Story Archives 2006

by Joesph Bolden

Ok,this is how bad I am with pc's & online stuff.

I just finished a new column based on what's written in my booklett
tiny paged thing.
Ask Joe,Holding Up The Sky or Joe's Misfit Columns.

Expanded on Platonic Overkill:having a female as friend minus sex yet includes love interest.
precarious the latter part

Luckily posted its all on Myspace.com where I have an online journal of sorts.

Here it is in full.

(The Gender Beef) column,all the rest u can read anytime and comment on them too.

If you want to write your opinions women,men, boys, or girls these are

the two sites to place your views and incidently purchase my book.

Note to self more pages book has too little content.

New Column: Gender Beef, write in folks, we all might learn anew.

Category:Romance And Relationships

Today,after reading
"Platonic Overkill" about personal confusion on the subject of having a woman friend on a non sexual basis.

It occurs to me other males have had this situation in their lives either as youths or as mature adults

like myself who may have missed out on this in their formative growing years.

In either case I didn't know what the heck was happening!

If you've gone through kindergarden,elementary,
grade, highschool,

college,and university the graduate or undergrad schools with friends

of the oposite sex male or female you may know what I'm talking about.

I don't know how females worked it out but I'd like to know how boys who became men did?

Myself,as a child had mainly guy friends until I moved from New York to California in the late 1960's.

My friendship began late in life. Up until the age 48 or 9 I didn't have female friends lovers yes friends no.
I'd like to know, for OG's
Original Ganster's
How did it feel?

Your reaction to it, and what ended it,who ended it,and or if its still going on and why?

I have to say I didn't chose her,she chose me and for a long time had no idea

why'd she'd even dain to visit my place let alone speak to me?

Let's say I didn't question it long just had a very firely, sensually alluring young female to kick with for a few years.

Sure, there was sexual tention mainly on my part she nipped that bud quick and then no probs.

Maybe being Apolitical,an elder while herself younger with politics boiling out her brain

I was not part

her age group more part mentor,companion,fully adult most times

She didn't worry about constant pressure of sex

even though she knew I'd certainly go for it if asked.

I'm a regular horny red blooded guy,

of course I wanted to bed her its basic male programming kicking in

I also missed out social setting as in dance club/bars but learned I didn't have to change to much.

She's told me "Your a scial butterfly."

I still don't know how women know or in her case smelled when a guy had sex but she busted me once on it.

Outward I'm, embarrassed inwardly glad she knew.

Lets face it most young women believe men past 40

are dead below the neck and above the waist.
Man! have they got a few worries in a few decades!

One time I betrayed her so bad online tha I thought the bond broken however we did mend fences and a lesson is learned.

Never betray a trust.

So I had to wash a few dishes,cook rice.

Me being the better cook and go shopping for very revealing undergarments.

She's leaving the city soon and if I can will help carry her belongings

its the least I can do for her putting up with my random self.

My luck to have had a very strong, vibrant, soulful, honest, and lovely friend who happens to be a strong willed woman.

Daresay that I am a better elder male for it but it does not mean for one second other women will befriend me as she had.

One Fem friend is unique experience enough but more friends with benefits,well I want to explore that avenue too.

I'm use to wearing condoms now and buy women's condoms.

Just in case they don't have any better safe than sorry and pregnant.
Reminds me to by more for either sex.

Hey!I'm an elder time is precious and F-W-B's is another step in my personal growth.

As my dear fem friend would simply say "Your a horny old guy Joe."

I hope to place this in
Gender Beef Column

A column on relationships.

Mature Males in these changed times.

Readers can help by going online to Poormagazine.org an placing emailed opinons.

No real names
or you go to Ask/Tell Joe on Myspace.com.

Next thing I like to touch on is:

Why when guys find a woman who cares for them they then dog 'em?

I ask the same of women too?

Maybe both women and men have a few words on that also.

by PNN's Shelter Observer

"I just won’t be getting a bed tonite" PNN’s shelter observer leaned her head against the back of the couch in POOR’s offices, and continued wearily explaining the recent viscious cycle facing San Francisco's homeless folks, " since they closed the sanctuary, if we even want to have a chance at getting a bed we have to start waiting in line and running all over town as early as 4:00 each day, its just too hard for most people"

She was speaking of the crisis caused by the closing of Episcopal sanctuary on October 19th, one of San Francisco’s biggest city funded shelters for an unspecified period of time for renovations.

