Story Archives 2000

by Marlon Crump, QUeennandi, RAM /PNN

I am tired of being a slave. A slave that has to work with a broken body that’s sacrificed

Just to put food on the table.

A slave who had to lay to rest a demised family, disrespected by tha world

Gone forever without justice.

I am tired of being a slave to the kourt Sssystem, where my terrible cries for help falls upon deaf ears

Life tampered with and tortured before leaving out, laughed at and ridiculed.

As my rights are stripped from me easily, like a loose fitting garment.

If I can’t protect myself and my family, WHAT AM I? WHO AM I? Nothing but a empty shell existing for profit, robbed of something that takes a LIFETIME to restore-


MY WOMANHOOD!


Don’t I sound like a female slave, captured centuries ago??? And they said HERSTORY doesn’t repeat itself…

I am tired of being a slave, who at 7 months pregnant was beaten by officers Miller and Shea…

If there were no witnesses, I’d be dead in my grave.

IS THIS THE LAND THAT THE LORD HAVE MADE?

Shot dead was my unarmed neighbor just the other day. Now Oscar Grant lies beside him in a King’s marked grave…

But… ALL THE UNJUST SPIRITS SHALL RISE!!! To tell their stories through US!

POSSESS MY VESSEL!!! I am tired of being a slave… I just want to be!!!


QUEENNANDI09- ALL POWER!!!

by Nube FC

Scroll down for English

Sobre el sonido de differentes voces, realize mi identidad, soy raza, queer, indigena, y migrante pero estoy muy conectado con todas otras luchas. Fue un domingo en la tarde y hubo una llamada para la unidad de gente queer y gente que es assosiada con nosotros. La junta fue acerca de la muerte de un joven Puerto Riqueno que fue asesinado y brutalizado por un crimen de odio en Puerto Rico; discussiones, enojo, coraje, tristesa, fuerza, y fe estuvieron presente cuando nos juntamos y conmemoramos la lucha de gente queer de color en el cuarto pequeno para planear una vigilia el domingo.

La semana de la vigilia, Domingo 22, siguio con un dia fuerte en el east bay que seria capturada y recordada por la collectiv@ y fuerza de gente increible y companer@s en solidaridad retomando el dia con amor y lucha. La apertura fue presentada por un Abuel@ Apache (Mescalero) y Huichol llamado Benny, un residente, organizador de la communidad, y una persona indigena en la area de la Bahia. La apertura de la ceremonia abrio lo que fuera un dia increible de lecciones de defensa personal, experiensas, y memoriales para differente gente de la communidad que habian muerto por acciones de odio contra gente queer (lgbtiqq).

Cultivando estas experiensias y reflecionando estas battallas llamo a mucha gente queer en la area de la bahia, para discutir los temas. Un problema que fue presentado fue la criminalizacion y que encarselar a la gente no es sufficiente para parar las acciones de odio. Nuestra combinacion de identidad como gente queer, gente trans, gente pobre, gente de color, y otras cosas fueron causas por la que el joven Jorge fue assesinado por homofobia. Todas estas cosas que pasan en nuestra sociedad desde la musica hasta el medio es causa por la cual vivimos en estas condiciones, que hace que la identidad de un hombre blanco que es gay sea la unica forma de identificar a gente queer en esta sociedad. Por esta razon no podemos contar en el sistema judicio para terminar y resolver estos hechos de odio y muertes. Necesitamos cambiar con entendimiento de esto y presentarlos a nuestr@s communidades. Es acaso que traer mas policia, legislasion y encarlamiento es suficiente?

Esta demonstracion de solidaridad trajo muchas propuestas de resistencia. Una de ellas fue que porque vivimos en un systema transfobico y misonogista, la justicia criminal solo es una parte y forma que crea oppression. Este pasado Domingo 22 trajo solidaridad y resistensia con gente de la East Bay y con mucha gente de los estados unidos, atrallendo communidades y movimientos juntos.

Este evento represento la lucha que ha formado por cientos de anos entre gente queer, gente de color, gente pobre, y otr@s. Nuestra liberacion esta basada en solidaridad, fuerza, esperanza, y inspiracion atraves de fronteras y luchas. Y esta vigilia represento el principio de unidad y accion con la gente que apoyo la vigilia.

