Palmer Legare, longtime Central American solidarity activist, friend of Arise and housing organizer for the Alliance to Develop Power, was arrested a few weeks ago in Westfield. I received this email forwarded by Palmer and will let it speak for itself except to urge everyone to take action!
Friends,
In solidarity,
palmer
It has come to my attention that Mass Housing has not been enforcing regulations at
Two Chattanooga, Tennessee organizations, The Chattanooga Community Kitchen and Outdoor Chattanooga, have teamed up to help homeless people get back on their feet by getting off their feet-- on bicycles. They'll operate by taking in donated bikes, fixing them up, then providing training, a helmet and a bike lock to homeless people.
A nice program in Tampa, Florida repairs bikes brought to them by homeless people. You can read more at Creative Loafing.
Photo from Daniel Y. Go's photostream at Flick.
The New York Times has a story this morning about The Cove, an award-winning documentary that opens on July 31. It will be shown at the Amherst Cinema Arts Center 3 starting August 14.
A central character is Ric O'Barry, a dolphin activist atoning for his role in commercializing dolphins. From an interview in New York:
You had captured the dolphins on Flipper, right?Photo from Jurvetson's photostream at Flickr.
I captured the five dolphins that collectively played the part of Flipper. I trained all of them, from the very beginning of the first show to the last show. I lived with all five of them in the Seaquarium. And on Friday nights, at 7:30, I would take the TV set, with a long extension cord, out to the end of the dock, so Flipper could watch Flipper on television. And that’s when I knew they were self-aware. I could tell when the dolphins recognized themselves and each other. Cathy, for example, would recognize the shots she was in, Suzy would recognize her shots, and so on. Dolphins are hard to read, because you have to look at body language. Almost all other animals you can read by looking at their faces. But dolphins have this built-in “smile” that makes it look like they’re always happy.
How did your ideas about captivity turn around?
Cathy died in my arms, of suicide. It was just before Earth Day, 1970. The next day, I found myself in a Bimini jail, trying to free a dolphin for the first time. I completely lost it.
How do you know it was suicide?
You have to understand, dolphins are not automatic air breathers like we are. Every breath for them is a conscious effort. She looked me right in the eye, took a breath, held it — and she didn’t take another one. She just sank to the bottom of the water. That had a profound effect on me.
Containers are about $500 apiece and just about indestructable. See Inhabitat.
When will homeless people get a break? When will children stop being afraid of the police?
This morning the Springfield Republican reported that Bill Miller, Executive Director of the Friends of the Homeless Shelter on Worthington St., has had a sexual harassment charge filed against him by a social worker who had also been employed at the shelter. President of the board Bob Carroll is defending Miller, but the social worker, Holly Bell, has a letter from Bob Carroll that states, "The Board determined that many of your allegations were substantiated and that the Executive Director made comments to you that were inappropriate. The Board of Directors has taken appropriate discipline against the Executive Director."
So Carroll can deny Miller's culpability now, but he admitted it in print in a letter.
Part of what makes me sick to my stomach is how many people must have known about this, who just hoped it would go away, who found it more important to cover Miller's (and the Friends of the Homeless) ass than make the tough decisions. It reminds me of the Springfield Housing Authority in the Ray Asselin days, when it was common knowledge that maintenance men would attempt to solicit sexual favors in return for apartment repairs, with threats of evictions if tenants didn't comply.
I suppose I can feel sorry for Miller, put him in the same category as the numerous politicians who have seemingly lost their minds over a woman, betrayed their wives, and put their careers in the toilet. But Bell didn't want a relationship with Miller, she told him to stop, and she took it to the board of directors.
The last permanent director of the Friends of the Homeless shelter before Miller was Frank Keough, who has recently finished serving three years in prison for stealing from the shelter and putting his friends in no-show jobs, among other things. Rumors of sexual misbehavior on his and other staffs' part were common. Arise fought for years to get rid of Keough, but it took a Justice Department investigation, the same one that swept the Asselin family, the Ardolino brothers, and so many more, to accomplish the change.
Don't the homeless people who live at the Worthington St. Shelter deserve a director who pays attention to running the shelter?
---------------------------------------------------
Thursday night, 15 year old Delano Walker ran from police into the street and was immediately hit and killed by a car.
Delano and two friends, all on bikes, were observed by the police just emerging from the car lot at Balise Hyundi on Columbus Ave. The police, who were part of an anti-car theft detail, went to stop them for questioning. Delano jumped off his bike and ran. Apparently, and I am only going on news reports so far, he had a knife and likely knew he'd be in trouble if searched. (Obviously, the kids hadn't just stolen a car.)
