Author: storiesinamerica

Hi all,

I’ve been posting info about my radio show when I think the topics will interest you. The show airs from 10:00-11:00 a.m. PST on KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco. It’s a call-in show and you can listen online.

On tomorrow’s show, we’ll be talking with the mothers of four American soldiers:
Sara Rich, mother of Suzanne Swift – Suzanne was arrested for going AWOL last year. She says she was sexually harassed and abused by her commanders in Iraq and at home. She spent a year in Iraq

Nadia McCaffrey, mother of Patrick – Patrick was killed in Iraq in June 2004 – His death received national attention after Nadia invited the press to take photos and video of his flag-draped coffin returning home, which violates U.S. military policy

Carolyn Ho, mother of Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq

Pat Soler, mother of Sgt. Kyle Soler – Kyle has been in Baghdad since October 2006 – Pat is a member of Blue Star Moms

On Wednesday, we’ll be talking with Shimon Katz, a former Israeli soldier, and Sulaiman Al Hamri, a former Palestinian combatant, about Combatants for Peace, an organization founded by Israelis and Palestinians who put down their weapons to end the cycle of violence

On today’s radio show, we’ll be talking about credit card debt. A few facts:

The average American salary is in the low 30s. The average credit card debt is $9000.

There are about 690 million credit cards in circulation in the United States, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The average American family owns eight credit cards. About $1.8 trillion was charged to those cards in 2005. Americans now owe more than $800 billion on credit cards, according to the Federal Reserve.

According to a new report, “Borrowing to Stay Healthy: How Credit Card Debt is Related to Medical Expenses,” more American families — both with health insurance and without — are using high-interest credit cards to pay for their health care.

Families have fewer avenues to get out of debt today. Congress tightened bankruptcy rules in 2005, making it more difficult and costly for individuals to start fresh financially.

While this issue rarely receives front page headlines, credit card reform is on the Senate’s to-do list. Sen. Carl Levin, Democrat from Michigan, now chairs the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In the coming months, he plans to investigate credit card late fees, interest charges, and hidden fees.

Today’s guests:

Erica Sandberg, financial counselor with the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of San Francisco, a non-profit that provides financial education. Erica says easy access to credit for people with no income is one of the biggest financial problems of our time. Erica is now working on a book for expecting families to help them deal with their finances.

Christian Weller, senior economist at the Center for American Progresss, a progressive think tank based in Washington DC. Christian crunched the numbers from the Federal Reserve to find that Americans owe more money than they make. Average household debt levels were almost 30 percent higher than after tax income.

The show airs from 10:00-11:00 am PST on KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco. You can also listen online and all shows are archived.

Hi all,

I recently got a new job hosting Your Call, a daily public affairs call-in show airing on KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco. Every Friday, we have three reporters on the show to discuss how the media covered the week’s news.

On tomorrow’s (Friday) show, we’ll be talking to Mark Seibel, Managing Editor of McClatchy, A.C. Thompson, reporter with the San Francisco Weekly, and Greg Wilpert, editor with Venezuelaanalysis.com.
Mark Seibel wrote a great piece this week called, “Administration leaving out important details on Iraq“

President Bush and his aides, explaining their reasons for sending more American troops to Iraq, are offering an incomplete, oversimplified and possibly untrue version of events there that raises new questions about the accuracy of the administration’s statements about Iraq.

A.C. Thompson has a piece in the Progressive about Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, an “enemy combatant” languishing in a South Carolina brig:

After the FBI arrested al-Marri in December 2001, prosecutors charged him with seven criminal offenses, including unauthorized possession of credit card numbers, making false statements to a bank, and using a phony ID to scam a bank.
His lawyers insist the government has hyped the case against him. “There’s been no evidence presented” that al-Marri is an Al Qaeda operative or ally, says Hafetz, an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, and one of several lawyers working on al-Marri’s case. Hafetz adds, “He’s asserted his innocence.”
Under normal circumstances, a jury would have considered his guilt or innocence, by now, a half-decade later, and rendered a verdict, pushing al-Marri into a prison sentence or cutting him loose. But these are not normal times.

In addition to talking to these reporters about how they cover stories, we also take calls from listeners about what was reported well, what was reported poorly, and what deserved more attention.

