was 2. At 19, Ms. Herrera, a plucky young woman with dark, thick curls, had not seen any of the $2.2 million jury award and had drifted in and out of homelessness.

On Sunday, Ms. Herrera, now 20, was arrested on charges of severely beating her own young daughter in their North Miami apartment. Eight months pregnant with her second baby, she stands accused of the same cruelty that plagued her own childhood and made her a compelling symbol of the system's deepest failings.

The police found Ms. Herrera's daughter, Angel Hope Herrera, 3, lying unresponsive in the hallway outside her mother's apartment Sunday afternoon, with black and blue marks on her stomach, chest, arms and legs, according to the police report. She was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced dead Tuesday afternoon, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Ms. Herrera, now charged with first-degree murder, was being held without bail at the Miami-Dade Women's Detention Center.

Peter Coats, a spokesman for the Department of Children and Family Services, said only that the department was "deeply saddened" by the "very tragic situation," that it was cooperating with the police investigation, and that he could not provide details of the case. But a state official said the agency's child abuse hot line had received two recent calls about Ms. Herrera - one in February, alleging that she had stopped taking medication for her bipolar disorder and another in March, alleging that she was hitting Angel.

The official said that in late March the agency asked Judge Sarah Zabel of Circuit Court for permission to take Angel into protective custody. But the judge rejected the request. A spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade Circuit Court declined to comment on the case.

Karen Gievers, the lawyer who represented Ms. Herrera in her lawsuit against the state, said in an interview that Angel was "a beautiful, healthy, happy" child despite her mother's hardships. She said that Ms. Herrera had recently married though was not living with her husband, and that she had appeared to be doing well when they last spoke in March.

"Nobody knows what she's been through," Ms. Gievers said of Ms. Herrera, who was placed in foster care at age 2 after her mother abandoned her and her older sister in a park, according to the suit. "She was beaten, sexually molested, battered with psychiatric medications that did who knows what to her brain. She was never given a complete education, never given independent-living skills classes that would have given her a smooth transition into adulthood. The state never gave her a family."

Minose Georges, who lives in the apartment next to Ms. Herrera's, said Tuesday that Ms. Herrera was extremely moody, did not get along with her daughter and rarely let her go outside.

"I saw her Saturday, like around 2 or 3, and she had blood all over her mouth," Ms. Georges, 22, said of Angel. She said that the child was telling her mother, "Mommy, I'm going to be good."

Ms. Georges said that when she asked about the blood, Ms. Herrera told her the girl had been biting her own lips. "Then she told Angel to wash her mouth," Ms. Georges said. "That's when Angel told me, 'I miss you, Minose.' "

According to the suit that Ms. Herrera and her sister filed in 1995, they were separated for most of the years they were in foster care, and Ms. Herrera was shuffled through 14 foster homes and institutions. The suit, in which the sisters were identified as "Two Forgotten Children," charged that the state had not done nearly enough to get the girls into good permanent homes or to prevent them from suffering abuse in unfit foster homes. Both were intermittently suicidal, it said.

"Nobody cares," the suit quoted Ms. Herrera as saying at 6, after being separated from her sister.

Ms. Gievers said that while a jury awarded each girl $2.2 million in 1999, four years after the suit was filed, an appeals court panel here overturned the verdict. Ms. Herrera settled with the Department of Children and Family Services last year, getting $260,000, Ms. Gievers said. But she ended up collecting only $80,000 after repaying the state for medical care she had received.

At a news conference sponsored by a children's advocacy group last June, Ms. Herrera spoke out about the difficulties that teenagers leaving foster care face. She criticized a new state law meant to help former foster care children succeed as young adults, saying it did not go far enough. She described attending eight high schools and said she had no job skills or home, according to an article about the news conference in The Sun-Sentinel.

The law, which required children to leave foster care at 18, provided a $900 monthly stipend to those who stayed in school and maintained good grades.

Gov. Jeb Bush has taken steps to improve the child welfare system, especially since a 4-year-old named Rilya Wilson vanished from her foster home near Miami in 2001. In particular, he has tried to reduce child abuse investigation backlogs and speed adoption of foster children.

"But we are still a long way from where we need to be," said Gerard Glynn, executive director of Florida's Children First!, the group that held the news conference last June. "So when we don't succeed with other efforts, we need to make sure we provide older foster youth with support to make sure they transition successfully into responsible adulthood. That was clearly missing in this case."

by Joe B.

