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pstrongWhat happened to make a low incomebr / mother place her children, agesbr / 9 and 13, in a near deadlybr / hot storage garage unit? /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/434/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby PNN staff/p p The barking coming from a Casselberry, Fla., rental storage unit told passers-by that something was inside the unit, something alive.br / But when management summoned animal control and cut the lock, they didn't just find a dog — they found two children as well./p pPolice say the kids — a 13-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl — complained that they had no food and water, and had been living in the unit, just north of Orlando, for about two months. /p pInside the 20-by-12 self-storage room, the children were surrounded by household items, including a bed, a refrigerator and abr / fan. /p pBut officials say the unit had no running water, no toilet and no air conditioning. Temperatures inside may have approached 100br / degrees during the day. /p pMom Arrested; Says She Had No Choice/p p Police arrested the kids' mother, 30-year-old Adrianne Tijuana Johnson, who said she worked at an Orlando hospital and hadbr / no choice but to leave her kids in the rental unit while she went off to work. /p p "I had no other choice than to leave my children by themselves," she told reporters as she was led off by police. /p pHowever, The Associated Press reported that the hospital says she doesn't work there, and state records showed nobr / professional license issued under her name. /p pJenny Tyler, who rents a space nearby, said she heard the barking from the unit and alerted management. But she was unprepared for what they found inside. /p p"I imagine those kids being locked up all day long," she said. /p pOfficials say the dangers are not just limited to the sweltering Florida heat. The unit had a propane tank, a small gas stove and a barbecue lighter. If a fire broke out, the children would have been trapped. /p pJohnson is charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse and one count of animal cruelty. She reportedly paid about $137 per month for the unit. /p pb****************/b/p pPNN Staff comments:/p pThis mother's story looks and sounds to PNN staff like another example of bad mainstream journalism, i.e., instead of delving deeper into why and how Ms. Jenny Tyler ended up placing her two children in a potential death trap, they have condemed her to the label of "bad mother"/p pThese are some of the questions the staff of POOR Magazine Have asked: /p p1)Where is the father if there is/was one? br /br / br /2)Did Ms. J. Tyler ask for help or was she alone?br / br /br /3)When did she begin falling through Florida’s cracks?br / br /br /br / 4)How is Welfare Reform's policy of "get-a-job any job" impacting on Forida's working poor?/p pbr /br /5)When did the background on the Tyler family begin?br /br //p p6)Is this really even investigative reporting br /- starting from name calling bad mothering skills, or updated yellow journalism? /p p7)Is taking Ms. Tyler’s children away the only answer or are there other alternatives?br /br /8)How many other single mom or dad families continue falling through the broken net of family care?/p pPoor Magazine calls it iYellow Journalism/i because the press reverts to the easy process of name calling Ms. Tyler and blaming working poor or homeless folks instead of looking at our free fall econony which offers no support or long-term economic solutions like free housing and living wage jobs for poor parents and childrenbr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/435/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Tiger Walsh /p pabsencebr / br /what you search to fillbr / br /with every pill poppedbr / br /praying not to feelbr / br /tearing of rocks and razorsbr / br /gutting dreams from the bottombr / br /of your belly where the visionarybr / br /the prophetbr / br /the healerbr / br /the hopebr / br /the creator in you used to livebr / br /now where the thunder of hideousness rumblesbr / br /persistant like beatingsbr / br /from police employers strangers familybr / br /convincing youbr / br /to be the monster we see on TVbr / br /ricki lake sally jesse jerry springerbr / br /you know the fucked up contortionsbr / br /they force your reality intobr / br /justifying your grotesque punishment/p pthis is for the queensbr / br / the fairiesbr / br / the high maintenance femmesbr / br / the stone butchesbr / br / the 24/7 transsexualsbr / br / the gender benders/p p i pay homage to my predecessorsbr / br / it is becuz of youbr / br /that i can flaunt my desirebr / br / for lipstick and silicone dicks lips sticking to clitsbr / br / this shit is not sickbr / br / you taught me to carry pridebr / br / in my panties proud of heavy pantingsbr / br /the way our queers hearts love is nothing lessbr / br /than spiritual perfection endless complicationsbr / br /of beautiful