Ingles sigue

Through the sounds of different voices, I realized I am brown, queer, indigenous, and a migrant, but I am united among struggles. It was late afternoon and there was a call for unity amongst queer folks and allies. The meeting dealt with the direct action as a response of the death of a young Puerto Rican kid who was brutally mutilated and killed because of a transphobic hate crime in Puerto Rico; discussion, anger, rage, sadness, strength, and faith resided while we gathered and commemorated the struggle of queers of color and queers in general in the small room in order to bring forth a vigil that would lead to rememberance and resistencia.

The week of the vigil, Sunday the 22nd, took forth as a day when the east bay would remember and capture the collective force of amazing queer folk and allies taking back the day with love and “lucha” (fighting back). The opening was presented by an Apache (Mescalero) and Huichol Elder named Benny, long time resident, community organizer, and indigenous ceremonial person in the Bay Area. The beginning of the ceremony opened what would be an amazing day of self defense lessons, experiences, memorials for different community folk who have past away from this battle, and unity amongst the east bay.

Cultivating these experiences, and reflecting on the struggles presented to queers in the bay brought many discussions to be talked on. One of them is the problem that incarceration and criminalization are not good enough. Our combinations of identity as queer people, trans people, poor people, people of color, and other things that have singled out Jorge as targets of homophobia are presented to us in everyday matter, from mainstream music to a socialized, “white male” gay identity; because of this we can not rely on the judicial system to be an end to these hate crimes and murders. We need a real change strating with awareness of these hate crimes that present themselves to our communities. Does increased policing, legislation, and imprisonment feel like justice?

This demonstration of solidarity brought many statements of resistance. One of them being that because of this transphobic misogynistic system we live in, criminal justice is just one of the tools that creates systems of oppression. That is why Sunday the 22nd brought a day of solidarity and resistance amongst east bay people and around the united states, bridging communities and movements alike.

This event represented struggle that has taken part for hundreds of years amongst queers, people of color, poor folks, and others. Our self determination is based on solidarity, strength, hope, and inspiration across borders and struggles. This vigil represented the beginning of unity and action amongst those presented.

by Staff Writer

FCC’S 1 VOICE RADIO

Almost got away but a rare assignment is given to me.
Cover FCC’s [Federal Communication Commission]

On Thursday, Sept. 4,2003.

Folks, roving around media giants isn’t my cup ‘o Java however a Ms. Tejel a new intern was also to be there learn the who, what, when, why, and how at this "STOP MEDIA MONOPOLY – 9/4 NAT’L DAY OF ACTIONS.

After going in the wrong direction by bus, correcting it making it to 855 Battery Street at Broadway located Down town where KPIX-TV(5), KGO-TV, Fox News, and Alice 97.3.

With my wrong way mind-map corrected I quickly walked down side by side with a woman wearing black slacks and a black T shirt and pink lettering its peace/women’s symbol mix I hadn’t noticed.

Independent media’s Network Against Dis-information, CodePink, Media Alliance, Poor Magazine, Global Exchange, along with other Organizations in this joint effort.

I’m wondering if I could figure out ways to leave the Americas visit Cuba, The Amazon, The Yucatan, Egypt, Ireland, Cancun, or other places I have never been before.
Those are dreams for another lets resume to media.

Its only a few minutes later. An energy being in young women’s clothes showed up minutes after I arrived ready for things to start.

Where is everyone?" Ms. Tajel asked me looking around her up, down, and across the street.

"There surrounded, I say to her talking about all the alternative media compared to mainstream media who’s vans and people are about with mikes, camera, and satellite hookups.

Angela Boffa,(?) a man named Jeff had some chants after Tajel took some photo’s and began furiously jotting down notes.

"Half A Story, half a lie, Fox ignores the People Die."
"Disney, You Don’t speak for me deregulation…" I forget the rest, and Fox News, should feel shame, War Is Not A Video Game." There's more but I don’t write fast and walking slows me down more but Ms. Angela B’s voice is breaking.