The show airs from 10:00-11:00 am PST on KALW 91.7 FM. You can also listen online.

Next week, we’ll be talking about global warming, Israel/Palestine, and debt. We’ll also have a conversation with Greil Marcus, former editor of Rolling Stone and author of “The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy in the American Voice”

I’ve been meaning to post for a while because we have great guests on the show, but I’ve been swamped. It’d be great for some of you to weigh in with your thoughts on the show, whether you’re local or not.

Five years ago today, 20 shackled and blindfolded detainees were sent to the notorious Guantanamo prison camps. Since then, 773 prisoners have passed through the detention center, which is on the U.S. Naval base in southeastern Cuba. A total of 395 men are currently being held there because of alleged links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, including 85 who have been cleared for release. None of the detainees have been tried and none have any prospects of a fair hearing. Only 10 of the prisoners have been charged by the “Guantanamo process.”
The prisoners at Guantanamo are repeatedly beaten, raped, forced to maintain very stressful positions, and subjected to prolonged sleep deprivation, months of isolation, extreme temperatures, and mock executions. Reading about torture is one thing; seeing it is another experience altogether. To see what the Bush administration is doing to innocent men from around the world, watch “The Road to Guantanamo,” a deeply disturbing film about three young British men who were tortured and abused at Guantanamo Bay for more than two years. They were eventually released without charge.

There have been three suicides among prisoners and hundreds have been force-fed to keep them alive during intermittent hunger strikes. The Department of Defense has acknowledged 41 suicide attempts among 29 prisoners.

Jumah Al-Dossari, a 33-year-old citizen of Bahrain, has been held at Guantanamo since 2002. In a letter to his attorneys, he writes, “At Guantanamo, soldiers have assaulted me, placed me in solitary confinement, threatened to kill me, threatened to kill my daughter and told me I will stay in Cuba for the rest of my life. They have deprived me of sleep, forced me to listen to extremely loud music and shined intense lights in my face. They have placed me in cold rooms for hours without food, drink or the ability to go to the bathroom or wash for prayers. They have wrapped me in the Israeli flag and told me there is a holy war between the Cross and the Star of David on one hand and the Crescent on the other. They have beaten me unconscious.

I would rather die than stay here forever, and I have tried to commit suicide many times. The purpose of Guantanamo is to destroy people, and I have been destroyed. I am hopeless because our voices are not heard from the depths of the detention center. “

The camp has been criticized around the world for its detainment of prisoners without trial.  The U.S. administration said the prisoners were not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions, but on June 19, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against that claim.  

Today, activists around the world will be demonstrating for the closure of the base. Asif Iqbal, one of the men featured in “The Road to Guantanamo,” is back in Cuba denouncing the abuses. Amnesty International and others will participate in demonstrations in Australia, Italy, Japan, Paraguay, Spain, Tunisia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. To take part in an action near you, click here.

While we talk about the torture methods being used by the United States, as a society, we rarely discuss their devastating impacts. In 1957, after French soldiers forced water directly and deeply into the lungs of French journalist Henri Alleg during the Battle for Algiers, he wrote a book about his ordeal and named his torturers. He wrote, “I tried, by contracting my throat, to take in as little water as possible to resist suffocation by keeping air in my lungs for as long as I could. But I couldn’t hold on for more than a few moments. I had the impression of drowning, and a terrible agony, that of death itself, took possession of me.”

That chilling description turned the French people against both torture and the Algerian war.

So what’s it going to take to turn the American people against torture?

Here are comments from a few of the protesters who’ve been directly impacted by Guantanamo:

Zohra Zewawi, the mother of detainee British citizen Omar Dehayes, traveled from the United Arab Emirates with another son, Taher Deghayes, to join the protest [in Cuba]. She says her son had been tortured and blinded in one eye since he was imprisoned in September 2002 and still has not been charged or tried.

During the conference, peace delegation member Adele Welty, who lost her firefighter son in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, expressed empathy with Zewawi and other mothers of men held at Guantanamo prison.

Welty said that in the case of her son Timothy, “I have been assured that it was over quickly, that he did not feel the tons of concrete that tore his body apart.

“But for five years, (the inmates’) mothers have lived with the images of them being torn apart from torture,” Welty said.