The odd thing about this closure is that it came on the heels of the implementation of the very problematic and harmful legislation; Care Not Cash, which already caused across the board lockouts from shelters for most housless San Franciscans. These lockouts were caused by Care Not Cash’s policy of prioritizing shelter beds for General Assistance/GA (welfare) recipients over the majority of shelter recipients who like PNN’s shelter observer are on SSI and not receiving GA.

" for the last three nights I just slept on the street", Maury Williams , a 52 year old African Descendent houseless man who is an immigrant day laborer from the Dominican republic, works 16-20 hour days and can’t get a bed because it just takes too much time to go through the hoops that Department of Human Services has put forth since Care not Cash was implemented, and now that they closed Sanctuary he has even less chance of getting a bed, " I am just trying to work and make enough money to afford an apartment of my own, this will make it even more impossible" , Maury concluded in discouraged sigh

As well, the way the city "noticed" the shelter residents was indicative of their overall disregard for the civil and human rights of houseless people. 24 hours prior to the closure Sanctuary's residents were stunned to learn that they had less than twenty-four hours notice before they were required to relocate to makeshift accommodations at other shelters. And well into the next day after the notice they still didn’t know where they would be transferred not to mention the fact that they had to haul al their belongings across town to the City’s Storage space.

" I never got a flyer about the closure at all" , Maury who stays at the shelter whenever he can never received a flyer about the closure, " Most of the guys I know never got one, even the guys who stay in there every night" Maury corroborated the story that many shelter residents reported to me, which is that the residents of the shelter were the last to find out about this closure even though the nights are getting colder and wetter as we approach November. Maury went on to report the fact that there is a rumour about the closure of A Man’s Place, another city funded shelter that houses several of the City’s homeless men for asbestos clean-up or as he put it "something or other"

In light of all of the problems facing San Francisco’s shelters since Care Not Cash San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Matt Gonzalez introduced a
long-awaited legislation on October 19th, to create a Shelter Monitoring Committee, which would provide public oversight of shelter conditions and policies. If such an oversight body were already in place, residents of Episcopal Sanctuary would have been better informed and prepared for their relocation. This legislation was also heard in front of the Finance committee on October 27th and was supported by Supervisor Chris Daly and will be heard in front of the Rules Committee on November 10th in room 263 at 9:00 am

by by Joanna Letz/POOR Magazine Race and Poverty Intern

"The plan they have for us is war it's the same thing they are doing in Darfur, and in Palestine. They
want our land, push us out, and that's their plan. I don't care how many other lies that they come up with; check their past, and see what they are doing right now," Willie Ratcliff, member of the Bay View/Hunters Point community and publisher of the Bay View Newspaper, called out to the crowd of Bayview Hunters Point residents gathered outside The Whitney Young Child Development Center for a press conference and rally held outside a Town Hall meeting called by Mayor Newsom on last Saturday's cold wet morning.

POOR magazine and the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper hosted the press conference and rally calling for an end to government sanctioned evictions promoted by the Mayor under the banner/guise of "redevelopment." The voices of Bay View/Hunters Point residents and other community members rang out on this, a Saturday in Black History Month, calling for action to stop redevelopment, stop the displacement of poor folks and folks of color and most importantly stop the lies promoted by the Mayor and his corporate developer friends about the destruction of our communities; the Black community, the Latino community, the Asian community, in other words, the real people of San Francisco.

Willie concluded his powerful speech citing the findings released in a recent study on Black California, "The Black Caucus of California
reported San Francisco is the most economically racist city in the state of California."

Tiny, from POOR Magazine first words as she approached the crowd and reiterated throughout the conference, "This town hall meeting does not represent the Bay View community. We are here to make sure the community voices get heard."