never settle for lessbr / br /than freedombr / br /your herstory is built on stone wallsbr / br /you beat back the prison cells of gender withbr / br /martini glasses bar stools andbr / br /high heels/p pnow 32 years laterbr / br / i benefit from your strugglebr / br /we all dobr / br /queer youth coming out youngerbr / br /and younger expanding the bounderies of genderbr / br /normalities further and further but the strugglebr / br /continues cuz the billy clubs don’t stopbr / br /searching for mini skirts with dicksbr / br /gender police pricks still criminalizing your identitybr / br /our families still unforgivingbr / br /not realizing they got blessed/p pso i kneel and pray that you reclaim the sunshinebr / br /in your smile the tree trunk curvebr / br /of your spine you are divinebr / br /and always have been indigenous women humblybr / br /approach you asking for a blessing cuz they knowbr / br /you are closer to godbr / br /occupying the promise land between male and femalebr / br /your resistance the roots of rebellionbr / br /unearthing the atrocious truth of this capitalist systembr / br /so breathe full belliedbr / br /melt the rocks for the goddess in you to lead usbr / br /forward in this fight towards freedombr / br /towards justice towards lifebr / br /open lungs expand heartsbr / br /breathe us towards lifebr / br /in this fight for our livesbr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/437/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Leroy Moore/PoorNewsNetwork/p pOn July 26 the Bay Area and the rest of this country celebrates the eleventh birthday of the Americans with Disabilities Act, what disabled Americans call Independence Day. However, as a disabled man of color, Independence Day is still far away and I see no reason to celebrate! On July 26, 1990 President Bush turned to the four White activists with disabilities near him and proclaimed, “Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.” Take another look at the picture and ask yourself who is missing from it. This picture doesn’t represent my disabled brothers and sisters./p pIn the middle of July, Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization (DAMO) got a call from a Washington, D.C. disabled organization that wanted DAMO to speak at their Disability Rights Rally in Berkeley, California. You know what I told them? I invited them to the first ever Latino Disability Awareness Day on July 26 at the Mission Council in San Francisco, where they could hear DAMO speak! You know what they said, they were “too busy”! /p pDisability Advocates of Minorities Organization celebrated, educated and organized with our Latino disabled brothers and sisters to put some color in the picture, and in the disability rights and disability culture movements. The whole week was a rainbow that brought color and energy into the San Francisco disability community. Stay tuned for a look back on the first Latino Disability Awareness Week by David Aldape. I’d like to share my Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) story through a poem. /p pbMy ADA Story/b/p pTime to educatebr / br /Always need to advocatebr / br /But there is no time to celebrate/p pWe’ve the highest unemployment ratebr / br /What is going to happen to our fatebr / br /Our leaders are not awake/p pThe independent living movement is fakebr / br /While we blow out the candles on the cakebr / br /For God sake speak the truth for the youth’s sake/p pWe’re segregated, incarcerated and discriminatedbr / br /In every statebr / br /Do you see a reason to celebrate/p pDon’t want to straybr / br /From the old waysbr / br /No wonder our youth can’t relate/p pThe eleventh anniversarybr / br /Let’s get down and dirtybr / br /I’ve got an ADA story/p pBeen unemployed for a centurybr / br /Buildings not accessible in my communitybr / br /Disabled brothers and sisters are in the penitentiary/p pThe realizationbr / br /Is nobody looks like mebr / br /In management position in your organizations/p pAnother year and another ADA celebrationbr / br /Here I am telling you the real situationbr / br /There you go playing down my contribution/p pThe movement needs an earthquakebr / br /We don’t deserve cakebr / br /It’s time to debate the story that created the ADA/p pb pBy Leroy F. Moore Jr.br / br /7\01br / /p/b/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrong Women at statewide Community Dialogues Demand that Mothers’ Work Count in Welfare Reform/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/438/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Ruth Todasco/p pAt community dialogues on IWelfare "Reform" Reauthorization and Valuing Caring Work/iheld across the country in July, a new grassroots women’s welfare movement announced itself. Women spoke out demanding “Mothering is real work, we want real wages!” and “We want the choice to raise our own children” and spoke against the ravages of welfare “reform”. Welfare mothers, grandmothers, other caregivers, former recipients, women