Let’s hope comments like these and today’s worldwide actions planned over the next few days raise the awareness needed to pressure the U.S. government to shut down these torture prisons.

The following was written by Stacy Bannerman, member of Military Families Speak Out. Stacy flew from Seattle, WA., to Washington DC, on June 22 to launch Operation House Call, a campaign to highlight the human toll of the Iraq war. Stacy’s husband served in Balat, Iraq, from March 2004 to March 2005.

When Stacy’s not meeting with politicians, she’s standing in front of the House and Senate buildings speaking to citizens about why she wants the troops to come home.

Operation House Call is having a tough time getting attention in both the alternative and traditional media. Kudos to AlterNet for running my piece last week. Please spread the word.

“Who paid for those boots?” asks a smirking, steel-haired man. He’s not the first to do so, just the first one today. But it’s the end of the week, and my patience has already gone home. I glance at Anne Roesler, nodding my head slightly, to let her know I’ve got this one.

“Our loved ones did.”

“Oh, c’mon” he says disgustedly, “Who paid for ’em?”

“Seriously, our soldiers paid for them.”

He tries another tack, and like the fifty-something man the day before, wants to know where he can get some of his own.

I hand him a recruiting brochure and direct him to the nearest military recruiter’s office in the area.

“They wouldn’t take me, I’m too old.”

“Do you have kids?”

“Yeah, but they’re in high school.”

“That’s perfect for the Early Entry program! They can sign up right now and start Basic Training as soon as they graduate.”

Shaking his head with disgust, he stalks off. This type of exchange happens daily, but I am still appalled at the callousness of people who first try to make a joke about what we’re doing in front of the Cannon House building. When that doesn’t work, they say or imply that they support the troops and we do not. But they get angry when we encourage them to demonstrate their support for the troops by actually becoming one, or at the very least, enlisting their children.

This scenario has played out in multiple variations since the vigil began five weeks ago. But not a single person has expressed the slightest bit of interest in committing themselves or their family members to military service. Each time they cut and run, I call out to their retreating backs, “Bring ’em home, or go and help!”

I used to be nicer than this; at least I like to think I was. But five weeks of heat, and humidity, and daily descents into the Seventh Circle of Congressional Hell that is the House–and Senate–offices has burned away any nice I may once have had. What remains is raw, unadulterated truth, a pure passion for peace and the preservation of what is left of our loved ones. I am no longer willing to buffer the edges of my soul in order that the soul of Congress, and the people of this nation, can sleepwalk through this war.

Who has paid for these boots? 2,570 dead American soldiers; 18,988 wounded troops, and the nearly 100,000 Iraq War veterans with some level of post-traumatic stress disorder. For the more than 3,000 members of Military Families Speak Out, the price doubles, triples, quadruples. We pay with our children, our husbands, our brothers, and our wives. We pay in sleepless nights and nightmarish days. We pay with our marriages, our friendships, and sometimes, our jobs. We gave our loved ones to the military; now we give our lives to ending the war.

Who paid for those boots? We did. We still are. And today, it feels like we will be forever.

Here are excerpts from a story I recently wrote for AlterNet about Operation House Call, a summer campaign to highlight the ongoing human toll of the Iraq war. Other than a newspaper in Southern California and the Chicago Tribune blog, this campaign hasn’t received any coverage in the ‘liberal media.’ You would think that 44-year-old Georgia Stilwell’s story is somewhat newsworthy. She voted for the first time in 2004, risked her job to fly to DC, and managed to secure a 30-minute meeting with the Speaker of the House to tell him about her son who has a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Unfortunately, the ‘liberal media’ would rather give airtime to Ann Coulter, the woman who recently called Clinton a “latent homosexual” and Gore a “total fag.” Hardball’s Chris Matthews said, “We’d love to have her back.”
Here’s the story. Please spread the word:

When Congress voted to “stay the course” in Iraq on June 15, many military families were furious.

“I watched the entire mock debate on C-Span for 13 hours,” says Stacy Bannerman, a member of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO). “That day, I decided that if they wanted to ‘stay the course,’ they would have to explain their rationale to my face.”