The most recent attack on the Bay View/Hunters Point is the proposed closing of the Alice Griffiths house. Alice Griffiths is a public housing unit. The Alice Griffith Housing Project, also known as "Double Rock" was built in 1962 as military housing for Hunters Point shipyard workers and was transferred to Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and then the Housing Authority in 1974. The proposed redevelopment plan calls for bulldozing the Alice Griffiths house and replacing it with parking spaces for 49ers fans. This plan is part of Mayor
Gavin Newsom's attempt to get the 49ers to stay in San
Francisco.

The plan says it would include housing for the current Alice Griffith tenants, although many of the speakers Saturday reminded us that the promise of new
homes is rarely followed through. Tiny recalled past broken promises. "Between Lennar Corporation, the John
Stewart Corporation, HUD HOPE IV., the City's Housing Authority, Redevelopment, and the Mayor," said Tiny, "there won't be any Black or poor folks left in San Francisco. These companies and their city counter parts have systematically destroyed many of the public housing projects with the promise of one unit housing replacement for one unit demolished. The problem with that lie is it never happens." Tiny cried out to the crowd.

One sign held at the rally read, "Remember Valencia Gardens." Valencia Gardens was redeveloped and almost no one who lived there before the redevelopment was given housing in the new one. Tiny was adamant that people not forget the history and herstories of destruction and forced diasporas of the
Fill-no more, the Mission and most recently, Valencia Gardens Housing Project.

More than 700 residents of Alice Griffiths face eviction, many of whom have lived there a long time.
A lawsuit was filed against the Bay View/Hunters Point Redevelopment plan, which more than 33,000 San Franciscan residents have signed. The redevelopment plan has a contract with Lennar Corporation. Lennar has promised to provide "affordable" housing, but their current homes in the Bay Area start at above $650,000.

As Byron Gafford, staff writer with POOR Magazine, poet, and life-long Alice Griffith resident said, "If this deal goes through, me and my family will have nowhere to go. They have been trying to get rid of Black folks up here for a while."

The City has given Lennar, a Florida-based company, hundreds of acres from Candlestick Point to Hunters Point Shipyard. Many community based organizers like POOR and The SF Bayview believe that most of these redevelopment efforts are unnecessary in the first place and then if any do happen that San Francisco needs to give these contracts to more neighborhood-based developers who have proven expertise in building affordable housing and community based relationships of truth.

Within the Bay View/Hunters Point Community there are many lies being promoted to the point that some people feel the redevelopment plan will be a good thing for the neighborhood. For some who are homeowners the redevelopment plan is an opportunity for greater land value. But for many who are renters it will mean displacement as property value and rents increase.

Espanola Jackson, homeowner and community activist in the Bay View said, "There is no danger of displacement in the Bay View. The plans are in court, until that happens there is no redevelopment for this area. I am a homeowner, since 1968 and no way will I allow this community to happen to be run over the way
the Western Addition was." Some in the Bay View are more trusting of the court system and the redevelopment plans than others.

As we stood in front of the child development center looking out over the Bay, one could not help but recall the past. Bakara Nutungi, from the community organization Uhuru in Oakland reflected and said, "America was founded on people stealing the land we standing on today, so it's the same situation. They brought black people from down south in the 1940's to build the ships. That's how black people got to Hunters Point to begin with. And now that they don't have no ships and no shipyards they kicking black people up out of hunters point, because its nice property, so white people can have a nice view
of the bay..It is time for the African community to stand up and fight just like we did in the 60's, with the black power movement."

The words of residents from the community rang out demanding to be heard and demanding an end to the lies of redevelopment and an end to evictions. Laure McElroy from POOR Magazine said, "Redevelopment is a joke, a killer joke, people like me, a mother, disabled woman, being shuffled from place to place, 'cause we can't afford the rents... I don't want to see people who can't move, who are disabled, and the elderly displaced by these corporate takeovers, this is murder. " Laure's words struck a chord and stayed for a while; hanging in the air.

Marie Harrison, a member of the Bay View community said, "Together we can stand, together we can save San
Francisco, and stop the mass move on Alice Griffith
and Bay View. There will be no San Francisco of tomorrow, San Francisco will be a city of the rich and the richer." Since 1970 San Francisco has lost one-quarter of its Black community: 25,000 people. Marie continued on to say, "never mind that the rich are standing on our shoulders, San Francisco, built by poor folks, that shipyard, managed by poor folks, Alice Griffiths filled up with poor folks who need to have a place to live. Don't get suckered into that dream they are passing around about becoming homeowners, if your income is $18,000 and under, there is no way in this city you will become a homeowner. People in San Francisco need to stand together and draw the line in the sand to protect San Francisco."