not on welfare and even a few welfare workers were in fight-back mode, expressing excitement and relief that welfare “reform” was finally being challenged on the basis that Imothers are already working/i. A wide variety of women—young and old, mainly but not only of color, many who are disabled or whose children are disabled, lesbian and immigrant —opposed being forced to either leave their children for any low-wage work or be dependent on a man. /p pThe community dialogues held in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Francisco were called for by the Every Mother is a Working Mother Network—a multi-racial, grassroots network campaigning for the work of raising children and other caring work to be recognized as work, and for the quantity of work that mothers do and its economic value to be reflected in mothers’ right to welfare and other benefits. An all-volunteer activist network that began in LA in 1997—where it succeeded in getting LA County to spend $74 million for an after-school program to meet the childcare needs of mothers forced out to work – EMWM has grown into a national network./p pThe dialogues focused on the 1996 law that replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with a ”work first” program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), and destroyed welfare as a right and entitlement. “Hundreds of thousands of mothers have been forced to leave children as young as six weeks for 20-32 hours of work each week, almost always at low wages with few benefits,” according to Margaret Prescod of EMWM in LA, who is also with International Black Women for Wages for Housework. “As the majority of women now on welfare are Black and Latina, welfare ‘reform’ is a racist attack and promotes a racist tradition,“ said Prescod. Asian and Latina women at the dialogues underscored how immigrants are denied benefits. /p pWhile politicians brag of success by pointing to lower welfare rolls, more money is spent on welfare reform than on welfare. But now it goes to profit-making companies administering programs instead of to women raising children. Many women have simply dropped off the economic radar and are homeless, or living with relatives or friends, or have been driven to crimes of poverty to survive. For those who have found paid work, the average post-welfare wage is $6.75/hour and their health is destroyed by overwork and lack of benefits, according to one participant. The 60-month lifetime limit on benefits will leave mothers and children with nothing when their clock stops, which for those who were on welfare in 1996 will happen very soon. /p pCongress has until September 30, 2002 to review TANF. EMWM and supporters are using this opportunity to press for fundamental changes. Congressional hearings once again are excluding testimony on the caring work of mothers. The dialogues heard heartrending stories from over 100 mothers who were angry and frustrated at being ignored, which highlights the urgency to take action against overwork, exhaustion and poverty. The many tears that were shed didn’t hide the women’s determination to be heard, and to confront politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, as well as non-profit groups that refuse to challenge them. /p p “We are tired of those so-called ‘advocates’ who are supposed to represent us, instead of selling us down the river, because basically they agree with the government that mothers need to go out and get a ‘real’ job,” said Pat Albright, a former welfare recipient and single mother of EMWM in Philadelphia. The dialogues distinguished themselves from other forums on welfare by having mothers speaking for themselves about how they have been affected. EMWM will submit women’s testimony “reform” to Congress./p pWomen said they were treated like they had committed a crime during home visits by welfare workers. A Latina mother related the shock of being wrongfully terminated with little notice. A Black grandmother lost payment for the care of four grandchildren but is fighting on. Older women said that after a lifetime of caring for children, they are now counted on to take care of grandchildren and great-grandchildren so that their daughters can take on waged employment. One mother said she had to risk leaving her children at home alone, because she could not afford childcare and had no grandmother to help. Teenage mothers spoke about being put down and deprived of resources. Lesbian mothers spoke about being forced to name the father and sue him for child support —and the welfare department keeps most of the money. A woman from Wages Due Lesbians and a woman who works in a domestic violence shelter both said welfare reform is pushing marriage and financial dependence on men as the solution for women's poverty, putting women at risk of violence. /p pRousing victories were also shared about winning benefits wrongfully denied./p pA childcare worker saw children becoming more attached to her than to their own mothers. "There's more to being a