A week later, Bannerman left Seattle for Washington, D.C., where she launched Operation House Call, an MFSO campaign to highlight the ongoing human toll in Iraq. Since June 22, Bannerman, whose husband served in Balat, Iraq, from March 2004 to March 2005, has been joined by over 50 families of U.S. troops who are serving, have served, or were killed in Iraq.

So far, the families have met with several politicians, including Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. They’re hoping to meet with Sen. Hillary Clinton in the coming days, but say they have yet to hear back from Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chair of the Armed Services Committee.

…

For many of the families, Operation House Call is their first foray into political activism. “I never even voted until 2004,” says 44-year-old Georgia Stillwell. “I never registered. I never cared. I was as apathetic as they come. And then it got personal.”

Stillwell’s 22-year-old son spent his 19th and 20th birthdays in Iraq, and is now dealing with a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder. In January, he drove his car over an embankment in excess of 120 mph. Miraculously, he survived the crash. “I know I should be grateful he’s not dead, but he’s dead inside,” says Stillwell.

On July 12, Stillwell shared her son’s story during an emotional 30-minute meeting with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. “The congressman compared Iraq to a football game about changing strategies,” she says. “I touched his arm and said, ‘Congressman, children don’t die in football games.’ He said nothing. I also showed him a picture of a friend’s son who was killed in Iraq. He was unblinking and unfeeling.”

…

The MFSO members also ask passersby to sign postcards supporting an end to the war. The families then hand-deliver the postcards to senators and congressmen. Stilwell says interacting with the locals and tourists has been an eye-opening experience.

“Bush supporters often say, ‘I’m sick of you people.’ They look at us with such hatred. I don’t get it. We have military recruiter flyers for them,” she says. “But what’s even worse are the people who won’t even look at us. They won’t meet our gaze or look at the boots, and they’re mostly corporate people.”

The families say they’ve also received a number of surprisingly positive reactions. “A few congressional staffers have stopped by to say they’re in full support of what we’re doing even though their bosses aren’t,” says Nancy Lessin, MFSO co-founder.

Please visit AlterNet to read the entire story.

 The following is an update on Suzanne Swift, the young woman who is awaiting the outcome of an investigation into allegations that she was sexually harassed and assaulted by three American sergeants in Iraq. Here’s a recent story I wrote about Swift’s case and sexual assault in the military.

This update was written by Sara Rich, Suzanne’s mom:

Things continue to move forward for Suzanne. The Army has not yet disclosed the results of the commander-directed investigations. The investigator took statements from witnesses, including Suzanne, and forwarded his report to the command. The command now has to decide whether Suzanne’s allegations require the Army to take action, and whether they have any bearing on Suzanne’s own case. We expect to learn the results of the investigation any day now.

Suzanne’s military psych evaluation came back. She was told  she does not have a personality disorder, and that she has symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder but not enough to diagnose her with PTSD. No mention of military sexual trauma. So, she sits in limbo, restricted to base and assigned to “weeds and seeds” details, not knowing what her future holds.

Whatever the Army decides to do, we have total confidence in Suzanne’s attorneys, Keith Scherer and Greg Gagne. They were trial attorneys in the JAG and know their way around military law. They are aggressive and very thorough. They were recommended to us by people from Military Families Speak Out as being very good at protecting their clients and advocating for families.

We are still doing fundraising to pay Suzanne’s legal costs, which are substantial. There is now a link on Suzanne’s website to make direct donation. Check out Suzanne’s website for updates, new pictures, articles and action alerts. Suzanneswift.org. Huge thank you to Robin Bernardi for all her hard work on the website. She is a patient genius and we owe her so much.

How is Suzanne? She is OK. She is bored and tired most of them time. The stress of not knowing what the Army is going to do with her case has been hard on her. She is pretty isolated and the work she is assigned to do is mundane. She is so amazed at how much support she has received from around the world. I have been trying to see her every week or so to just hug her and give her encouragement. Her moods fluctuate from sad to angry and then just exhaustion. I tell her to hang on and we are doing all we can do to get her home. She is hopeful that the Army will do the right thing. As I mentioned in earlier updates her new unit captain is a very steady and kind man and we appreciate his thoughtful responsiveness to making Suzanne feel better.