Marie made clear the reality and pressure poor folks face in this city. This city where so many people want to live, this city where poor folks are being evicted to make room for people with bigger wallets. As Marie said, unless we take action, this city will be a city of the rich and richer.

Vivian Hain from POOR Magazine recounted her struggle living in poverty in the Bay Area. "I am a native San Franciscan, my family was evicted out of our community in the Mission because of gentrification, we couldn't afford it anymore. So we ended up put out in the pasture, in some place with no jobs or economic security. What's going on is social and economic genocide. So, Mayor Newsom, it ain't
about wine tasting across the Bay, it's about housing our low-income families, and ensuring their ability to do right by their children."

Julian Davis from the San Francisco People's Organization spoke. He gave perspective about the lack of dialogue in Newsom's town meetings. Julian said, "Newsom's meeting does not represent the people, it is not a model for substantive dialogue. Newsom prefers
pre-scripted public gatherings to genuine community dialogue and civic engagement."

Where was Newsom for the press conference and rally? The SF police department was standing by making sure the entrance to the building was not blocked. Behind the speakers a metal fence stood and beyond that one could see a poster reading, "San Francisco Police Department now hiring." Why were the posters and signs of community members not inside the gate?

Just as the rally was ending the rain started to come down. A chant began, saying together, "We shall not be moved." The police checked everyone for signs and made people leave the signs at the gate.

Inside the hall, Newsom started his speech by saying, "This meeting being held at the Child Development Center is symbolic because the center is not what it should be." Gavin, the police officers prohibited people from bringing signs into the meeting. This is symbolic of the systematic silencing of certain groups of people, and of certain viewpoints. A child's development is intrinsic on self-expression. The silencing of our opinions is symbolic of the lack of democracy and lack of dialogue in your community meetings. You may take signs away, but voices, never.

As Tiny said, " We must demand to be heard. We must ask our questions about displacement, and corporate development. We shall not be moved." Tiny and many others stood up in Newsom's meeting, and
asked, "Why are you stealing our homes, our land?" Newsom did not respond. Some people present at the meeting booed the questions, and booed the interruption.

Within the Bay View/Hunters Point community a consensus has not been reached on the issue of redevelopment. Other voices in opposition to the rampant redevelopment facing the entire Bayview Hunter's Point were members of ACORN, standing in solidarity with flyers that read; WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED! As well as members of People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), some of whom attempted to be heard about the wrongs of this gentrification effort and others who stood with their mouths taped shut representing the silencing of the community members while their homes are taken away.

Standing outside in the cold, in front of the building where Newsom held his "Town hall meeting," we heard many powerful voices and testaments to the lies being told around redevelopment. We heard voices recounting the history of the Bay View/Hunters Point. As we left, I looked out over the Bay thinking so this is what developers want, this land, this view of the bay. This ground where black folks worked on the ships. The same place where in 1966 there was an uprising resisting police brutality.

As Tiny said, "Eviction is the ultimate capitalist crime, insidious, and when it happens, and the way it happens, we disappear, the poor folks and folks of color."

One of POOR Magazine's responses to the ongoing displacement and evictions is to hold teach-ins in the community around de-gentrification and resistance to the lies of redevelopment. For more information please contact (415) 863-6306

by Elizabeth Aguilera /Denver Post by way of Roll back the Rents

Domestic violence shelters across the country are balking at a new federal directive requiring homeless shelters to provide client information for a new national database.

Advocates say the database, set to roll out in Colorado in January, would jeopardize the safety of abused women and children.

Several Colorado shelters are opting out of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Homeless Management Information System, even though they risk losing future federal funding.

Although the money is desperately needed, advocates say, the funds aren't worth giving up the anonymity of those they are trying to help.

"They are asking us to go to a woman who has been traumatized enough to flee her home with her children and the clothes on her back, and grill her over a few days for information we are not going to use but that the government wants," said Carol Hollomon, executive director at Alternatives to Family Violence, a safe house in Adams County. "It's not going to happen."