We walked to ABC, you know the one owned by a 3 foot rat which is what I tell Tajel which really scares children when confronted with the sight.

We leave, I’m slightly lost that’s ok except Tajel, this energized mite threatens me with bodily harm if I cannot find BART for her. Did I hear Klingon in her voice?

Finding Battery Street bart is found at Montgomery. Entering the train station her ridges recedes back to a normal forehead on second thought I didn’t see that is all in my tired enfeebled brain.

Taking a bus towards 7 & 6th streets my jobs done, I’m
home.

Donations C/0 Poor Magazine

1448 Pine Street #205

San Francisco, CA 94103

Email: askjoe@poormagazine.org

by Picture the Homeless

by Gordon Hilgers/PNN Texas Correspondent (Endless Choices)

It wasn't all that difficult to see that sooner or later Santana from Havana, as he called himself, was going to get into trouble with the people who ran the homeless shelter where he lived. It couldn't have been more than a week from the time that I met this wide-smiled, homeless man that I first noticed the problems he was causing. I really hadn't noticed that there was all that much wrong with the guy.

Of course, I treasure my eccentric acquaintances. It doesn't bother me if one of my friends seems a little off the rim, or seems to be operating a couple of French fries short of a Happy Meal; mainly because some of the most accomplished people I know—artists and poets in Dallas' burgeoning creative community—could, with a push and a shove, look quite a bit like Santana from Havana at his very best. Or worst. Judgments like these depend upon how you look at these human aspects of God's own best judgment.

Like many who suffer from depression, I have trouble sleeping soundly. Sometimes I'll wake up in darkness, fully awake. But if I'm patient with my own behavior, I know I can relax and let the once-disorderly aberration of the norm slip by as I slide back into oblivion. This particular night, however, the night Santana's disease revealed itself to me, I rose up off my cot, wended my way through a literal sea of sleeping men and pulled up a chair in the shelter's smoking area. It was there that I found Santana from Havana, holding court, if you will.

Since it was late, and dark, most others at the huge round table sat quietly, half-asleep, the majority sucking on roll-up cigarettes, each one alone with his own aching thoughts. But Santana was neither smoking nor keeping to himself. Instead, as he fractiously sorted through hundreds of wrinkled and dog-eared papers, he seemed to be acting. Indeed, Santana was conducting a private theatre of the absurd and talking louder than necessary, doing his stand-up routine from a sitting position. If he caught you listening, he'd start gesticulating more eloquently than the conductor of the New York Philharmonic would.

"What's up, Santana? Besides you?" I asked.

"Man! I was thinking of that monster movie on TV tonight. I used to just love them monster movies. I used to watch monster movies all the time when I was a kid in Los Angeles. I'd get so scared I left the room. But I always came back," he answered.

"Me, too," I replied. "I used to sit in the front row at the Casa Linda Theater, and when the monsters came on the screen, I'd get so scared I'd scrunch way down in the seat. Sometimes I was so scrunched up I could barely see the movie. But at least those monsters couldn't get me."

All of this seemed pretty normal as far as conversations go. Aside from Santana's loud voice, I neither saw nor heard anything out of the ordinary about it. At least until Santana got up out of his seat and began acting out Frankenstein. Not just one movie scene. The entire movie.

But out of his seat Santana was, walking stiff-legged across the floor, his sticklike arms flailing left and right, his face contorted, and his mouth yammering a mile a minute, a sort of play-by-play summary of the film's classic climactic scenes. As something like 250 men slept like corpses around us—tired men, frustrated men, simple men who rarely seem to understand episodes of stark individuality or abnormal behavior other than as an affront—Santana began bellowing as if he'd been set on fire. It was an apt scene. Some of the men at the table seemed to me to be just the kind of man eager to persecute those different from themselves. In fact, I had almost no problem at all imagining these men marching up a mountain to torch an outcast's home. And Santana was the outcast du jour. A pariah. An idiot.