We continue to be amazed by the activity on the petition. We are moving slowly towards 5,000 signatures. Let’s get this done ASAP!!! The comments being made are powerful and significant. Remember we have Suzanne wear available on cafe press. I wear my shirt frequently and just saw my dad at a rally yesterday wearing his own, “Free Suzanne” shirt.

The family is hanging on. We want her home. I have joined CODEPINK’S Bring Them Home Fast and am not eating every other day for peace. I have been speaking out and communicating with many people all over the world. Something that has come up is that we need to create a resource list or how to list for women that are experiencing “command rape” and “military sexual trauma” right now. So, that is something we are working on.

That’s it for now. Remind all the people around you to DO something every day to help create peace in the world.

Peace~

Sara Rich, M.S.W

Here are excerpts from my latest AlterNet.org article about Suzanne Swift and sexual assault in the military.

Tomorrow marks a national day of action to call for Swift’s honorable discharge. Protests will occur at the gates of Fort Lewis at noon, followed by a press conference at 3 pm. A separate protest will be held at the Federal Building in Eugene, OR at noon. Supporters are also encouraged to sign a petition calling for an honorable discharge.
Please email me if you know of any soldiers who would be willing to talk about this issue. I’m now working on a story about men who are raped in the military.

U.S. Army Specialist Suzanne Swift will spend her 22nd birthday tomorrow confined to the Fort Lewis base in Washington, where she is awaiting the outcome of an investigation into allegations that she was sexually harassed and assaulted by three sergeants in Iraq.

Swift says the sergeants propositioned her for sex shortly after arriving for her first tour of duty in February 2004. She remained in Iraq until February 2005. “When you are over there, you are lower than dirt, you are expendable as a soldier in general, and as a woman, it’s worse,” said Swift in a recent interview with the Guardian.

When Swift’s unit redeployed to Iraq in January 2006, she refused to go and instead stayed with her mother in Eugene, Oregon. She was eventually listed as AWOL, arrested at her mother’s home on June 11, sent to county jail, and transferred to Fort Lewis.

“She’s miserable and isolated,” says Sara Rich, Swift’s mother. “It’s not good to have an idle mind while you’re dealing with PTSD and sexual trauma. I want them to release her so I can get her the care she needs. I’m tired of waiting.”

Suzanne Swift is not the first woman to go AWOL because of sexual assault, according to the Miles Foundation. The problem is, most women are too afraid to speak out publicly.

Since the fall of 2003, the Miles Foundation has documented 518 cases of sexual assault on women who have served or are serving in Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain and Qatar. The foundation has counselors on staff around the clock and often receives midnight phone calls from service members or their family members. After counselors and attorneys help the women access medical care and explain the reporting process, they try to transport them to a safe place for care and treatment.

“Because they’re in a combat situation, we’ve had to develop protocols. We can’t just send a chopper in there for them. We have to get their permission to contact military authorities to get them moved,” says Sanchez. “If you were at Fort Drum, we wouldn’t have to tell anybody, but if we need to move you out of Baghdad or Kuwait, then we have to get your permission to contact the military and say, ‘We need to move Joanna Jones because this has transpired.'”

Sanchez says a counselor recently received a call in the middle of the night from a young woman who was raped in the Green Zone in Baghdad. “She said, ‘I was raped and I’ve only got 10 minutes on my phone card. What do I do?'” The woman was helicoptered out of the Green Zone, sent to Kuwait and then Germany, and eventually returned to the U.S.

Another recent case involved a young American woman who was raped by a Coalition partner in a rural area. Sanchez says it took two weeks to get to a one-room medical facility in Kabul. “They had no facilities to do a rape testing, so they couldn’t test for pregnancy or HIV. An American doctor literally handed her high dose antibiotics and told her, ‘This will kill anything you’ve come in contact with.'” The young woman is now recovering in the states.

Sanchez says another woman was told she would receive the morning-after pill a few days after she was raped, but received birth control pills instead.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

The War Tapes, a documentary that shows the Iraq war thorugh the eyes of soldiers, opens today in selected cities. I saw it a few nights ago and highly recommend it. The filmmakers gave cameras to five soldiers from the New Hampshire National Guard and were lucky enough to receive 1,100 hours of footage from three men with very different opinions and backgrounds. Because soldiers, not journalists, were interviewing their fellow soldiers, the footage is very real and very raw. It’ll make you realize just how disconnected the majority of Americans are from the reality on the ground:

“I think if we can get people in to see the film, I think it’s going to change the way people see the war,” said Staff Sgt. Zack Bazzi, a soldier in the film, in a telephone interview from Washington. “There’s a huge gap between the people who are fighting this war and the people who are at home. I think this will be eye-opening for people who have been watching the war at home on TV. It’s not the same.