In Illinois, all the domestic violence shelters under the state's "umbrella" have refused to participate in the program, risking its share of $1.3 billion of federal support that is available nationwide.

The new information system was created to get an accurate count of America's homeless so the government can streamline services and make sure the right programs are in the right places, said Brian Sullivan, HUD spokesman.

"Without this information, you don't get a full and complete picture of homelessness, specifically in rural areas where a domestic violence shelter might be the only game in town," Sullivan said.

HUD will require a birth date, Social Security number, veteran status, race, ethnicity and family background. The department also urges shelters to inquire about HIV status and mental health.

Advocates worry that such probing will scare the most vulnerable people away from services, including those who are HIV-positive, undocumented immigrants and runaways. More worrisome, advocates say, is the fear of security breaches, access to the database by law enforcement and public- records requests.

"We thought there was no way they were going to require us to breach confidentiality," said Vicki Lutz, executive director of the Crossroads Safehouse in Fort Collins. "The laudable purpose is to track homelessness to provide better service.

"But if one woman dies in the name of data collection, that is one too many. Do we really want to give batterers another avenue of tracking?"

Currently, housing providers are the only groups required to participate, but the system will expand to other homeless services such as food banks, soup kitchens, street outreach programs, mental illness treatment facilities, HIV/AIDS clinics and human services departments, said Tracy D'Alanno, manager of the homeless and resource development program for the state department of human services.

In August, the National Network to End Domestic Violence formally asked HUD to exempt domestic violence programs from the regulation. The department has not responded to the petition.

"This violates our core value of confidentiality for victims and puts them in danger," said Cindy Southworth, director of technology for the National Network to End Domestic Violence in Washington, D.C. "We are happy to help get an accurate count in a less invasive way."

In Colorado, the state department of human services is overseeing the creation and implementation of the program, which will be administered by three nonprofit agencies. It is expected to roll out in January.

According to HUD standards, the system security guidelines are based on those in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Once the data is collected regionally, HUD will receive aggregate data, including the number of homeless, how many are veterans, what types of disabilities the homeless have and racial, ethnic and gender breakdowns.

HUD officials say personal information will not be linked to create the national database. Still, Jennifer Lynch, information and technology director of the Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence, is leery of data creep, when information begins to bleed into other systems.

"It's nice to have easy access to information, and it's tempting for agencies to share that information," Lynch said. "But it's going to undermine the ability for people to protect themselves."

Lynch is referring to victims like Ronni, who says she is on the run from an abuser in another state and hasn't told anyone where she is. Not her mother. Not her closest friend. And not the federal government.

The 37-year-old woman said she would never have checked into a Jefferson County shelter if the new system was in place. She traveled to Colorado to get away from her abuser, seeking a haven and anonymity.

"I wouldn't stay if they were tracking," she said. "Just thinking that someone is tracking me makes me feel that potential employers, the community or the schools would know my business."

And, she added, what if her abuser is still trying to find her? "That scares me."

Tough choices ahead

In Colorado, some domestic violence shelters are prepared to give up federal funding and pump private donors, foundations and other sources to make up the difference.

Lutz decided to bypass the $26,000 annually that comes from HUD. The money is nearly 5 percent of her yearly budget.

While such a loss won't close her facility, Lutz worries for rural shelters that rely on HUD for more than half of their funding. Such places have two choices, Lutz said - comply or close.

Hollomon has worked around the federal government for her Adams County shelter. She returned her HUD Emergency Shelter Grant funds to the county to use as part of another community block grant. In return, county officials are helping her find an alternative source for the $22,000 she gave up.

Finding the loopholes beats the alternative, Hollomon said. "They (HUD) are asking us to violate the constitutional rights of folks who come to us for help," she said.

Participation in the new HUD system is listed as an eligibility component on the application for assistance and is part of the grant agreement, Sullivan said.

The only providers that may become exempt are those in states where privacy laws are extremely stringent, including Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, Sullivan said.

Said D'Alanno: "If they want to continue receiving funding, at some point in time, domestic violence agencies are going to have to participate."

HUD, in an effort to get shelters to accept the system, is offering grace periods and delayed implementation.