If it wasn't the monster noises that were grabbing the attention and ire of the others at the table, it was Santana's exaggerated and abnormal movements and expressions that, for whatever reason, seemed to be literally rocking the worlds of men who seem to like to cultivate reputations of callousness, hardness, imperviousness to the circumstances they don't like. Several at the table, however, were amused. They rolled their eyes. Others laughed silently to themselves. The unspoken verdict at the table that night was that Santana was crazy as a loon. There were no accusations of narrow-mindedness or intolerance among the members of this self-appointed judge and jury, either. But what's important were the reactions among the ignorant and uneducated to aberrant behavior. Everyone knew Santana was due any day to be accused of being disorderly. Everyone knew what happens in emergency shelters when people are so branded.

One of the shelter's longtime characters—a really together guy who'd been living on the shelter's dole for three years going on four—spoke up, "Why don't you shut up, you—." And, no, the man's language was not nice. But it didn't deter Santana at all. For the next several evenings, or so it seemed to me, Santana went out of his way to annoy and undermine the man who'd collared him that night. Aside from his bizarre behavior, Santana was angry. And hurt. Anyone could see that.

Santana is like many homeless people who suffer from mental illness. He simply appeared at the shelter's door one day. Soon, once Santana learned that his exploits weren't considered acceptable—especially to the emergency shelter's longtime victims of long-term and extended stay emergency—he began a campaign of instigation. The more he was called on his behavior, the more he caused trouble for the shelter's rulemakers and enforcers.

Of course, Santana wasn't really a troublemaker. He was, and is, mentally ill. Sure. It seemed at times that he was intentionally making himself unwelcome. But could it have been that he was drawing attention to himself to get someone to notice that he was asking for help? What really bugged me came in the form of other questions. How many situations like this had Santana already endured? How many towns had he gone through? How many shelters kicked him out?

More worrisome to me, however, was how casually the shelter's supervisors handled Santana's disorderly conduct. When he was kicked out, he was kicked out as if he was any other personally responsible and supposedly adult troublemaker: drunk, stoned, violent, whatever. Despite admonitions that Santana see a doctor and adhere to treatment plans and regimens of medicine, when the time came to give Santana the boot, the shelter's supervisors treated him as if he were suddenly normal. No other steps were taken to help him. He wasn't referred to a clinic. He wasn't taken to Dallas' Parkland Hospital for observation or treatment. He wasn't interviewed by mental health caseworkers who might have been able to agree that the streets are no place for mentally ill men like

When I asked one of the shelter's security staffers why such a thing had been allowed to happen in a supposedly Christian institution—and many area shelters are quite vocal about their faith-based mission and moral diligence—I was told the directors simply don't believe it's their responsibility to go any further than offering residents a bed, a bath, and a meal for the night. Everything else is considered the responsibility of the inmate—I mean, resident. While most of the shelter's residents agree that the streets are no place for mentally ill men like Santana, many simply don't see the glaring misconnection between punishing normal people for rule violations and punishing the mentally ill for behavior they just can't control.

Worse, shelter directors—and, as personal experience shows, every shelter in Dallas misbehaves like this—rationalizing their often misbegotten decisions in order to protect the bottom line, tend to wash their hands of the matter in unconscious imitations of Pontius Pilate.

Santana, of course, isn't alone on the streets of downtown. There are plenty of pariahs just like him—men and women who were not rational enough to obey rules they probably couldn't comprehend anyway. Many, like Santana, live on the streets. They've been kicked out of all the shelters. They've been oppressed by tough policies that were never designed to accommodate them.

But this is how the homeless/industrial complex actually operates. While there's plenty of talk about creating a continuum of care that links troubled shelter residents with effective treatments and appropriate care—plenty of compassionate prattle about the victimhood of the homeless—the proof is in the pudding. Nearly every homeless man and woman with an obvious behavioral problem—these are the people we see living on the streets every day—more than likely has been thrown out of shelters simply because they are mentally ill. No one can deny this. Where does the responsibility for this actually lie?

by Joe B.

Where was I? Oh, yes-good or bad Alchemists.

Before and during Easter and Spring Break vacation besides the Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection it also got me thinking about exact opposites of good and evil.

As children most of us were told and literally scared into believing that both God, Satan, Saints, and Angels existed and an eternal battle for our priceless human souls and not to sell or barter it at all but if we did be aware once sold rarely will we get it back!