POST FILM FREAK OUT

It’s late Thursday night;I’m going to store to get water for my thirsty boss around the corner, across the street.

The 100 year old Grant building has businesses and residents inside.

Again,I realize the boss has no way of knowing of my return from the store because there is no buzzer to the 3rd. Floor office building only two or three 3rd. Floor windows.

Could I be suffering from dehydration,lack of food or plain tired because when I round the corner before crossing the street I see a brother guy with the yellow receiver.

As I look contemplating if I had a small rock or pebble could it hit the window with enough force to make a noise without breaking the glass.

This guy in a wired voice asked
"what you looking at?"

"Third floor,looking a rock"

"I got rock."

That should’ve told me -back away-,go to the store.
"No,a rock for the third floor there's no buzz…"

"What you,here for why you starin’at me?"

"All I need is a pebble."

This guy is manic,mean he’s in some kinda hyper state and starts walking toward me.

"I said,what you lookin’ at?"
"I’m pointing to the third floor and suddenly realized this dudes 'not even listening.

Whatever demons he’s fighting,eats at him he’s focused on me he wants a violent confrontation.

Should I warn him of martial arts I know? (HELL NO)

He’s already freaked out.

I don’t know why,don’t care.(wanna tare his head off).

After buying the water, I still think I can hit the third floor window without cracking or breaking windows especially when spying a piece of wooden in the shape of a block.

I tried throwing it but it hit the second floor window instead.
The guy still by the phone yells,bitch,faggot, crossing the street.

I don’t know this guy's deal but I crossed the other way loudly saying
"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME! LEAVE ME ALONE,YOU ASSHOLE!."

I don’t know if he has knife,gun,stun gun all I know is he wants to get close.

My stomach had those fear flutters inside,the adrenaline fight or flight response.

Is he selling,buying,or using drugs,all of these?

All I know is he is paranoid about something I walk around the corner and become his focus to abuse verbally and physically; better the former than the latter.

The boss came down,I explained what happened and soon if I can I’ll get a key to the building.

As for Hyped Up,Crazed Fool Soul Brother Psycho Case.

I keep replaying the scene over and over and don’t see where I provoked this guy maybe the white sweater shirt ticked him off,I wore nothing underneath and do have adipose tissue (extra fat in chest area makes men'schest look like breasts).

It could’ve been my lazy left eye looking at him blindly as my right eye looked at third floor.

I don’t know but he had a look in his eyes that he wanted to stomp a mud hole in me for the hell of it.

I’ll have camera with flash plus a few sharp object up my sleeve’s and in my pocket because he didn’t get to finished what began namely beating me into a bloody pulp or blowing me away which is what ‘bro’s and sista’s do to ourselves these days.

Now I must buy film, another camera cause I don’t when Hyper Intense Guy Show up again.

I haven’t fought anyone in years,now I know why some ex soldier’s,martial artist’s,and mercenaries stay in shape because anywhere any time some stranger might pick a beef for no other reason than your in front of him.

All I know now is this guy’s made go into self defense/offence mode and staying fit as humanly possible even without equipment,gyms I’ve got the basics what must be done is brush up on them and continue,get to a fighting fit state and maintain it.

My model or the kind of shape I want to be in is from images of the old Greek God’s mainly Zeus. You know Son of Chronos, Thunderbolt hurling guy?

He’s sometimes pictured youthful or disguised as swan’s or bulls to seduce beautiful mortal women.

This guy thousands of years old,gray of hair, beard,and whiskers is buffed as any warrior no wonder Hercules looked so good and so strong look at his father and his forefather’s.

Thing is I want to rebuild my physique, keep in shape so when either young or older men, women want test me I’ll always be ready.

An extra-added benefit is looking really fit for an old guy and making women think twice about sex and elderly.

Young women love making fools of young guys,old guys to be may feel like physically testing old guys before laughing at them.

Problem is,these days elder men aren’t looking, acting like elders of old – it will take time for young and mature women to get use these fit,randy,ready, sensitive,and intelligent men of wealth of modest means.

I know women process faster than men[true]but do have certain societal blocks like "No sex with father,grand father figure, old guys dying after strenuous sex,or too old to get it up or in.

Mature women are finally getting’it from young men as old men has from younger women.