In Colorado, the system will be based on a unique, confidential identification number, created by a complicated mathematical formula based on personal data, and only that number will be submitted.

by The Hospitality House Art Studio Skolaz

Move With cloud

To remain silky

To kiss Babies cheeks

Solidify Our Grin

Wonder and Waunder

Many Times around

Like Money paved streets

Stuff the Alleyway clean

Wave go-bye to cloud

covering

feel blood dripping

from a tarnished
hand-shake

by The Hospitality House Art Studio Skolaz

I just heard about it

we knew it already

not really

You know how we all thought that we lived in a democracy

where every vote counts, get out the vote

polls of likely voters

vote,vote,vote

early, absentee,

it will be a disaster if we don't get out the vote.its an emergency. Can you imagine what the next four years will be like?

Its the bringing down of America

its the letting terrorists win.
its stem cells and abortions

its more tax breaks for the rich

its children left behind on their door steps

its ..its...

like never before

and then...

what do we find out?

I heard it on the Today show today

No Matter who wins the popular vote..its the electoral college vote that counts..last year

this year..

by Staff Writer

Join us to watch this amazing documentary about the Block Report Radio show and the movement in which it exists. This is a must see film for anyone interested in revolutionary politics, political music and controversy.

It will be followed by a discussion with the filmmakers.

WHEN: Sunday March 4th @ 6:00 p.m.

WHERE: 1095 Market St. #307 (above Civic Center BART Station

A community meal will also be provided.

Please RSVP for childchare by calling 415.863-6306 or emailing deeandtiny@poormagazine.org

by The Hospitality House Art Studio Skolaz

I wonder if this downpour I got caught in today with no protection will be a sign of November 2nd promises blowing over my homeless body. Soon someone will win and I don't give a damn who wins who wins cause its hard for me to focus on Bush burning or Cash and Kerry.

I live under the bridge while someone lies in a White House. All I want is to stop living the force fed educated american dreams and start living my own, where I can help my fellow human being instead of worrying with dark grey paranoia eating me when I pass by your love addicted need to feed stares

When you have a home where you can paint the walls any color you choose then I will feel safe to just let my happy smile shine out on a grey day

by PNN staff

We are opposed to the transfer of parcel A of the hunters point shipyard,"
I watched the slight body of Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, valiant fighter for environmental justice and coporate responsibility tremble as she outlined the serious toxic and radiologic problems of the land parcels at the Bayview hunter Point shipyard slated for Kolonization by The Redevelopment agency and Lennar development Corporation , " we are asking the health department to conduct further reviews to look more closely at the potential health effects of the proposed transfer and we have questions about the adequacy of the health and environmental docuemtns that have been generated related to the transfers. Let me start by showing you - this map is part of historical radiologic assessment. With that Dr. sumchai, unfurled a huge color coded map which overwhelmed her small frame.

As my eyes gazed upon the map with its codified lines of red, green and yellow my body became numb and I was transported back to a conversation I wished I had never had to have, "my body can’t withstand more radiation, I am already too weak already and as things are going now I would rather not go on.," By ‘go on’, my good friend and poet, Barbara G. born and bred "on the hill" as she put it, meaning the Bayview hunters Point Hill, was telling me why she didn’t want to ‘go on’… living…, without both of her breasts due to the breast cancer she definitely related to her life next to the very toxic and environmentally dangerous Bayview Hunters point shipyard. I spent the rest of the conversation telling her why this was nonsense and why she needed to be there for not just herself and her family but all of us as a community, I went on to say so much more but inside my heart I was screaming expletive after expletive at all the corporate entities, government slaves and their masters and anyone else covertly or overtly involved with the kind of ongoing environmental racism and classism that happens and has happened in BVHP for way too many years

Dr. Sumchai pointed to the locations on the map as she spoke,
"Parcel E is the biggest and dirtiest parcel on the shipyard , about 174 acres and parcel A landlocks parcel E - the city , federal government and the developers plan to develop on parcel A and the radioligical and other toxicological issues that are on parcel E have not been addressed,"

Perhaps it was the lines that cut through the map which resembled the MRI of my friends cancer wracked body, the depth and glaringly obvious danger of those lines and what they mean to the huge number of children and adults who as the chronicle reported in their Oct 3rd issue from a 10 year long study, "Babies are 2.5 times more likely to die in their first year in Bayview Hunters Point than those in other areas of San Francisco, citing the fact that they lived in homes "overlooking the contaminated remains of the now-closed naval shipyard … a Superfund cleanup site where the military once experimented with radiation.