mother than paying the bills and saying, ‘I got a check today,’" she said. Welfare ”reform” treats caregivers like “interchangeable parts”, with no recognition of the unique relationship between each caregiver and each child, beginning with mothers themselves, said a woman from WinVisible, women with visible and invisible disabilities. Mothers of children with disabilities or serious illnesses are made to work 30 hours outside the home, although they are supposed to be exempt under the law. A former breast-feeding advocate now on welfare spoke of the pain of separation from infants and how welfare reform flies in the face of the American Pediatrics Association recommendation for one year minimum of breastfeeding. /p pA Black mother described her degrading treatment at the welfare office, adding that the race of the workers didn’t matter: they all treated welfare moms badly. A welfare worker revealed that many workers deny information to recipients and say they don’t want to be near “them”. A Black woman called the government ”baby snatchers”, paying agencies to take children away. She lost her child by asking too many questions./p pFormer prisoners said they were denied welfare for a felony drug conviction and imprisoned mothers risked permanently losing their children. “Prisons are a big business, you can bet there is a plan in place to fill them. Nobody in my neighborhood has planes bringing in drugs from overseas,” one mom said. Women of color, mostly mothers, are the fastest-growing prison population, growth fueled by welfare reform./p pYoung people described the pain of watching their mothers struggle. A Black woman spoke in tears of trying to feed her family on $20 a week, and said she would do anything to make sure there is food on the table. A nurse spoke about the price your children pay because you don’t have the time, energy or patience to meet their needs, or your own. The New York Times reported on July 31 that welfare reform has had a consistently negative impact on adolescent children, in all studies that have been done./p pMen, including young Latino, Black and Asian men, helped with the event and spoke out in support of caring work being valued —women’s and their own. A national labor organizer said welfare reform has brought down everyone’s wages, especially women’s. Some participants said that while money is taken from women and children, billions are being spent for the military including “Star Wars” and military intervention in countries of the Global South to protect US-based multinationals./p pThe grassroots movement to value caring work is continuing to gain momentum. Pressed by the International Women Count Network, the UN agreed in 1995 that governments should measure and value unwaged work in national economic accounts. The Wall Street Journal reported that a mother’s “multi-tasking” is worth $500,000 a year. In many countries women get a “family allowance”. But the US —the world’s richest country—has no allowance or paid maternity leave. Women’s unwaged caring work is valued at $11 trillion worldwide, according to the UN. /p pNext steps by EMWM include “teach-ins” in the fall, as well as plans to be part of the 3rd Global Women’s Strike on March 8, 2002 whose first demand is “Payment for all caring work”. /p pBy Ruth Todasco/p pPlease contact: Every Mother Is a Working Mother Network:br / br /Los Angeles: PO Box 86681, LA, CA 90086 323-292-7405 phone faxbr / br /San Francisco: PO Box 14512 SF, CA 94114 415-626-4114 phone faxbr / br /Philadelphia: PO Box 11795 Philadelphia, PA 19101 215-848-1120 phone; 215-848-1130 faxbr / br /Email: West Coast a href="mailto:70742.3012@compuserve.com"70742.3012@compuserve.com/abr / br /Email: East Coast a href="mailto:72144.1055@compuserve.com"72144.1055@compuserve.com/abr / br /Global Women’s Strike Webpage: a href="http://womenstrike8m.server101.com" title="http://womenstrike8m.server101.com"http://womenstrike8m.server101.com/abr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongInternational Hotel 24th Eviction Commemoration Celebration/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/439/photo_1_feature.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby PNN staff/p pThis past Saturday, August 4th, marked 24 years since the infamous International Hotel eviction. On August 4th 1977, the SFPD with horses and billy clubs brutally broke through a human barricade of tenants’ rights activists. Residents of the hotel, mostly poor and elderly Filipino and Chinese, were evicted from their home, the “I-Hotel” at Kearny and Jackson. The hotel also served as a community center, housing progressive service and arts organizations as well as 75 to 100 tenants. Some had lived there for over 40 years until being forced out by police defending corporate interests. It was not the first time the residents had fought to preserve their home. The I-Hotel had witnessed a long history of struggle./p p In the 1920s Filipino men, immigrating to the United States in search of work, found themselves barred from owning land or businesses. Forced into menial, low-paying labor and seasonal farm work, they stayed in rooming houses where they found a sense of community as well as affordable lodgings. The I-Hotel, once a hotel for wealthy visitors to San Francisco, housed Filipino workers for $50 a month, in the center of what was known as “Manilatown.”