Now,maybe for the first time human’s young and old physiologically speaking can relax and know whatever age their man or woman are its a good thing.

A 70 year old men may live a longer,healthier lives as more young girls 21 or can now indulge their freak on with so called "old codgers" who very well out live them or their more mature sister’s.

It’s a new world girls, metrosexual males are not only looking good on the outside they are so actively working on preventing illness from robbing them of active years.

The Mature,older women thinking men as old fools with young girls should keep their own council as they too throb younger men’ cradle’s.

Now that’s what I call true equality among the sexes.

Any May/Dec.

Or visa versa happening? Write me of do’s don’t and joys and pain of these joining and who chose whom.


Poor Magazine

1095 7th & Market Street,

S.F. Ca.94103

Snail or Email

Joe at:

PO Box #204

S.F. 94102

by Staff Writer

Letter to PNN;

Hi, I am Pat LaMarche, Vice Presidential Candidate for the Greens

I was given your names by one of our supporters. I am
running for vice President of the US on the Green
Party ticket and I, (quite frankly) won't win. So we
have defined a new way of winning. For most of us,
the Green Party growing and ousting George Bush would
be enough... Frankly, I am quite happy with those two
outcomes...

In the mean time I want to do things to promote the
plight of the poor. I want to live in a different
shelter each night for 14 nights.... different states,
different kinds of shelters. i need help planning the
logistics. please write or call me to help me.

Signed, Pat LaMarche

Response from PNN co-editors;

Dear pat - thanks for contacting us - but you must know that as "poverty scholars" at POOR MAgazine/PNN we have some issues with that kind of "research"(i.e., living in shelters when you are not really homeless) as it smacks of ethnography and appropriated poverty, not to mention taking a bed away from someone who really needs it. We at POOR are all folks who have been homeless and /or are currently homeless - and our suggestion is, maybe you could use your "name" and press attention to actually support some of the existing non-profits and folks like POOR Magazine and The Coalition on Homelessness who are fighting to stay alive due to the Bush/Cheny corporation.. budget cuts, and their policies' affect on private foundations and lets not forget Schwarznegger et al. As well there are tons of folks on the brink of homelessness cause of the sec 8 program being slaughtered since 2000 ( and previous HUD policies )while all the money is stolen and funneled into the homeland (in)security program. Finally, we appreciate that you are even talking about homelessness at all but perhaps try a different road - i am attaching some links of our recent articles and our Poverty texts to give you some knowledge and further poverty scholarship

In solidarity - tiny@POOR

Response from staff writer Joseph Bolden (POOR/PNN)

Dear Ms. P. LaMarche,Vice Presidential Candidate,Green Party.

As for your idea of staying in 14 Shelter's in 14 weeks... 'um I don't think so.
As a previous shelter resident I believe it is Better to talk to those you know in your or nearby neighborhood(s)
Invite them into your house (a lot of us are decently dressed though others because they've been beaten down,sick,sleep outside and are more shabby looking. We all have stories to tell.

Joseph,Bolden

Poor Magazine Staff Writer

Final Response by Pat LaMarche

Thank you for responding to my requests. I apologize
for not being very clear. I don't want to visit and
stay at shelters as 'research'. I have volunteered
for more than 8 years at one here in Maine. I want to
stay there so the press will follow me and get the
issue additional publicity. We are also going to ask
for donations for the shelters during the tour.

Thank you for sending me the list of articles. I
appreciate you getting back to me.

Best of luck to you all.
Pat

Final Response from PNN co-editors

Dear pat - so i am thrilled that you work at a shelter and i am sure that you have dealt with budget woes in respect to that shelter- but in this area and in many cities including NYC, the shelter system is run like a jail and in fact because housing budgets have been gutted by budget cuts and poverty pimps making huge grants to build jails and shelters- it becomes the only way poor people are housed at all - the whole mess began with guiliani and then locally in SF with Newsom who based his mayoral campaign on the backs of homeless folks - So perhaps, instead of just trying to get funding for jail-like housing, i.e., shelters and perpetuating those lies - perhaps you could spend some of the time at the agencies like Coalition on Homelessness and POOR who have lost all their funding and/or protest the offices of HUD who have gutted their budgets and continue to threaten more families with homelessness- Finally, below is some info re
gavin newsome campaign and the shelter system in SF-

tiny

by Tiny/PNN

"Since Bush has been in office I have had to work 50-60 hours per week to help my daughters and sons raise their children," Words of knowledge poured out of the mouth of Dorothy Harris as she spoke at a hearing on Saturday, May 22nd on the state of welfare in light of the severe budget cuts facing California and the nation in 2004, she ended with the poignant, "They are trying to break our spirit, I won't let them break our spirit.."