The police were doing their job, and Delano reacted with fear. We'll hear a lot more about the roots of that fear over the next few days. Delano had a knife. Did he also have a record? Or was he just one of those kids on bikes who get stopped and searched by the police because they are in a place deemed inappropriate by the police?
I think of a young African-American friend of mine who was stopped and searched cutting through a Mass Mutual parking lot who had some pot on him and got busted. (This was before the shift from felony to misdemeanor.)
I think of the small business owner not far from Arise's office who was questioned and frisked recently by several police officers in broad daylight outside of his store. Apparently he'd been observed by the officer on traffic detail across the streethanding some money to another man. I talked to the guy later; he was humiliated and embarrassed. Apparently a former teacher of his was walking by on his way to the drugstore and they stopped to talk. The teacher realized he'd left home without his wallet and asked if he could borrow $4. It was this transaction that brought him under suspicion. I mean, come on, why would a business owner be handling money?
I called Community Policing later that day to ask if there was a policy to determine when a conversation goes to the next level and becomes a search. Yes, indeed, there is such a document-- it's called the Use of Force Procedure. I asked if I could have a copy and the officer said she would email it to me. A few weeks later I called again to remind her. I'm sure such requests are not high on the priority list, given how busy the police are, but I would like to know, and right now I'm still waiting.
It's very difficult for people who are not poor and not of color to understand the relationship between the inner-city community and the police. I could write a book about it, but I won't. What I will say is that on both sides, suspicion and fear continue to damage our community.
I'm sorry for everyone involved in what happened Thursday night: the officers and driver who helped lift the car off Delano, his friends who had to watch him be killed, the Walker family, and most especially, Delano.
Photo of Bill Miller from Friends of the Homeless.
My first political memory is both vague and vivid: when Adlai Stevenson lost the presidential election to Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, my mom cried-- and I, of course, being five years old and completely in sync with my mother's emotions, cried also. Thus I was imprinted early with the importance of politics.
When I was a kid my dad always made a great deal about the distinction between a politician and a statesman, and I was thinking a lot about those distinctions yesterday. I just looked up the definitions to refresh my mind.
I am very much looking forward to spending time with the Milky Way at the Cape this summer.
Come take a virtual tour of a death row cell, a cell housing unit, and other sites to be seen at the Florida Department of Corrections. 'Nuff said.
I wrote a post last month about the death of homeless Northampton resident Arthur Polier. Later I found a comment about the post on BlogoWogo that includes the following:
My son, the son of Arthur Polier read this story and took offence to you implying that his father should die...that is a terrible thing to say.So let me say first that I apologize to Arthur Polier's family for any offense my post caused. I think the offending portion of the post was: "Police are saying he died of natural causes. What I guess we can say is that it's natural that a 50 year-old man living in a swamp on the edge of society, should die."
Despite whatever circumstance anyone person may encounter in their life, we as a society have no right to pass judgement and for your information, Arthur...affectionately known as David, his middle name was a warm and giving person who succumbed to his alcoholism and that does not give you or anyone the right to say they should die.
Her leg was bitten off by a dog, but her rescuer figured out a way for her to get around. Read more at Mail Online.
Massachusetts resident? On Monday, pick up the phone and call your state legislator. (Don't know your legislator? You can look it up here.) Tell him or her that you support An Act to Prohibit Devocalization of Cats and Dogs. There will be a hearing on the bill on Monday, July 14, with a full vote to follow sometimes this legislative session.
Who would oppose this law? Unethical dog breeders and fighters and animal hoarders who fear animal noises would give them away.
The effort to produce this bill all started with a 15 year old Care2 member and Massachusetts resident Jordan Star. You can find out more about this legislation and why it's needed at Care2.
Photo from Tony the Bald Eagle's site on Flickr.
How about a homeless encampment? The Sacramento Bee is reporting that after a homeless shelter closed on July 1, displacing more than 200 men, women and children, former residents have been moving from encampment to encampment. A group formed a "Council of Elders" and they spent a week researching land at the tax assessor's office, finding a plot of land that had actually been designated as a shelter. And there they have settled-- for now, anyway; the police came on Tuesday and gave them three days to move.
Photo from the Sacramento Bee
Kevin Noonan, Executive Director of Open Pantry Community Services in Springfield, Massachussetts for the last twenty years, has announced he's leaving the agency. I've known for a couple of weeks but promised to keep it under my hat until he went public.