/p pThe 1960s found Manilatown’s neighborhood community squeezed down into one block, as the Financial District of San Francisco expanded, tearing down low-rent hotels and building high-rises and parking lots. The I-Hotel was bought in 1968 by the Milton Meyer Company. Plans were underway to build a parking garage on the lot, and tenants received eviction notices. /p pOrganizing against their eminent displacement, tenants and the United Filipino Association picketed and protested. An agreement between the two factions granted the tenants the right to stay, but one day later a fire ravaged one wing of the hotel. Three residents were killed, and the suspect fire was never fully investigated as arson. The building was condemned, and tenants once again faced eviction./p pUnder pressure from the city, the building’s management agreed to lease the I-Hotel to the residents, provided they completed all repairs and brought the building up to code within a year. The Asian American community rallied as residents, activists and students from all around the Bay Area contributed time and labor to save the I-Hotel for its tenants. The youth involved in the project found themselves in the company of wonderful storytellers and teachers. The wisdom, integrity and survival tales of these elderly immigrants inspired the successful restoration./p pThe tenants faced eviction again when the building was sold to the Four Seas Investment Corporation in 1973. The foreign corporation fought the tenants in court, and won. Tenants and activists again rallied, ion 1976 urging the city to buy the I-Hotel and preserve the affordable housing for the elderly. But Sheriff Richard Hongisto was ordered to carry out the conviction despite community protest./p pAs documented in Curtis Choy’s film The Fall of the I-Hotel, August 4th, 1977 was a night of powerful activism and barbaric police brutality. A diverse population of protestors formed a human barricade six-persons deep in an attempt to protect the I-Hotel and the elderly residents within. Police stormed with violence and aggression through the wall of activists chanting “No Evictions, We Won’t Move!”/p pEmptied of its residents, the I-Hotel was demolished by the end of the year. However, activists refused to let the issue rest. A committee known as the Kearny Street Housing Corporation kept watch over the site, vigilantly blocking any development ventures that did not include affordable housing. /p pIn 1994, the Kearny Street Housing Corporation teamed up with St. Mary’s Catholic Center, another Chinatown community institution. They convinced the Four Seas Corporation to finally give up the land. With funds from HUD and the city of San Francisco, plans for affordable housing on the site are now underway./p pAs well as the 104 unit International Hotel Senior Housing, an elementary school, chapel, gym and parking garage will be built on the site of the former I-Hotel. The Manilatown Community Center will also be housed here, in honor of the communities who have struggled to continue to survive here./p pOn August 4th,, 2001, members of the community gathered to commemorate the 24th anniversary of the eviction, and to celebrate the future for the site. Activists, poets, musicians and traditional dancers spoke and performed in honor of the residents of the I-Hotel and those who have continued the struggle for social justice and human rights. /p piFor more information on their struggle or to get their excellent book of words, art, and history, contact The Manila Town Heritage Foundation at a href="http://www.manilatown.org" title="www.manilatown.org"www.manilatown.org/a/i/p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongDo Californians Really Want Nuclear Power and the Recall of Governor Gray Davis?...Or Do Field Polls Tell Californians what they should want?/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/442/photo_2_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Alison VanDeursen, Dee Gray and class at POOR New Journalism/ Media Studies Program/p pIn our journalism and media studies class, we read an article titled "Nuclear power's California Comeback," published May 23, 2001 in the San Francisco Chronicle. Carla Marinucci reports that, according to a Field Poll, the California public opinion has shifted from "No Nukes" to "Go, Nukes!" in the face of the Energy Crisis./p pThe results of the survey made the Chronicle happy. It gave them a good headline. It made Dick Cheney happy. He supports nuclear power. It made executives and stockholders in the nuclear energy business happy. It made me very unhappy, and suspicious./p pNow, I am a Californian, and so are most of my friends, and I don't know any one of us who supports nuclear power. I wondered about this bField Poll/b, which I've always assumed to be a poll taken out in the field, so to speak. I wondered who actually took this poll, and found that it was conducted by the Field Institute- ah!