As Ms. Harris spoke the bitter truth to representatives of John Burton, Jacki Spear and Nancy Pelosi who were present on this cloudy Saturday morning to listen to the concerns of the community, tears filled my eyes. My son was squealing in the background and I had to bring him with me today because I, as a very low-income working mother, and former welfare recipient couldn't afford child care, rent or much of anything else for that matter and in many ways Ms. Harris, a hard-working mother and grandmother spoke for all of the poor mothers in the room.

"The state of welfare today is dismal at best, how much more can you take from someone that doesn't have anything? " Marie Harrison, activist, writer and mother who moderated the event, summed up the pervasive feeling of the day, " Somebody has got to answer that question - and these politicians need to stop sending their aides and come themselves so we can actually get the people who make a difference to be accountable to the people who put them in office

The event was called to revisit what those of us on welfare call Welfare (de)Reform, and the impact that the Governors budget cuts will have on the already horrible situation of welfare for poor families including reducing basic cash grants, cuts to child only aid given to families who have been sanctioned or timed off, and for many, the worst cuts of all, cuts to the already meager child care subsidies.

After a short introduction from event organizers John Wilson and Bianca Henry from the Family Rights and Dignity project of the Coalition on Homelessness, Marie introduced the panel of aides who showed up to speak to the crowd beginning with Sharon Johnson from Senator John Burton's office, " Before I get started I want you all to know, in 1975 I found myself divorced with 5 children and had to enroll in AFDC, now look at me, if you raise your voices like you are doing today anything is possible", Ms. Johnson went on to explain that when the governor rolled back the vehicle license fee the counties budgets were severely harmed and that those funds haven't been replaced. She also tried to give us a view of Senator Burton's view on the current situation facing Calworks "Calworks is one of John's biggest concerns in the budget, and there is one thing that you can count on him to work on, that there will not be a budget that is balanced on the back of the poor, seniors, and disabled - and even though Schwarzenegger is rather obsessed with getting the budget out on time He (John) believes it would be more important to pass a credible budget rather than a budget on june 15th.

Dan Bernal - deputy district supervisor for Nancy Pelosi related the fact that there is a Republican congressman from California, by the name of Wally Herberg in control of the welfare reform reauthorization who proposes changes that would increase the number of welfare recipients that would be forced into work activities if the counties caseload doesn't decrease, but in the tradition of other republican mandates doesn't include any extra funding for increased costs to do that, as opposed to Democrats who are proposing changes like employment credits that would reward the states for moving people off welfare into real living wage jobs. He ended with a quote from Pelosi "until we provide people with economic opportunity to lift people out of poverty welfare reform is doomed to fail."

Paula likens from senator Jacki Spears office explained the budget process and how the Governors May revisions still need to go to the assembly and senate to be passed and that we as conscious and impacted citizens have the unique opportunity to get our voices heard by contacting legislators in Sacramento by phone, email, write and letting them how this budget is going to affect you. She ended with a statement by Ms. Spiers, " I will not abandon women, children and low income families, I will not allow the forces in sacramento to put the interests of prison guards over the interests of families.."

Julie Brown from People Organized to Win Employment Rights informed us of a pending lawsuit in San Francisco, demanding a living wage for Calworks training and workfare payments and how that is currently being fought in the courts as well as her dissatisfaction with our "democratic" mayor Newsom's approach to local welfare and poverty policy.

The statements by the representatives were followed by several poor mothers relating scholarship on issues ranging from the illogic of spending more money on the prison industrial complex rather than the support of poor families to the overspending by Child Protective Services for the taking of children from families rather than the restoring of families. At which point Marie reiterated a crucial point, " Let's be clear what we are hearing from these representatives today, "San Francisco will not win this ourselves, we have to reach out to our friends, family and legislators all across California and just as important we have to hold these politicians accountable for all their promises.

For more information on the family rights and dignity project call (415) 346-3740.

by Joe B.

Platonic Overkill

Most relationships with women for me has been as a third wheel when they get a new guy friend I’m told immediately.