On those lines a thought pops into my brain.

If minions of demons are Satan’s to command then Alchemist’s are under spiritual command of God.

If a few demons wish to be good then why not the same hold true for accomplished enlightened Alchemist’s who’ve achieved the great work.

If demons or mythical Vampires fighting their evil side and brethren, sister’s wouldn’t alchemist with dark sides also turn?

Yes, avoiding so called war talk, a macabre empty victory dance over in Iraq’s blood soaked oil and sand while scientist’s, researchers, brightest students around this globe find hydrogen and other alternative renewable energy sources beyond dead decomposed dinosaurs.

Back to God’s few but powerful soldiers.

I know most Alchemist’s were long suffering men and women seeking portents or signs in astrology, numerology, even the Cabala. Some use pure primitive science.

For the majority death by explosion or suffocation from mercury gases or other fumes.

Those surviving, testing the, lead/brass into gold and succeeding found after taking a terrifying drink of what could’ve been poison gagged a little and found them selves not only alive but changing in ways they never imagined!

Their minds afire with there own past lives confronting them, everything they ever saw, felt, heard, learned, supposedly forgotten, all the joys, hurts, pains, physical/mental flash immediate all clear crisp as their whole being expands.

Not only that but voices of living or long dead friends, lovers, surround them, other alchemists, and cutting through it all God’s voice and vision both female/male telling you "Careful Child; Sit, Rest, Do Nothing But Relax - The Changes Will Take A Few Moments And Only When I Say Its Time Explore Your Being."

What does on do when hearing God’s command for one to rest, relax, pause, as your body, mind, spirit changes?

You do as the Lord says as you change from mortal to a being if not eternal but closer to immortality than most mortals will ever be.

Days, hours, months, or years however long it takes you rest as commanded as your powers are slowly revealed to you.

After this long rest where you might have to isolate from others the real adventures begin as death is less an adversary more an annoyance there are plan: long range plans you have to rethink everything because your life span is so long you cannot see its end which is still disconcerting if not downright frightening.

The mysterious alchemist Fulcanellie and Nandita (Mohuya Mellamphy) comes to mind.From www.alchymie. net/english_version/critiques/fucanelli_uk_.htm. You folks will find a title there too.

If they both drank from it a man’s virility is restored and for women besides youth they become prolific who knows how may children came from them or if they decided to stay a physical loving twosome without progeny.

After a long rest what happens? That’s another thought for another day… Bye.

Please send donations to

Poor Magazine or in C/0

Ask Joe at 1448 Pine Street,

San Francisco, CA. 94103 USA

For Joe only my snail mail:

1230 Market St.

PO Box #645

San Francisco, CA 94102

Email: askjoe@poormagazine.org

by Tiny AKA Lisa Gray-Garcia

by Tiny/PNN

"It's the snow that appears late at night on our TV... it can reach across oceans and mountain ranges and beyond...it has the potential to provide a channel of access to many independent broadcasters, which is why the big telecoms are trying to seize it,"explained Eloise Rose Lee, from Media Alliance based in California, one of five people speaking at "The Future of the Internet" panel at the National Conference of Media Reform held in Minneapolis last week

The walls of the conference hall auditorium were white and tall and engulfed the humans who sat in rapt attendance. I sat quietly, in panel after panel, afraid to move or make too much noise as tech-embedded words like, White space, Bit Torrent, Net Neutrality and Blogosphere floated past my ears. They bounced off the walls and knocked up against my head like thick steel rods, knocking my fingers off their tenuous hold onto the edges of the digital ravine, which seemed to grow sharper and taller with each obtuse reference to a technology I had never had the time, privilege or the access to learn in all of my 38 years of poverty and homelessness.

"I want to make sure that everyone knows about the plans by corporations for the take over of white space", panelist Jef Perlman, from Public Knowledge, concluded an extensive talk on the current and future plans of corporate take-over of the internet, the recent acts of censorship of our cel phones and text messages by telecoms like Verizon and the very strange phenonena of "white space"

Perhaps this "white space" was also a metaphor for the conference, the internet in general and/or much of the race and class divide that exists between poor people of color and rich, mostly white people in power locally and globally? I mused.