/p pOur class contacted journalists at the Chronicle, including Marinucci. They told us that they trust the results of the Field Poll "bwithout any questions/b," though they claimed not to know much about this source or how it was run. I've been taught to investigate the credibility of sources, so I looked up the Field Institute on the internet. I discovered the that Field Institute is a part of the Field Research Corporation, founded in 1945 by Mervin Field. /p pNot long ago I worked at a market research company, so I know a bit about what goes on in these places. We had a staff of telephone interviewers who would call people from a database and screen them for participation in focus groups. We might be hired by a beer company, or a car company, or a political campaign or a pharmaceutical company. Once we hosted a focus group about sardines. It could be anything. /p pThe client would hire us to find people of a certain demographic- say, San Francisco residents with AIDS who use marijuana, or business executives who will buy a new luxury car in the next 6 months, or housewives who buy a particular brand of cookie. We would find people who matched and then these folks were invited to a focus group, where they might sit and, led by a professional moderator, discuss Kleenex for two hours. They'd receive $50 to $400 bucks in compensation for their time and opinions. The company would then use this information to influence effective advertising campaigns. /p pSometimes the callers get stressed, or lazy, or they haven't met the quota of qualifying participants yet. And then they might prompt their respondents to answer the questions "correctly." This happens to my roommate all the time, who has a sort of part-time job attending focus groups. Say, X-Brand Beer wants men aged 25-40 who drink their product 5 times a week. The screener asks, "What brands of beer do you drink?" My roommate says, "Oh, A, B and C." The screener has been instructed to then say, "Thank you, but you do not qualify," and go on to the next call. But she might go off-script and say, "Well, what about X-Brand?" And my roommate knows that if he wants to make $75 for talking about beer labels, he'd best say, "Oh, yeah, I drink that all the time... I've got some in my fridge right now..."/p pThe Field Research Corporation conducts such studies as these. But the Field Institute has a different focus. It is described as a "non-partisan, independent organization devoted to the study of California public opinion and behavior on social, political and economic issues." The Field Institute, under the direction of Mark DiCamillo and Mervin Field, conducts the Field Poll. /p pSo corporate business hire the Field Research Corporation to conduct surveys. Who hires the Field Institute? In one sense, supposedly no one. When I spoke to DiCamillo, he assured me that he and Mervin Field, solely, determine the subjects of study and design the questionnaires. /p pHowever, the Field Poll, though "non-partisan and independent," identifies itself as a "bmedia-sponsored/b public opinion news service." Funding for the Institute comes from the subscriptions from media sources, including the San Francisco Chronicle. DiCamillo told me that he and Field read five newspapers a day, and from this they make judgements as to what sort of polls might interest their subscribers. As he put it, as researchers they try to "bmake news/b." These questionnaires are designed to not only assess public opinion but to bcreate headlines/b./p pAnd so I wonder how the questions about nuclear power were phrased to the telephone respondents. I wonder if they were designed to show a change of opinion, because this is more news-worthy than the same-old, same-old. /p pI'm imagining a question, say, "What are your top three issues concerning government policy?" Someone might answer, "Uh, gun control, and reduced military spending, and welfare reform." And then a headline could read, "Environmental Issues Not a Priority." Had the question read, "Is the environment a top priority for our government to address?" a majority might have responded to the prompt and said, "Oh, yes." Then the headline would read, "Environment a Top Priority for California Citizens." Do you see what I'm getting at?