I have to admit I was not excessively gracious when Kevin told me he was leaving OPCS, although I did try. I just kept thinking of what a loss it was going to be for Arise, for homeless people and for the entire city.
Kevin became OPCS's director when Arise for Social Justice was about five years old. He definitely got my attention in 1997 when he began a six day hunger fast to get then-Mayor Albano to restore funding for the Open Door, an OPCS social work program for homeless people and the poorest of the poor. Albano caved in but of course he never forgot; one characteristic I've noticed in every Springfield mayor is how personally they take any challenge to their policies, and how it brings out the worst in them. Then they pass their prejudices on to the mayor next in line.
In those days there were still a few radicals left within traditional agencies. Some of those folks formed the Affordable Housing Alliance with Arise. We tried to stop the conversion of the Hotel Charles into condominiums by getting an injunction to prohibit the city's planned displacement. We organized affordable housing conferences. We pushed the city to find a better place for homeless people than the old Armory St. shelter, a true hellhole where women were raped and men beaten. We bought the old Rainville Hotel and converted it to affordable housing. Pat Quinn from the Springfield Action Commission, Gary Richards and Faye Rachlin from Western Mass Legal Services, Peter Friedland and Bernie Cohen from HAP, and, of course, Kevin and some others were our active allies. Arise, an organization of welfare mothers and poor people, was so grateful to have some people on our side. Those people really believed in Arise's mission-- that poor people have a right to speak for ourselves about the issues that affect us.
Most of those allies had faded away, burned out or been forced out in 2004, when lack of funding forced the closing of OPCS's Warming Place shelter and Arise took on the task of organizing and assisting displaced homeless people into forming Sanctuary City. Our tent city started out on the lawn of St. Michael's Cathedral and moved to OPCS's parking lot when pressure from the Diocese got too intense. Kevin was on vacation during the move, a perfect opportunity for him to look the other way as we moved in. We lasted six months until the Warming Place was able to reopen, and was, I believe, the catalyst for the city of Springfield to finally develop a plan to deal with homelessness.
Of course there was a price to be paid politically for being in allegiance with poor people, and the Open Pantry paid it. All the "good" agencies, the ones who think of poor people as "clients," were folded in to the city's new efforts to coordinate homeless services, and it was clear pretty quickly that if you played by a different set of rules, there was no place for you at the table. The next year, the state couldn't find the funding for the Warming Place and the city was no help at all, being more than happy to see all homeless people funneled to the city-controlled Friends of the Homeless Worthington St. Shelter. Open Pantry's attempt to seek an injunction to prohibit the shelter's closing was denied. Last year, in another one of the state's "reorganization" plans, Open Pantry lost funding for its family shelter on Jefferson Ave. I can guarantee you that no one from the mayor's office or from the "Homes Within Reach" coalition picked up the phone to plead with the state to save the family shelter. Yet the state is still packing them in at motels around the region-- more than 750 homeless families today.
I think that for Kevin, that was the beginning of the end. He didn't want to be a political liability for Open Pantry. At his instigation, his agency merged with South Middlesex Opportunity Council (SMOC) earlier this year, and I knew that the announcement he was leaving the directorship could not be far behind.
I am happy for Kevin and his wife, Legal Services attorney Marion Hohn (they fell in love at tent city!) but terribly sad for homeless people and, I admit it, sad for Arise. Life-- and organizing-- will go on, but where we will ever find another ally like Kevin Noonan, I just don't know.
Just a few hours before Kevin made his departure public, I was reading an essay from Common Dreams by Derrick Jensen on the difference between personal action and political action. He ends his essay with words that immediately made me think of Kevin, because he has lived them so well.We can follow the example of those who remembered that the role of an activist is not to navigate systems of oppressive power with as much integrity as possible, but rather to confront and take down those systems.
Just try to tell me the human animal is superior to other animals.
60,000 signatures were presented to the Savannah District Attorney on the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court decided to delay reviewing Troy Davis' appeal for a new trial until at least this fall. Davis has spent 18 years on death row after he was convicted of killing a police officer in Savannah. There was never any physical evidence, and most of the witnesses have recanted, but somehow, innocence stands distinct from justice in cases like this.
Closer to home, the next hearing for former UMASS student Jason Vassell, on trial for defending himself against an assault by two white non-students, won't take place until later this summer and will be before the Mass Supreme Judicial Court. The court will be making a decision about Jason's attorneys' Motion for Discovery, requesting the past five years' of all cases in Hampshire county involving interracial assaults and other violent hate crimes. It also included a request for case files regarding another example of selective prosecution that had odd similarities to Jason's case. The trial judge had ruled in favor of the discovery, but the D.A. appealed to the SJC. You can find out more at Justice for Jason.