The panel was one of over 50 panels and workshops on issues ranging from New journalism to Faith based Organizing and Media Reform, as well as films, presentations and plenaries featuring former corporate media stars Bill Moyers and Dan Rather and progressive media producer Amy Goodman from Democracy Now.

"I am asking for 10 ambassadors for OneWebDay," Susan Crawford, another panelist spoke about her personal crusade to create one day a year that was dedicated to the preservation of a free and open internet, which this year will fall on September 22. Ms Crawford was hoping to engender as much excitement as there is for Earth day with the mission to create, maintain, advance and promote a global day to celebrate online life.

"In this way we will insure access for low-access people who are lacking skills, and access to the internet," She concluded her presentation on why the internet should remain open and free and then added the strangely codified term of "low-access people" to her list of beneficiaries.

This reference sounded strange to my ears and yet oddly similar to several other terms used in this conference for poor folks of color like myself. When she was finished the other members of this and other panels at the conference followed suit with references like the "so-called digital divide", "unskilled people" and "people on the margins of the net"

Once again I mused, would we all be members of the "low-access" tribe if we had more of that handy "white space"?

"We use the internet to do research, to reach across the channels of access and without it being free and accessible, poor people like us would never be able to get this information and help to make change for our communities," Gloria Esteva, one of the reporteras from POOR Magazine was suddenly speaking in Spanish on the big screen into the minions of Auditorium One, breaking through the malaise of euphemisms about people in poverty that were being thrown about with such ease . Quite unexpectantly for me, Eloise Rose-Lee who was the sole woman of color on the panel, centered her presentation on the future of the internet, access and in some ways for me, the real notion of media reform itself on the powerful voices of poverty scholars from POOR Magazine's Voces De Inmigrantes en Resistancia Project, a new project that teaches POOR's brand of revolutionary journalism to migrant workers in poverty, who spoke at an FCC hearing last month at Stanford University in support of keeping a free and open internet or "Net Neutrality"

Her presentation loosened the imaginary chains that had begun to tear into my hands, I was free to question what I believed to be real media reform. True enough, the words of Bill Moyers were important, the "radical" actions of Dan Rather were crucial, but so was the words and actions of poor youth, adults and elders of color across the globe who everyday are systematically silenced and excluded from so many channels of access on the internet, in racist , classist school system , in the criminal Injustice system, in the access to resources and beyond.

So if we were to truly achieve media reform as this conference stated was its goals, it must be with the inclusion of the Dan Rathers and the Gloria Esteva's, with the Amy Goodman's and the poor youth of color from West Oakland and Spanish Harlem.

I know that the conference organizers were beginning to try to practice some inclusion with panels on Hip Hop Activism and Grassroots Lobbying but they have a long way to go.

As I left the Minneapolis conference hall I reflected on the strange concept of "white space" and how it actually has the potential to provide real access to poor people of color locally and globally – which sounded oddly like some kind of 21st century digital reparations and how it was potentially being ripped out of our hands by possible corporate take-over before we even have the chance to benefit from it.

Which made me wonder if there will be any white space left for me..

After this conference was over and I began to write this piece I heard from my fellow fighters for media and economic justice at the Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) that after multiple attempts to get some coverage from media, independent and mainstream alike on the fact that the PPEHRC are being threatened with arrest if they march at the republican National Convention which will also be held in Minneapolis in August, they were forced to do an action on the Media Reform Conference in an attempt to get some real media reform and media justice. As well, I heard that there was an impromptu appearance by my comrades in media justice JR and Chairman Fred Hampton from the P.O.C.C.

Lisa Gray-Garcia aka Tiny, poet, poverty scholar, revolutionary journalist and lecturer is the founder and executive director of POOR Magazine/ PoorNewsNEtwork (PNN), the author of Criminal of Poverty: Growing up homeless in America, mama of tiburcio and the daughter of Dee.

by PNN Staff

New York- In a sharp rebuke to the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, federal officials have decided to bypass city agencies in handing out millions of dollars in government money to those who help the homeless. The mayor said the change was motivated by politics.