“Part of the reason is the media. A reporter can be with us, use all the lingo, try to be our buddy,” Bazzi continued. “But still, we look at them and say, ‘You’re the media.'”

As the San Francisco Chronicle points out, this film can’t be tagged as having a liberal or conservative bent. In fact, the filmmakers said they tried to steer clear of bringing their political perspective to the film:

“This isn’t a Michael Moore film, and it isn’t a recruiting film,” says Ward Carroll, editor of Military.com and a 20-year Navy veteran who saw the film. “How can you quarrel with it? It shows the good and the bad. It’s sincere.”

The film shows how partisan politics gets fuzzy in foxholes: Soldiers who voted Republican complain about guarding trucks for Halliburton Co., and a Democratic-voting soldier who reads the Nation re-enlists.

The pro-war talking heads who’ve never been to Iraq (outside the Green Zone) or served in the military should be required to see this documentary. The same goes for anti-war talking heads who’ve never been, but those who get national exposure in the traditional media are few and far between.

The film opens today in Berkeley, CA, Boston, MA, Concord, NY, San Francisco and Washington, DC.

*This is part of my ongoing series with the voters and non-voters we rarely hear from in the traditional media.

Whenever I approached a young African American at the Juneteenth festival in San Francisco, I always heard the same thing: “I don’t vote because politicians don’t care about our communities. They have no idea what goes on here and they don’t care.” It was almost impossible to get an interview with a young person in their 20s.

Dijaida, a 34-year old mason, says young people hesitate to share their opinions because they don’t trust outsiders. Dijaida never misses an election.

What issues are important to you?

The presidency, the governor, stuff that goes on in the city. I’m interested in a lot of things. Education is very important.

Do you affiliate with a political party?

I’m a Democrat.

What message would you send to politicians? What can they do to reach out to communities that have low voter turnout?

They need to come to the communities, especially this community. They always go to the high rise hotels. They need to do more outreach here and talk to the people.

Do you feel like the progressive community does enough to reach out to your neighborhood and African American neighborhoods in general?

No, the progressive community is mainly white. Minorities feel like no one cares, so they don’t vote. They don’t think it’s important. You keep pushing them to vote and come out and talk to them and they’ll begin to trust you. The problem is, they don’t trust many people. Politicians need to come to this community. The people who live here believe it’s us against them and if no one comes out to educate them, they’ll always feel that way.

Where do you get your news?

I read the newspaper everyday and watch TV news.

Do you get any of your news from the Internet?

Sometimes.

Do you ever visit political websites?

Never.

Valerie, 44, is a teacher’s aide. She hasn’t voted since 1996.

Do you affiliate with a political party?

I’m a Democrat, but I don’t see the results of what the politicians are doing.

Last time I voted was when Clinton was in. I liked him a lot. I loved Kerry, too. Where is he? What happened?

Did you vote in this last election?

No, I didn’t see anything that was interesting.

What issues are you interested in?

Childcare, jobs for the youth and crime. There’s so much crime on the street. What are they doing about this? Kids are being shot at community centers. I’m fed up. We need more police. There are too many drive bys.

Where do you get your news?

From the newspaper and the community. Everybody talks in the community.

Do you use the Internet?

I just got an email address.

What message would you send to the Democrats?

Get rid of the crime, so my child can play on the sidewalk. Do something about healthcare. Arnold took my medicare. The food programs are also being cut. There are no jobs here. It’s not right.

Women need to be empowered because we’re the ones raising our kids. The men aren’t. They’re in jail and drunk half the time. I don’t have anything against them, but it’s hard to find a real man around here.

I’ve met a few women here who voted for Bush because they’re against abortion and gay marriage.

I’m definitely against abortion and gay marriage, but that’s between you and the lord. Please practice safe sex.

So you don’t think they should be political issues?

No!