Dr Sumchai continued, "Under the Circla Act there has not been any significant steps taken of the ten steps required on a Circla process for a federal superfund site. One of the big issues related to the transfer - is the fact that there is 46 acre landfill on parcel E immediately adjacent to Parcel A- this landfill is partially capped and in the year 2000 it was on fire, by 2001 there were a series of fires on the base, there were a series of 50 fires in four months and the Navy attempted to conceal the fires,"

Fires!, I screamed inwardly, that kind of serious contamination is present in third and fourth world cities like Bophal, India, well-known for its massive 1984 Gas Leak incident caused by the negligence of Union Carbide which killed thousands and has yet to be properly cleaned-up and in much the same way as the Bayview continues to poison its poor residents who have no resources to go elsewhere.

And lest you have doubts about the connection between this contaminated land and my friends cancer consider a new report, "State of Evidence 2004: What is the Connection Between the Environment and Breast Cancer," published Oct. 7 by the Breast Cancer Fund and Breast Cancer Action, details evidence from 21 research studies published since February 2003 that link toxins in the environment, including chlorinated chemicals and radiation found in nuclear fallout from 1950 to 1991, to the 90% increase in breast cancer rates in the U.S. during that period.

After Dr. Sumchai was finished speaking she introduced Willie Ratcliff who specifically brought up the current kolinizers/aka developers Lennar Development Corporation from Florida who are instrumental in the sudden fast track approval by the City of the obviously dangerous parcels which are unfit to build on because they stand to make millions of dollars if they build, sell and poison 1600 more families who they hope will buy their contaminated homes.

There were several other community members who spoke about the frightening experience of living around this kind of danger and their ongoing fights with the Navy and the City to really clean this up and make it actually habitable including supervisor elect Ross Mirikarimr who has been to Iraq and witnessed similar contamination of the land by Amerikkan coporations only interested in kolinazation, Kapitalism and destruction.

As I walked away from the press conference my friends last words on that phone call kept ringing in my ears, " I am tired of fighting, for my ..life"

by PNN staff

"We are here to present hundreds of postcards signed by people in the community to demand a federal investigation into the shooting death of my son…" Marylon Boyd, mother of Cammerin Boyd who was murdered by police in May of 2004, held her head high as she called out for justice into the morning wind whipping through the shadows of the federal building on Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco

Marylon was surrounded by family and friends holding several stacks of postcards addressed to US attorney Kevin Ryan. In response to the delayed and biased investigation into Cammerin's fatal shooting, the Boyd family, friends and community activists began a postcard campaign calling for intervention from the Department of Justice. The postcards demand that the US Attorney Ryan launch an investigation into the SFPD and specifically, Cammerins' death.

"It has been over 7 months since the death of my son, we have presented ample evidence and still nothing has been done," Marylon continued to explain the flagrant evidence that was presented in this case including the coroners report that corroborated the reports given by eyewitnesses to the shooting proving that Cammerin had his hands in the air, i.e., not in threatning position to the cops arresting him. Additionally on the Dec 1st meeting of the San Francisco police review commission it was revealed that the police commissioners' request for information on the investigation was denied again

"Using lethal force in arresting suspects is unconstitutional in San Francisco and since the death of my son there has been six more shootings and nothing has been presented to the police commission about these shootings either" Marylon went on to explain that she hoped that an investigation by Kevin Ryan would send a message to the police that these unjust police shootings will be taken very seriously and must stop.

After she spoke, her small group, which included Malaika Parker from Bay Area Police Watch, walked into the tower of Homeland Security itself, replete with a smiling picture of the CEO of corporate terrorism himself, GW Bush, to present these cards directly to Kevin Ryan.

"As she walked through the multiple glass maze of doors she called out to those of us in the press who weren't allowed in to the building, " We will get justice!"