Candidate for
Council Member; City of Santa Monica

I was born at the Fort Jackson military dispensary in Oregon on August 24, 1945. Soon after I was born we moved to Scofield Barracks in Hawaii, then various Army bases in the Southwest.

When my father was posted to Korea in 1951, my siblings and I were left with our grandparents in Galveston, Texas. They were too old to care for us so we were placed nearby at St. Mary's orphanage. When our father finished his tour in Korea we moved with him to Japan from 1954 to 1959, where I was raised by my Japanese stepmother.

My father was next transferred to Fort Lewis, Washington. We lived in Lakeview, Washington and I attended Clover Park High School.

I volunteered for the draft when I was 17, as a Navy musician. I was based at Anacostia Naval Air Station near Washington D.C. In August, 1963, I went AWOL with my friend, John Louis Evans, a black trumpet player from New Orleans, to participate in the poor peoples' march on Washington, with Martin Luther King. We were told the march was off limits and there would be a race riot.

Following the Navy I attended the University of Washington and California State University (CSUN) majoring in behavioral science. I was a member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the New American movement (NAM).

After college I spent several years traveling and working all over the world - on the road to Kathmandu and various other hippy destinations - living in caves on Formentera, burial crypts in Matala, Crete, a lighthouse, a windmill, an abandoned sailboat in Tahiti, etc.

I was married in the south of France to the daughter of an IBM executive, whom I had rescued, along with her sister, from a French midget who was planning to sell them to white slavers in Istanbul. After many adventures we returned to Venice beach, where my first son was born. While he was a student at Berkeley, his mother died from ALS.

I have worked as a Deputy Probation Officer, Parole Agent, teacher, mediator and flight attendant for charter airlines. My travels have provided me with a unique perspective on how Americans are viewed abroad. I've participated in refugee, prisoner and troop movements in seven wars, which has reinforced my strong anti-war philosophy.

I lived in Egypt in 1978, when Sadat went to Israel. I saw the Grateful Dead perform at the Pyramid of Giza. In 1979 while working as Flight Attendant manager for Intercontinental airways I was briefly taken hostage during civil disturbances in Ndjamena, Tchad.

I am a member of the Green Party, promoting sustainability and community activism. I support justice in our social programs and advocate resident and voter rights in our neighborhoods. As a long time Santa Monica resident and internet activist, I became active in local politics through the Public Electronic Network (PEN) and after the city pulled the plug I ran for City Council the first time.

One of my top priorities for Santa Monica is to provide FREE WiFi with a link to MODERATED public forums on the city website. I would like Santa Monica to be the first municipality operating a Virtual Town Hall, enabling residents to have direct input into policy making decisions, hold city officials accountable by exposing incompetence, conflict of interest and corruption, auditing the budget online and providing transparency in city government.

The phenomenal growth of computer networking, the information revolution, and the spread of the World Wide Web has given us internet surfing, web blogging, E-bay, Craigslist and other electronic activities, including widespread pornography.

This interactive, broadband interface disseminates information, and dis-information; sometimes distorting the truth and disrupting the marketplace of ideas. It also levels the playing field of information exchange and exposes bigotry, and hoaxes, etc.

Information is power, and spreading lies and propaganda, as evidenced by the appeal of tabloid journalism, talk radio and FOX News, more often mislead the public. All of this contributes to America's deviant, cultural image around the world.

I love my country, but consider myself a human being before an American.