From their first giddy giggle,worry about being called,or suspicion of being two timed I’m the one being turned to I found out later I have become straight guy/girlfriend sending out G-energy each time I’m there to listen, talk,or for a safe non sex sleep over.

Women have the best of both world’s a guy who isn’t gay yet will go shopping,tell her she truly,beautiful and know because they've bonded sex with him is non existent if not impossible.

My last one really had me going through fascination,lust,pals,to deep friendship,and of course relationship brake ups.

For some insane reason I stop taking her side,took the guys side of the points and really damaged our relationship I thought for good.

I metaphorically dug my claws into her emotional side and the way she treated past,current, and ex boyfriends.

I believe part of it was unconscious pushing, tarring,at the fabric, micro rips of the seams of our bonds.

Knowing parts of her past,she knowing bits of mine we didn’t talk to each other until I realized its way too late for me to be seen as lover and friend only "highly prized friend."

I don’t apologize well and don’t like doing other people’s dishes or sleep over with no sex but the woman has at times help me see as women do,been kind, even motherly when I was ill forcing me to get something eat paying for the meal.

She has also shown me her naked soul at its most raw and vulnerable.

I no longer fought the truth:we may be life long friends but never lovers.

I’ll never be seen as an object of affection as she was to me.

At work,doing little but net surfing thinking about my wayward friends traipsing across the continent,country,to other cities meeting,turning down men,while keeping touch with me in different time zones I’m actually glad she’s free of everyone including me.

Men can be (poison pills)at times.

On the net was a site called love sift,love sucks,or something and some of it was about platonic love with all kinds of funny to sad horror stories about men and women in this pure love sexless realm and from them I have solution.

I know there must have been real lust,love,and longing for my friend for me to feel such anger, pain,and frustration.

The site or one of the online writers’s says "Get more platonic girlfriends.

Another suggestion is after dating lots of women, find one,settle down,get married,but before you do call all your fem friends and be really enthused about it.

Tell them about dating and how you finally found the right girl that you still value their friendship.

Of course you must invite them to the wedding.

You’ll won’t know for awhile after you put the phone down that all your P-Women friends will be calling each other talking about you "The good friend that got away" because all of them wanted to keep it platonic,safe, without sex messing up their friendship.

I thought about it but in my case it won’t matter much my lady friend is a savvy,sexy,sensual, sensitive,politically aware,strikingly pretty young woman with beau’s current,and ex’s panting over her.

Though I will always be her No. 1 fan,trusted friend,confidant,father confessor,spiritually we both have each other’s back we’re just not physically entwined.

One terrifying fact I found out speaking of sex’s physical aspect is that some younger women cannot stand more that 30 or 45 minutes of love making (excluding foreplay).

While I’ve been taught by women f-play ‘n stay until they’re done even they’re on the phone to stay in ‘uh with her.

Maybe she and I are physically incompatible if not size then length of physical exercise but she and I will never know.

Besides for me with age comes wisdom she might be to much for me or I her its all moot now.

She is a really good friend throwing sex in the mix could ruin it.

I do understand,gain a lover loses a friend.

My best option is having lots more fem friends so many that a few will be tempted to break it.

You know the old saying a woman is never satisfied.

I say give her what she wants while finding other women who want to be bedded daily and often,let fem friends fume,and they won’t be able to argue because its their rules.

When you end up taking out if not dating more fem friends than new women pretty soon they’ll break their own rules if not there are lots of women who’ll take you off their sister’s hands for a while.

It’s a win-win scenario, your just being a good guy with lots of female friends.

That’s my plan ‘cause my fem friend doesn’t see me sexually as I do her so its time to embrace reality,let the painful fantasy go.

I don’t want to dream about her anymore.(Ok, sometimes) but its rare these days.

Please send contributions
(M.O.'s with lots of zero's to Poor Magazine.

1095 7th & Market Street,

S.F. Ca.94103

For the odd "acidental" topless color photo'n phone,address(Women only) also M.O.'s (hey,I work at P-M-I that's it.

Snail or Email

Joe at:
1230
PO Box #204

S.F.,Ca. 94102

by FCC, Public Access Pt. 2

Public Access’s Future P2.

Ms. Ana,Realini, Membership Coordinator, T.J.,Mr.
[my apologies to Ms. Realini of Media Alliance, and readers for errors in reporting.]

Williams and myself along with other people of the overflow crowd.