U.S. Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo said the change is necessary following a federal court ruling that found city officials demonstrated a pattern of antagonism and acted with "retaliatory intent" against a nonprofit service provider that had criticized the mayor. The provider eventually lost $2.4 million in federal funds.

The change means the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will distribute federal money directly to those helping homeless people, rather than using the city as a middleman.

"The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is acting in the best interests of homeless people in New York City, to ensure that the most qualified homeless assistance programs get our funding," Cuomo said Tuesday.

Giuliani accused Cuomo, a Democrat, of playing politics, noting his support of Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate bid and that a regional HUD director under Cuomo, Bill DeBlasio, was recently named Mrs. Clinton's campaign manager.

To miss the connection, "I would have to be extremely naive, and I'm not," said Giuliani,who is expected to seek the Republican nomination to run for Senate. "There's no question that Andrew Cuomo runs a major league political operation."

Giuliani, however, said the city can't fight the change.

"I don't think we can," he said. "It's their money."

Last month, a federal court found that the city downgraded the performance of Housing Works, a nonprofit group that operates two houses for homeless people suffering from AIDS, mental illness and drug addiction, because of the group's public opposition to the mayor's AIDS policies rather than its effectiveness.

The lower rating prevented Housing Works from receiving $2.4 million in federal funds to cover three years of operating expenses for the two residences. The city has appealed the ruling.

"This fully vindicates what we've been saying. He has been using the process to reward his allies and punish others," said Charles King, co-executive director of Housing Works.

Giuliani denied he had any political interest in punishing Housing Works.

Later Tuesday, at a state Democratic Committee holiday party where Mrs. Clinton spoke, Cuomo's wife, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, stood up and bragged about what Cuomo had done, saying: "Just a few hours ago, my husband pulled up the gauntlet."

She went on to criticize Giuliani's homeless policies and added: "Next time Rudy, pick on someone your own size."

Judges have temporarily stopped Giuliani's plan to evict homeless adults, who refuse to work, from city shelters. POOR magazine staff hopes that Cuomo's action will also impact all of King Giuliani's archaic anti-poverty measures, such as his recent act of ordering police to arrest homeless people who refuse orders to move from sidewalks.

If an upcoming election spurs this kind of event, maybe there should be an election every day in America. Thank-you Mr.Cuomo!!

by Bruce Allison/PNN

The Governor caused letters (one of several sent about various services to folks with fixed limited incomes) to be sent to folks with in-home support services, a deliberately confusing communication which will cause many to lose those services. It will create major hardships for them and home-care workers (independents and/or relatives).

Folks should call (Consumer Rights For Community Living) 415-703-0286 or (Bay Area Legal Aid) 415-982-1300 to get help understanding what to do if it is necessary to ask for a Fair Hearing. If you are a social worker or case manager at a SRO or senior housing, confused about the letter, you too can call those numbers. Anyone who wants to help Consumer Rights For Community Living as a volunteer can call
415-703-0286.

Fair Hearing appeals will help folks using in-home support hang on to 2 or more months of services. There are only 5 “Administrative Law Judges” for the entire state of California, the more appeals the slower the process—which is a good thing! This should be done immediately, Fair Hearings can only be requested 10 days after the post mark is stomped on the letter, a nasty little piece of the Governator’s “practical joke”.

Social workers and case managers with clients living in SRO hotels that still don’t have in-hotel mail box service from our “wonderful” U.S. “Probable” Postal Service—which still has hostility in its semi-corporate heart for SRO tenants—should energetically encourage them to check their mail EVERY DAY (which seems like every day…) that they are in the Governator’s crosshairs.

If the client is vision-impaired or doesn’t speak English or Spanish, this, too, must be mentioned in the Fair Hearing request because the letter is limited to those languages and was printed in very very very fine print that even challenged the eye sight of the writer facilitator of this article, and the trans-gender staff writer for POOR Magazine, sitting nearby kibitzing on the writing of this article.

Due to the limited number of “judges”, this elder scholar believes that if virtually everyone affected by this situation appeals the process it will take 9 months to slog through the case load, which will create a lovely end-run effect around the Governator’s horrible strategy.