/p pDid DiCamillo and Field design a survey that asked, "Do you support nuclear power?" Or, "Do you support clean, efficient sources of energy such as nuclear power as an alternative to electricity, in the face of our current energy crisis?" Or, "Despite nuclear disasters of the past, do you support nuclear power plants in California?" /p pMy colleague called Mark DiCamillo, posing as a journalist for a Russian-American newspaper. He asked if the Field Institute would conduct a survey concerning the opinions of Californians toward Russian immigrants. DiCamillo told him that sometimes ba group of media sponsors will get together to request that a particular poll be taken/b, but that the Field Institute does not conduct polls for single organizations- unless that organization has "that kind of money." The energy poll, for example, cost about $100,000 to conduct, he told my colleague. /p pThis is contradictory to what DiCamillo told me. He stated that the media subscribers are privy to the results of the polls, bbut do not in any way/b- individually or as a group- bmake direct requests for polls/b. He assured me that they do not pay for specific polls. And yet he seemed to be asking my colleague to make an offer- though $100,000 is clearly a bit out of reach for the imaginary budget of "Glasnost."/p pOutside of my budget as well is a subscription to the Field Poll. One can gain on-line access to the results of its polls for $200. This is for an individual subscription, of course- not the type of sponsorship that major news media organizations contribute. Of course, you can read the results of the poll in the Chronicle for 25 cents- or for free if you find a paper on the bus. But then you're reading spin on a spin. Makes me dizzy./p pWhen people read the headline "Nuclear power's California Comeback," do they buy it? The Chronicle bought it- literally. Who else? Whether technically contracted or not, it appears that the Field Poll is most definitely for hire- and that the "opinions" of Californians may be not only purchased, but customized to order. /p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

pstrongHomes Not Jails Occupyingbr / Vacant City Property /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/440/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Ted Gullickson/p p While thousands of people are forced to live on the streets and while over a hundred families are turned away from shelters every night, there are dozens of city owned buildings which are vacant and have been declared "surplus" by the city's Real Estate Department. Each of these buildings could be renovated cheaply via sweat equity and turned into permanent affordable housing./p pPeople who are homeless have occupied one such building today: the old High School of Commerce at 170 Fell Street (corner of Fell and Franklin). The occupiers will hold a press conference at the site today, Sunday, August 12, at Noon to demand that the city make the property available to the squatters so that they can renovate it and live there. The squatters also call for legislation to require that ALL surplus city property be made available immediately for housing./p pThe Site/p p 170 Fell Street is the site of the old High School of Commerce and has been vacant for 11 years. The site is in need of renovation (and as a historic building can not be demolished)./p p Two civil grand juries in San Francisco have sharply criticized the school district (as well as other city agencies) for failing to adequately inventory and plan re-use of surplus property. Complaining that city agencies have ignored repeated requests to utilize surplus property, he grand jury said: "The (School) District still has no plans for disposition of its surplus real estate property. Meanwhile, the unused properties remain idle. Nearby residents complain of the eyesore and the City is deprived..." The grand jury recommended: "The District should immediately develop a formal plan to sell or lease all of its surplus real properties."/p pEarlier (1992), a similar study of surplus school properties was highly critical of how these properties were managed. The so-called "Simmons Report" (Surplus Property and the District Real Estate Portfolio -A Strategic Approach). That report said the city should dispose of certain properties (including the old High School of Commerce) which:/p p ".They had not been used for a number of years."/p p.In their present unused and hazardous condition they represent a potential liability to the School District./p pDemographic forecasts indicate that there will be no future demand for these facilities."/p p These critiques of vacant city property were issued after 170 Fell Street had already sat unused and vacant and deteriorating almost five years. Now, more than five years later the site still is empty and unused./p pMeanwhile, the city is critically short of affordable housing, to the point that every year well over a hundred people die while living on the streets./p pHomes Not Jails calls for the immediate transfer of this property to HNJ or a non-profit housing developer for renovation into affordable housing via the sweat equity labor of people who are homeless who could trade their skills and labor for affordable housing./p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p

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

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

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