Three members of the FCC,owners of mainstream, alternative,independent media,and well know radio personalities are on the panel looking a diverse group of folks.

My mini-recorder works but not from where I was sitting.

First many owner/ operators spoke of localism losing ground being bought out or by Clear Channel, Disney (which owns Warner Brother’s as an example).

It is decided the discussion is so lively, important,that frequent breaks are out.

Thundering Applause for two FCC members and Radio DJ personality Mr. Davy D.

"I’ve worked in radio close to 15 years… [Pieces of Mr. Davy D’s introduction missing] and probably one of the most influential radio stations in the country,which is KMEL,which is a Clear Channel Affiliate.

With that being said a few things I want you to keep in mind-Radio, generally speaking is very apt at doing what we call smoke and mirrors in the business.

That means that the images we present and image,make it sound good at selling things,crunching numbers,and painting this picture that really achieves our end.

The thing that we depend upon collectively speaking is the fact that the average person doesn’t really know what goes on behind the scenes.

The type of manipulation that takes place,all the types of games that’s played,to really paint this picture – that being said, what happens is… You have few DJ’s like myself speaking out…" There’s this whole question about localism is motivated by an economic agenda,or is it really a sincere,genuine concern what the local community needs?"

Even if they as owners disagree with that and that’s where the real question comes in.

So we have to keep that in mind-the other thing that happens is when we forget to do all the smoke and mirrors – that all these changes that we’re talking about even if you can find radio stations that can show these examples their not institutionalized.

So you know you can point to all across the country and say "good DJ’s at this station,he showed all the public love for us, oh that radio station,they did a nice thing for us, they did a concert and all that,but it isn’t institutionalized."

What happens if that local DJ who doing the favor you all doesn’t like you?

What happens if the radio station that owns 12th and Marked decides that they don’t feel your organization cause you were organizing and doing all the activism work resulted in these types of hearings?

You might not be on the airways;you won’t have access to the public.

So you have to have these things institutionalized – it might not be a radio station doing you a favor.

Mr. D. spoke at length on how many DJ’s are intimidated, and many lesser know were fired from their jobs or otherwise punished for views that are politically volatile at the time.

My eyelids feel heavy each fold its weight is felt.

Davy D. continues "All the time radio plays this winner take all mentality…"

Many parts of his speech are missed.

Before he has to leave I did a quick interview (finally,I’m interviewing not being the interviewee).

Before the interview there’s a bathroom break, orange cards with numbers for those want part public comment. Part of this open forum.

Many more voices from small,large,radio station owners,DJ’s,and average citizens too much for me transcribe all voices so Mr. Davy D’s the one I hoped to speak if only for 2 minutes.

Outside the conference, still inside the building, on the mainly blue carpet press and regular folks surround Mr. D. I had to swoop in fast,get some words from him and vanish before he vanished.

There's a personal motive,a question I must ask.

"Name is Joseph Bolden, Poor Magazine,I’m trying to break into voice over work.

Do I have to go through the same kind of crap that everybody’s going through just to…"

Davy D.-"I don’t know what you have to with voice over,I mean people that I’ve worked with that do ‘em, they do they’re own, and then they create a whole package find out a way to present their wares and tares to other people.

I think in this stage of the game;unless you have something about you and people know you its very doubtful…"
J.B.- "Its very not what you know but who you know all through the game."

Thank you very much."
Oh well,I’ve done it before tried new things some worked some didn’t.

Ms. Ana,still in her white angel gown and aluminum foil halo tells me "you have a ride to San Francisco if I go now."

I want to drive back with the group I came with but after finding T.J., knowing Ana of Media Alliance would be a the conference until it closed.

I catch my ride home hoping T.J. rode back with Ana and Mr. Williams.

I couldn’t keep eyes open in the back seat as the three friends talked of FCC,the upcoming election, though we did speak of flying cars,some economics.

Its 1:45, my phone is blinking,answer machine showing numbers of calls, didn’t know if was a girlfriend singular or plural,parent,job,or anyone else didn’t care.

I strip, pray, thinking it was a really long day, then sleep.


1095 7th & Market Street,

S.F. Ca.94103

also M.O.'s (hey, I work at P-M-I that's it.

Snail or Email

Joe at:
1230
PO Box #204

S.F.,Ca. 94102

by Iris Biblowitz (c/o Michael Lyon)

Dear Joan Ryan:

Your columns give me hope that you will write a balanced account of a
complicated story: how cuts to public health will affect vulnerable
San Franciscans.