What's it really like to be homeless? To live in a tent city, or a homeless shelter or a car? Do you really have to want to know? You can't find out just by looking; you have to be willing to dig, and that's just what Mark Horvath of InvisiblePeople.tv is planning to do over the next six weeks. According to Change.org, he's going to twenty different cities in forty-nine days to "unearth the modern-day realities of homelessness while providing a venue for "invisible" people to tell their story, raw and unedited."
Mark won't be going to the tent city in East Palo Alto, California because bulldozers cleared out the dozen or so people living in dry-grass marshland at the end of June so the owner can sell the property. the owner says that he fears fire, because two years ago a homeless woman died when her campfire set the grass ablaze. The two dozen people camped by a creek in Merced, California will probably be gone by then, too, because the Merced Irrigation District (MID) needs to clear brush.
"I don't think it's up to MID to solve the homeless problem. We've got enough problems supplying the water," MID board member Jack Hooper said. Merced Sun-Star.
If Mark goes to the Catholic Worker House in Champaign, Illinois, he'll find himself in the middle of dispute inside and out: the neighbors aren't happy with the eight tents occupied by homeless people in the back of the CWH property. Inside the house, the nineteen people who live there permanently find themselves bitterly criticized by the homeless, advocates and some volunteers because they discontinued a Sunday lunch for more than 120 homeless people. Of course they're still providing lunch on the other six days of the week--the residents just wanted one day for themselves.
The tent city in Lakewood, New Jersey might not have turned into a little farming community by the time Mark arrives, but it's one of the options on the table. Five months after the city ordered the camp cleared and residents placed in housing, none of the relocation possibilities have actually happened. One community group helping the tent city residents is asking for a little piece of land where residents can raise chickens and vegetables and live in peace. Matzav.
The Catholic Church-run tent city in St. Petersburg, Florida will probably seem like a little bit of heaven to Mark. At the end of a dead-end street, 250 people live in 250 tents and the camp, called Pinellas Hope has showers, a dining hall and a laundry room. Thank God it doesn't get cold in St. Petersburg.
Back in California, Mark will have missed the march of 25o homeless people protesting at City Hall in Sacramento because the city destroyed their tent city three months ago. Loaves and Fishes, the non-profit agency that is helping to organize the march, is being treated with quite a degree of cynicism by some in the homeless community. Tom Armstrong of Sacramento Homeless wants to know why, if the Loaves and Fishes Director was so opposed to the closing of the tent city, she wasn't willing to risk arrest before the tent city was closed, rather than after?
Tomorrow was supposed to be the deadline for the last of Fresno, California's tents (and homeless people) to be cleared from its H Street encampment, but the 50 or so remaining residents have been given one more week. About a quarter of the tent city's original residents have been placed in housing, another two dozen found housing on their own, many have just disappeared, but many remain. Fresno is waiting for stimulus funds to implement plans to target smaller encampments around the city.
If Mark Horvath could move at nearly the speed of light, and was willing to spend a year on his quest, he could talk to every one of the 3.5 million people who are expected to spend at least part of the calendar year without a place to live.
If you have suggestions for where Mark can stop on his journey, email him at roadtrip@invisiblepeople.t.v
Photo by Lisa James from the Merced Sun-Star.
Massachusetts banned new incinerators 19 years ago, with very good reason, but is now not only promoting biomass incinerators, but apparently is even willing to reconsider incinerators themselves. See this Boston Globe article from May, 2009.
Massachusetts already burns 25% of its trash, compared to a 7% national average.
Haven't our policymakers heard about recycling? Are money and politics driving these decisions? Or could they just be that shortsighted? (Amazing what we can justify to ourselves.)
We won't get really serious about recycling until we're not allowed the easy outs.
A new coalition, Don't Waste Massachusetts (no website yet, apparently) is working to keep any new incinerators out of Massachusetts. You can read more about it at Mass Sierra Club News.
Back in Western Mass., Mary Serreze reports on the five biomass plants proposed for our region. Interestingly, each plant's impact is evaluated separately by state officials, with no look at the combined impact. Losing a litre of blood won't do you irreparable harm, but how about five litres?
The plant proposed by Palmer Paving for Springfield, the most urban of the five affected communities, has some special hazards: it will be allowed to burn up to 75% construction and demolition wood, often saturated with toxins that we clearly wouldn't choose to drink from a cup in front of us.