The public face of Mayor Newsom's budget is one of minor
inconveniences and shared but manageable pain for all. This is not
true. Please investigate and publicize the details of the devastating
effects budget cuts to the Department of Public Health (DPH) will have
on our community, especially people who are homeless, poor, and
undocumented.

All the neighborhood clinics are being cut. Attached below is a fact
sheet specifically about Tom Waddell Clinic, a block from City Hall,
where I work as a nurse. Tom Waddell Clinic sees about 70,000 patients
a year. They are divided among urgent care, primary care, and
community sites such as shelters, hotels, and the Day Labor Program.

We are the main clinic for people who are homeless, and our urgent
care clinic functions like a small emergency room. Open six days a
week, it is a huge safety net for the entire city, especially for the
most marginalized, vulnerable people. Urgent care at Tom Waddell also
provides a more cost-effective alternative to the swamped ER at San
Francisco General Hospital.

There is so much PR around Care Not Cash, but we are the frontline
clinic that serves people who are homeless, and DPH Director Dr. Mitch
Katz has proposed completely cutting urgent care at Tom Waddell and
severely diminishing our ability to give care in our primary care
clinics. These cuts will lead to more than simply minor
inconveniences.

We're one of the main entry points for patients to get into detox. How
will they get into these programs now? Many of our patients have major
mental health problems. How will they navigate the system? Who will do
all the TB and STD screenings now performed at Tom Waddell? Our clinic
does critical outreach for the HIV, homeless, and transgender
communities.

All this translates into not only decimating care for the poorest
people in San Francisco but also into creating great risks to public
health in general. Many of our patients would have gone without care
and died were it not for our urgent care clinic.

The reporting about DPH cuts has given the impression that
neighborhood clinics would remain intact and that cuts would mostly
affect administration. Many nurses will be cut, and clinics throughout
the city will be in tatters. Please help us get the truth out.

I hope you will contact me and some of my coworkers. I can give you
names and contact information. Thank you for your patience in reading
this long letter.

Sincerely,

Iris Biblowitz, RN

415/285-4536

c/o ftaylor@cmp.com

by Joe B.

War‘Prez? Not In 2005

"If this were a dictatorship,it’d be a heck of a lot easier,just as long as I’m the dictator."

George Bush Jr. Dec. 18, 2000.

He was joking but now in 2004 it sends a chilling message.

Now,he floats a thought balloon about suspending the election because of possible terrorist threats?

Thanks to [q2112.com] For Open Minded Readers
As Comedian Mr. Gilbert Gottfried of MTV’s I love the ‘80’s says,"What the F_ _K was he thinking? We’ve had War President’s before

Select President Bush Jr. made war,now he seeks to use it as way to stay in power without being voted in. He wasn't voted in by the people in 2000.

American people didn't vote Bush in office the Supreme Court did.

This is a faux war President who began the war and now wants to use it to suspend elections!

Vote Bush Jr. and his cronies out,we didn't get to vote him but we sure can get him out.

Folks,we must rid ourselves of this guy quick,get rid of all of ‘em minus election machines that can be altered, reprogrammed or other wised tampered with.

Another thing lets not muck around amending the constitution to ban gay marriages.

This is way the founding father,mother’s too wanted a separation of Church and State.

Just ‘cause President Bush Jr. has qualms about gay men,women,marrying, raising children with dogs along with obligatory picket fence and apartment, house,or ranch home shouldn’t have ban laws discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

Thers not much more I can say as a slightly visually impaired straight Black man living in San Francisco’s Market Street, also in a low paid non profit outfit to boot my sex life is on and off but I have one.

It doesn’t mean I want gay folks to stay in the closet, stay unmarried-no you work hard,earn paychecks,and should if your blessed enough to find your other have and want to make and honest couple out each other there should be no laws barring that.

Its just human for any two people to take the ultimate trip of life long partnership.

As for the bible, church law,mortal,venial,sins its all human made therefore fallible.

Remember churches loved the Dark Ages, keeping knowledge,men,women, children,under their thumb they miss the power it seems Bush Jr. and others want some of those days back but gone are those days forever.

Whatever your beliefs voice your views.



Please send contributions
(M.O.'s with lots of zero's to Poor Magazine.