It's late in the day for organizing to stop Springfield's plant but not too late. Arise for Social Justice is hosting a meeting on Wednesday, July 22nd, 6 pm. at 467 State St., to figure out how to build community opposition to biomass. Join us if you can.
Photo from Asea_'s photostream at Flickr.
The following paragraphs are from the Latin American Solidarity Coalition.
Background: A military coup took place in Honduras on Sunday, June 28, led by SOA graduate Romeo Vasquez. In the early hours of the day, members of the Honduran military surrounded the presidential palace and forced the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, into custody. He was immediately flown to Costa Rica.
A national referenfum had been scheduled to take place on Sunday in Honduras to consult the electorate on a proposal of holding a Constitutional Assembly in November. General Vasquez had refused to comply with this vote and was deposed by the president, only to later be reinstated by the Congress and Supreme Court.
The Honduran state television was taken off the air. The electricity supply to the capital Tegucigalpa, as well telephone and cellphone lines were cut. Government institutions were taken over by the military. While the traditional political parties, Catholic church and military have not issued any statements, the people of Honduras are going into the streets, in spite of the fact that the streets are militarized. From Costa Rica, President Zelaya has called for a non-violent response from the people of Honduras, and for international solidarity for the Honduran democracy.
You can go to this site and send a message to President Obama, asking him to cut off aid to Honduras (as required by law) and take what other actions he can, but what isn't included in the message is a demand to close the School of the Americas. You can go to the School of the Americas Watch for some history on the numbers of oppressive dictators and military "leaders" trained by this U.S. funded bastion of tyranny.
President Zelaya is due to return to Honduras today. For an up to the minute account, check out Al Giordano's The Field. (Al was a reporter at the Valley Advocate, Western Mass.'s weekly alternative paper, a few years after I worked the front desk.)
b"Syracuse, NY -- Lt. Dan Choi vowed Tuesday evening to fight to stay in the military after an Army board in Syracuse recommended he be the first person discharged from the New York National Guard for violating the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
A four-officer panel meeting at Hancock Air Base notified Choi at about 5 p.m. that it would recommend he be discharged because he has publicly said he is gay.
The recommendation now goes to Lt. Gen. Thomas Miller of the First Army Division, and Gen. Craig McKinley, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, who will make the final decision.
"Today was a setback for me," Choi said at a 6:10 p.m. news conference. "I got in trouble for saying three words. 'I am gay.'"
But he said he refuses to lie about being involved in a relationship with another man. Choi said the relationship has made him a better person, a better Christian and a better officer.
Choi, an Arabic-speaking officer who served for 15 months in Iraq as a member of Fort Drum's 10th Mountain Division before joining a New York National Guard unit based in Manhattan, said he would appeal to the higher-ranking officers to stay in the National Guard.
There is no deadline for a final decision in Choi's case." Read more at Syracuse.com.
Yesterday, at a speech commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, Pres. Obama said, "We've been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration."
Wait a minute-- assuming he anticipates winning a second term, does that mean eight years from now?
How did you get away?
You were the pet falcon of an old woman.
Did you hear the falcon-drum?
You were a drunken songbird put in with owls.
Did you smell the odor of a garden?
You got tired of sour fermenting
and left the tavern.You went like an arrow to the target
from the bow of time and place.
The man who stays at the cemetery pointed the way,
but you didn't go.
You became light and gave up wanting to be famous.
You don't worry about what you're going to eat,
so why buy an engraved belt?I've heard of living at the center, but what about
leaving the center of the center?
Flying toward thankfulness, you become
the rare bird with one wing made of fear,
and one of hope. In autumn,
a rose crawling along the ground in the cold wind.
Rain on the roof runs down and out by the spout
as fast as it can.Talking is pain. Lie down and rest,
now that you've found a friend to be with.
"These Branching Moments", Coleman Barks
Copper Beech Press, 1988
| I have never feared death Even though Its hands were more fragile Than banality. I dread, however, to die In a land where The grave digger's wages Exceed the price of human freedom. Looking for, Discovering, Choosing freely, And transforming one's essence Into a fortress. If the price of death is higher than all that, I deny, in absolute terms, To have ever feared death |
From Death by
Ahmad Shamlutranslated by
Iraj BashiriCopyright ©, 2004, Iraj Bashiri
Photo from kashyap_hc's photostream at FlickrTODAY, NEARLY A HUNDRED BLOGGERS ARE POSTING ABOUT IRAN AS PART OF A CONCERTED EFFORT AT BLOGGERS UNITE!