1095 7th & Market Street,

S.F. Ca.94103

For the odd "acidental" topless color photo'n phone,address(Women only) also M.O.'s (hey,I work at P-M-I that's it.

Snail or Email

Joe at:
1230
PO Box #204

S.F.,Ca. 94102

by Tiny and Joseph Bolden

Over 200 poor people, mostly Black, redlined out of property and
>business ownership, shot at, harassed and profiled by cops and private
>security, homeless due to illegal evictions, condo conversions,
>demolitions, redevelopment and wide-spread gentrification, denied jobs,
>drug treatment, and mental health services stood together in San
>Francisco city hall plaza.. the first gathering of an all out class war?
>No. Just a peaceful barbeque.

A barbeque in resistance. In resistance to the implementation of one of
>the most flagrantly racist and classist legislations to come around in
>San Francisco for a long time; Care Not Cash aka Gavin Newsoms mayoral
>platform.
>

Modeled on the Rudy Giuliani/New York program - which effectively makes
>it illegal to be alive without a home and makes you pay for your shelter
>bed- instituting slave labor programs (i.e. workfare) sanctioned by the
>Welfare departments which have you work everyday just to make enough to
>pay for the shelter bed, your food and your "utilities". Care Not Cash
>lays the groundwork for Homelessness in the 21st century; the
>privatized, shelter. Government grants, private money and the sweat of
>the poor mix to create the ultimate cash cow for huge poverty pimps and
>developers; aka the modern day pauper's prison
>

"They are trying to starve poor people and people of color out of San
>Francisco - we got to fight to maintain the Bayview, the Tenderloin, the
>Fillmore, the Mission, the people who built the wealth of this city.
>

Listening to the scholarship of Julie Brown a member of People Organized
>to Win Employment Rights (POWER). I reflected on the almost two years
>and 200 or more protests, actions, committee meetings, hearings and
>finally a lawsuit challenging the legality of Care Not Cash, which
>delayed its implementation for several months. Last week the legal
>challenge was overturned by another court, giving the go ahead for our
>new mayor and the Department of Human Services to go forward with this
>dreaded legislation. Julie continued "We got to take back city Hall from
>this rich kid. The Getty's don't know what people need."
>

"If Newsom was homeless he wouldn't do this to his family," Naomi, also
>from POWER shouted angrily into PNN's mike
>

On this warm day in May, POOR staff stood in a line with all the other
>powerful poor folks waiting for our share of a tasty barbeque outside
>San Francisco City Hall. The event was organized by houseless folks and
>advocates to once again make it known that we are resisting the lies put
>out by Department of human Services, the Mayors office and the
>mainstream media (see SF Chronicle May 4, front page) As we stood there
>we pondered the concerted effort by Willies' boy Newsom to effectively
>get all the poor folks out of San Francisco.
>

"Displacement is a big part of Care not Cash - they are talking about
>outreach teams. Every mayor for the last twenty years has talked about
>outreach teams., why should those displace all the people who have
>followed the rules, worked through the system and are now in line for
>their housing, which is what this will do, just to make this mayors
>outreach team idea look good," LS Wilson from the Coalition on
>Homelessness detailed the specifics of the implementation.
>

And just as LS stated when this reporter attended the Press conference
>put on by the mayor's office that same day at the Greystone Hotel. We
>were told by one of the mayors press folks, " that (Care not Cash) will
>help homeless people because it will make housing available and
>treatment services in outreach teams"
>

In fact, as all of us dealing with the shelter system know, this
>legislation will do nothing to make more housing available, but in fact,
>just move the same meager homeless funds around, and make life more
>miserable for folks like Po poet A. Fay Hicks who reports in her last
>piece of poetryjournalism on poornewsnetwork; Barricades at the Door,
>with million dollar fingerprint imaging machines installed and
>complicated registration processes to catch the criminals of poverty if
>they dare to..?
>

Later in the day some brave warriors for the cause of economic justice
>created a civil disobedience in the mayors office demanding real
>solutions to homelessness rather than fake politician propaganda spins.
>They were arrested and released, vowing to keep up the fight.
>

As the sun bore down on our hungry bodies, a tall African descendent man
>who called himself Kelly, stood behind us in line and summed up our
>collective frustration "The man was born with a silver spoon in his
>mouth, he hates black folks, poor white folks and all folks don't have
>money, he's tryin to push everyone away.. and it jus aint right."
>